Corn Diggety-Dog

I found the funnest recipe here on Lick the Bowl Good I really wanted to share with you all. A recipe for Baked Corndogs, cute, cute, cute :)

Here I have my ingredients

And here I have it in the oven, (I am a picture taking slacker)

Now that's all I am showing you, why??? Because mine didn't turn out anywhere as beautiful as Monica's! (plus I was on the computer and kinda forgot about them and they got a little over done :) So Seriously go here -> -> ->
And check out how cute they are :) That & the yummy, yummy, yummy cake recipe She just posted :)

More fun skirts

I have been having some fun sewing again :) The JoAnn Fabric store by us had their clearance fabric 50% off! So I bought some fun fabrics to make the girls some skirts. Miss M's green strawberry skirt I used a Simplicity pattern, the other two I made up as I went.


Here they are again-


What the heck, one more time!

Now my Mommer needed her Serger back :( Oh Sad, Sad day :(
I am trying to talk my Hubby into letting me get my own but they are pretty pricey machines, so I don't see that happening any time soon.
Oh well, someday..............


This will be mine! Muahahahaha! lol

Potato Soup with Focaccia

Here is my soup for this weeks Souper Sundays
I have been making this soup since I was 12, it's one of my families favorites. One of my favorite things about this soup is how easy & simple it is, as long as I have a bag of potatoes and some kind of milk I can make this soup. Now if I were making this just for me I would add celery, the kids (& Hubby) out-voted me on this one. Darn it!!

McFarland's Potato Soup


Ingredients;
1- 5lb bag of Potatoes, peeled and cubed
Water
1c. cubed Ham
1c. Corn
1c. Cream
1/2c. Butter
2T. Parsley
1c. shredded Cheese
2T. Alpine Spice/ or Salt & Pepper blend

Place your potatoes,ham & corn in a large pot. Add enough water to cover those ingredients. Bring to a boil, turn heat down, stir in the parsley, simmer until the potatoes are tender about 20-30 min.
Remove from heat add butter, cheese and cream- you can substitute marg, for the butter, and reg. milk, half 'n half or canned milk for the cream.
Now I get to use one of my absolute favorite kitchen gadgets- my immersion blender- here it is- The Star *******

Here is the soup before I use my Star-


Here is the soup after-

Nice & thick & creamy, yum.

Now the Focaccia recipe I got from Allrecipes.com, it's not the best I have ever had so I decided not to post it, but if you wanna check it out you can go there :)

So here we have the finished product, Potato Soup with Focaccia-


If you get a chance you should go check out the Souper Sunday Blog, she made a beautiful soup there Sunday :)
Happy Monday All!

Some Great Finds

I don't know if any of my Blog Friends play piano but I wanted to share a few great finds in case any of you do :)

Here is a fun blog I found that has some fun sheet music-
The Piano Room

Also here is a link to the sheet music- Yiruma-River Flows in You

And for you Twilight Lovers out there- Bella's Lullaby

Both are free to print, I was really excited to find these. :)

Souper de Douper and a Shout Out

I have been wanting to get a soup made, with pictures, so I could enter it into the Souper Sundays. Which you can find out about here -> Kahakai Kitchen .

So today I made a yummy recipe I got from my Mommer :)

Italian Wedding Soup

1/2 Orzo
*1/2 lb extra lean Ground Burger
*1 egg, beaten
*2T. Bread Crumbs
*1T. Parmesan Cheese
*1/2t. each of dried Basil & Onion powder
6c. Chicken Broth
2c. thinly sliced Spinach
1/3c. finely chopped Carrots
Parmesan Cheese

Combine all the ingredients proceeded by a star, use this to make little mini meatballs. Heat the broth to a boil, add the other ingredients and the mini Meatballs.

Simmer for 10-20 min. Serve sprinkled with Parmesan Cheese.

Yummy, Yummy, this sure hit the spot for lunch on a chilly Montana day :) Miss M enjoyed sprinkling cheese on her own little bowl of soup.


