Celebrate Mardi Gras with these festive Mardi Gras Cupcakes Mardi Gras is just around the corner and although I am not planning on going to New Orleans any time soon, I am planning on living it up right here in my own home with these amazing Mardi Gras Cupcakes! Plus these cupcakes are so beautiful and festive you will probably want to make them more then once a year! Yum! Ingredients: 1 box of white cake mix (plus ingredients called for on the box, i.e. eggs, oil & water) Food coloring in purple, yellow/gold, and green 1 8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened ¼ cup softened butter 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon 3 cups confectioners’ sugar Sprinkles Directions: 1. Make cake batter according to box instructions. Evenly divide batter into 3 separate bowls and use food coloring to color 1 bowl purple, 1 green and 1 gold. For bolder colors, use more food coloring. 2. Starting with the purple, place a … [Read more...]
Canned – Spiced Honey Vanilla Peaches!
Spiced Honey Vanilla Peaches I am a sucker for peaches! Recently I found two bushels of peaches at my front door. My Uncle has a Peach Tree in his back yard and this year he had an abundance of peaches that he decided to share with me. I was thrilled! As I was debating what I was going to can with this years peach crop I decided upon Spiced Honey Vanilla Peaches. I had never canned these before but they sounded amazing and I knew that I had to give them a try! Ingredients: 7 lbs peaches peeled and sliced2tbs vanilla extract4 cinnamon sticks1/2 cup white sugar1 cup honey2 cups water Directions: 1. Wash peaches and score an X at bottom of each peach. 2. Blanch peaches 1 minute in boiling water. 3. Immediately place blanched peaches into ice water and let sit for 1 minute. 4. Peel skin from peaches. 5. Slices peaches and remove from seed. 6. In large saucepan bring vanilla, cinnamon, honey, sugar and water to a boil over medium heat. Add … [Read more...]
PB Crave Review – Kids Snack PB Crave Recipes & A Giveaway! Ends 10/11/13!
** I was sent a product for the purpose of this PB Crave Review. However, my own opinion was used and not influenced in any way. PB Crave - Great for Kids Snacks and Lunches! We eat a lot of peanut butter in my house. This is for a number of reasons. #1 - I can a lot of jelly throughout the year. #2 - It is easy to make and pack for school lunches. #3 - It's a great source of protein. Although we eat a lot of peanut butter in our home my family has been complaining recently that they are tired of the same old peanut butter taste. I know they love peanut butter...but after eating it daily for weeks I can see how it got a little old....but, that was only until they tried PB Crave! Recently I was sent some awesome PB Crave flavors for the purpose of this review; Choco Choco, Coco Bananas, Cookie Nookie and Razzle Dazzle! I was so happy to introduce these flavors to my family. In fact I decided to hide the PB Crave from them and just make their lunch sandwiches using the PB Crave … [Read more...]
Simple Homemade Applesauce AND It’s Freezable!
Simple Homemade Applesauce AND It's Freezable! We can now officially say that it is Fall. The leaves are turning and the fall festivities are starting up and my house is smelling of pumpkin spice and cinnamon. I love this season and everything that goes along with it. One of the things I have been doing is making a simple applesauce with my husband's 92 year old great grandmother. She has taught me more about life than I ever have imagined. She has helped form me into the belief that if you can make it yourself then do it because it will save you money and also be much healthier for you as well. I love that our projects we do involve my kids as well. They help take the apple peelings to the compost and helped mash the apples through the sieve. It becomes moments that they will cherish with their great great grandmother more than they realize now at their young age. This is what makes this "more" than easy..it makes this memorable for all. We start off with a simple and … [Read more...]
Roasted Garlic Jelly Recipe! #recipe #jelly #garlic
Roasted Garlic Jelly I am a garlic lover. I add garlic to everything. I mean EVERYTHING! So when I came across this recipe for Roasted Garlic Jelly it was a given that I would try it out! I could not resist....even though the thought of Roasted Garlic Jelly sounded disgusting! I found this recipe when I was looking for canning ideas for all the garlic I received from my Grandmother. I had never heard of Roasted Garlic Jelly before and I was actually shocked that someone had ever thought to make it into a jelly. But, after trying this out I know that I will be making it much more often! It was amazing! Roasted Garlic Jelly is not something that I would eat on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But I loved it on crackers with cheese. I can't wait for the holidays to share my Roasted Garlic Jelly with all my friends and family! It is going to be great served as an appetizer at our holiday meals paired with cheese and crackers! I can't wait! Ingredients: 3 heads garlic … [Read more...]
