Tomato Soup Kind of Day

I woke up this morning feeling good, I have about 10 million things on my to do list, my dad is coming in 4 days and I have a house full of half finished projected and a house full of messes. I had my cup of coffee and I decided one more and I was going to finish a show from last night's DVR, when all of a sudden, I start having one of my all to familiar allergic reactions. Not a big deal these days, I have them all the time, we have no idea why or what they are from. This time it was a little different though, I didn't have any of my regular meds here to deal with it. HOW COULD I LET MY HOUSE BE WITHOUT BENEDRYL???? Well anyways, I put off going to the doctor as long as I could until I couldn't any more. So when I came home I felt like I was ran over by a car and exhausted I hate all the meds you have to take for it :( So instead of finishing anything or starting anything I slept on the couch and watched Toy Story 3!! Well that's not true I did do one little painting project. I painted a canvas and put all of our hand prints on it to hang on the wall. It's very cute for our kitchen :)

Dinner tonight was suppose to be Vegan Stir Fry, I knew that was happening with how I felt, so tomato soup and grilled cheese it was :) I forgot how wonderfully comforting that it! It totally brought me back to my childhood. It's so easy and so yummy! Such a great little happy treat at the end of such a BLAH day! My mamma used to cut up little chunks of colby jack cheese and put at the bottom of our soup cups and ladle the soup on top of it. So of course I do that for my kiddos now, and they call it there little surprises in the soup.

So off to bed early I go, in hope of a good night sleep, so I can wake up and have a great tomorrow and get lots and lots done! Mr. P has a 4 day so that should be very helpful :)

Mexi-Lime Rice

So that time has come again.....Vegan night :) A few 3-5 nights a week we eat vegan, my husband is strict vegan well really Eat to Live vegan. And I'm following the beat to my own little drum like I always do, but that beat includes at least a few nights a week of our family eating vegan together :)

I found a similar recipe on Pinterest and I tweaked it a bit to our tastes. This dish would be great by itself, inside a tortilla (like we did), as a stuffing for stuffed peppers, a side dish for Mexican night. You could add meat, cheese, sour cream. I personally cannot handle heat (I have a crazy tongue thing) but I bet it would be great with diced jalapenos or just adding hot sauce or good salsa. Next time I make this I will be adding red and green peppers diced very small and heated with the black beans, and I will make some fresh salsa to top it off. The hubs topped his "burrito" off tonight with hotsauce and salsa, the boys had a little cheese and left over BBQ steak (not so vegan I know). I added extra lime juice :)

These were sooooo good and very fresh! Great for a hot day!

What you need:
1 1/2 cups cooked rice (I used brown)
1 can black beans drained and rinsed
1 cup corn 
1 small can olives drained
1 TBS garlic
1/4 cup diced yellow or red onions
1 tomato
3-4 green onions
2 limes
cliantro
2 TBS Mrs. Dash fiesta lime rice seasonign
salt and pepper


What you do:
While I have the rice cooking and waiting the painful 45 minutes for brown rice to steam, I started the rest of this recipe.
Open, drain rinse, black beans. Place in skillet. If using canned corn drain and also place in skillet, I used left-over corn on the cob, so I cut it off the cob and put it in the skillet, along with the drained olives, onions, and garlic.
Dice up tomato and place in a large bowl, along with sliced green onions, lime juice and seasonings. Add as little or much cilantro as you want. I LOVE cilantro, so I just pluck it off the stem and throw it in there, I don't even chop it up. 
When the rice has about 5-10 minutes left turn the skillet on and heat the bean mixture up. When rice is done, add rice and bean mixture to tomato mixture. Mix it all well and enjoy as is, or in a tortilla, or however you decide! 

Strawberry Freezer Jam

I wish there was one of those smiley face thing like this :) that could actually express how happy I am that I just made freezer jam and how I cannot wait until tomorrow to actually spread it on my toast!

When I was young my Mom and Grandma used to make freezer jam, but not nearly often enough because it seemed like a very special treat to me :) It was one of my favorite things. I remember one time I found a tupperware thing of it way back in the freezer and I hid it in the fridge so my brothers wouldn't find it and I savored it for weeks!! I just loved the stuff!

Last Monday Mr. P texted me about our usual bountiful basket conversation to see what sort of extras we wanted and what we wanted to get. When he told me that they had 8 lbs of strawberries for $8.50 my first thought was FREEZER JAM!!!!!!