I also wanted to give a shout out to Crystal over at Don't Try Her. She posted about how she added softened cream cheese to her brownie batter to make yummy Brownies. I have never, and I mean NEVER been able to make a good, not crunchy, Brownie. I had given up :(
I gave her suggestion a try, and my Family sends a huge THANK YOU to Crystal :) I have made perfectly moist Brownies 3 times now! Here is a picture of the dessert we made using Brownies to welcome home our Daddy last weekend.


If you haven't been to Crystal's blog you should check it out, she has some Wonderful Recipes over there!

Hurray!!!! It's Friday!!!!!!

Egg-a-Licious

I decided to make some deviled eggs with some of the boiled eggs in my fridge. And since I NEVER measure, I am borrowing Raoulysgirl's disclaimer (modified for cooking) for this post :)

So here we have our ingredients-

Here is the picture I took of the ingredients half way through mixing cause I forgot to take one before :) -

I always scoop the egg mixture into a zip baggie and snip the corner, this works great for piping the filling in, and when I'm done I throw the baggie away! Love it :) -

Here is my finished product-


A quick bit about boiled eggs, I always make them the way my Momma taught me- Put the eggs in a pan, cover with cold water, bring to a gentle boil, boil 20 min, (I always cook a bit longer, I'm paranoid). Remove from heat, pour out the hot water and run cold water over the eggs, let sit in water until cooled.
Now I don't know if this process is special in any way I do know that my Grandma does it the exact same way. So this got me to thinking, I have heard several tips for how to get good boiled eggs, or make them easier to peel, yadda, yadda, yadda........ So I compiled a list for you, these are things that I have heard, tried, or read- and once again disclaimer applies, Thank You Raoulysgirl :)

1- To get perfectly peeled hard-cooked eggs, use eggs that are at least 3 to 5 days.
Now this is close to something my Gram has said- she says that older eggs make better boiled eggs. So you should always buy your eggs a week before you plan on boiling them. It makes them easier to peel.

2-If your eggs are brought to room temp before you start to cook them they will be less likely to crack, now this tip doesn't fit into the Fausett Family Egg Boiling method, never tried it, don't know :)
3- Cover with cold water to cook your eggs, While they're in the cold water, a layer of steam develops between the shell and the egg white. The steam helps make peeling an egg much easier.

4-(This is a good one, it explains why my yolks are always green :)
Watch the time when cooking the eggs carefully. Overcook causes a green layer to form around the yolk. This layer is caused by a reaction between the iron in the yolk and the sulfur in the white. Heat speeds up this reaction, so the longer your eggs cook, the greater the chance of discoloration.

5-Adding a tablespoon of vinegar to the water will help keep the egg whites from running out of any eggs that happen to crack while cooking, also adding a half teaspoon of salt is thought to help both with the preventing of cracking and making the eggs easier to peel. Now I also read that using salt in the cooking water can make your egg whites rubbery, so you choose :)

6-You can keep hard boiled eggs for up to 1 week in the fridge and they will be fine.


With Easter coming up I will get a chance to try some of these that I haven't tried, and find some more ways to use up hard boiled eggs! :)

Votes please :)

Hi all :) I don't usually do this kind of thing but I entered a contest on the Blog- Got Org? and I needs some votes. The Blog is awesome and way worth checking out for the great tips! Here is the link- Got Org? You can check it out and if you want to you can vote for me :) I am so not the politician type, whew :)

What to do, what to do

Miss K had a culinary request for me, thank goodness so far all of such from my kiddo's have been fairly simple, the hardest part is usually trying to figure out what they mean. Here's her request-

Miss K- can you make those eggs that you cook in water?
Me- poached? like we eat on toast?
Miss K- No, they have the shell on them.
Me- OH hard boiled?
Miss K- yeah! I like those, can you make them so I can have them for Breakfast?
Me- sure


So as I got the eggs cooking, all four monst.... errr Kiddo's came running through the kitchen, they stopped to see what I was up to. They like to keep an eye on me, they think I get up to trouble or something. I explained what I was doing and of course they all had some input on what to do with boiled eggs so I thought I would share their ideas with you.....

K says- I can pretend they are regular eggs and tease you that I am going to smash them on my head :) He likes to tease me.


