Have a safe new year!

I'm sorry it's been a while, things have been crazy here through the whole holiday season. I really hope to get back on here with a quickness.

I wanted to get on today and say I hope everyone has a very Happy New Year! Please be safe and have a blast!

I feel like this year has flown by and now is the time to say goodbye to 2010 and welcome 2011 in for a bright new year. I hope with the new year we will find new opportunities and a better way of living. 2010 was a hard year for my DB and I so I hope that we can learn, grow and become better people from our experiences over the past year.

If you have resolution's I would like to wish you luck and the best to everyone on a new year!

Christmas Dinner

We had a great Christmas dinner with my DB's parents and younger brother. We usually have dinner at my grandma's and sometimes at DB's mom's as well but this year my grandmother decided to go down to my mom's house for Christmas leaving us with the choice of either making dinner or no dinner. I choose dinner, of course, so we did it at our house...our first Christmas dinner. It actually turned out awesome and everything was delicious!

DB made the lonely dip and crackers while I was finishing up the rolls for dinner. I thought that I snagged a picture of the lovely humongous rolls when they were in the basket but I was apparently mistaken and as it turns out my little brother-in-law is a compulsive roll eater, which means there aren't many left to photograph. They turned out beautiful though and extremely big! DB was poking at them all day yelling about how they weren't getting big enough and then, as if they heard him ridiculing, they blew up into monsters.

*Ham gravy (sorry about the picture DB was whisking)

The dessert counter, yum! I have been baking and baking and running around like a crazy person trying to get this dinner all together. I plan to get these recipes posted soon and perhaps someone will find them interesting enough to try!

I'm sure everyone has been equally as busy and I hope that you all have a happy and safe holiday!

Merry Christmas!

Mailbox...Tuesday

This is my last two weeks worth of mail. The box at the top left is an I love Lucy salt and pepper shaker blender set that I bought on Amazon with gift cards from swagbucks.

I hope everyone is more ready for Christmas than I am. Things have been pretty busy but I only have a couple more days to finish up. I still have a ton of cookies to make...is anyone else as behind as I am?

Chocolate Peppermint Malt

Chocolate Peppermint Malt

3 Cups  Milk

4 Cups Chocolate Ice Cream

1/4 Malt Milk Powder

1/2 Tsp. Peppermint Extract

1/2 Tsp. Ground Cinnamon

Crushed Hard Peppermint Candy

Blend everything together. You could save some ice cream to top with if you would prefer ice cream over milkshake style. 

These are super easy and really yummy! They are very good for a quick dessert. DB loves peppermint so I try to make these quite a bit through the holidays and a couple times through the spring and summer. I hope if you make these you and your family enjoy them as much as we do!

Bacon Apple BBQ Chicken dinner

This Chicken was absolutely delicious! I found the recipe for Bacon-wrapped Apple Barbecue Chicken in the October All You of 2009. Yeah, over a year ago, I was going through some cookbooks recently and found that I had stuffed this recipe away and completely forgot about it. It says that the cost per serving is $2.07, that's really cheap and we love barbecue chicken.

The recipe is actually for the crockpot and it's super simple. It says to cook for 8 hours on low but I was in a rush and hadn't gotten it ready early enough so I set it on high for a little less than 4 hours and it came out incredibly well!

Bacon-Wrapped Apple Barbecue Chicken

1/2 Cup barbecue sauce

2 apples, (we used granny smith) peeled, cored and grated

Juice of 1 lemon

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

8 slices of bacon

Mix together the barbecue sauce, grated apple and lemon juice. Rinse chicken breasts, wrap 2 pieces of bacon around each chicken breast and put into slow cooker. Pour barbecue sauce mix on top of the chicken breasts and set cooker to low for 8 hours. 

This recipe is super easy, cheap and incredibly delicious!

Some Friday hopping

Thanks so much for stopping by! If you decide to follow please leave me a comment so I know where I can follow you back! I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the weekend!!