I bought everything at Walmart and it was pretty cheap. My mother told me to buy the Certo pectin brand, she had no real reason why, its just what grandma had always used and what she had always used so of course it was what I was going to use. A package of Certo was I think $2.87. I bought the Ball brand freezer jam containers and they were $3 for 4- 16 oz jars. I have no idea how much sugar was, but you do use a lot!!!

The whole process took me about 45 minutes, and that is with me taking pictures and making phone calls and talking on FB and having a 3 year old help. I do have a bit of dishes to do, but all in all it was easy!!!

I doubled the "recipe" (used two packages of pectin) so my "recipe" will follow that. Also this is the recipe in the box of Certo so I'm not trying to say I made this or that I in any way own this. I'm just sharing my experience and want everyone to know how easy and wonderful this is!

What you need:
Strawberries 4 cups crushed
2 packages of Certo pectin
4 Tbs fresh lemon juice (2 lemons)
8 cups of sugar
5- 16 oz. freezer jars

What you do:
First slice your strawberries, and place in a flat bottom dish. Then crush with potato masher. Do this is small batches. Move to a measuring cup, or bowl, but make sure your measurements are exact. You could also do this in a food processor, but make sure not to puree as jam has chunks of fruit and a puree would not ensure a proper set up.

Next juice your lemons, strain. Place 4 TBS in small bowl. Add 2 packages of Certo. Set aside.

In very large bowl, add 8 cups of sugar. Make sure measurements are exact. Add the crushed strawberries to the sugar. Stir well. Let sit for 10 minutes, stirring frequently to let sugar dissolve.

To bowl of strawberries and sugar add the lemon juice and Certo mixture. Stir for 3 mixture until slightly thickened and everything is dissolved.

Fill your jars, but leave at least 1/2 inch gap from top. Let sit for 24 hours on counter. The jam can store in refrigerator for 3 weeks or in freezer for 1 year.

Banana Sushi

I'm always trying to think of new ideas for the boys's breakfast and lunch. And of course healthy options! It gets difficult when I ask Kaden what he wants for breakfast before school and he always says, "nothing." He never wants breakfast and I know how important breakfast for his long busy day at school, so if I make it exciting or interesting he will usually eat it :) So I took one of his favorite things SUSHI and made it a breakfast food ......well sorta LOL
I took a whole wheat tortilla and spread peanut butter on it, and then drizzled honey on the peanut butter. Then you wrap a banana up in that tortilla and slice it up.

He loved it so much and ate it without any complaints and asked for another!! I'm now going to make one around lunch time and put it in the fridge and wait until after school as a snack to see how the banana holds up in the fridge, to see if it would be a good thing to throw in the lunch box :)

Caterpillar Cake

So this is the "big" cake Kaden wanted to make for his school competition. It is from a cookbook I have called, "Fun Stuff Cupcakes". Very cute cookbook :) I can see these cupcakes being all green with a red face, like "The Hungry Caterpillar" or rainbow like these, or maybe neon, or pastels. Really anything you want it to be.

I'm not really posting a recipe here because its kinda self explanatory. White cake mix. Food coloring. White cupcake papers. White frosting. Candy for a face. Dum Dums for antenna. Dots for nose. Licorice for mouth. Lifesaver Gummy's and mini M&M's for eyes. Gummy worms for legs. Or you can pick and choose whatever candy you want for your face :)

Kaden loved to make this and did such a good job making it by himself! I'm very proud of him. Its a great cake for kids to make or to make for a kid's party. Have fun with it!!!!

Watermelon Cake

So when I heard donate a cake for the cake walk, or course I knew I would do it. Only problem was what kind of cake. After looking for a little while, I stumbled upon this cake and knew the kids would love it and I knew I had to do it. It's very simple, and oh so cute :)

What you need:
White Cake Mix (plus ingredients on pkg)
Red Food Coloring
1 cup Chocolate Chips plus a few to poke in cake top
White Frosting
Green Food Coloring
Filling of your choice
Green food coloring marker