B says- Um.....eggs??? Gross...... hee hee.... Feed them to R! (the Dog)


Miss K says- Eat them for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner!!!


M says- Feed them to Daddy, cause he is ALWAYS hungry :)


Now me when I think about hard boiled eggs I always think Egg Salad Sandwiches, yum.
How about you? What do you do with hard boiled eggs???

Green Day, Rootbeer Float Cake, and post from the Slacker

I feel like I have been a total slacker lately, an online slacker, I haven't been on here much. I have been feeling a little blue for some unknown reason, which is not uncommon- I have issues :)
Anyhow I wanted to post about a few fun things. I wanted to show some pic's of our Green Dinner-



And My little helper K, helped me make a delicious cake, RootBeer Float cake from Lisa's Cookbook. There are a TON of great recipes on there, if you enjoy cooking you should definitely check it out.
So here I have my little Kitchen Sla.... I mean helper :)



Here are the cast of ingredients



Here is the K stirring up the ingredients, this recipe is awesome and super easy- see the 6 year making it?????

Super Easy and you can check out the recipe here- :) :) :)

Here it R my other helper, he wanted a taste and I told him NO, he got a chewie instead, poor little guy.



Here we have our fluffy frosted cake, I think I will sample a piece, if I'm careful no one will even notice ;)



See how sneaky I was :)


Yum everyone LOVED it, Thank You Lisa!!!


Also there is a Blog I wanted to share with you all- Got Org is a great blog if you need some help organizing your life, which I DEFINITELY do. She has great helps and tips, it is a great one to check out as well and you can get there by going here- :) :) :)

Happy Thursday All! :)

Cartoon Craze

There have been a lot of Blogs about Crazy Cartoons, and I just felt like I had to add in my 2 cents :) We are very, and I mean VERY picky about what our Kiddos are aloud to watch. As they have gotten older, we have relaxed about it somewhat but are still quite picky. And usually I will go on my gut feelings. If we have rented a movie and somewhere into it I start to feel that it is going somewhere inappropriate, my Kiddos love that word, then I have no qualms about turning it off. Now I won't say that this doesn't upset them but they have gotten to where they are usually in agreement with me.

When B was in kindergarten she came home upset one day because for snack one of the Kids brought in little individual pkged baby carrots with Sponge Bob pictures on the pkging. Now in our house Sponge bob is considered somewhat of an R rated thing. When we lived in Student Family Housing we received free Cable TV, the Kiddos who were 6, 5, 3, and 1 then would be watching say- Dora the Explora and when that ended Sponge bob, or any other unapproved nasty cartoon would pop on, you would hear shouts of MOM!!!!! Sponge bob is on!!!!!!- They would be in total panic to change the channel or turn off the TV, it was pretty cute. And even now, we get public TV and they watch PBS Kids, if a show comes on that they don't know about they will turn it off and come ask if I think it's ok.

I do realize that as they get older I will probably have some problems with this, but I hope that they will have learned by then to have some discretion about what they choose to watch. There is already so much bad out there that I can't protect them from, I feel that in Our home things should be as free from all that as I can possibly make it.

My Kiddos have never watched Cartoon Network, there is nothing on there that I feel they need to have in their heads. I remember renting a Tweety Bird video for them when they were small, I thought ya know Tweety Bird, cute little bird. should be fine right??? OK- right away the Bird is beating the you know what out of the Cat!! What the heck! So that one backfired on me and I learned my lesson.

My In-Laws, Siblings and yes even my own MOTHER think that I am silly to not let them watch things such as Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Tom and Jerry, just to name a few. And I have so many friends who insist that Sponge bob is a little kids cartoon, age 2?????, I will stick to my own judgment, Thank You.

I have learned to just smile and shake my head when it comes up. You never realize before you have Children what a HUGE responsibility it is! You get to be responsible for everything that goes into them, not only their body but their minds. Being a parent is definitely not easy.

Favorite Kid movies for us- Veggie Tales, we love 'em :)

White & Proud

I received a neat e-mail from my cousin and my Hubby posted about it on his Blog.