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

I know this isn't the best picture but everything was so busy I hardly thought to take a picture so this is what I got.

Earlier this week DB told me he wanted some homemade mac & cheese, it's really simple. We had this macaroni at my mom's last year and it was delicious so I copied the recipe. It's really easy and it's for the crockpot so that makes it even more simple because you can throw it in and leave it alone.

Crockpot Macaroni and Cheese

2 Cups uncooked macaroni

4 Tbsp. (1/2 stick) butter

3 eggs, beaten

1/2 Cup sour cream

2 1/2 Cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 can (10 3/4 ounce) condensed cheddar cheese soup

1/2 Tsp. salt

1 Cup milk

1/2 Tsp. black pepper

Boil the macaroni, 8 minutes and drain. Melt the butter and shredded cheddar in a saucepan. Add everything to the crockpot and stir. Set your cooker to low and cook for 3 1/2 hours. If we're hungry and I waited til late to get it together I set on high for about 2 hours and it's turns out just as well. 

Free samples

Try Wal-Mart's new sample, Seattle's Best Coffee HERE

Try Garnier Fructis Anti-Dandruff shampoo HERE

Busy making Buckeyes

Things have been a bit busy here lately and the past couple days I was able to chill out and take a break. Time is up and I need to be getting back to everything, I have presents to wrap, a house to clean and I have some Christmas shopping to finish, as well as figure out what to give/make my MIL.

Over the weekend I busted out a large batch of buckeyes. I love buckeyes, they are peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate. These are really simple, just mix softened butter, peanut butter, powdered sugar and vanilla.

That's it for the mixing...easy right? Once all of your ingredients are mixed you have to grab small amounts and roll it in the palm of your hand until smooth. It's really simple but it can be a bit tedious.

The recipe I used for the dough  makes about 150 buckeyes, they go pretty fast around here so I need a pretty high count.

Buckeyes

 1 LB Softened Butter

2 LB Peanut Butter

2 LB Powdered Sugar

3 Tsp. Vanilla

Once you have finished rolling all of the peanut butter balls stick them in the freezer for a little bit just enough for them to harden. Allowing them to harden makes it easier to stick a toothpick in and dip them in chocolate.

I melt down Hershey Kisses for my dipping chocolate, I like them best but you could easily use any kind of chocolate chips or bark. I don't have a double boiler so I just stack a small pot onto a pot that's a little bit larger with boiling water.

Dipping is easy too. Stick a toothpick in the top, dip it in the chocolate and twist around until the ball is covered on the sides. This is also very tedious work but they taste delicious!

I always set them back down on a cookie sheet after I dip them and put the sheet back in the freezer for a little while to make sure they chocolate has set.

Once they are all finished I put them in containers for some to be eaten here and I put the rest in bags to give to others when we make cookie plates for Christmas.

These will get soft if they are left out so I would recommend at least keeping them in the fridge until eaten, I usually put them out on a plate no sooner than an hour before we have company. I put the bulk of the buckeyes in the freezer until we run out in the fridge, it's also the only way I can keep DB away from eating all of them before Christmas.

Oh, Christmas Tree

I was able to get the Christmas tree put up this week. I usually get it put up within a week of Thanksgiving. When I was younger we would celebrate my birthday and my moms by putting the Christmas tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. I had to rearrange my living room to be able to put the tree in front of a large window we have in the living room.

When we rearrange the living room it's always a bit of a project, we have cables running under the floor for the television and the surround sound speakers so they all have to be redirected.

DB always wants to put extra lights on the tree. It is pre-lit but he says 'It's not enough', except he's not the one who has to put the lights on because he only manages to lay the extra strands on each branch, I don't want to be able to see the entire strand just laying there, I want it to be arranged and tucked in throughout the branches.

Putting the tree up is usually fun, taking it down is a different story! I think it turned out pretty and it is beautiful from outside! We've had all kinds of snow for the past couple of days and that helps with the Christmas feeling. I hope everyone is having a good start to their weekend!

