Challenge

I am challenging all our readers to plant something this spring.  Plants, flower, tree, vegetables, anything you want, but learn how to grow something in your area.  A few years ago I did a small little garden.  I loved doing it and the kids enjoyed watching the stuff grow.  We learned a lot and it was fun. I put off doing the garden the next few years after that, because I felt like I didn't have a "garden" spot.   This year we are going to try a different method.  I am going to use pots.  This method is great for people who feel they don't have the perfect "garden" spot or those who don't have a yard.  I bought 6 pots at Wal-mart for 3 dollars each and picked out six different veggies, which were 50 cents on average. We got some really good potting soil,  and I enlisted my "helpers" again.

 We mixed the soil with a "starter" soil I also got, and then filled up the buckets.  The kids help me plant the plants.  I read the back of the packages to know how many I could put in each pot.  The squash for example I made four little holes and put two seeds in each hole, once they start growing I can thin it out.

We have a little cement patch right outside our side garage door, it gets about 5 hours of morning sun, so I felt like this would be a perfect spot for them.  This is all trial and error for me, I am not gardener, but I think this is something we all need to know, its a talent that we all can achieve.  If 6 buckets seems overwhelming or even costly, then start with three or even just one.  

So are you up for the Challenge??!!

Perfect For Almost Every Meal

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup butter melted
• 1/4 cup Parmesean Cheese
• 3 tsp of garlic powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, garlic and cheeses. In another large bowl, beat together egg, milk and butter. Stir the flour/cheese mixture into the egg mixture, stirring until just moistened. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean.

My Family loved this bread... it is so delious. And it goes great with any meal. Especially those meals that you decide at the last minute that a bread would go great with the meal... Here is your fix. Super easy and super yummy. Mix and bake.

Brownie Bites

This is also something the kids would have fun with! First you need some kisses. It works best if they are the fun flavored kisses like I used the peppermint because the kisses were red and white strip. But you can use any kiss. You make a pan of your favorite brownies. My favorite recipe is Baker's one bowl browies. They are so easy to make and so very chocolatly delious! Then you let your brownies cool until they are ready to handle still a little warm. Then you mush the brownies around the kisses until you have a ball. Freeze these for about 20 minutes, then you can dip them in some chocolate. And then I drizzled them with some red decorating chocolate.

Easy Peasy Icecream Cake

I have discovered and easy way to make an ice cream cake.  All you need is a package of ice cream sandwiches and a tub of cool whip.

 Stack the ice cream sandwiches three at a time, and then rotate and stack next three on top. In this picture I used a Carmel sauce I made for the filling.  I would suggest not doing this because it was hard to cut after I froze it.  If you are wanting a filling you could use some of the cool whip or maybe some pudding.

 After you stack the sandwiches how you want them use the cool whip as your "frosting" and frost it!

Hidden Valley Ranch

It really does make everything taste better!!

My kids aren't big into eating veggies, and the only way I can get them to eat them is if they have some Ranch to dip it in. . .most of the time they ended up eating more Ranch then veggies, so the other day I cut up cucumbers and carrots into bite size and added a squirt of Ranch (you don't need a lot-a little goes a long way) and my kids ate it all up, I have never seen them eat so many veggies in one sitting!!  I later tried it with adding tomatoes and green peppers-the kids weren't as thrilled with that, but I sure loved it!!

Reindeer Cookie Sandwhiches

These are great for kids to make. All we did was picked up some Pillsbury sugar cookies. We liked the reindeer ones, they have other options. Then you do the frosting idea that my sister came up with half frosting half cool whip squeeze it inbetween two cookies. We added some sprinkles around the edge to add a little more. Sorry the pictures aren't very pretty, but how pretty are things when you have a two year old helping. We used chocolate fosting... this frosting taste a lot like hot chocolate. So you could make some chocolate cupcakes, and top it with this frosting then put on marshmellows and you have a hot chocolate cupcake! The french vanilla marshmellows would be so good.

Felt Food

So Simplicity Patterns has this great pattern for felt food. The food goes together fairly easily. I little bit of hand sewing, but not bad. I love how they turned out!

Edible Pilgrim Hats

We had a thanksgiving play group at our house today, so for a little treat I made Pilgrim hats. These are the ingredients you will need:

First take you chocolate and melt them on low heat over the stove.  While the chocolate is melting lay the cookies that survived the trip in the grocery store, from your children fighting over who got to hold them.  You will want them facing down.

Take the marshmallow and cover 3/4th of it with chocolate if you want you can cover it all with chocolate, but I wanted to have a little "belt" so I left a little bit of the marshmallow showing.  Use a little bit of chocolate to "glue" it to the cookies.  Use your yellow frosting to draw a square for the buckle.  I did around 30 of these and it took me about 20 minutes!  Happy Thanksgiving

New Found Love

The kids and I found a new great snack.  I am guessing since it has snowflakes on it, it is probably a seasonal thing, so I wanted to let you know about it so you can get in on this too!!

Look at that yummyness!!  It is a medley of Honey Roasted Peanuts, Peanut Brittle, Cashews, Pretzels, and Yogurt Covered Raisins.  We all just loved it!  Pick it up for a party or if you can tell, you can eat half a can by yourself :)

Eggless Never Fail Pie Crust

Alright so 'tis the season for baking. It is cold outside and warm yummy treats sound great. I have gotten this recipe from my mother... and it is so wonderful. You can never fail on this crust, and it always turns out beautiful.

3 cups of flour

1 1/2 cups of shortening

1 teaspoon of salt

6 tablespoons of water

3 tablespoons of vinegar

You combine your dry ingredents into a bowl. Cut in the shortening until it is crumbly. Then add the liquids and mix do not knead a lot or it makes the crust too hard. Just mix until completely mixed. This pie crust is not a sweet pie crust, it has more of a tangy flavor. But that is what we like with the sweet gooey insides.

How to cook a pumpkin

I love the taste and smell of fresh pumpkin.  Most of us use the stuff in the can, but here is instructions on how to get the "real" pumpkin taste in your recipes.

First you'll need to buy pie pumpkins.  They are the littler ones, and should be labeled as such at the store.  When you get home pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Then cut them in half, I was able to bend the stem off after cutting them, this makes it easier to fit them all on the pan.  After cutting them in half scrape out the seeds and goo.  Lay them face down on a pan.  I used my biggest cookie sheet.  Put the cookie sheet in the oven and add water to the bottom of the pan.  I put in about 4-5 cups of water. (Just put in enough to cover the bottom, but not coming over the sides.   

Cook for about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the pumpkins.  I usually feel the pumpkins.  When the are soft and squishy to the touch the are done.

Pull them out of the oven and turn over to let them cool down.  When the are cool enough to touch peel off the skin and put the pumpkin into a blender.

Blend it up nice and smooth.  I divided mine out into little Tupperware, and freeze mine. My two pumpkins I bought made 8 cups of pumpkin.  So each pumpkin makes about 4 cups, if you buy the size I did.   I used real pumpkin in my pumpkin pies last year and they tasted great!  You can also use this in pancakes, Cinnamon rolls, and I am going to make some pumpkin bread in a few days. . .enjoy!