Handmade Gifts Is it too early to be talking Christmas? I love getting all of my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving. I have my Mother-In-Law to thank for this. She is always done by Thanksgiving and is always able to enjoy the beautiful Christmas season despite having a gazillion grand kids to buy for! We have to be a bit more frugal this year due to my health expenses, so I plan to make some handmade gifts. Vases, Rubberbands & Spray Paint. Make Your Own Canvas Print Salted Almond Pretzel Popcorn-Given In A Mason Jar, Of Course! Source: None via Amy on Pinterest Cupcake Wrappers As Jar Covers? Candy In A Recycled Jar Christmas Lights Poked Through a Canvas DIY Vanilla--Next Christmas? 5 Pillowcases Sewn Together, Insert Pillows. Printable Gift Labels For Fruit DIY Ice Cream Sunday Kit I'd Love This Gift Of Fresh Flowers! DIY Monogrammed Mugs & Hot Chocolate! Great Recipe For Natural Soy Candles, Costs Less That $1 To Make! Cookie Tin Made From Pringles Can. 12x12 Paper + Ribbon = Easy Gift! Photo Coasters!
Pizza Braid A pizza braid is very kid-friendly, easy on the wallet and extremely simple to make. My aunt and cousin first introduced me to them and I’ve been hooked ever since. The possibilities are endless of the varieties you could make (check out the Apple Dessert Braid!), but the recipe below is for a very basic hamburger and pepperoni braid. You could make your own dough, but I prefer the shortcut of using Rhodes rise and bake dough. This is one of my favorite shortcuts to make a nice loaf of bread or use in recipes like this one. As I said, this is extremely basic. The dough takes a few hours to rise, so I take it out in the morning and place a towel over it. Yes, yes the dough in that photo has not risen fully. Then you spread out the sauce, lay the meats down, followed by the cheese. Then with a pizza cutter, start cutting about 1 inch thick strips down the whole rectangle. Follow the pictures above. A few minutes before it’s done I brush with olive oil and sprinkle with oregano.
Chocolate Kiwi Popsicles 1) Kiwi - peeled and cut in 1 inch thick rounds, with a popsicle stick in each round. Freeze on a tray in the freezer. 2) 1 cup Chopped dark chocolate and 1/2 cup Coconut oil - melted over a double boiler, then cooled to room temp. 3) Dip each Kiwi-pop into the chocolate mixture (it will immediately turn crispy) and place on a tray to refreeze or pass around right now. I've had Kiwi in salads, and cakes, but when I received a box of kiwi from the Zespri Kiwi Growers (as part of a blogging program), my first thought was how much I wanted to keep the kiwi looking and tasting as true as possible. According to their reports, this year's crops are really sweet and yet still have their usual low glycemic index. One serving of KIWI: * contains the same amount of fiber as a BOWL of bran cereal. * contains the same amount of potassium as a banana * provides the recommended dietary allowance of vitamin C and... You don't have to buy anything, they obviously just want to get the word out about KIWI.
Cookie Dough Pie It’s a trick actually. There is no cookie dough in this pie at all. Just cookies made so they seem like cookie dough. Magical really. My little niece, Mia ate this and said, “Hey did you put cookie dough in here?” Cookie Dough Pie 15.25 ounce package Chips Ahoy Cookies- Original kind8-12 ounces Cool Whip- I used 8 ounces2 cups milk* Quickly dip cookies in milk, shake off excess liquid, and layer in 9 inch pie plate, breaking cookies to fill any gaps. *Last night I used 1 C. strong coffee mixed with 1 C. milk for dipping instead of plain milk. Note- You must dip quickly or your pie will be very soggy. Can you imagine other cookie combinations? Top photo courtesy of Rob Klause (my brother.) Want another great pie…try this Banana Split Pie- WOW!
apple nachos On Friday night, I finished season six of Mad Men. At 2am. About a week after starting the season. I mean, I don’t even blink an eye nowadays when a friend asks what show they should “start” next in April. Well, to harken back to the good ol’ days when Don Draper and his family would have sat together around a “set” to watch a show, at a designated time each week, no computer in the house, but perhaps with an Old Fashioned in hand, I made a simple shrimp saute to share with you today inspired by the classic cocktail. Read more This week has been one of those perfectly normal weeks that makes me adore life. Meals shared with friends every day of the week. Lest I ever forget, most often it’s those normal things are the best things. Wishing you a weekend ahead full of the best of things. :) Read more Since I am right in the middle of binge-watching season six of Mad Men this week, I thought it might be apropos to do a quick post on how to make an old fashioned cocktail. Read more You guys.
Sick of the Same Old Salads? 17 New Ways to Enjoy Leafy Greens - KitchenDaily Watermelon pie One of my summertime childhood memories is eating the yummy watermelon sherbet dessert at Friendly’s restaurant. I loved it, so I decided to try to replicate this dessert for my own kids’ summertime memories! I made some “watermelon pie” for our 4th of July feast this year…to great success! My 4-year-old daughter loved it – like mother, like daughter! She saw it in the pan before I sliced it up…at that point it was still just a circle. When I started to cut the pie, making the watermelon slices, she exclaimed very earnestly, “Wow! The best part…watermelon pie was super simple to make! Ingredients: - Lime Sherbet - Vanilla ice cream or Pineapple sherbet - Red/Pink-colored sherbet…I couldn’t find this, so I bought Raspberry/Pineapple/Orange swirl sherbet, mixed it up with red food coloring and it was perfect! Directions:1. A funny tip…I served the watermelon pie on paper plates, but wanted to take a nice picture for this post, so I put my own slice on a real dish. Tagged as: pie
Frozen Banana Bites Frozen Banana Bites are coated in healthy things like peanut butter, ground flax seed or trail mix and then dipped in chocolate. A recipe that represents equilibrium: a perfect balance between health and flavor. All the ingredients are healthy. And all the ingredients rank high on flavor, especially when combined! Do you know the saying implying we should avoid “form over function”? The idea behind the message is to choose what’s practical over what looks good. We need a little form, don’t you think? I’ve been mulling a new saying lately, health over flavor. And I’ve tipped the scale when I’ve opted for too much flavor. I like it when I can find that perfect balance in a recipe. The inspiration for this one came from my mother-in-law, Diane. I elected to add a little bit of peanut butter to my sliced bananas. And then I started getting creative. Then I got really creative. A few years back in my non vegetarian/non vegan days, I used to love Skittles combined with M&Ms. Ingredients
Braided Spaghetti Bread » The official blog of America's favorite frozen dough We are carb lovers at our house, so when I saw the Braided Spaghetti Bread recipe in the Rhodes Home Baked Family Favorites with frozen dough cookbook I knew we would love it. This is a really simple recipe; it just takes a little planning for thawing the dough. It will take 2-3 hours for the bread loaf to thaw to room temperature or 1-2 hours for the rolls to thaw to room temperature. You will need: 1 Loaf Rhodes Bread Dough or 12 Rhodes Dinner Rolls, thawed to room temperature6 oz spaghetti, cooked 1 cup thick spaghetti sauce 8 oz mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/2 –inch cubes 1 egg white Parmesan cheese Parsley flakes Spray counter lightly with non-stick cooking spray (or use parchment paper). Roll loaf or combined dinner rolls into a 12x16-inch rectangle. Cook spaghetti according to package instructions. Remove wrap from dough. Make cuts 1 ½-inches apart on long sides of dough to within ½-inch of filling. Begin braid by folding top and bottom strips toward filling. This was fantastic!