Some Yummies

I have been cooking some good things lately, if I do say so myself.  Some recipes I copied from Pinterest and some I just made up by myself.  Here is what we have been eating recently!

Pumpkin Muffins(from Pinterest)
1 box cake mix(I used butter yellow from Betty)
1 15oz can pumpkin

Mix with mixer and put into greased muffin tins and bake at 375 for 20 minutes.  Top with powdered sugar or brown sugar or cinnamon sugar or chocolate sauce while warm.  These are so very good and not too pumpkiny!

Beef pot pie
Boil beef roast or beef stew meat in water, salt and pepper until tender.
Remove meat and thicken with flour roux.  Add meat back to pot and add whatever veggies you would like.  I added potatoes, carrots, celery, and onion cut up.  Cook in pot until veggies are almost done.  Pour mixture into 2 deep pie crusts and then top with regular pie crusts and seal with fork.  Brush with egg wash and bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until crust is flaky and brown.

I hope you enjoy these as much as we did!  Both are new recipes for my house but are going to become staples this winter.  They are so good!

Easy Peasy

I have several friend who tell me that they can't cook or that they don't have time to cook.   I argue that point and will prove that with a series of recipes that are as simple as opening cans or cutting veggies.  I have 4 kids and a job and I educate my children at home.  I, also, run and teach a Bible study and mentor senior girls in the youth building at church.  All that to say, I am as busy as anyone else.  Let's start with an easy peasy chicken recipe:

3 chicken breasts bone in
Basil
Lemon juice
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
5 medium size potatoes
2 carrots
2 stalks of celery
1 tomato
2 tbsp oil

First, wash chicken and place in baking dish.  Season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Pour in 1/3 cup lemon juice and 1/3 cup water and cover tightly with foil.  Heat oven to 300 and cook for 2 1/2 hours.

Line another baking dish with foil and cut up the veggies.  Put the veggies in the dish.  Season with salt, and pepper and garlic powder.  Pour in the oil and stir the veggies until well coated.  Place the dish in the oven with the chicken and cook until veggies are soft.  After eating, remove the foil and the dish is clean.  So clean up is  a cinch!
This will feed my family of 6 with plenty of leftovers!

Enjoy! 

Me? Organize? Nah, Surely Not

If you know me, then you know how not organized I am.  My house is a mess at any time and my thoughts are even more cluttered.  But, for about 2 years now I have been trying to think of a way to organize my Family Fun.  I came up with a method so forgive my madness.  Here are what my magazines look like:

I have a bunch.  When I get them, I turn down the pages of the ideas, recipes, or crafts that I honestly think I can do. I get brutally honest with myself.  Too many steps or ingredients and I don't keep it.  Then, I tear them out.

I punch holes in them with a 3 hole punch.  Then, I organize them in a way that I can find them again.  My categories are: Christmas, Valentine's Day, Fall(Halloween, Thanksgiving, Back-To-School), Winter, Spring, Summer.  I had some file folders that I wasn't using.  They had pockets and they were purple! I labeled tha folders and stuffed the pages inside.  If there were more than 1 page, then I staple them together.

When I have them in their proper places, then I take the magazines and donate them to a local preschool so that they can reuse them as necessary. 

This is just 1 little way that I can get some of the clutter out of my home.  Now, that I have the system in place, I can just do it with 1 magazine each month.  Makes me feel so much better about life!

My Very "Pintersting" Weekend

I was having a party with the lovely teenagers that I teach on Sunday mornings.  They are an amazing group of young women.  I needed some heavy hors de oerves(spelling, I was a Spanish major).  I had stockpiled some yummy recipes on my Pinterest account and so I made it a challenge to use them.  They were so good that people asked me for the recipes.  I am publishing these recipes with links back to the original sites.  I changed the recipes around to suit my tastes but the foundation came from those places.  So here they are with real life pictures of how they were received.

Loaded Baked Potato Dip

16 oz sour cream
1 2 oz package of bacon pieces
2c of shredded cheddar cheese
couple of shakes of Tobasco
finely chopped green onion
 1 Tbsp mayo

Mix all the ingredients together and chill for at least 1 hour.  The original recipe which you can find here says to serve it with waffle fries but I served with potato chips(with ridges).  It was fabulous!

Chocolate Chip Dip(not a lot left)

Chocolate Chip Dip

1 pkg softened cream cheese
1/2 c softened butter
3/4 c powdered sugar
1/4 c brown sugar
1 tsp Vanilla

With mixer, blend cream cheese and butter until it is fluffy.  Then SLOWLY mix in powdered sugar and brown sugar and vanilla until blended.  Stir in the chocolate chips(mini ones work best).  Serve with Teddy Grahams or graham crackers.  Look for the original recipe here.

Bacon and Cheese Mini Frittatas

1/2 c finely diced onion
1 pkg bacon pieces
1/3 c shredded cheddar cheese
dash cayenne pepper
dash black pepper
1 egg
4 egg whites(large)

Saute the onion until translucent and soft and add in bacon.  Set aside.  Beat the egg whites and egg together and add seasonings.  Stir in the bacon/onion mixture.  I used a little water, approximately 1 tbsp and stirred together.  Pour into greased mini muffin pans and bake on 350 for 20 minutes.  These are so wonderful that I found myself eating way too many.  Look here for the original recipe. 

Beef Enchilada Roll-Ups

1 pkg Tyson precooked beef strips
1 pkg softened cream cheese
2/3 c shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
chopped cilantro
1/4 c finely chopped green onion
1 can Rotel drained well
tortillas

Enchilada Roll-Ups

Cook beef according to the package directions.  Combine all the rest of the ingredients minus the tortilla.  Mix well.  Finely chop the meat and add to the mixture.  Stir until blended.  Spread mixture onto tortilla and roll tightly.  Set to the side.  Do this until all the mixture is used.  Chill.  Once they are chilled, they are easier to slice into pinwheel pieces.  You can find the original recipe here