Birthday Dessert Assortment

Went to a birthday dinner the other night and was assigned dessert :) The birthday boy doesn't like cake so I decided to make mini ice cream sandwiches and mini banana cream pies. Both are super simple:

For the bite-sized ice cream sandwiches Brooke and I made basic chocolate chip cookies following the recipe on the back of the chip bag, but we substituted 1 cup of m&ms for 1 cup of the chocolate chips just to be different. I had what I thought was a super good idea to make one giant ice cream cookie sandwich so split the cookie dough in half and put each in a large round baking pan and baked until done. I will keep working on this idea in the future but this time it didn't work the way I envisioned - each half was too thick to make into a sandwich (well Dave didn't think it was too thick, but he would enjoy eating a super thick sweet cookie sandwich LOL, for me it would have been way too much cookie).

I almost gave up on the idea and just served the giant cookies without making a sandwich, but then figured I'd attempt to make mini bite size sandwiches first. So I put mini cupcake liners in a small cupcake pan, then using a small round cookie cutter I cut out circles of the baked cookie and put in the bottom of the liner. Scoop a small bit of softened vanilla ice cream on top and then finish with another small circle of cookie. Freeze until ready to eat (obviously).  Turned out good and everyone loved them.

For the banana cream pies: first I baked the pie crust blind (that means without filling in them). Roll out premade pie dough and cut with a small 2" circle cutter, gently press into a mini cupcake pie (I've done this part before, click here for that post). When you bake crust without filling in it the dough will want to puff up so you need to weigh it down - they sell pie weights for this exact reason but I do not have any, an easy substitute is to weigh it down with dried beans. But I didn't have any of those either so I went online to see if I could find other substitute ideas - there were a few suggestions (rice and popcorn are the 2 I remember seeing, but doesn't baking popcorn seem like a mess waiting to happen?) and I went with trying dry rice. It worked really good, you just have to make sure to get all of the rice out after the crust has been baked - pretty sure baked in rice isn't going to taste good! I just used the edge of a small spoon handle to lightly scrap the rice out. Not the perfect scenario but it worked and the dough didn't puff up.

For the filling I just made banana pudding using 1 1/2 cups of milk, let it set up and then added chopped banana and using my small cookie scoop filled the pie crust with the pudding. Top with either a little piece of banana or cool whip.

In case those 2 things weren't enough Brooke made brownies that turned out so good - I think the secret was she put them in cupcake liners to bake, love that idea, and they got rave reviews!

Easy and delicious :)

DIY Mason Jar Lunchables

My niece Macey just sent me this video by Little Things that she saw on Facebook and I have to say - it's genius! Click here to watch the video and see the idea in action - the premise is to use a mason jar with a lid and screw ring, and a clean empty single serving applesauce cup to keep your foods separate until ready to eat.  I haven't tried it myself yet but I totally will be doing this - the first idea on the video of keeping the cereal and milk apart seems like it might be hard to eat out of a mason jar but the other ideas are awesome: hummus and veggies, crackers with ham and cheese, yogurt with berries and granola, salad and dressing...love this! Thanks for sharing Macey :)

I googled this idea online and there are lots of people doing it - why haven't I seen this before haha? I found the above picture from another site (smart school house) so you get an idea what it looks like.

The applesauce cup keeps the foods separated - if it's a dry ingredient going in the cup (like in the above example - meat and cheese are in the mason jar, and crackers are in the applesauce cup) you can put the cup upside down on the lid of the mason jar then screw the ring over top and it holds the applesauce cup in place; if a liquid is going in the cup put the cup inside and then put the lid and screw ring on (for example, salad in the mason jar and dressing in the cup rests on top of the salad).

Hello Doormat

Mickey had the idea to stencil a mat for in front of her new front door - she wanted it to say "well hello there" and asked me to help, yay. We found a plain coir mat at Home Depot for 9.99 and I already had stencils and black paint so this was an inexpensive project...note, I didn't say it was a quick easy project though!

Problem started when we used a permanent marker to trace "well" in block letters in the top left corner and then tried to fill it in with paint. Yeah, that didn't work. The material of the mat is rough and too long so it just made a blobby mess, it wasn't crisp and clean like we had envisioned...I had the thought that we could just wash the paint off and start over but since we used the permanent marker to outline the letters that didn't work (fortunately we didn't outline all of the words before realizing it wasn't going to work)!

this is after she washed off the paint in the upper
left hand corner - you can still see the outline though

At that point we had some options (a) scrap the project and chalk up the $10 to an experiment (b) cut off the top that was messed up and just have a narrower rug (c) well there was no c at that time. So she continued decorating the rug by using a big fat sharpie and freehand wrote "hello" at the bottom of the mat figuring if it didn't work she wasn't making it worse and if it did work she'd cut off the top where we messed it up. The hello turned out great! She had to go over it a few times to get it nice and dark.

We then had the idea that maybe we could cut off the outline out of the coir material - it wasn't easy but she ended up getting it out with tiny scissors and tweezers basically pulling the fibers out and cutting other parts of it down. It did remove the outline so we ended up with a plan (c) after all.

plucking and cutting out the outline

Here is it in front of her house, love it!

