sweet and savory, so delish!

I’ve always been a fan of popcorn cake.  It.is.amazing.  My brother always makes it every Christmas, so I made an excuse to make it at Easter time with the pastel M&Ms.  So.dang.good.  I’m “supposed” to be on the Paleo diet so I fit in my bridesmaid dress next week for my friend’s wedding, well I just started it a couple days late (therefore you might be seeing healthy recipes from me for a while).  Here you have it:

What you need:

• 3 bags of popcorn, popped and placed in a bowl (remove kernels)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 21 oz. mini marshmallows
• 4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups M&Ms
• 1 cup peanuts (optional)

• Place popped popcorn into a very large bowl.
• Make a syrup from the butter, marshmallows and vanilla by heating them together and stirring in a large saucepan.

Make it syrup c onsistency.

• Pour over popcorn.
• Stir in candy and nuts.
• With greased hands, firmly press mixture into a well-greased bundt pan.
• Allow to stand 10 minutes; then loosen and turn out onto cake plate.
• Carefully cut slices using bread knife. (Servings: 12) *If not using immediately, cool thoroughly and wrap in plastic to store.

Wahlaaaaa…. Here you have it!

Oh so delish!

 

Another yum Easter treat: Chewy Chex Mix

I am an avid reader!  I love love love to read.  In fact, I don’t consider any vacation a very good one unless I have been able to devour 4 to 5 books within the week.  So, basically you could say that I read a lot!  I always have a book I am reading and always have a list of books on my “to read” list, and I AM ALWAYS LOOKING FOR GOOD BOOKS TO READ.

I figured if I come across a book I have really enjoyed I should share it with you and I hope you do the same!

I have had my eye on this book since I first saw it as a #1 New York Times Best Seller.  During a typical raid of my friend’s book shelf, I discovered that she had it!  I took it home and had it  and its sequel read within 4 days.  I loved it!  The third book is due out this November, but is already available for pre-order.

Matched, by Ally Condie is centered around a 17 year old girl living in a the future run by the “Society.”  The Society is basically the government that has complete control of every life decision, from what is eaten each day, your career, your spouse, where you live, even how you spend your free time.

The book starts out with Cassia, our 17 year old heroine, getting ready to find out who the Society has picked to be her Match for the rest of her life.  As Cassia goes about trying to be the perfect citizen, she finds out that her heart may disagree with some of the Societies choices for her and has to make a decision about what she should do about it.

This book has a very Handmaid’s Tale feel to it (another one of my very favorite books).  Basically a government taking to much power and the people learning to live with it or fight against it.

It is incredibly interesting and will have you reaching for the sequal.  I am only to sad to have to wait until November for the 3rd book.

I recently received a thank you email from a friend’s party.  It wasn’t your ordinary thank you card like these:

These cards are nice, but they aren't personalized. Sure, you can say thanks, but can you show it?!?!

It was an email of her son playing with the toys we got him along with him wearing his outfit!  This takes a little thought, but it really does show the child enjoying their gift.  It makes it special.  I mean face it, most people read the ordinary cards and throw them right in the trash.  It is great and you should send a note of thanks, but adding a personal touch makes it fun.

I recently did this for my daughter’s 1st birthday (a much bigger post on that later).  Here are few thank you’s:

Thanks Jasmine, Roman and Ryker for my edusquares!

Thanks Aunt Jane for the blocks!

Thank you Aunt Angela for my splash table!

Thank you to the Hinckley's for my puzzle!

How cute is this?!  It really only takes a moment and it will make your gift giver smile!

Delicious and adorable Easter treats!  I made these for the kiddos just to get us in the Easter mood.  They are pretty cute I have to say! Nothing to them really.  They are just chocolate rice crispy treats made in cup cake tins with Easter M&M’s in the middle.

I thought about putting some shredded coconut in a little green food coloring to look like grass under the M&M’s, but I forgot to get the coconut!  Oh well… these were still awesome!  We gave a bunch of them to some friends who have three cute kiddos too.  It is always good to have friends to help you eat the goodies!

Enjoy the yumminess and Happy Spring!!!!!!!