Friday Hopping

 

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Vaseline Sample

Wal-Mart has a Vaseline sample Here

Happy Birthday

TO ME!

And happy un-birthday to all of you not sharing the day with me! I woke up to about half an inch of snow and still falling. My mom called me at 7:30 this morning so that she could be the first to tell me Happy Birthday! 

While I have your attention could you please pay a visit to Missy Salsa and wish her a Happy Birthday! She celebrated hers over the weekend but it's never too late to say Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to you too Missy Salsa!!

Black Friday/Birthday

We went shopping on Black Friday and I think we did a pretty good job. I only got a couple things for DB but I was able to get him the things he wanted most.

 We got quite a few things. My mom got a lot of different Thomas the Train and Shake 'N Go cars for my nephew. One of the Toys R Us doorbusters was a Shake 'N Go Lightning McQueen that was half the price.

 It's really pretty cute. Right now he is into everything Shake 'N Go so he will be really excited!

Tomorrow is my birthday so she bought me a laptop for my birthday/Christmas gift and we got a lot of different things from Bath and Body Works. DB bought me an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen last night. I love ice cream cake with the little crunchies in the middle! I was super excited and completely surprised. I had taken my mom to see my uncle in the hospital and then her flight out was at 5:45 and..I couldn't get her to leave the hospital until 5:20, as you probably guessed she missed her flight and had to stay another day (no one was complaining) so when we got home DB was at work but he kept texting her asking her to make me look in the freezer...eventually she said 'Come out here and get my some ice cream', I was pretty sure that was why but not positive. I love to get an ice cream cake and go out to dinner, who doesn't love presents but can we just call it my birthday and skip the getting older part?!

I hope that tomorrow goes well for all of us!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving dinner as a whole was incredible! Most of it was made at my house and we lugged it over to my grandma's house.

The turkey was one of the things that we made at our house and it actually turned out incredible. This turkey was 21 lbs. and we have plenty of leftovers, turkey sandwiches with green olives...yum!

Brussel sprouts with bacon, these are our 'tradition', my grandma makes these are ever holiday dinner. She adds a little garlic salt to the mix and they are always delicious!

Rolls

 

 

My grandma called my mom before we left our house with most of the things we were bringing and asked for some bananas, I have an uncle that is serious about making sure there is fruit salad there. He went to the house to help early and when he realized my grandma forgot the fruit salad  he threw a fit and made her call my mom to pick up bananas.

Cooked Stuffing

Dinner turned out delicious and pretty easy. My uncle didn't get to be there but he was pretty stocked up on pumpkin pie. It took a while for DB to get back from his mom's house and from what I have heard it was a pretty hard time. Holiday's seem to be a mess when it comes to his family and I always feel so bad but there seems to be no solution.

On the other hand, my uncle is doing well and right now while he is still in the hospital it is only because they are waiting for a bed to open at the rehabilitation center they are trying to get him into. He has had physical therapists in a couple times a day to help him get up out of bed and walk around, he's having a hard time but he knows it is necessary. Thank you everyone for your thoughts!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and is having a good time if you're preparing for the next one!

 

 

Pumpkin Pie

I love to bake! I always bake whatever is needed, this time it was pumpkin pies.

The dough I make is really easy, I just have to mix it all up and then wrap it up and refrigerate it for an hour to be able to put it into the pie pan.

I made two, sometimes my aunt will make something but every other time it's something most of us won't eat so just in case I went ahead and had two pies ready (although I would never turn down left over pumpkin pie anyway).

I've already used my new KitchenAid a couple of times but I am still excited when I get to pull it out.

I use the recipe that is on the back of the Libby's Pumpkin can for my pies. They are extremely yummy and fairly easy to make. The only problem I have had is the baking time is sometimes not enough and I have to leave them in until they're not jiggly anymore.

I love some pumpkin pie! Does anyone else have a dessert or specific dish that is traditional?