Graham Crackers and Frosting
Growing up, my mom would make a simple snack of two graham crackers sandwiched together with frosting. I only break it out for special moments. Big S was so excited when he came home from his first day of first grade to find a stack of graham cracker sandwiches waiting for him!
They are so easy to put together. Take a graham cracker, break it in half. Cover one side with a frosting of your choice. Our favorite is either plain vanilla frosting or chocolate frosting. Place the other half of the graham cracker to make a sandwich. Eat immediately. If you let it sit too long, the graham crackers will get soggy. Over the years, I have tried a few other things: dipping the graham crackers in chocolate, rolling the sides of the frosting in sprinkles. My kids just like the plain old graham cracker with a little bit of frosting.
Personalized Hand Sanitizer
Big S has finished up his first week of school. I wanted to send in a fun little back to school gift. Hand sanitizer is on the optional section of the school supply list. After being a teacher for ten years, I know how hard it can be to get optional school supplies so we always try to send in a couple of the items on the list. Instead of just sending in the plain old bottle of hand sanitizer, I decided to dress it up!
Start with one bottle of hand sanitizer and peel off the labels.
Create your vinyl letters and decorations. I kept it easy and just did a J for the teacher’s last name and circles for decoration. (A special thanks to E for letting me borrow her Cricut. I can’t wait to get one of my own soon!)
Place the letter in the center of the bottle.
Add your decorative elements.
Don’t forget to decorate the back of the bottle!
Tie a matching ribbon around the neck of the bottle.
Yay! A fun, easy, and inexpensive Back to School gift! This is also a great way to dress up inexpensive soap in your bathroom or kitchen!
I love these examples of other ways to decorate hand sanitizer bottles:
Linking up to:
Anniversary Cupcakes…Completed!
Yay! The day is here! The cupcakes for my friend are done and they were a big hit at her anniversary party! Today I am going to show you the process of putting them together. This was a super fun project and I cannot wait to try more new things with cupcakes! I definitely stretched the limit with how many different things you can do to one cupcake, but I think they still looked cute! I little busy, but still funky and fun. I was so happy to be able to make these for J on her special day.
First I iced the refrigerated cupcakes (super chocolate with chips recipe…YUM!) with the basic buttercream icing recipe. One batch was enough to cover all of the cupcakes and still have enough to color pink and put the dollop on the top. After I put the white icing on, I dipped the top of the cupcake into white sugar sprinkles. Just make sure to put enough of the sprinkles in a bowl and dip the cupcake top in before the icing hardens.
Next I placed the pink icing I colored into a piping bag with a decorative tip. Anything with a larger opening will do. I made a quick pink swirl on the top of each cupcake. It is so tempting to just swipe those right off with your finger and eat them!
After I put the “cherry on top” I CAREFULLY placed a candy heart in the middle of each cake, gently pushing the long bottom into the cake like a pick. These are incredibly fragile, so be gentle!
I then put each of the “D and J” fondant pieces on each cupcake, making sure it didn’t over crowd the candy hearts too much!
Last, but most certainly not least, came the homemade cupcake wrappers! How FUN! These were such a blast to make and I think they came out so cute! I placed them in a white cake box (with a cardboard piece in the bottom) for transport. The only thing that I really had to learn with this project: make sure your cupcakes aren’t too tall when they are finished! The hearts were already pushing on the top of the box and then when I had to slam on the breaks on my way to dinner….at least 1/3 of the heart pieces broke. The great heartbreak of 2010. So sad…but the ones that were still together were still awesome.
Happy Anniversary D and J!!!
Anniversary Cupcake Toppers
To continue with my posts about the cupcakes I am working on for J for her anniversary, tonight is a quick one about the toppers I am making. I have decided I am going to take this opportunity to try a whole lot of different things that I haven’t done yet. So far, I have made the cupcake wrappers and a candy heart topper. Tonight is an additional topper, made out of rolled fondant. I only 
needed a small amount of fonday so I decided I didn’t want to make my own. I went ahead and bought the Wilton rolled fondant from the store and was incredibly disappointed. That is the first time, to my knowledge I have actually tried pre-made fondant. No wonder everyone always complains about the way fondant tastes! I will stick with my marhsmallow fondant! It is SO worth the effort! In any case, since I was only making little toppers I still used the rolled fondant.