Here is the Link - Linky

I have many friends of different nationalities, and believe in EQUAL treatment for everyone, Including us plain old white/Caucasian folks :)
I hope you all get a chance to check it out :)

Chicken & Rice- Rice & Chicken

One of our favorite, OK, maybe not favorite- lets say easy, quick staple meals :) Is baked Chicken with rice. Which I always have to cook separately because I am not capable of cooking them together and having it turn out. Very simple basic recipes, but I thought I would share my Rice recipe with you all.


Here is the line up of ingredients-
8c. boiling Water
4c. Rice
2t. vegetable bouillon
1T. dried Parsley
1t. Alpine Spice

Bring the water to a boil, add all but Rice, stir to dissolve Bouillon then stir in the rice, cover and turn to low. Let cook for about 20 min, stirring about half way through time.
And here it is all done-


Wa-La! :) Chicken and Rice. And tomorrow it could be as complicated as something like..........
PB & J! :) Happy Tuesday!

A Little Bit of Bling

B's girls group had a pinewood derby, they rules were simple- the car wasn't suppose to weigh more than 5 oz and could only be so wide. B really wanted a car with some Bling, and it had to be blue so here it is-

The Baby Blue Sparkler


I think half the weight of this car if from all the jewels and glitter, it is completely covered in glitter, even the wheels :) She won all but 1 race, it was quite the thrilling night.

Fun & Challenging

I am posting a response to the challenge given over at This Stop Willoughby. The challenge was to search through random blogs and find one that I enjoyed. So here it is, this blog is absolutely beautiful. It has Amazing graphics, pictures & recipes even! Here you go-

The house in the roses

This one blog that I will definitely be keeping my eye on. Thank You for the fun challenge! :)

Honestly Me

I received my 2nd Award! Thank You Monica! Monica's Blog has tons of Awesome recipes you really need to check it out! Here's my Award-


I get to pass this along to 7 great Blogs-

1- Forty Something and Counting
2- Good things come to those who Blog
3- Muddy Runner
4- My Tasty Treasures
5- This Stop Willoughby
6- Who Has the Thyme?
7- WE EAT

These are Amazing Blogs I hope everyone checks them out!

The rules of the award:

• Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.
• Show the 7 winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with "Honest Scrap." Well, there's no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
• List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

So here goes-

1. I LOVE bright colors, but I never wear them, because they make me feel very self conscious.
2. I can't say NO to things, I always say yes and take on to much. Although the kids are helping me work on this one ;)
3. I love to blare rock music in the car when the kids aren't with me.
4. I can't swallow pills, unless they are gel tabs or really small, I choke on them, I'm a dork :)
5. Of all the things I have to clean the Kitchen is my favorite, I like it when my Kitchen is shiny.
6. I really enjoy cooking and baking, it makes me feel good to cook for others.
7. I can't eat out without being grossed out, I always worry about who touched, or messed with my Food, Gag. I would rather eat at home.
8. Same thing goes with prepackaged foods, gag.
9. I am a Chocolate Snob, I will only eat the good stuff.
10. Have you seen the Huggies Bubble commercial? I would keep my kiddos in a bubble if I could. That way they would be safe, clean and germ free all the time :)

Montana Chokecherry Syrup and some yummy 'Shrooms

I have been meaning to make and bottle some chokecherry syrup. I finally got around to it AND took some pictures! So here goes-
First you need these guys-
8c. White Sugar
4c. Chokecherry Syrup, I was given some from my Grandma that she had canned, Thanks Gram!
2 T. Lemon Juice
And here they are all lined up for their photo shoot-


Oh yeah in case you were wondering what Chokecherries look like here is a picture-

They are very sour, similar to cranberries but darker in color and smaller.

So you put all the ingredients in a big pan and heat until it's starts to boil, looks like this-


Let it boil for 1 min. let it cool for a bit then bottle it up. I'm using this for Teacher gifts so they ended up like this-

These were also something I made this weekend-
Sausage and Cheese stuffed 'Shrooms

Next time I make these I will post the recipe and some better pictures :)