Valentine Cupcakes

I have a few friends, who shall rename nameless for their own protection, that don't like... icing! What? Tragedy right? I mean, I could eat a whole tub of the stuff. So in my best efforts to overlook this huge flaw in their characters, I made them some special cupcakes a few day back. Since it was so close to Valentine's, they got pink with hearts. (They happen to love strawberry cake so that worked out nicely for me.)

Instead of icing, ugh - I can barely even type that, they got powdered sugar and red fruit strip hearts...

It was so easy. A little sticky, but easy. I simply cut the fruit strips with my kitchen scissors and let my littles eat the scraps. (Waste not, want not. Right?)

After sprinkling the powdered sugar on half of the cupcakes, I took the hearts off a few and left powdered sugar heart stamps. Easy peasy and so yummy. In case you are wondering... yes, I brought my own tub of icing for the sane folks who love sugar as much as me. wink. wink.

Side note - I know I have been MIA for a bit and some of you have been kind enough to ask if all is well. It is. Thank you so much for your concern. This social media bit is eating my brain for lunch and I've been trying to process it all. More on that later. I've still got a lot to sort through. Many thanks and deep gratitude for those of you that are still hanging around my very tiny portion of the blogosphere.

Happy Thursday Homies. Love is in the air. xo

For the Love of Coffee

I love coffee. The aroma. The taste. The way it warms you up in the cold. And the way it wakes you up in the mornings. It's not just a drink, it's also a bonding agent. My friends and I gather over coffee often. I drink my coffee while I meet with God and read His word.  To me, coffee just goes hand in hand with the warmth of love of community. Silly I know. It's a bean. 

Now, let me tell you what I don't love. Fake. (Well, unless it's fake fur.) And because I love my coffee along with the pure joy it brings me... I don't want any fake in my coffee. I have tried a number of coffee creamer recipes found via Pinterest and much to my dismay, they have all disappointed. Until now. I have finally figured it out. It's all in the ratio. Ratio. Ratio. Very important, otherwise it's not sweet enough or the flavor is just all wrong.

Here's what you need to make the perfect creamer - Yes! I said perfect and I mean it. (If you're wondering why the two mason jars? - ratio! One can of sweetened condensed milk makes about 1.5 mason jars of creamer.)

 <half of each per container
.>>

Once you fill your container with half of each milk, add pure vanilla extract if you like French Vanilla creamer. One to two tablespoons depending on your preference. Before stirring, your creamer will look like this...

Mixing your ingredients well is also very crucial to a good consistent flavor. That's where the trusty blender (one of my most beloved Christmas gifts ever) comes in handy...

That contraption/mixer/extension or whatever you call it, is uh-mazing...blending all of the ingredients to absolute perfection.

Yum. Yum. Yummers. So simple right? Half and Half. Sweetened Condensed Milk. Vanilla. Three ingredients. Here's the kicker - not only does it taste great, but it's inexpensive and lasts us 2 weeks or more. I also use it in my tea, both Chai, pictured above, and Chamomile Vanilla. (I think I have a thing for vanilla. And sugar.) How do you take your coffee or tea? xo

PS - the hubs and I got an espresso maker for Christmas. I die!

Around the House: A Look Back at Christmas Dinner

There are those moments in life where you reach certain milestones that just, in all honesty, require a self-given pat on the back. That happened to me over Christmas. Y'all, I cooked the entire Christmas dinner myself - with the exception of my Mom's help with the sweet potatoes. Turkey and all. Me - the self-professed kitchen hater. And guess what else? It was good. I mean really good. Can I get a what what?

And while everything was cooking, I knocked out this table setting that I'm kind of in love with...

2013 was a year full of firsts - some really good and some I never want to relive. The first holidays without my Dad are behind us now and while there was a deep void, new memories were made and there were proud moments as well. So let me say it one more time, just because it feels so dang good... y'all, I cooked Christmas dinner, turkey and all! Here's to the new year with new memories and lots of proud moments for us all! xo

Adios Cooking Woes

Food. It's a love/hate relationship in my kitchen. I love to eat. I hate to cook. I have my staples that keep me and my family from going hungry and don't require any planning. I don't meal plan and I try to only go to the grocery store once a week (less if I can get away with it). It's simple and that's the way I like it. Or should I say, liked it. We have been trying to eat less meat and much more healthy for the past several weeks. In the beginning I wanted to cry every time I walked into the kitchen to cook dinner. But alas there is hope for me yet! (Ahhh... the angels are singing.) I am starting to enjoy trying new things and I swear my tastebuds are starting to change. I actually like foods that I would have gagged at in the past - avocado and cantaloupe. And I'm finding that flavors really do compliment each other. ( I know - duh!)

