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 :)