Chicken, Cranberry, and Goat Cheese Salad

I bought some goat cheese at the store the other day and whipped up this little salad concoction with it. It was a simple, yummy dinner. Here's the recipe if you want to try it for yourself. Enjoy!

5 oz. bag "Spring Mix" salad mix

1 cup dried cranberries

1 small Granny Smith apple, peeled and cut into small chunks

1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast (or 2 small ones), cooked and cut into chunks

garlic salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup soft, crumbled goat cheese

equal parts of olive oil and red wine vinegar or your favorite vinaigrette dressing ( I like "Brianna's real French vinaigrette" dressing)

salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat 2 Tbsp of olive oil in a medium frying pan over med-high heat. Cut chicken breast into bite-sized pieces and place in frying pan with garlic salt and black pepper (to taste). Cook and stir until chicken pieces are cooked through. Remove chicken from pan and set aside to cool.

2. Place salad mix, cranberries, cut up apples, and crumbled goat cheese into a large salad bowl. Add chicken pieces and vinaigrette and toss to mix. Serve and enjoy!

"The Help"

I loved this book...

One of my good friends loaned it to me shortly after I had little Mr. Man last Summer. It has taken me nine months to actually pick it up and read it ( my poor friend may never want to loan me anything again - that's just how we roll around here these days with two kids... a little bit behind schedule), but once I started it, I couldn't put it down. I just finished reading it a couple of days ago, and I already miss the characters in the book; kind of like you miss a good friend that you haven't seen in a while. Am I just weird, or does that ever happen to you when you read a really great book about really great characters? I miss reading about them when the book has finally come to an end. Anyway, I digress. I thought this was a beautiful, thought-provoking story, and I really liked how Kathryn Stockett didn't necessarily follow all of the predictable paths that you would expect the story to take. I would definitely recommend "The Help" to anyone looking for a good read. It's definitely a keeper!

Scotch-A-Roos

I REALLY needed a treat last night, and these little bites of yummy-ness came to my rescue…

Have you made “Scotch-A-Roos” before? They are delicious, easy and fast to make, and it is very hard to eat just one. Here’s the recipe…

Bottom Layer:

1 cup sugar

1 cup light Karo syrup

1 cup creamy peanut butter

6 cups rice krispies

Topping:

¾ cup chocolate chips (I like to use the Ghirardelli 60% cocoa semi-sweet chocolate chips, they give you a nice added punch of chocolate taste)

¾ cup butterscotch chips

The How-To:

1. Combine sugar and Karo syrup in a heavy pan and heat (on medium high heat), stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves. This usually takes about 5 minutes.

2. Remove pan from heat. Add in peanut butter and mix until combined.

3. Add rice krispies and mix well. Pour mixture into an 8 x 8 inch pan and press down firmly with greased fingers.

4. Over very low heat, melt chocolate and butterscotch chips together. Spread over rice krispie mixture and allow chocolate to set back up before cutting.

5. Eat and enjoy!

The fun of a cardboard box...

It is windy and chilly here today, and Gracie Poo (and Mommy too) are ready for some Summer outside time. Guess we'll have to wait a few more days...in the meantime we are trying to come up with creative solutions to keep us entertained in the house. That's where our friend, the cardboard box comes into the picture...

We just added some paper, tape, and markers and TaDa! You have a sweet set of wheels...

OK, so it's not the prettiest car you've ever seen, and the steering wheel looks like a big peace sign (I'm not known for my drawing abilities), but my kids have loved it and it has already gotten lots of use today.

Who needs the park when you've got a cardboard box and a little imagination?

Alphabet Book: Letter "C"

We made it to letter "C". We decided to do "corn on a C" and glued un-popped popcorn kernels onto our "C". You could also do "cats on a C" (put cat stickers on the "c") or "candy on a "c" (glue small candies like Smarties or Nerds onto the "c"). After we were done with our gluing, we read the book "Caps For Sale", by: Esphyr Slobodkina. It is a cute little book with lots of models of the "c" sound in it.

Two Dinners in One...Part Deux

Ooops, it took me longer to get back to this post than I had planned. Anyway, for the Shepherd's Pie recipes, you basically just cut up your left-over roast meat and mix it together with your left-over gravy and some type of vegetable. Top with your left-over mashed potatoes and some shredded cheese, cover and keep refrigerated until you need a quick and easy dinner some night during the week. Here are my two favorite Shepherd's Pie combinations...