My new favorite meal is the many varieties of the beautiful burrito. Sometimes there's rice. Other times corn and black beans. Sunday night I even threw in some cinnamon and butternut squash. Yum! I could go on and on. The point is this...don't be afraid to try new things in the kitchen. What's the worst that can happen? It goes into the dog's bowl? It goes down the drain? Oh well. My Dad used to say, "the best four letter word to say is next." He was a salesman. Can ya tell? He was right though. The next meal could become a new favorite! 

Here are a few new meals I plan on trying this week:

Caprese Grilled Cheese Sandwich (not too adventurous, which means a good start)

Spinach Burgers

Cheesy Orzo and Garden Veggies (less the fresh tomatoes - I tried them on the burrito above and yup, still don't like 'em)

Sweet Potato Burrito with Avocado Salsa Verde

Veggie Burgers (homemade, not frozen)

And you want to know the best dessert to accompany healthy eating? Uh-huh. You guessed it... fruit! Yummy.

How about you? What have you whipped up in the kitchen lately? xo

Whole What?

I don't want to try it. I know I need to at least attempt it... The it isWhole 30. Everyone's singing the praises of eating whole foods, but quite frankly a life with no dairy and no lattes scares the crap out of me. At first my hubs was all in. "Yeah, we should do that!" Then I broke the news, "no cereal, no milk or cheese - no dairy, no chips, no bread..." His reply was, "I hate it already." Gotta love a man that's honest. To be real, my even greater fear is having to prepare two meals every breakfast, lunch and dinner. My boys are picky, picky eaters and I hate spending any more time in the kitchen than absolutely necessary. That's the whole truth and nothin' but the truth. So, until I can prepare my mind and my kitchen for Whole 30, I'm sticking to "healthier" eating. That includes my smoothies. I love them. Quick, easy, nutritious and good.

Ingredients:
3/4 milk or more depending on desired thickness (can substitute soy milk or coconut milk)
4-5 cubes of ice (to make it super cold)
1 banana
1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt
fruit (if you want to spice it up...applesauce, strawberries, blueberries, whatever is in season)
1 tablespoon of peanut butter
handful of spinach

Mix well (I use a hand blender) and drink in the goodness.

* I recently added in a handful of kale, in addition to the spinach, and I am delighted to report that it did NOT change the flavor!  And, when I'm craving some chocolate, which is often, I add a scoop of Ovaltine. No lie. It rocks the house.

Yum. Yum. Yummy. So good and semi-healthy...right? 

Have you done Whole 30? If so, did you go back to your old way of eating afterward? Was it super hard? Spill the beans... I mean, the nuts! xo

Whipping Up Some Goodness

Okay, in my little survey some of you asked that I share some cooking/recipes. Ha. That one seriously made me laugh. You guys know I don't likey the cooking. Especially in the summer - it's too dang hot! But if there's sugar involved, it makes "cooking" so much easier. I made the above summer treats with four simple ingredients.

whipped cream

graham crackers

mini chocolate chips

sprinkles

Easy peasy "cooking" steps: break your graham crackers into squares, add a dollop of whipped cream in the center of your crackers, top with another graham cracker, dip sides into chocolate chips and sprinkles then freeze. YUM!

Once they're frozen...chow down. xo

Holy Pumpkin Charlie Brown!

Anything I can do to limit my time in the kitchen is a good thing. In fact, I often skip lunch or grab just a handful of almonds. So you can imagine my delight when I found yet another delicious vitamin packed smoothie to supplement lunch (or breakfast).  It's quick, easy and oh baby is it delish!

Pumpkin Smoothie

1/4 cup canned pumpkin

2 heaping spoonfuls of vanilla yogurt

1 banana

1 spoonful of peanut butter (I do heaping...I'm an addict)

1 handful of ice cubes

milk to thin as desired

Blend in blender or with hand-blender and enjoy!

If you really want to go all out, add whipped cream and cinnamon on top. Thank you, thank you Better Homes and Gardens for a fantabulous Fall smoothie that keeps my hunger monsters at bay and me out of the kitchen! xo

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Processed Foods

1940's

It started with Fast Food Nation. Then came Super Size Me. Followed by Food, Inc. and The Garden. This is not necessarily the order in which these movies were released, but it shows my slow progression of awareness (in movie form) of the crap we are putting into our bodies and the fight that many are involved in to make a difference. Even the USDA can't decide what or how much of something we should be eating - the "charts" change all the time.

Recently the hubs got me to watch Sick, Fat and Nearly Dead as well as Fork Over Knives. And while I will be the first to admit that they are both one sided documentaries, I also have to admit they make a whole lot of sense. I can see nothing wrong with consuming more fruits, veggies and legumes and less processed foods.  Probably over half of the food I feed my family is processed. Yikes!  That's kind of astounding - and gross. I mean, if I can't pronounce it and have zero idea what it is, should I be eating it? Or be giving it to my kiddos for that matter? Dang it!  Just when I thought I could really do this cooking thing, the rules changed on me. Oh well, it's never too late to learn something new right?