What you do:
Prepare boxed caked mix as directed on box. Add red food coloring until desired color, I like a more pink color rather than a bright red color. Mix in 1 cup of chocolate chips. Pour batter into 2 8 or 9 inch circle baking pans. Bake per cake box directions. Check with toothpick, when comes out clean, take out of oven. Let them sit for a 5 minutes and then flip out onto a cooling rack. While still a little warm, cut the top off of one of the rounds, and then poke a handfull on chocolate chips in to look like the 'seeds' in the water melon.
When cakes are completely cool. Put un-cut cake on bottom, fill with filling of choice (I used chocolate frosting). And put cut cake, cut side up on top. Before you turn your frosting green use a small amount and pipe white around the edge of the cake. Now turn your frosting green :) Not too dark, and after whipping frosting let it sit in the fridge for a few minutes to harden back up.
To frost just the edges of the cake, I throw the frosting a zip lock bag, and snip a good chunk of the corner off, and just pipe around the cake, At this point I don't worry about what its looking like too much LOL. I put the whole cake in the fridge for about 5 minutes or so to let it harden up a bit again. Now I take a hard spatula or frosting knife and I scrap all the way around the cake, so the frosting smooths out and is only on the edge of the cake. Now with the Food coloring marker, I make 'vein' marks or whatever those dark green spots on the water melon are :) And then you are done :)

Baking and Dancing

Kaden brought home a flyer form school saying, "Cake Decorating Contest". Anybody who knows me knows how much I go crazy for baking and doing cakes is my favorite :) (you should have seen how crazy I went at the last bake sale) ANYWAYS The contest has a winner for each class and the winners get a pretty awesome gift card to walmart, and with Kaden saving up to buy his Kindle Fire, I thought holy moly, he can do this, he has seen me do soooo many cakes and I'm sure we can find something awesome for him to do. I can only bake the cake or cupcakes and the rest is up to him. So last week we went through my 10 different baking cookbooks and spent hours online looking at cakes finding one for him to do. Finally he picked the first cake we looked at, a caterpillar. So we got all the different goodies for that last week at the store. The cakes are going to be judged tomorrow, so this morning I baked the rainbow cupcakes, and when he gets home he will frosting them (eeekkkk I'm nervous for him) and putting it all together. It makes me so happy that he is excited to do this. Both of the boys love to help me in the kitchen but this will be the first time that I HAVE to be hand off! So we shall see how that goes. Photos and the recipe will follow later.

Tomorrow is also the School Carnival where they are doing a cake walk, in which I volunteered to donate a cake. When Kaden was looking at hundreds of cakes so was I, I wanted to make something new, but also something that the kids would be excited about at the carnival. I'm so tired of doing my tye dye cupcakes, although the kids love them. I finally stumbled across a watermelon cake :) It's very cool and I'm going to work with fondant, something I've only worked with a few times. So today I also have to work on that cake. Photos and recipes will be up later as well.

Next Friday is the audition for the talent show!!!!! Kaden came home just busting at the seams with excitement to tell me that there is a talent show and he wanted to dance for it. My first thought was, "oh boy, you can't just get up there and shake your booty." So we had a long talk about it, and decided we would make up a simple dance or find one he could learn online. Next we had to find a song, in our house that was a no brainer, "Sexy and I Know It" by LMFAO.....only problem is that song isn't quite appropriate for an Elementary school talent show. No problem, we re-wrote the song, the lyrics now go, "I'm Kaden and I Know:, and talks about Legos and dancing. And I just happen to have a very musically inclined brother who writes and creates his own music all the time. So I have enlisted his help to produce and "rap" the song. So only 8 days until the audition and we have to get this dance learned and under his belt, so today I have spent most of the morning working out some dance steps that aren't too hard, but also show case Kaden's already "talent" of break dancing. Whew I'm exhuasted, and Kysen keeps showing me his ideas for the dance which pretty much looks like doing pushups but only moving his butt. He's hilarious!!

So today is a day of baking and dancing.......on these are the days of my life :)

Top Ramen Plus

 

Mr. P decided that this should be called Top Ramen Plus, although he no longer eats this with us since he has went off the Vegan deep end :) This is something my mom used to make whenever she had left over Pork. I make this recipe whenever I have left over chicken, turkey, or pork. I love it most with left overs from the BBQ like in this recipe today I used leftover BBQ turkey breast tenderloin. This recipe is very simple but very yummy, its one of my comfort food because it reminds me of being a kid and helping mom make it! This recipe will have no exact measurements since it is a something that you make to your tastes, you don't like something don't add it, you want something else add it, you only have 1lb of meat make a smaller batch, have a bunch make a larger batch, its up to you.

