Weekend happenings...

This past weekend was a relatively calm one. That's nice for a change! Besides cleaning the church building we were mainly around the house, N8 and kids geocaching and making a yummy dinner! I decided to grill some burgers and boy did they turn out good!

I wanted some bacon on the burgers and thought I would give grilling bacon a try. While it's a great concept, my execution was a little off! A had read a few tutorials and all of them said watch if very closely and avoid leaving the grill-I can burn quickly. It all started out well and good:

But in the end I walked away a little too long and it was a little crispy!!

But boy were they yummy burgers!

On Sunday N8 had to leave on travel in the middle of church but Ricky & Kim came over for dinner. We decided to try out a simple 2 pieces of cardstock, on with a pinhole trick for the eclipse.

And guess what...it worked!!

Berry Delicious!

I recently ordered frozen berries through a lady from church. She puts together an order every year, but I've only split and order once before this. Since we have a new larger freezer I decided we could order more this year.
I got blueberries:
This is how they come

I bagged them into quart sized bags- it's a lot of berries!


and marion blackberries.


Now I need awesome blueberry and blackberry recipes! I've already tried one, Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake cookies. They were pretty darn good!

Baking 101...

On Friday (it was a FLEX!!!!) N8 decided he wanted to make some wheat bread. I pulled out the wheat grinder and ground some wheat for him and pulled out a recipe I have from a friend. He did very well until:

From 2011-04-30

He didn't realize that you can't put a wooden spoon into a mixing kitchenaid! The spoon got tossed, N8 went through the dough and pulled out the piece of wood from the spoon and moved on to forming the rolls:

And the final product was yummy!

Just a note on the wooden spoon. It was a hand me down. When my Grandma Fielding passed away my mom gave me a box of random items that belong to her. I got a cookie jar, jello mold and a wooden spoon. Who knows how old the spoon was. I used it a lot. N8 had no idea when he used the spoon that it had any sort of sentimental value. I think that my Grandma Fielding would be happy to know it's demise occurred while making bread. She was an awesome bread maker!

Cooking...

I cook but prefer to bake. I feel like 90% of what I cook turns out poorly and/or my kids won't eat it. Conference weekend I felt like a cooked a lot. Most of which turned out fairly well and got mostly eaten. We'll count that as a success!
I made cinnamon rolls for Sunday morning using "Clone of a Cinnabon" from Allrecipes. They were my most successful cinnamon rolls to date.

I also made cookies (which I make basically every Sunday and have since I was a teen. I feel as though I have mastered the chocolate chip cookie.)

Croutons! Why had I never made homemade croutons before? N8 and I really like having them on our salad each night. The kids would prefer the store bought kind instead.

My mom gave me a recipe for a new bread. I've tried it twice. The first time was sucessful, but not quite what we wanted. My second time was much more successful. It's a "no knead" bread that you start the day before. On the cooking day you fold yummy things into the bread. This version has cheese. Everything is better with cheese! I'll put my mom's directions for the bread at the end of the post.


On Monday I took dinner into some friends that were sick. I tried my hand at making chicken noodle soup in the crock pot. I altered the recipe slightly (I didn't use frozen noodles, instead I cooked them separately. I also added some carrots.) N8, Bud and I enjoyed this one. Emma and Mo enjoyed the saltines. (in the picture you can't see chicken or noodles, but they were both there!)

Last but not least. Peanut butter rice crispy treats. They turned out terribly :) I am convinced that Walmart: Great Value brand marshmallows are totally sub-par! They were dry and crunchy :(

Tammy's Artisan Bread

(I'm not sure who Tammy is BTW, my mom is Cristel :)

3 cuups flour(white flour best, but could use 1/2 cup wheat flour)

1/4 tsp. yeast

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 5/8 cup of water (which is 1 cup plus 1/2 cup then half of 1/4 cup more water)

Use a Pyrex bowl what that has a lid to bake it in. (2 Quart)

It is good to start this procedure about 4 or 5 pm in the afternoon

It a large bowl stir together ingredients with a sturdy spoon very lightly. (Mom: I mix it in my Pyrex bowl)

Cover with plastic. Let stand 12-14 hours on top of your counter. Not in fridge. ( I mixed at 4 pm, then resumed the process at 2-3 pm the next day)

When you resume the next day, (recipe said 9-10 am or later) turn out dough onto floured surface. Fold in edges 4 times only ssprinkling each time with

Parmesan cheese as you fold. Cover lightly with oil then place plastic wrap back on dough. Let rest 5 minutes.

Repeat folds, adding deluxe ingredients, garlic salt, onions salt, dried parsley, and more Parmesan if desired. ( I used Italian seasoning, dried onion, Basil, garlic powder, whatever you like) Cover with plastic and let rest 30 - 40 minutes.

Place glass Pyrex with lid in oven and heat to 480 degrees. Put bread directly into hot Pyrex (It will sizzle) and straight into the oven with lid on.