Roasted Tomatoes, Zucchini, and White Beans

My cherry tomatoes are really starting to come in so I did my favorite thing and roasted them along with a couple zucchini and a can of white beans. It was so good Dave asked me to make it twice this week!

Simple - halve cherry tomatoes and slice small zucchini about 1/2" thick, put in a baking dish and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with seasonings (I used course salt and italian seasoning).   Bake in 400' oven for at least 30 -45 minutes stirring occasionally. When the veggies are done to your liking add one can of well-rinsed white beans and continue baking until the beans are heated thru. If it seems a little dry I add a bit of spaghetti sauce - it's fine without it though. I finished by sprinkling with parmesan.

We had this as a side to grilled chicken one night, then 2 nights later I made it again as a side with pork tenderloin.

Accidental Gardener

There's the Accidental Tourist, Accidental Chef, Accidental Ranch Wife, and me - the Accidental Gardener.  I've been gardening for a long time but it's always hit and miss - I have no idea what I'm doing really...I plant stuff, water, weed and stake when I remember, then it either grows or it doesn't. Funny accidental gardener story - When I first started gardening I had a super tall plant that I thought was pretty and was quite proud of myself for growing, I'd weed around it and thought I was all that...Dave's mom was over one day and I showed her my accomplishment, told her I "didn't know what the plant was but look how good I was doing with it" and she basically rolled her eyes at me and said "yeah, that's a weed". I was crushed and a bit embarrassed haha! Anyway...this year my garden has been growing really good without much care, but it sort of got away from me and when I finally got around to weeding and sprucing things up I realized I've been pretty neglectful! Look at what a mess it was:

I can't tell what is wrong with the tomato leaves - insects or disease or if it's just been super hot lately and that's causing the leaves to turn brown. I got out a clean spray bottle, added a little dish soap and water, then sprayed everything in the garden - a natural insect repellant if that's what is causing the problem.

I started pulling out the pea plants because they're brown and appeared to be dying out, but then I see that there is new growth and even a couple peas (Lucy the bird was thrilled when I gave them to her!) so I trimmed lots of the dead parts off and left the rest to see if they'll continue growing. Peas are a cool weather plant and it's been so hot here that I assumed they were done for - glad I noticed the new growth before I ripped them all out!

Sarge helps me check the garden and look for "maters" - I'll usually roll one for him to chase, he grabs it and throws it up in the air before eating it...so cute. Of course he also did that with a toad he found in the grass yesterday so I guess that's his hunting technique - nice (not). Did you know when dogs bite toads something happens that makes the dog instantly have foam in their mouth? Sarge was running around shaking his head and spitting out nasty foam (and freaking me out), I'da worried more if this was the first time but it wasn't - you'd think he'd learn!

Lucy helped herself to fresh tomato,
I've never seen her do that! 

I had a big harvest yesterday of tomatoes, lettuce, and a couple sweet peppers - thankfully the garden is growing in spite of me.

Fidget Stress Balls

My niece Mickey is about to start her new job as a school psychologist and has been thinking of how she wants to decorate her office space to make it a good atmosphere for the students who will be coming to see her - one thing she needs are "fidgets", basically small things for the kids to do while with her to help them relax and give them something to do instead of sitting in a chair looking at her...take some pressure off of them. She saw this cute idea to make stress balls online and we thought they'd be great as fidgets. Following the directions exactly we made quite a few of them out of balloons, cornstarch and water. Very simple, not too messy, they feel really cool when done, and we had fun making them!

I don't have any photos but watch as Brooke shows you how to make them in this video:




Oh wait, I do have one picture that Brooke's dad sent me after she got home that night, along with the caption "nice craft Aunt Jill". Oops. So word of caution - don't squeeze too hard or the stress relieving balls will turn into stress inducing balls! They're still a fun thing to make and it's only cornstarch and water so clean up wasn't too hard...sorry Mike.

I don't know where Mickey found this online so I can't give credit for this project,

there are lots of sites showing them tho so I don't think we are infringing

on one persons idea!

Short Hair Style Ideas

While on the cruise a woman with very short hair told me that she always thought having short hair meant you couldn't do anything to change it up, but she had been noticing every day that I always did something different to my short hair and she's now inspired to try playing with hers too - awwwww, I liked that. So I was thinking I'd share a few easy things that I did on vacation to keep my hair a little more interesting - maybe you'll get some ideas and try something new too!

one braid across the top, with front pieces left out and parted in the middle. I just
used a bobby pin to hold the end of the braid.

 a neutral headband wrap that almost goes away in my hair helps keep the hair out of my face
while traveling but also give it a little bit of a style. 

this headband has a wire in it to help shape it however you want. here I twisted
the two ends together to keep it on my head and left the ends sticking out -
 they look pushed down in this pic but they are raised up. 

one braid across the top but this time I pushed the front pieces to one side.
 hold the braid in place with a little claw clip. 

this is a lightweight infinity scarf, I wrapped it around my head twice and tied the
remainder in a knot at the back. with the big hoop earrings it gives it sort
of a "boho" look I think...

two braids (including the front pieces this time) across the top of my head,  then I put a
headband that has three straps in between the braids. 

part hair in the middle and make two braids going towards the back on each side of the part.
hold the braids in place using 2 small claw clips. 