I call it skinny style because of the skinny whole wheat bun.

I often go out with some of my friends just to get buffalo wings and sweet potato fries.  I love me some hot stuff .  This also takes literally 5 minutes to prepare in the slow cooker.  Crock pot + hot stuff = mydreammeal.  I got this from allrecipes.com.

All you need is:

3 chicken breasts split, 2 tablespoons of butter, jar of buffalo wing sauce and a ranch packet

• 3 chicken breasts cut in half
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• ranch packet
• jar of buffalo wing sauce

• Put chicken breast in crock pot along with 3/4 of the jar of hot sauce and ranch packet.
• Cook on low (7 hrs)
• Once chicken is cooked, add butter and shred chicken.
• Keep other 1/4 of hot sauce as extra for your delish sandwiches.

There you have it!

Wahlaaaaaaaaaa.

Can you stand it?  Don’t you just want to gobble it up and lick your fingers after?!?!?!  What if I told you the other half had walnuts?  Even better huh!  I have always been a fan of monkey bread ever since I went to my very first slumber party as a kid and my friend’s mom brought it down to us for breakfast!  This is better than monkey bread though… this is like monkey bread on steroids!  This gooey delicious monkey bread is stuffed with delicious cream cheese and topped with chopped walnuts!

Cream cheese stuffed in the middle! Perfect combination!

About once a month my friends and I plan a girl’s night.  Girl’s night ALWAYS involves good food!  We often go out to dinner, sometimes a movie, or often after dinner just head to one of our houses for some dessert.  This month was my turn to bring the dessert.  I had been saving this recipe from pinterest for a long time… just waiting for the opportunity to make it!

We seriously gobbled this up!  I only put nuts on half of it just in case there were leftovers and my kids wanted some… that idea was wasted!  The side with chopped walnuts was the first to go!  It was delicious and blended in nicely with the cream cheese flavor.

So I will stop rambling now and give you what you really want… the recipe!

CREAM CHEESE MONKEY BREAD
Adapted from pipandebbby.com

2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 Tb cinnamon
2 -12 ounce tubes of refrigerated buttermilk biscuits (make 10 equal sized round discs from each tube)
8 ounce cube of cream cheese (cut into 20 equal cubes)
3/4 cup butter melted
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

• Preheat over to 350 degrees and spray bundt pan with cooking spray.
•  Mix sugars and cinnamon together in a medium bowl.
• Put one cube of cream cheese in each biscuit dough disc and fold the dough around the cream cheese leaving just the top of the cream cheese exposed.
• Sprinkle have your chopped nuts along the bottom on of the pan
• Put 10 discs in the bundt pan (on top of the nuts) with cream cheese facing up
• Dump 1/2 of you melted butter across the dough and sprinkle 1/2 your sugar-cinnamon mixture on top of that
• Place the last 10 discs in the bundt pan with the cream cheese facing down this time
• Dump the rest of you melted butter around the dough and then sprinkle the rest of the sugar-cinnamon on the top
• Top with chopped walnuts (optional)
• Bake for 40 minutes
• Invert and serve warm

Place half of your discs around your bundt pan with cream cheese facing up

The second set of discs has already been put in face down. This is ready to bake! I only put nuts on half of mine... sometimes my kids can be picky!

Finished baking and ready to invert

The gooey masterpiece! So yummy!

Those little sneaks!

This past weekend we had some friends over.  They also have a two year old who is very close with my two year old.  The adults were upstairs chillaxin and the kids were playing in the basement.  Yes, them being quiet was too good to be true.  My husband went to check on them and bababababammmmm. They had a little party with my husband’s sharpie they found.  Luckily, it was only on this toy and one other– no carpet.  My genius husband knew how to get sharpie off, so I’m going to share!

What you need:

• dry erase marker
• windex
• paper towels

All you do is:

• Go over sharpie marks with dry erase marker.  Yes, it gets worse before it gets better, don’t worry.

Cover sharpie spots with dry erase marker.

• Spray toy with windex

Spray with windex and wipe with paper towels.

• Wipe over with paper towel.

WAHLAAAAAAAAAA…….

Wahlaaaa…. good as new!