I rolled the fondant out on a surface sprinkled with cornstarch. I then cut the fondant into the appropriate sized pieces using a pizza cutter (best way to cut the fondant in my opinion). I used some of my (clean) rubber stamps to stamp the initials D and J for the lovely married couple of 7 years! I wish I had an ampersand stamp to put in the middle, but didn’t, so I used a star.
After I cut and stamped the pieces I laid them on a water bottle covered in a piece of parchment paper so they pieces would dry out in the curved shape I wanted. From beginning to end this only took about 20 – 30 minutes.
Weekly Menu
I have been thinking about posting my weekly menu to the blog for several reasons. I am pretty good about putting together a weekly menu but usually by the end of the week the scrap of paper I have written it on has gone missing or is splattered with food. I have tried menu boards, dry erase boards, a notebook…hopefully this will work! I can post our weekly menus and I will have a great list of weekly menus to refer back to. Plus, no more digging all around the kitchen looking for my scrap of paper that my child took off the fridge!
Weekly Menu
Monday – Chili
Tuesday – Croatian Chicken Moskva
Wednesday – Tacos
Thursday – Parmesan Pork Roast
Friday – Homemade pizza
Weekly Menu – Our Family Favorites
According to Kelly, one of my favorite crafty blogs to read, is conducting a menu exchange. You are supposed to compile your family favorite recipes together and submit them. Then you will have access to so many new recipes! I can’t wait to add some new recipes to my cookbook. Like Kelly, at According to Kelly, we have been eating the same old thing everyday all summer and frankly I am tired of it! A week of our family favorites would go like this:
Day 1 – Chicken Divan Casserole
2 cups of rice, cooked
2-4 chicken breasts (I usually only add two chicken breasts to make the meal stretch more), cooked and chopped
one bag or box of broccoli, steamed
one can of condensed chicken soup
about a cup of mayonaise
one and a half blocks of extra sharp cheddar cheese
Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Place mixture in a lightly greased 9×13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.
Day 2 – Garlic Pepper Chicken
One whole chicken
Garlic Pepper seasoning
Olive oil, butter, or something similar like Smart Balance
Clean out cavity of chicken completely. Place chicken in slow cooker. Rub olive oil or butter sparingly on chicken. Cover generously with garlic pepper seasoning. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
Day 3 - 4 Ingredient Chili
3-4 large cans of tomato sauce
1-2lb hamburger meat, browned
one chili seasoning packet
2-4 cans of kidney beans, drained
Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cook for 6-8 hours on low. Serve with sour cream, cheddar cheese, and cornbread!
Day 4 – Hamburger Pizza
pizza crust of your choice (we use Publix pizza dough or Boboli for this recipe)
sauce of your choice
1 T olive oil
1lb hamburger meat, browned and seasoned
1lb cheddar cheese
toppings of your choice: lettuce, tomato, olives, etc
Rub olive oil on pizza crust. Cover with sauce. Add cheddar cheese and humaburger meat. Add tomatos, olives, and all other toppings (except the lettuce). Cook according to pizza crust directions. Add lettuce. Enjoy!