Pork Roast Shepherd's Pie:

pork roast meat, cut into bite-size pieces

gravy

petite peas

mashed potatoes (mashed sweet potatoes are really good with this as well)

handful of grated monterey jack cheese

Mix meat, gravy, and peas together and place in bottom of pie pan. Spread mashed potatoes over the top, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees until pie is bubbling and heated through (about 30-40 minutes).

Beef Roast Shepherd's Pie:

beef roast meat, cut into bite-size pieces

gravy

green beans

mashed potatoes

handful of grated cheddar cheese (love to use extra sharp cheddar...yum!)

Mix meat, gravy, and beans together, and place in bottom of pie pan. Spread mashed potatoes over the top, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees until pie is bubbling and heated through (about 30-40 minutes).

Enjoy!

Thank You Tree Branch...

Thank you tree branch for landing on our power line and allowing me to have a distraction-free afternoon with my children while we were waiting for the power to come back on. No TV, no internet, no computer, and no laundry. Just me and the kids in our quiet, sun-lit living room talking and playing together. It reminded me of how amazing my children are and that I am one lucky lady to be able to be there mommy.

Inexpensive Vintage Kitchen Art

I love old things. I think they are so beautiful and it makes me happy to have them around my house. A while back I was looking for something to hang on my kitchen walls and found these beauties at an antique store in Idaho Falls...

They are old magazine adds, and when I saw them sitting there all shrink-wrapped in their little magazine bin I knew they needed to come live at our house. They were fairly inexpensive (between $2.00 to $6.00 per print) and I framed them in frames that I found at the Dollar Store. We have a narrow hallway kitchen in our house so they are kind of spread throughout the kitchen right now, but I think they would be cute clustered all together on the same wall as well. Love, love them!

Alphabet Book: "A" and "B"

Me and my Grace have been working on an alphabet book during some of my days off when little brother is napping. It has been a lot of fun so I thought I would share our first two official pages with you. Some of the preschool teachers I work with make 'tactile letters' with the kids in our preschool classes. Basically, you have a chunky outline of the letter you are talking about, you talk with your child about the letter (what it's called, what sound it makes, some other words that start with that sound) and then you let the child glue or decorate the letter with items that start with that particular letter's sound. The preschool kids love it and Grace has been pretty excited about it too. We started out by taking an old 3 ring binder I had around the house to use as our "book" . We decorated a cover for it and have been putting each letter page in as we go.

For the letter "A" we did apples on an "A". I cut an apple in half and Grace dipped it into red poster paint I found at Walmart. Then she stamped apples all over her "A" page. After we were finished, we ate the other half of the apple for a snack.

Other ideas for "A": apple stickers, art (just let your child draw his or her own art picture on the "A"), ants (let your child make black fingerprint ants all over the "A").

For letter "B" we did buttons on a "B". I put some glue on the "B" and let Grace go crazy placing buttons all over the "B".

We also read some books with a lot of "B" words in them after we were done (Bear Snores On,by: Karma Wilson, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by: Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault).

Other ideas for "B": blue things on a "B" (let your child paint or color the "B" blue, or glue blue pieces of paper, stickers, etc on the "B"), put bear stickers on the "B", put bug stickers on the "B".

Two Dinners in One

Sometimes we like to have roast for Sunday dinner. My husband is more of the specialist in this area, but I am getting better. I still can’t always tell you what cut of meat is what, but at least I can now cook a roast without turning it into shoe leather. Sorry, I digress; let’s get back to the topic at hand here. Making a roast can really be quite easy and hands-free. Plus, one of my favorite things about cooking a roast on Sunday is that if you make mashed potatoes and gravy with it, you can whip up a shepherd's pie when you are putting away all of the left-overs and you have an automatic meal for another night during the week. It’s like two dinners in one. I love it!Here are two of our favorite roast recipes:

PORK ROAST

Ingredients:

1 boneless 3-5 pound pork roast (we like the ones you can buy in the triple pack at COSTCO.They are fairly inexpensive and really good)

Lawry’s Garlic Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Dried rosemary sprigs (grind with a mortar and pestle before applying to your meat)

• Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.
• Place roast in a medium-sized roasting pan (with a lid), and sprinkle liberally with garlic salt, pepper, and rosemary.
• Bake, covered, at 250 degrees for 3-5 hours (depending upon the size of your roast).
• Remove from oven and let rest for 5-10 minutes before slicing. Serve with mashed potatoes, gravy*, and your choice of veggies.