There you have it!  Who knew?!?!?!

Yummy dinner rolls from the famous Lion House Bakery!  I was really excited to try this recipe and was pleased with how they turned out.  The part I like about this recipe is that they make a lot of rolls on one baking tray!  When you put 20 rolls on one sheet it saves a lot of time from the usual roll recipes.  I got 2 1/2 dozen rolls out of my batch.

Lion House Rolls
2 cups warm water
2/3 cup nonfat dry milk
2 Tb active dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1 egg
4 1/2 to 5 cups flour
1/2 cup butter, melted

1.  Combine water and dry milk first.  Then mix in your yeast, sugar, salt, butter, and egg on low speed until combined.  Then mix on medium speed for 2 minutes.

2.   Add 2 cups of flour.  Mix on low until combined and then on medium for 2 minutes.

3.  Add remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time mixing each time until dough is soft, but not too sticky.  It is not necessary to use all of the flour.  Only use enough to make the dough soft, but still workable.  The recipe doesn’t say this, but I did knead the dough for 5 to 6 minutes… old bread making habit I guess.

4.  Put one tablespoon of vegetable oil all around dough, turning the dough to make sure it is completely covered.  (This keeps the dough moist while it rises).  Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a clean cloth and let it rise until double.  This takes about an hour and a half if you don’t use a quick rise method (heating pad or a previously warmed oven that has been turned off).

5.  Sprinkle work surface with flour (I use oil to keep the dough extra moist).  Roll and shape as desired.  To roll using the Lion House method you need to roll in a long rectangle.  Using a pizza cutter, cut rectangles using the length of your pointer finger and the width of your thumb as a guide.  Then roll up and place on cookie sheet with tail resting on the pan.  Rolls need to be placed only an inch a part if you are using this rolling method as they need to be able to lean against each other as they rise.  See the Lion House video here to see how to roll dough.

6.  Cover with plastic wrap or a clean cloth once more and let rise until double.  Again, about an hour to hour and a half if you don’t use a quick rise method.  I am impatient and always use the quick method.  It shortens the time to 30 to 45minutes and I dont see a difference in how the rolls turn out in the long run.

7.  Bake at 375 for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.  Brush the rolls with melted butter while they are still warm.

This bread is great with butter, honey butter, and homemade strawberry jam!

Use the length of your finger and the width of your thumb to guide you as you get ready to roll your dough.

Rolls getting ready to rise. Make sure the tails all face the same direction. Notice how close together they are. It is okay for some of the rolls to be bigger than others. The irregularity happens when you don't roll your dough evenly.

They are ready to go into the oven now! See how they needed to lean on each other.

Just out of the oven! Brush with melted butter while they are still warm!

So yummy with some homemade strawberry jam! A great addition!

I started with using words that ended in -at, -an and -ar.

Keep those Easter eggs!!!!!  This is an awesome way for your little ones to learn their words!

All you need is:

• plastic Easter eggs
• label maker (that is the one I have and a favorite mama item)

There are endless possibilities with this!

Some of my hubby’s fondest memories from his childhood is going strawberry picking with his family.  They did it every every year and came back with buckets and buckets of strawberries.  His mom would make homemade jam from the strawberries and can them so they could have delicious strawberry jam all year.

As the spring weather approaches my husband always starts craving that homemade jam!  Unfortunately, his mom now lives 2000 miles away from us so I have had to step into the role of fulfilling his strawberry jam requirement.  I have to say that I am glad though… I would never have done it with out his insistence and am happy to have learned this skill and be able to pass this tradition on to our own growing family.

After a lot of research from several different sites, I have mastered canning strawberry jam!  I mostly pulled my research from LovelyLittleDetails.com and pickyoruown.org.  Let me first just suggest you buy this canning kit from Amazon to get you started with all the useful tools.  It isn’t absolutely necessary, but it is only $12.97 and will make your life much easier.  You’ll also need some canning jars.  You can get these at most grocery stores or target/walmart.

Before you start make sure to sanitize your jars and rings in the dishwasher or by boiling them in water.  DO NOT WASH THE LIDS.