Day 5 – Chicken Enchilada Casserole
2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 cups (12 oz.) Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
½ cup onion, chopped
2-3 cans (10 oz.) green chile enchilada sauce (mild)
1 cup sour cream
1 small can chopped green chiles
18 corn tortillas
Salt and pepper chicken breasts to taste. Bake in a greased baking pan about 20-25 minutes @ 350°; cool and cut into bite-size pieces. In a bowl, combine the chicken, 2 cups of the shredded cheese (I usually shred my own; don’t care for the taste/consistency of the preshredded stuff, plus it is cheaper to do it myself), chiles (I drain off a bit of the liquid, but that is a personal taste) and chopped onion. Grease a 9×13 baking dish. Pour a little bit of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of the pan and spread to lightly coat. Pour sauce into a shallow dish. Coat both sides of six (6) of the corn tortillas and place in the bottom of the baking dish, overlapping. Spoon half ( ½ ) of the chicken mixture over the layer of corn tortillas. Dot (by spoonfuls) with half cup of the sour cream. Repeat process with second layer. Coat both sides of remaining six (6) tortillas for the top layer. Pour remaining sauce over the top. This is where the “optional” third can of sauce comes in if needed. Sprinkle the top with the remaining cup of cheese. Bake 20-25 minutes at 350°.
Day 6 – Shephard’s Pie
1 lb hamburger meat, browned
1lb cheddar cheese
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 bag of mixed vegetables, prepared
2 packages of boxed mashed potatoes or one batch of homemade mashed potatoes, prepared
Combine first four ingredients together and put in casserole dish. Top with prepared mashed potatoes. Bake at 350 degrees for 20m or until hot.
Day 7 – Parmesan Tilapia
Tilapia filets, defrosted
Dill (we use the Pampered Chef All Purpose Dill Mix)
one block of grated parmesan cheese
olive oil
Place Tilapia filets in a 9×13 dish. Sparingly coat with olive oil. Cover with dill to taste. Bake at 350 degrees for 20m or until almost cooked completely. Cover fish with grated parmesan cheese and bake for another five minutes. Serve immediately!
Drawing With Chocolate/Candy Melts
Remember During 30 Days and 30 Bites when I tried drawing with melted chocolate? Well, I was incredibly unsuccessful. Maybe not incredibly, but pretty darn close! I tried again, only this time took the easy route and used Wilton’s candy melts. Boy did that work a lot better!!!
Today is day two of working to create the cupcakes for J’s wedding anniversary. Last time I posted was to show you the homemade cupcake wrappers that will be going on the cakes. I am getting more and more excited as each day goes by! Today I worked on the toppings for the cupcakes. I used the candy melts to create intertwined hearts. I placed a small amount (a few wafers goes a long way when it comes to making candy outlines) into a freezer quality storage bag. I placed the bag in the microwave in ten second intervals, squeezing the bag in between to smooth the candy. When the candy was at piping consistency (30 – 40 seconds of melting total) I made sure there was no air in the bag and squeezed the melted candy to one corner. I snipped off a small piece of the corner of the bag, just enough to allow a steady stream. If you are looking for a thin outline, it is important that you cut off a very small amount of the plastic to keep the hole very small.
Now that the candy is ready, pipe your design! Place a piece of wax paper on a cookie sheet and pipe your pictures onto it. I drew freehand with the candy since all I was doing was hearts. If you are looking for something more intricate, print the picture out first and place it under the wax paper, as I did in the previous candy post. Before the candy has time to harden (the melts harden pretty quickly when you are piping them out this thin) tap the cookie sheet on the counter a few times so air bubbles can escape and to take away the rough edges of your outlines.
You should notice that the bottom heart in my design continues down pretty far. That will be the part of the candy that will stick into the cupcake, hidden away from the world.
Put the candies in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them but be careful…they’re fragile! I can’t wait to make the cupcakes and put all of it together!!!
Sausage and Egg Casserole – Freezer Food Friday!
My friend B is the Freezer Food queen! She has really helped me to see the benefits of keeping a freezer full of homemade prepared food. Just about anytime you open my freezer, you will find individual portions of this Sausage and Egg Casserole that I adopted from one of B’s recipe. My husband loves being able to grab one of these and hit the road to work. He can heat it up when he has a moment in the morning at the office.
