Club Salad in Baked Ham Cups

This is such a great idea - baked ham cups filled with salad that you can pick up, no fork needed! Cathy's neighbor brought these to a party and they were a big hit, this is totally going to be a go-to dish for me now (and not just for parties, this is a great everyday idea too!)

You can do this with thin sliced ham or turkey, and whatever fillings you want. Start by greasing muffin tins, then layer a slice or two of meat into the cups (you are creating a cup that will hold the salad so arrange the meat accordingly), top with a sprinkle of shredded cheese. Bake at 400' about 10 minutes until the meat holds it's shape and the cheese is melted. Remove from muffin tins and cool.

Mix together mayo and dijon mustard and add a dollop to the bottom of the cups. Top with shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, chopped avocado...or whatever you like! Then stand back and watch them be devoured :)





















one year ago today: pineapple upside down cake cocktail

Wine Cork Flower Holder

This is super fast, super easy, and super cute... crafts don't get much better than that! I made this to hang in our baby RV - I hung a magnetic board with Command velcro picture hanging strips and thought it needed a little flower :)

All I did was put a wooden skewer into the hole in the top of a cork (where the wine opener went in) to make the hole a little wider and deeper. Then jam a fake flower into the hole (you could glue if necessary but mine stayed in just fine) and hot glue a small magnet on the backside. Done. Seriously it didn't take 2 minutes. And look how cute!

on the magnetic board in the RV

Cute Braid Crown! by Brooke

I know what your thinking. "wow another hairstyle?" but yes another hairstyle! this one I love! its like a crown braid I guess. but it looks so good and takes no more than 5 minutes. so you just start a dutch braid on the side- add hair on each braid stitch- so you just start dutch braiding till about your ear then continue a normal braid then put a rubber band. do this on both sides. then take both braids and tie them together in the back! this is soooooo cute and sooo easy! I hope you love it! (sorry that my pictures are blurry I don't know what happened.)

First Aid/CPR Certification

August 2015

Two years ago I took a First Aid/CPR class thru the American Red Cross with my niece Mickey - she needed the certification for work and I said I'd do it with her because I've always wanted to take the course. It was an all day class and we had fun doing it together (plus we were each others partner so the whole practicing thing was a little less awkward!) - it's so interesting and informative, not sure how much help I'd be in a crisis but at least somewhere in my brain is the knowledge. And like the ARC says,  "doing something is better than doing nothing" so at least I don't feel so helpless if I were ever needed in a medical emergency. I recommend the course to everyone for sure! Anyway...our certificates expired this year and I received an email from the Red Cross about renewing my certification by taking a 2 hour online course - so I took advantage of that today and just finished it; happy to say I passed and received this:

I'm counting this as having "made" something today hahaha - and it's a PSA about taking this course and getting some basic how-to-help-in-an-emergency knowledge!

one year ago today: ice cream cakes

Morning Glory Muffins

Does Starbucks still sell Morning Glory Muffins? I'm not sure - I used to love them tho and woke up the other day thinking about trying to recreate them to take on our road trip to see the eclipse, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands, and all that. Found a recipe here, seemed right so I whipped up a batch substituting dried cranberries for the raisins, replaced half the oil with applesauce, and omitting the nuts so Dave could help me eat them. These stayed really moist for a few days, perfect for camping breakfast or a snack, only downfall is they got moldy before we could eat them all - next time I'll store them in the fridge instead of on the counter.

2 cups flour
1 1/4 cup white sugar (I only used 1 cup, these are plenty sweet)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups shredded carrots
1/2 cup raisins (or dried cranberries)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I didn't add the nuts and didn't miss them)
1/2 cup unsweetened flaked coconut
1 apple - peeled, cored and shredded
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil (note I used 1/2 cup oil and 1/2 cup applesauce)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract


1. Preheat oven to 350'.  Grease or line with paper muffin liners, 12 muffin cups. (Note: I didn't fill the cups that full and ended up with 16 muffins).
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the carrot, raisins, nuts, coconut, and apple.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together eggs, oil, and vanilla. Stir into the flour mixture just until moistened. Don't overtax. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean. (Note: since I didn't fill my cups up as much as the recipe called for they only took 15 minutes to bake).

one year ago today: Japanese Steakhouse Carrot-Ginger Salad Dressing

Birthday Party

Couple quick birthday party ideas from Brooke's b-day last weekend:

1) Jen did a "make-your-own-pizza" station on her island for the girls using pre-baked mini crusts and a bunch of toppings - I love that she set up everything down the middle of the island so they could assemble their pizzas from all around the island instead of going in a line...good thinkin'. The girls then put the pizzas on cookie sheets (2 or 3 per sheet), we baked them at 450' for about 7-8 minutes until the cheese melted and the bottoms browned.