Ingredients:
6 pints or 4 lbs of fresh strawberries
2 cups sugar (if you are not using reduced sugar pectin you will need closer to 7 cups, check the pectin box for specifics).
1 box reduced sugar pectin
2 lemons or 1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp butter (optional)

MAKING YOUR STRAWBERRY JAM

1.  Rinse and hull your strawberries.  The goal is to cleanly remove all of the stem of the strawberry.  I use a small paring knife and just get at each one individually while I watch TV however, I am guessing there is probably some tool out there to do this for you, but I just never think about it until I am already hulling.

Try to get the entire stem out without sacrificing too much of the fruit.

2.  Mash up your strawberries!  Some people like to use a blender to do this, but personally I like to have a few small strawberry chunks in my jam so I prefer to use a potato masher and to leave it a little chunkier.

If you are not sure what consistency you want this first time you can try mashing half and blending the other half. This will give you something in between.

3.  Put the strawberries in a large pot and begin cooking on high heat.  Add one pectin packet and the juice of 2 lemons (or 1/4 cup of lemon juice).  The lemon juice helps preserve the jam so it keeps longer and the pectin helps to thicken the jam.  The next step is optional.  Adding butter to the strawberries as it heats helps reduce foaming.  You can always skim the foam off the top instead of adding butter and you may need to skim a little foam even with the butter.

4.  Let the jam come to a full boil before adding the sugar.  Then, stir constantly and bring to a rolling boil.  A rolling boil is a vigorous boil that keeps boiling even when you stir.  Keep the jam at this rolling boil for at least 3 full minutes.  Don’t forget to keep stirring!  It’s very important!

5.  Skim any foam from the top of the jam using a large sauce spoon or a ladle.  Keep a spoon in a cup of ice water.  Then to test the consistency of your jam, pull out the spoon  and scoop up a teaspoon or so of jam.  Let it cool to room temperature then turn it sideways checking to see if it is firming the way you would like.  Don’t worry… if it is not as thick as you want just add a little more pectin from the 2nd pouch in your box and bring to a rolling boil for another 3 minutes.  Then test again.  You can continue doing this until you are satisfied the pectin is thickening your jam.  I usually add another 1/4 a packet to mine…. maybe I just like mine a little thicker.  😉

Ice water spoon test!

6.  Poor the jam into the jars.  I needed 7 jars (1/2 pint sized).  You can use the funnel from the canning kit for this or you can cheat like me and poor all the jam into a juice pitcher and then poor into the jars.  I found this way easiest and less messy.  Wipe all along each jar to make sure there is no jam residue from pouring.

7.  Get the jar lids in some hot water to soak.  This loosens up the waxy stuff on the rim of the lid to help it seal.  Let the jam sit to cool for 5 minutes while the lids soak.  Before you put the lids on stir your jam carefully one more time.  This makes the chunks of strawberries distribute more evenly instead of all floating to the top.  Seal the jars tightly with the lid and rings and your are almost done!

8.  Put the sealed jars in a large pot of boiling water.  Note:  Do not let the jars rest directly on the bottom of the pan.  You need a buffer of some sort.  I use a wash rag at the bottom and put my jars on top of the rag.  Make sure the water is at least 2 inches above the top of your jars.  Let them boil for at least 10 minutes.  You don’t want to keep them in much longer than that or the jam will get runny and turn dark.  Be careful putting the jars in and pulling them out… this is where the jar tongs from the canning kit are very useful.

8.  Pull the jars out and let them cool on a wire rack.  You will hear a popping sound as the jars cool and seal.  Check to make sure they have sealed after 24hrs by pushing in the center of the jar.  If it pops up and down your lid did not seal correctly.  If you do not can your jam it will keep for a month in the fridge.  If you can them they will keep for a year, but start to get runny after about six to eight months.

That’s it!  You’re done!  Now you can tie a cute ribbon around it and you have a great gift for a friend or neighbor.  I will be using some of mine for teacher appreciation week. 🙂  Enjoy!

The jam tastes great on rolls, breads, crepes, cheesecakes, short cakes, etc… Pretty  much anything!!!

Love this jam with homemade Lion House rolls!