Popcorn Toffee Crack Bars

My niece and her bf are driving to NC with their 2 dogs and all their stuff - I'm sad about that but excited for her new adventure and phase of life. So to send them off I wanted to make them a treat for the long drive - saw this recipe here on the bon appetit website and thought it'd be fun to make for them. My niece used to be a very very picky eater - we took her to lunch when she was little and she ordered a tuna sandwich without lettuce, "just plain tuna"; when it was brought out to her it had sprouts on it and she wailed "there are WEEDS on my sandwich". Haha, now the kid loves vegetables (even brussels sprouts, yuck) and normally they eat super healthy but I know from experience that once you get in the car the munchies hit so hopefully they'll like this very "unhealthy" treat LOL. I don't like to use negative words like unhealthy when describing food - but this one recipe calls for 3 sticks of butter! If you can think of a better word than "unhealthy" haha please tell me.

It's very easy and quick to make, I followed the recipe exactly other than I don't have aleppo pepper so left that out. I'm not sure what that would add or if it's necessary cuz this is really good without it. I also thought about adding white chocolate chips with the semisweet but didn't have any on hand - and it doesn't need it, there's plenty going on...graham crackers, popcorn, peanuts, puffed rice cereal and chocolate chips. Yum.

The recipe was only given 3 out of 5 stars so I almost didn't make it, but after reading the reviews I found that the reason it was being knocked down wasn't because of the taste but that it has the word "crack" in the title! One person actually asked if there is crack in the recipe. Others thought you shouldn't use drug words to describe food and that "crack" is actually a bad thing so why is this called "crack bars" hahahaha, good grief people. Lighten up. Whatever you want to call these they are really good and quite addictive! Click here for the recipe.

line a rimmed baking sheet with graham crackers

top with popcorn, peanuts and cereal, pour a boiled mixture of butter and sugar over top and bake.

I made Dave a little one without nuts so he could at least try it - he loves popcorn and chocolate.

after baking, while it's still hot, top with chocolate chips. let cool completely then break into pieces. 

Uncomfortable Shoe Fix

I LOVE shoes. I HATE uncomfortable shoes. Sigh, life right? I used to just wear uncomfortable shoes and then have blisters and sore feet for days - but no more. Older and wiser. Now the goal is to find cute shoes that don't kill me - or to make shoes that do hurt feel a little better so I'll wear them (not just leave in the closet cuz they are too cute to get rid of!).

stretching the tight straps -
yes it looks weird but it worked!

.

This pair of wedges is made out of cork, so they are lightweight and appear to be comfortable - but the straps don't give and are too tight, and the inside of the straps are stiff leather...so I came up with a couple steps to help them do a better job of making me look good while also being easy to wear.

First I wet the front straps that go across my toes and jammed in metal baking cups (I was doing this in the kitchen and just looked around to see what would fit very tightly into the opening - 1/3 cups did the job) to try to stretch the straps - and it worked! I don't want you to ruin your shoes if you try this, I felt like the leather and cork could take getting wet but you decide if your material will be ok with doing that. Actually I started the process only lightly dampening the straps, after they dried I saw that nothing bad would happen so I soaked them and did it again. The metal cups stretched the straps enough that the toe area was more open and therefore more comfy.

Then I cut felt scraps to cover the insides of the straps and glued them in place making sure the felt didn't show - I used a light tan color that matches the shoes but use whatever color you have as long as you can't see it when wearing the shoe.

That's all I did to totally turn these shoes around - I'll be able to wear them all the time now!

cut felt strips narrower than the shoe straps

and glue in place. Ahhhhh - much better!

Fish Lure Earrings

Ok, you might think I've gone a little crazy - but have you seen how pretty some fishing lures are? I was trying to clean up a big jumbled mess of Dave's (he had lures and fishing line and all kinds of stuff mixed together in a giant basket, it was crying out to me that it needed organizing!) and came across some lures that I wanted to make into earrings; of course when I asked if I could have them (finders keepers and all that) he said no cuz he actually fishes with them. Whatever...so I found my own at Meijers to see if I could make something fun out of them. And look - they turned out good!

Super simple - I glued a couple seed beads to the pokey hooks so I wouldn't stab myself when wearing them, attached the lure to an earring wire with a jump ring. That's it.

They are lightweight and colorful, I picked out some inexpensive somewhat plain ones since I didn't know how they would turn out - now I'm sort of hooked (HA, a fishing joke!) on making these and think I'll go to an actual fishing store and pick out even nicer ones for future jewelry making projects ;)

I use tweezers to open the jump ring. try to
not twist the ring when you open it, it'll make
it easier it back up.

glue small beads on the hooks - of course be careful, the hooks are sharp!