2) For her present I wrapped and numbered 14 things and put them all in one big box that I also wrapped so it just seemed like she was getting one gift - I do this at Christmas too so everyone just has one box to open but then inside are all their gifts. I got Brooke a couple real gifts then bought silly/fun little things to come up with 14 total - candy bar, bath bomb, nail polish, etc. I numbered the best gifts #13 and #14 so she worked her way up to the good ones.

Click here for the post about her (overly sprinkled) cake!




one year ago today: beans in marinara sauce inspired by a dish we had in Greece.

Happy Labor Day '17

And I'm not going to start for a while hahah! Enjoy your day 

(and don't stress about how quickly the holidays are coming - yikes)!

Cauliflower Waffles

I know, I know - I have been making some kooky things out of cauliflower in my quest to lighten things up (cauliflower rice, cauliflower pizza, cauliflower breadsticks, mashed cauliflower) ...and here's another one - cauliflower waffles! Do they taste like "real" waffles? No. Do they look like waffles? Yep ;). They are quite easy, taste good, and I think they're a genius way to (a) eat more veggies, (b) eat less bread/carb/flour, and (c) it's a great reason to dig that old seldom-used waffle maker out of the back of my cupboard!

Stay with me - it's not as weird as it seems. Just mix up the grated cauliflower with some cheese and eggs, spoon into the preheated waffle iron, cook for a few minutes until golden and crunchy. Serve however you can think - plain, topped with bacon, sour cream and tomatoes, or a fried egg for breakfast, smashed avocado for a take on avocado toast...you name it!

I made these the first time just for myself when Dave wasn't home in case they didn't work...but they did, and I loved them! So a few days later I made them as a side to grilled chicken for dinner and he loved them too...that's sayin' something.

Ingredients:

3 cups cauliflower, grated
3 cups shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup shredded parmesan
3 large eggs
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tsp. paprika
kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:

1. preheat waffle iron
2. in a large bowl, mix together all ingredients until combined.
3. pour 1 cup batter into preheated waffle iron, cover and cook for 6 minutes or until cooked thru, golden brown, and slightly crunchy.
4. serve alone or with toppings of your choice.

I found the recipe here.

She's 14!

Happy Birthday to my blogger buddy (and niece) Brooke!

She celebrated with her friends yesterday and asked if I'd make her a cake (like she had to ask, of course I will hahah) then sent me a beautiful inspiration picture of a cake she found on Pinterest and I thought "great, no pressure" but told her I'd do my best ;). It actually wasn't hard to do at all, just super super messy because of the mounds of sprinkles involved!

I baked a 2-layer doctored-up vanilla cake mix (extra egg, sour cream, vanilla, sprinkles in the batter) and made a double batch of buttercream frosting and tinted it bright pink. My favorite new thing is combining different kinds of sprinkles together to make a really cool new mixture - I literally mixed together just about every kind of sprinkle I had in my cupboard to come up with this fun idea...there's different sizes and shapes, multi-colored sugar, silver balls for sparkle - love this!

Frost the layer cake making the sides and top smooth - before it sets up pat on handfuls of the sprinkle mixture halfway up the sides. Around the top edge pipe big mounds of frosting (they remind me of Peeps!) - I did 14 mounds for her 14th birthday, then pile on sprinkles in the middle of them. I mean really pile them on! When you cut the cake sprinkles just fall off which was really cool actually and everyone loved it. They loved this cake so much in fact, that 10 girls ate the entire thing in probably 15 minutes! Seriously, I don't think I've ever had a cake just devoured like that - got home and Dave goes "there wasn't even a tiny sliver left for you to bring home?" HAHA!

4 ways to jazz up a braid!

so I like doing things to my hair besides just pony tails and having my hair down. so im going to show you 4 ways to make a normal braid look different! so for all these hairstyles, you need to start with a braid in the front of your hair.

#1. just leave the braid. it's very simple and looks really good! it also takes like 5 seconds!

#2 take the braid and pin it in the back of your hair! this looks so cute and you can wear it with any outfit!

#3 take the braid and add it to a pony tail! this hairstyle can be sporty or put together with a dress! its a win win. you have to dress up the day of your sports game? in the morning put on your dress and do this hairstyle then change into your jersey and have the same exact hair! it's soooo cool!!

#4 let me just say this looks sooo good in your hair and it looks like it took you so long but it actually took you 2 minutes. after you have your braid in, then pony tail, all you do is wrap the hair into a bun and put in bobby pins! it's soo cool! I hope you love these hairstyles as much as I do they take me no time in the morning and they look so good! I hope you try these!!