~Healthy Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns Kids Halloween Snack!~
~Healthy Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns!~ Great Kids Halloween Snack! We happen to love Halloween at our house! We always have fun thinking all year long of what we want to be dressed up as and our whole family gets into it. It's a night where you can let your imagination go free and be whoever or whatever you want to be with no one judging you or thinking you are crazy as you walk around getting candy! (well, now I stand on the sidewalk and allow my kids to be the ones getting candy, but you know!) As shocking as it may sound to my children, Halloween isn't ALL about candy & dressing up, ok possibly 95% but that other 5% is about finding fun ways to incorporate Halloween in a healthy way so we can stretch out the fun feeling of the holiday! These healthy Halloween jack-o-lanterns are the perfect way to show some Halloween fun PLUS get some fruit in for the day! Here is what you will need - Oranges (however many you are wanting to … [Read more...]
9 Layered Summer Salad!
9 Layered Summer Salad! Salads are my most favorite thing to make. I love the mix of all the fresh vegetables that can be added to a salad and the taste of a salad is out of this world in my opinion. Especially if the salad is made right! For the past few years when ever there is a potluck I am always asked to bring the salad. It is the one thing that I always seem to get right when it comes to cooking! Super simple and delicious! Ingredients: 16 oz bagged salad mix1 bundle radishes diced1 small purple onion diced6oz frozen peas6 oz shredded cheese10 oz cherry tomatoes 16 oz baby corn diced1 4oz container bacon bits16 oz artichokes drained and diced Directions: 1. First I start off the salad with 1-2 handfuls of lettuce out of the bag mix. Of course you will want to make sure your hands are clean ;) You will also need to layer this salad in a see through bowl so that you can really see the effect of the layers. 2. Next I layer the sliced … [Read more...]
~Edible Pencils Make The Grade! ~ Fun Healthy Snack Idea for Kids!
~Edible Pencils Make The Grade! ~ I always had a fun time trying to figure out what fun healthy snack I was going to take to my kids' kindergarten class when it was my turn and these Edible Pencils got an A+ because everyone loved them and my kids always loved the extra attention they got because their mom brought a fun snack! But really, it's string cheese with a twist, it took a extra time yes but was it worth it? Absolutely! My kids are past kindergarten now and they STILL talk about the fun snacks I always took to school to share! Here is what you are going to need to make these adorable edible pencil snacks! Ingredients: String Cheese (I used two types) Bag of Bugles Package of thick cut Bologna (Turkey) Small Box of Raisins Cream cheese or Mustard for the "eraser" to stick Directions: 1.) Set out the cream cheese to soften - Decide how many Pencils you will be making and start making the circles with the meat. I used a clean … [Read more...]
~Kid Friendly Tomatillo Salsa! ~
~Kid Friendly Tomatillo Salsa~ Both of my kids love chips & salsa but unfortunately at restaurants the salsa ends up being just too spicy for them to enjoy. I have purchased store bought mild salsa's but it just doesn't have the homemade feel to it which is why I was excited to try my hand at making my own fresh tomatillo salsa! We are currently house sitting so we have the advantage of taking care of someone's garden and they have tomatillos which is what inspired me to do this! Tomatillos are a sweet almost citrus twist to the tomato we know. Which is why I knew my kids would like this salsa because it's already sweet and tangy. Tomatillos are considered a fruit just like the red tomato but they are grown inside a paper like shell similar to a husk. I found out quickly that when you take the husk off, the tomatillos are sticky so make sure to wash them after you husk them! My daughter and I actually did this project together so she was in control of … [Read more...]
Canned Roasted Garlic Mustard!
Canned Roasted Garlic Mustard! As most of you know my Grandma is an avid gardener. Her garden is bigger then any garden I have ever seen and because of this there is always enough fresh fruits and veggies for the whole family to enjoy! A few weeks ago my Grandma sent me home with a garbage bag filled with garlic. I had the intention of just pickling all of it and canning it. But then I got to thinking that there was probably some really amazing recipes around the internet that contained garlic. Boy was I right! I found so many amazing ideas! One of my favorite ideas was a recipe at Local Kitchen Blog. It was a recipe for Roasted Garlic & Lemon Mustard. I had never thought to make my own mustard before and the addition of roasted garlic and lemon made this recipe intriguing to me. I knew I had to give it a try! Ingredients: 3/4 cup dry white wine 1/2 cup yellow mustard seeds 1/2 cup brown mustard seeds 3 heads garlic - … [Read more...]