Sausage Egg Casserole
1 roll of Jimmy Dean or breakfast sausage of your choice
10 eggs beaten
16 oz low fat cottage cheese
1lb shredded Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese
2 4oz cans diced green chile peppers
1 cup flour (whole wheat or white)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup butter, melted
Cook sausage. Drain and set aside. In a large bowl, beat eggs. Add cottage cheese, shredded cheese, and chiles. Stir in sausage. Cover and refrigerate overnight. –> I almost always skip this step. The only time I cover and regfrigerate it over night is when I want to cook it in the morning and eat it hot out of the oven (like Christmas morning or on a weekend).
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the melted butter and then stir whole flour mixture into the egg mixture. Pour into a greased 9×13 pan. Bake 40-50 minutes or until lightly browned. Let casserole cool for 10-15m before serving.
If you are freezing the casserole, cut individual portions and place side by side (without touching) on a cookie sheet or tray. Cover with tin foil and freeze. Once frozen, bag individual portions into freezer bags. Mark with name and date.
Linking up to:
Make Your Own Cupcake Wrappers/Liners
Oh. My. Gosh. I have had WAY too much fun crafting this evening! Just call me Martha! Why? Well, in the next couple of days I will be making cupcakes for a friend of mine. We are having a Girls’ Night Out to celebrate her 7thwe
dding anniversary. A fellow military wife, J suffers what we must deal with on a regular basis. Her hubby is out on the ship with mine and is not here to celebrate their anniversary together. Not only that, but she is VERY preggo and will be giving birth before her husband returns home.
Needless to say, I wanted to do my own little part to make this a special day for her even though she is celebrating it sans husband! After talking to her about making a cake, the hamster wheel in my head started turning and I decided I wanted to have a little more fun with it. I changed my mind from a cake to cupcakes and decided to go the full mile when it came to making them super cute. So tonight is the first post related to the anniversary cupcakes.
Okay, enough of the background…what did I do tonight, you’re asking? I made homemade cupcake liners, or wrappers, or whatever you would like to call them. I have seen the super cute wrappers in the store but just haven’t been able to bring myself to spend the money on them and really, none of them have been EXACTLY what I wanted. So I decided to take on the task of creating them myself. I did a little research online and found a few other ladies who have tried the same thing. Why reinvent the wheel?! This template that I found on Skip To My Lou is the one I used to begin my own. However, I extended the top of mine another centimeter or so because I wanted the wrappers that extended above the top of the cupcake. I also inserted a tab so I would not have to have tape on the outside of my wrapper. With the tab, I was able to put the tape inside. I also did not print the wrappers directly onto the colored paper. There are only two templates on the given paper. I cut one out and traced it four times on larger paper. This, of course, was a little bit of an added pain (multiply by 24), but saved paper and came out the way I wanted it to look.
***important suggestion – use paper that is colored on BOTH sides. It does not look nearly as nice
when you have white paper on the inside. Even if you are cutting the paper to normal size, the white will still most likely be seen.
After tracing the templates onto the paper I used an exacto knife to cut them out. This requires a steady hand, but it is important to know it does not have to be perfect. It is going to be wrapped around a cupcake for goodness sakes! The last thing people will be checking is i
f it is 100% symmetrical! The first couple were definitely rough around the edges, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly and started to breeze through the cutting process. Since the only two sided paper I had was plain, I decided I would use my stamping materials to embellish the paper. SO FUN! Put some paper down (or you can stamp prior to cutting) under the cutouts and make sure the stamp overlaps the borders of the paper and especially both ends where the tab and insert are. This helps hide the imperfections of the cutting job!
Insert the tabs, tape the inside and voila! Homemade cupcake wraps!
Linking up to :
Stitch-A-Long: Month 7
Catching up!!! Month 7 (July) is done before Month 8 is over! Definitely no lazy days of summer around here … from May through August 6, work and school just plain wore me out! I have spent most of the rest of August just trying to recover some energy. I’ve given myself permission to “take-off” (from working on my dissertation) until the conclusion of the Labor Day weekend. So, I’m going to try to get Month 8 and 9 done by then … I “believe” that I can do it – will let you know how that all works out!