We've had our juicer for 2 weeks now and so far the thing annoys the tar outta me because it's always on the counter drying and the juice doesn't really get my taste buds all fired up. What does fire me up is celebrating my 50th wedding anniversary, spending time with my grandkids, and having enough energy to do it all. Add to that the possibility of not having to rely on the drug companies to keep me "healthy" and you have a win, win situation. Plus it's fun watching the littles get excited to eat sweet red corn, celery, peppers and make juice with Daddy.


Will we say good-bye to dairy, chips and cereal? I don't think so. Healthy Moderation is the name of our game. xo

Weekly Challenge: June Cleaver Style

***

School is in full swing now. For the past two weeks I've done my best to welcome my sweet Jude home June Cleaver style. Do you remember on Leave It to Beaver that whenever the boys came home from school June would have a snack for them?  Usually fresh baked cookies. Being that cookies aren't the most wholesome of snacks, I've tried to provide healthier options. Don't get me wrong, fresh baked cookies were on the menu for days 1 and 2, I'm not a saint ya know. 

"cars"

insects (we traded out peanut butter for yogurt and cheese)

apple nachos (minus the nuts)

fruit nachos (yogurt or peanut butter is delish)

popcorn

I'm sure more ideas will surface the more I get into this. I hope I don't putter out while trying to keep their tanks full! As we devour our goodies, we sit at the kitchen table, talk about our day and do homework - all of us. It's a great way to catch up and get Liam geared up for school.  Happy Weekend. xo

Kitchen Help

It should be said, again, that I don't like to cook. In my eyes it's a necessary evil. But if I could cook in a kitchen with these pretties, and a glass of red wine in hand, I think I'd love it. And, I might even be good at it. Ha!

***

I'm pretty sure the scenery would make the food taste better too. Hmm... maybe I should start telling myself that I love cooking and try to change my perspective a bit. If any of you have a favorite recipe containing 6 ingredients or less, email me!  I know - 6 or less is asking for a lot but I'm a low maintenance kid of a girl and I need to start slow and easy. xo

MMMM....

 Most of you know, if you've been hanging around this little blog of mine for any length of time, I HATE cooking. Not just cooking, baking too. All of it. I do, however, love to eat! So when I found this simple little dessert on the back of the graham cracker box I was super stoked.

Chocolate-Banana Graham Cake! It kind of tastes like banana pudding and it might even be better.
Ingredients:
chocolate pudding
bananas
cool Whip
graham crackers

Funny thing, I didn't even have any box pudding so I took the boys single pudding snacks and used those. I simply layered my pan with the graham crackers then pudding, then banana slices then cool whip. After doing this three times, I added graham cracker sprinkles to the top and chilled. DELISH! xo

Around the House: Kitchen Love with Wicked and Weird

Hello out there! It’s Lisa from Wicked & Weird here, and I am so flattered to be asked by Brooke to put together a guest post for you. Her blog is such an inspiring place; it was hard to think of something she hadn’t already covered beautifully!

However, the best inspiration is always close at hand, and being at the tail end of a kitchen reno, my thoughts are still all about the kitchen. I searched high and low for kitchen ideas, and luckily they are pretty easy to come by online. It seemed everywhere I looked there was lots of open shelving, sometimes in place of upper cabinets.

Country Home

Country Home

Country Home (I love this one!)

Design*Sponge

Design*Sponge

Canadian House and Home

Aqua Vitae Design via Desire to Inspire

While they look lovely in photos like these, I worried that there would be no way I could keep them clean and organized. Plus we have very little room to work with in our house, and I figured the space would be better used for crammable cupboards. So in the end, we went without this trend in our kitchen. Here is a sneak peek at our space-in-progress:

(The upper cabinets are white – they still have a protective film on them here!)

But I still love how shelves can highlight beautiful collections – my personal fav is Russel Wright pottery. I am collecting the lemon yellow…

although I like all the colours, including sea foam below, and think they would be lovely mixed together.

Another potential collection that would look gorgeous on open shelving is the ever-popular Fiestaware, adding a bright pop of colour to any kitchen.

And then of course, neutral but chic food organizers from any kitchen retailer would help with the necessary storage and blend with any collection. These are from Ikea and Crate and Barrel, but places like Walmart or Zellers have nice pieces as well.

Since I can’t get the idea out of my head, I may have to add open shelves somewhere in the house! What do you think - does your kitchen have open shelving? Is it a trend you like or don’t?

Thanks again to Brooke for letting me post on Pure & Noble. Brooke - I hope you are enjoying your break! ☺