Where to start:

leftover chicken, turkey, or pork usually about a pound or so

carrots, celery, onion (basic soup start) about a 1/2-1 cup each

Top Ramen packets (today I used 3 packets)

hard boiled eggs ( I used 4 today)

Soy Sauce to taste ( a few Tbs)

seasonings to taste

I always use a boullion paste (pic below) to get the flavors where I like

What to do:

Saute your carrots, onions, and celery in a little olive oil or butter until they are translucent and soft (15-25 minutes). Add the water and seasoning packets from the Top Ramen package (2 cups of water for each packet). Bring to a boil and add ramen noodles. Once noodles are done add meat. Taste broth and adjust to your tastes, I always add a few TBS of soy sauce and salt and pepper and chicken boullion. Stir in sliced eggs and serve.

That's it, super easy. You can add what you want or take away what you want. It's not fancy, but its something we all love to have every once it awhile, and a great way to use your leftovers :)

S'mores Brownies

 

I love ANYTHING S'mores!!! So I'm always trying new recipes out that are S'mores related, I will  someday post my S'more cookies and S'more cupcakes. But today is about S'more Brownies. My 2 favorite things rolled into one amazingly messy dish :) I made this with my Basic Amazing Brownie recipe or you could use a box mix. Box mixes are awesome when your not in the mood for all the dishes and time used for making from scratch. 

What you need:

brownies (either box or from scratch)

2 cups of mini marshmallows

4 graham crackers (broken into smaller pieces)

2 chocolate bars (broken into small pieces)

What you do: 

 Prepare brownies per box or from scratch recipe. As soon as brownies come out of the oven, turn your oven to broil ( I use my broiler on low just so I can let it go longer and get the mallows nice and gooey). On top of cooked brownies add, marshmallows and graham crackers, and place in broiler. Keep your eyes on this yummy mess because they will toast/brown up quickly. Once everything is nice and gooey and golden brown take brownies out of oven, and sprinkle with broken chocolate bars. 

Tips:

LET THESE COOL. I cut one about 30 minutes after cooling, they were still warm, but it was a messy gooey mess! Perfect for me, but messy. I cut some for the kids after about 90 minutes and they were perfect, the marshmallows had set a little more and they were easier to get out and eat. And beware the first brownies comes out like that first piece of pie, it wont be pretty as you dig it out LOL

 

Basic Amazing Brownies

So I came across this recipe a way long time ago, and it is the only recipe I use for brownies from scratch. I think its still very weird that you make it in a sauce pan but they are the best so I don't really care how you have to make them :) So here is the simple recipe that I will revert to whenever I make something with brownies, like later tonight when I post my S'mores Brownies

 

What you need:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-pourpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder 


What you do:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8 inch square pan.
2. Melt butter on stove-top in sauce pan. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar. Add eggs, but make sure the butter and sugar mixture is slightly cooled so you don't start to cook your eggs. Next add vanilla. Beat in unsweetened cocoa, flour, salt, and baking powder.
3. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Check with a toothpick. Do not overcook.


Tips:
Cut your brownies with a plastic knife, it will leave clean lines and not break brownies apart....I read this somewhere and have been doing it that way ever since. I actually have one plastic knife (just from the box of knifes, forks, and spoons) that I always wash and re-use because I'm afraid I will make brownies and then not have my plastic knife to cut them LOL

First Post

I'm so happy I'm starting yet again another blog, but I swear this one will stick LOL

I really love to cook and I really want a place to store and share all my great recipes. In my house I cook many different things, I'm a sucker for baking, its my "specialty" so I do a lot of that. But on the flipside we also try to eat really healthy, my husband has recently went VEGAN (the big V) and I would say I am about 75% Vegan. On most days we eat really healthy, but I even though I know how bad my food choices are, I cannot sway from my favorites. So I will be posting all sorts of different recipes from all the different things I make.

I also want a place to post the other parts of my life, "The craziness" from my pinterest projects, to my crazy kids doing their crazy things, to my insane family (who really needs their own reality show) to our Army life.

So welcome to the blog and I hope you enjoy it and the food, and if you don't then click the back button on your browser!

Hope everyone makes today a great day!