* We just make up the IKEA gravy packet and then mix it together with the juices from the roast. Cheating? Maybe, we think it tastes pretty good.

BEEF ROAST (my friend gave me this recipe, and I really like it. The meat is very tender and the soup and meat juices make a nice, automatic gravy for you)

Ingredients:

1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup (without water added)

1 package onion soup mix

1 cup water

1 pot roast

• Combine all ingredients into a crock pot and cook on low for 10 hours.

Wow, this post just got really long; will post Shepherd's Pie recipes soon...

Formula Can Art Supply Organizers

My 2-year-old has taken a recent liking to doing art projects: watercolors, coloring, drawing, cutting, gluing, putting stickers on paper...she likes it all right now. And I like it too. I love watching her be creative and make her own little masterpieces. Al this art-making poses a bit of a storage dilemma, however. This is our old "art box". The "art box of craziness" I like to call it.

Everything was just thrown in there and it was hard to know which supplies were actually living in there. And, every time Little Peanut wanted to color, or draw with markers, etc, out came this whole big, honking art bin and then her two-year-old little brain would want to get out all of the art supplies, and things sometimes got a little bit out of control. That's where the formula canisters come in. I always have a hard time throwing these away because they just seem like they could be so useful for something. So, on one of my days off last week I dug the canisters out of the basement, got out some scrapbook paper, tape, markers, and scissors and went to work. I just measured the scrapbook paper and cut it to fit each canister. Then, I labeled each piece of paper with a marker, wrapped it around the canister and secured it with tape at the seam. Done!

I think they look kind of cute sitting up there on the shelf. And...it makes it MUCH easier when we do an art project. If we are working with markers, we just take the "marker" can to the kitchen table with us and the rest of the other art supplies aren't their distracting Little Peanut from what it was she wanted to do in the first place :)

Ribbon Clip Holders

Do you ever have an idea of something in your head, and then it turns out even better than how you had pictured when you actually make it? Yay! I love it when that happens! Anyway, this was one of those projects for me. I made these ribbon clip holders for all of my daughter's bows and flowers about a year ago. I know there are a lot of versions of these clip holders out there, but this is what I came up with...

I am pretty excited with how they turned out and they were pretty inexpensive and easy to make. Here's how if you want to give it a try:

What you will need:

plain wooden plaques (I got mine at 'Michael's' for $1.29 a piece)

ModPodge

decorative paper of your choice

foam brushes

plain wooden die-cut shapes ( .25 cents a piece at 'Michael's')

ribbon of your choice

glue gun or other heavy duty glue like 'E 6000'

acrylic paints (about a dollar a bottle at most craft stores)

1. Trace the outline of your wooden plaque onto the scrapbook paper and then trace a that outline again just about 1/4" inside your original line.

2. Cut out paper along the inner line and set aside.

3. Paint front and back of your wooden plaques with acrylic paints and let dry.

4. Paint your wooden cutouts with a contrasting color and set aside.

5. Once your plaques are dry, adhere your cut out piece of paper to the plaque using 'ModPodge'. (spread 'ModPodge' to the back of the paper using a foam brush, stick the paper in place on your plaque, smoothing out the bubbles, then cover the entire thing with 'ModPodge' using a foam brush).

6. Coat the entire top of the plaque and paper with 'ModPodge' a couple more times, letting it dry between each application.

7. Once 'ModPodge' is dry, glue your painted wood cutout to the center of your plaque using glue gun or other strong glue. Let dry.

8. Coat the entire plaque with a few more layers of 'ModPodge' and let dry.

9. Cut your ribbon to desired length and glue to the back of your plaque. (you may also need to attach a hook or loop of ribbon to the back so you can hang your plaque on the wall).

10. And voila! Now you are done. You can also make this project much easier and faster by just buying an already painted wood cutout (I know they have them at some craft stores) and just gluing your ribbon to the back of that.

Post #1

Welcome to my blog! As mentioned in my profile, I love to make things...crafts, food, projects with my kids... and I have wanted to start a little blog like this for a long time. There may be lots of randomness, but I am excited to have a place to post some of my favorite ideas, recipes, projects, speech therapy ideas...you name it. So, let the posting begin...Happy reading!