New blogs that I love

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I don't know if I did that right, but this great blogs Artsy Fartsy Mama is doing this great giveaway a day and I've seen so many blogs from there that I would have never found just cruising around!



especially   Vanilla Bean Girls, I really love their etsy shop.

A first attempt at a fried egg heart inside toast. Let it be known I don't eat eggs so I very rarely cook them. Matthew ate them so they must be good.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving!

My Parents (Mom, Dad, and Brothers ) always celebrated Thanksgiving on Wednesday because my Dad has always worked on Thursday. This year even though my parents are going through some nasty seperation, we're going to celebrate together on Wednesday again. My family, myself my fiance and my son are going to celebrate on Thursday seperatly at his Moms' and his Dads'. So three seperate Thanksgiving dinners every year, and just wait Christmas is worse!


So for Thanksgiving dinner with my parents my Mom and I split the cooking.
Mom always doesd the bird, which is fine with me!
Mom also covers the mashed potatoes and gravy.

This year I'm pretty excited to start cooking.
My foods are the Dressing, Green bean casserole, and the desserts, this year a sweet potato pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake, and maybe an apple pie if I have time.
And for the first time my son is big enough to help so he'll be setting the tables and putting out the bowls of cranberries and olives. I don't know about your house but usually the olives are gone before dinner is even in the oven ?! so I'm stashing some extra cans this year just in case.

I'm teaching a friend to make pumpkin cheescake so I will make sure to do a recipe and pictures for you all here.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.
Thanks for reading!

Update : personal choices

I am not a breakfast person, honestly, and I know this is bad, I usually skip it all together. The one breakfast food I love! though is SPAM. Yes i realize it is disgusting and unhealthy but really have you ever tasted it, I mean it's the best thing I've ever eaten possibly. I came across this little recipe in an ad earlier and thought it sounded great so here it is.

Title: FRENCH FRY SPAM CASSEROLE
  Categories: Main dish
       Yield: 8 servings
  
       1 pk Frozen french fry potatoes,
            -thawed (20 oz)
       2 c  Shredded Cheddar cheese
       2 c  Sour cream
       1 cn Condensed cream of chicken
            -soup (10 3/4 oz)
       1 cn SPAM Luncheon Meat, cubed
            -(12 oz)
     1/2 c  Chopped red bell pepper
     1/2 c  Chopped green onion
     1/2 c  Finely crushed corn flakes
  
   Heat oven to 350'F. In large bowl, combine potatoes, cheese, sour
   cream, and soup. Stir in SPAM, bell pepper, and green onion. Spoon
   into 13x9″ baking dish. Sprinkle with crushed flakes. Bake 30-40
   minutes or until thoroughly heated. 

I'm going to try this out later tonight and I will let you all know how it goes! 

An Update

I'm sorry my lovelies, I meant to post more often. In a few weeks I have a date with my very best friend to make pumpkin cheesecake. Just this last week I made pumpkin seeds for the first time, I don't really like them my boyfriend does, and I love that I didn't have to throw them away.

So what I did is I separated the seeds from the strings and other guts. It was gross and cold, just saying, not my favorite part of Halloween. then I washed the seeds by just rinsing them with water, over and over again.


I dried the seeds by putting them in a zipper bag with a few crumpled paper towels and shook the bag vigorously. Once they were dry I added a tsp. of vegetable oil and a few sprinkles of garlic powder and salt, then shook the bag again.


Spread the seeds out on a baking/cookie tray and bake them at 300 degrees about 8-10 min until they start to brown lightly.

Thank guys for being patient with me, I'll post again very soon I promise.

Love from Jesse!

Chocolate Krispies with Candy Corn

My first Boo! treat this year was Chocolate Krispies because I love the classic taste of them and their great for familys. My recipe uses

4 cups of mini Marshmallows

1 cup Butter

3/4 tbs. Vanilla extract

and 6 cups of cocoa crispy rice cereal. (I use what ever is cheap honestly)

In a large bowl add butter and marshmallows. Youn might want to cut your butter in to smaller pieces if using a stick of butter. Microwave butter and marshmallows for 20 seconds and stir, then repeat as necessary untill texture is smooth and butter and marshmallows are combined completely, this took about 4 trys with my microwave but it will vary. Add your vanilla to the marshmallow. Next add the chocolate crispy cereal about 1 1/2 cups at a time and keep stirring. You may find it easier to put butter on your hands and stir with your fingers. When all the cereal has been added and looks coated add your Candy corn and stir again. Grease a baking dish, I use glass, form your treats about an inch deep in the pan pushing with your hand (a greased hand will be easier) or the back of a spoon. Refrigerate your treats about 30 min untill firm. You can now cut your treats into squares, or using cookie cutter make any shape you want. 

I know this seems pretty simple but hey, I figure somebody won't have made rice krispy treats before. And these taste amazing, I don't even like chocolate but I love these.

This is before any cutting.

Boo!

A couple years ago my Mom introduced something to us kids called Boo! With the basic idea being that you leave goodies for people anonymously with a letter that explains you've been Boo! ed and now pass it on to however many people between 2 and 5 usually and then they spread it on and so forth. Pretty cool, it has all the important things involved halloween, sugar, cooking for other people. I love doing this and I'm doing it independently of my mom this year so it's all up to me.

My Treats:
Chocolate Krispies
Pumpkin Pudding Cookies
Peanut Butter Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies
and Brownies!

I'll be posting my recipes for these later today and throughout next week so check back soon!

I found these at my local craft store aren't they cute!

and I found these bad boys at WalMart.

Turtle Cookies

What better way to start my blog with a favorite around my house Chocolate Chip Cookies, but in my excitement I continued on to a turtle cookie using my favorite chocolate chip cookie as a base. This is a really easy recipe and wont take more than 30 min from start to finish.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking soda
1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1 cup Butter or margerine ( using margarine is cheaper but will change the texture of your cookies!)
2 eggs
3/4 cup Brown Sugar
3/4 cup White granulated Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla

3/4 - 1 cup Chocolate chips
1/2 cup caramel baking bits (I used Kraft brand Caramel baking bits, theyre soft and small.)
1/4 cup chopped pecans

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Mix your dry ingredients, the flour, baking soda and salt in a seperate bowl and place aside.
• Your butter should be room temperature, cream together your butter, brown sugar and white sugar in a seperate bowl from your dry ingredients. ( I use the back of a fork to mix together here)
• add your eggs to the butter/sugar mixture, also add your vanilla. mix together.
• slowly add the dry ingrdients to the butter mixture about a half cup at a time stirring throughly before adding more flour.
• add chocolate chips, caramel and pecans and mix again. Dough should pull away from the bowl but not form a solid ball.
• form and drop your cookies onto a greased cookie sheet and bake 10-15 min or untill golden brown on the edges.

Thank you everyone I hope you enjoy these as much as my family did! stick around for more post this week.