Canned Plumcot Barbecue Sauce Recipe #recipe #cooking
Plumcot Barbecue Sauce I am the first person to try new things. Recently I was able to score a huge bag filled with Plumcots. This was my first experience with Plumcots and besides snacking on them every day I was excited to try out some new canning recipes. As I searched the internet I had a hard time finding recipes that contained Plumcots. That is when I decided to get a little creative! I decided to find a couple of Peach Canning recipes and try out those recipes using Plumcots instead of Peaches. The first recipe that I made was some Plumcot Barbecue Sauce! I honestly did not know how this would turn out......but I can now say that it is amazing! Yum! The Plumcot Barbecue sauce is sweet and tangy and goes great with Chicken and Fish! Ingredients: 6 cups chopped Plumcots 1 diced red bell pepper 1 diced yellow onion 1 head crushed garlic 1-1/4 cups honey 1 1/4 cup cider vinegar 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce 2 tsp hot pepper flakes 2 tsp dry … [Read more...]
Homemade Miracle Cure for Diaper Rash!
Brandie's Homemade Miracle Cure for Diaper Rash! Having my first baby was the most amazing thing I had ever done in my life. I was in heaven, he was perfect! And then we went home. He would not nurse, he was crying nonstop and it seemed nothing could be done. Along with being colicky he developed horrible diaper rash. It would get so bad that his poor bum would bleed. I tried Desitin and A&D ointment and Boudreaux Butt Paste and even milk of magnesia. Nothing seemed to work. I went to my pediatrician and she suggested mixing the Desitin, A&D ointment and milk of magnesia together to see what would happen. It was a miracle! I slathered it on as thick as I could and by the next diaper change I could see major improvement. The key to mixing these three things is getting the right Desitin. The one in the purple tube has the highest amount of zinc oxide and that is what you want. Just the normal tube of A&D works great and I always get the Philips brand of milk of … [Read more...]
Homemade Apricot Salad Dressing Using Magic Bullet! #recipe
Homemade Apricot Salad Dressing! I love canning and here recently I have been trying out lots of new recipes that I had never tried before. This includes the amazing Apricot Salad Dressing! My uncle has an apricot tree here and brought me over a huge bag of them the other day. I still had a lot of canned apricots from last year so I decided that I needed to do something different and really fun with these apricots. That is when I came across the recipe for Apricot Salad Dressing. The recipe looked very easy so I decided to give it a try! Ingredients: 4 apricots 4 Tbsp white wine vinegar 2 tbsp sugar 1/2 tsp sea salt 1/2 cup olive oil Directions: Add all ingredients into Magic Bullet and blend away! Yep that's it! Just add the ingredients and blend! I could not believe how easy this recipe was to make! I had never made my own fruit dressing before and I was excited to give it a try. So, for dinner that night we had … [Read more...]
Canned Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Canned Strawberry Rhubarb Jam I love how well Strawberries and Rhubarb go together. There is no better combination in my opinion! That is why when I was given the chance to stock up on some strawberries and rhubarb I could not turn them down. I canned so many different strawberry rhubarb combinations including pie filling, syrup and this jam! I am excited that I will be able to have Strawberries and Rhubarb all year long! Strawberry Rhubarb Jam is one of my favorite jams on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We have been eating this stuff like crazy! This is a jam that the whole family loves and we can't get enough! Ingredients: 9 cups diced rhubarb 9 cups 4 tbs lemon juice 4 (1.75 ounce) package powdered fruit pectin 1 tbs butter 20 cups white sugar Sterilized Canning Jars Directions: Place diced rhubarb, diced strawberries, lemon juice, fruit pectin, and butter into a large kettle over medium heat. Cook about 2-3 … [Read more...]
Canned Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling
Canned Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling As some of you might remember I scored a great deal on strawberries and rhubarb recently. I had a blast going through recipe ideas to figure out exactly what I should do with all these delicious strawberries and rhubarb. One of the recipes I knew I would be making for sure was the pie filling! I was thrilled to be able to make Canned Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling as well as syrup and jelly! My husband is a pie lover. He would choose pie over cake any day and one of is favorite pies is Strawberry Rhubarb. Because of his love for pie I decided to can as much Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling as I could. Ingredients: 8 Cups diced strawberries 8 Cups diced rhubarb 6 Cups sugar 1/2 Cup Cornstarch 1 1/2 Cup Flour Directions: 1. Add first three ingredients in large saucepan. 2. Cook on medium heat. Stir often until sugar is dissolved. 3.Add cornstarch and flour. Continue cooking over medium heat until mixture thickens. 4. Pour filling into … [Read more...]