Bake about 25-30 minutes depending on your pre-heated oven. (I cooked it 25 minutes)

Remove and cool on wire rack. Makes 1 loaf or 2 small loaves.

Santa needed some cookies...

Tonight we decorated cookies for Santa. I tried a new recipe. It's pretty good. It's not a soft and chewy cookie, but the flavor is good and it was easy to roll and cut out after the dough was chilled. I also decided to go with a royal icing to decorate. I then bought ketchup bottles at Walmart for easier icing. They kids had a great time and I liked that it was much less messy using the bottles rather than a knife!

Mo really liked putting on the sprinkles!!




Henry helped out N8:

This was my favorite that I made:

Tomorrow will be an exciting day. Bud and Emma are SUPER excited for Santa to come and open presents. Mo will be excited once he realizes that he finally gets to open what's been sitting under the tree.
Tonight I'm thinking of Mary being ready to deliver a baby. I'm thinking of the Shepherds beings visited by an angel letting them know the the Savior had been born. I'm thinking of the love I have for the Savior and all that he has done for us.
Merry Christmas

The great cookie exchange!

On Monday morning my house turned into a sweets shop! My house was the location for the 2nd annual cookie exchange. This year that turned out to be 18 women (who knows how many children!), at least 19 different treats, which turned out to be about 1000 goodies.

Each person was asked to bring 4 dozen treats. That meant everyone could take home 2 of each treat and then there were some leftovers for tasting and snacking on after. I got a picture of everyone as the came in with their goodies:




And here are all of the goodies:



It was so much fun and everything tasted SUPER YUMMY! This is an annual tradition that I hope we continue!
Merry Christmas!

Baby Shower Cheesecake Style!

Last night Kim and I hosted a baby shower for a friend of ours. She's having a baby boy and is due in just 2 weeks! She loves cheesecake so Kim and I decided to try and do all cheesecake, but with a twist. Only one of our homemade cheesecakes was baked in the traditional spring-form pan.

That one was from Annie's Eats: Caramel Apple Cheesecake Pie~

From her blog we also made Dulce de Leche Cheesecake bars~

Over at the Picky Palate we made Peanut Butter Cookie Crusted Jelly Swirled Cheesecake bites~

We also had Cheesecake brownies~

and Chocolate Cheesecake Squares~

We balanced out all of that cheesecake with some fruit~

For some of our decor we use wheat grass in short glass containers, tied with ribbon and cute little woodland animals~


We started out the shower by giving each of the guests a little coloring project! We made the mom-to-be a "Baby's first counting book". Each guest was given a page with a number in the corner and asked to draw a picture with that number of items on the page. This is a great way to let the mom to be have a fun gift, but it also is a keepsake that shows who all came to the baby shower! We got some really cute pictures!! The pages will get laminated and bound, then given to the mom and baby. Here are some of the guest working on their pages:

Here are a few of the pages:

All in all it turned out well! She got lots of super cute little boy stuff and we ate some yummy food!

I love...

• Family
  
• Baking
• Crafting

This weekend my sister and her family popped in for Friday afternoon and Saturday! We always have such a great time visiting and playing games. Here are the adults and teens during a brief break from playing nerts!! The kids were enjoying a movie.
We had so much fun that this was only one of 3 pictures I took this weekend. The other two were of food!!

I love finding fun simple new recipes to try out, especially when they're for dessert!! I recently subscribed to Southern Living
I obviously don't live in the South, but I enjoy the decorating ideas and there are some really yummy recipes!! This one is for Banana Bread Cobbler!! It is super duper yummy and easy to make!!

Ingredients for batter

• 1 cup self-rising flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 4 medium-size ripe bananas, sliced
• Streusel Topping
• Vanilla ice cream

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375°. Whisk together flour and next 2 ingredients just until blended; whisk in melted butter. Pour batter into a lightly greased 11- x 7-inch baking dish. Top with banana slices, and sprinkle with Streusel Topping.

Ingredients for Struesel

• 3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup self-rising flour
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup uncooked regular oats
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preparation

Stir together brown sugar, flour, and butter until crumbly, using a fork. Stir in oats and pecans.

Bake at 375° for 40 to 45 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly. Serve with ice cream.
(I left out the pecans and used 1 1/2 cups of oats)

Crafting is an outlet for me. I'm not very good at sewing, but I enjoy it. I enjoy starting a project and finishing it. Most of the crafts I do are not time consuming, so I see a quick result!
Recently a friend of mine saw the pictures of one of the car seat canopy's and asked if I wanted to try selling them at her hair salon. I decided to give it a shot! It gives my an excuse to find super cute fabric and sew more!! I also decided to make a nursing cover attachment. That way you can just clip your car seat canopy on and keep your self covered up while nursing. It's just a ribbon with 2 suspender clips sewn on either end.