The Pioneer Woman's Lasagna

Everyone says they have the best lasagna ever. Ever. But no other lasagna has ever wowed me as much as Ree Drummond's. It really is The Best. Ever. Period.

I made it for our valentine's day dinner (yes, and just now getting to post it). We ate it for dinner and then Leon took it to work the next day for his co-workers. The thing weigh about 10 pounds and I forgot just how good a homemade lasagna is.

Bib with Button Closure

I was really productive during nap times this weekend! I made two bibs from Lots of Pink Here! and one was actually for the baby. Ten months later and he finally has one of his own. But I didn't have any more velcro from using them on my neices bibs, so I used a button and elastic closure.  I made them with white flannel backing, instead of the terry cloth so many others use.

Baby Onsie and Toddler Tie Shirts

I've made the tie shirt onsies from Crap I've Made before and just recently I needed to make a few more for a baby shower gift. And then the oldest asked why all these babies had tie shirts but he didn't. Well what a great idea! So I scaled up the pattern for the five-year old.

 Only difference is that I sewed a zig-zag instead of a straight line.

Easy Apple Pie Bites

Sometimes apple pie is just not worth the effort. Enter these easy-peasy apple pie bites. And at about 100 calories each, won't take that long to run off on the treadmill!

1 tube cresents
1 medium apple, cut into 16 slices
Cinnamon and a little sugar

Arrange two apple slices on each cresent roll
Dust with cinnamon and a little sugar
Roll up, and add a little more cinnamon to the top

These wind up to be soft, so maybe a little butter on top would crisp them up, but then you might have to run a little longer. They are acutally just the little sweet that hits the spot!

Tuscan Garlic Chicken

I am on a quest to find new to me recipes for the usual chicken we eat two or three times a week. I'm seriously the most boring, predictable cook ever. I feel bad for my husband. And I dont follow amounts, I estimate everything unless I'm making cupcakes. Then I do measure and double the amounts.

I started with the recipe from Olive Garden's website, but got impatient. And I didn't have spinach or the right noodles. But it tasted great and I think it would be easy to add other ingredients to it. Like mushroooms- if I ate mushrooms.

Tuscan Garlic Chicken
3 chicken breasts, sliced at an angle (so they are a little flatter)
1 C Flour
1 T Italian Seasoning, maybe more
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Red bell pepper, cut into small strips
1/2 Onion (I use only sweet onions), cut into small strips
1.5 C Heavy Cream
.5 C White wine or chicken broth
1 lb pasta
Dredge the chicken in a flour mixture with italian seasoning, black pepper, salt and whatever else you like. I cooked these on the stovetop in a little olive oil in batches, moving them to a plate.

Then I cooked half a sweet onion and about a tablespoon of minced garlic for a minute or so. Add one bell pepper that has been cut (although I thought it needed two). Here you could add your other stuff, i.e mushrooms or other veggies. Asparagus or zucchini??

Add .5 cup white wine or chicken broth and about 1.5 cups of heavy cream. And all the recipes tell me if I just let it cook the sauce will thicken. This step has never worked for me. I always have to thicken it with cornstarch..so I added a little water/cornstarch mix to thicken the sauce.

Add your chicken back to the mix and warm up.
Meanwhile you should have been boiling a pound of noodles. I think fettuccini would have been a better choice than my bowtie that I used, but I used what I had.

Garnish the top with shaved parmesan and serve it up.

Butternut Squash & Apple Baby Food

The baby's favorite food is anything orange. And in that catergory is butternut squash and applesauce. I bought two squashes and a big jar of naturaly applesauce. Had this been summer, I would have made my own applesauce, but I like easy workarounds anyway.

Split and seed the squash. And meat side down, pour about an inch of water in the dish, maybe more.

 Bake in a 350 oven for about 40 minutes. Then I check them with a knife for doneness. They should be soft and have no resistance. Then they come out like this, sometimes they cave in for me.

Scoop out the flesh and I add natural (no sugar added, organic, etc) applesauce. You can add as much or as little as you like, but I usually make it a 70/30 split. Then instead using ice cube trays, I spoon the mixture into cupcake pans and leave a little space so it makes popping out the frozen food easier. Store in a freezer ZipLoc bag.

And your baby will enjoy.

Coffee Cozies

Our beautiful SIL Cindy made these for each of us girls for Christmas (isn't she crafty?). So I was obviously inspired and just had to make some more coffee cozies! 

This one is actually a gift for my BFF Kelley - she's had a tough week and may need someone to do something nice for her.  And since this is actually her fabric...

I ironed on some interfacing for stability and insulation and then cut out my pattern (I'll get it posted soon). Here's the fabric I used -- inside blue flowers is just cotton and the bright pink and green flowers is actually a flannel fabric.

Elastic loop on the one side - should have about one inch of loop. I doubled mine back around so it may be a little more reinforced.

Then I made a template for the flowers by cutting out two hearts, a small and large one. You can see I drew around the heart onto the pink felt (looking red in the pic). The larger flower was made with four heart "petals." And then I sewed it directly onto the outside piece, lining up with where the loop would meet the button. This will later prove to be a little bit of a design flaw on my part. I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone, but in the end, you can see that part of the flower is covered.

And here I took off my sewing foot so I could sew the button onto the small three-petal leaf onto the larger flower.

I put the right sides together and sewed all the way around the cozie, leaving about a two inch gap on the end closest to the flower. Turn it right side out and sew the opening. There you have it.  You can see how the larger flower is covered, but my BFF is the best and said she liked it. I think next time I would place a single button or other fastener a little closer to the end and the flower embellishment more towards the center.

Probably the Best Chocolate Cupcakes...

To heck with box mixes! Whoever told me how easy it was to make cupcakes from scratch, first - thank you and second -- why didn't you tell me sooner?!! I made chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting for my son's fifth birthday. They turned out yummy - and least I thought so. And I know one of my brothers had at least four. I also made the same chocalate cupcakes with cinnamon coffee frosting.. my new favorite frosting. I didn't get a good pic of these.

I could have eaten the batter straight off the spatula.  Okay, well I did eat it off the spatula when I was finished baking. But look how good it looks. Goodbye boxed cupcake mixes. I'm sorry, it's not you - it's me. I mean, yeah, it is you.

Be forewarned though, one batch is plenty of cupcakes. I made two and it made 36 standard cupcakes. Just make sure you whip the snot out of the butter and sugar and mix the batter really well. A cupcake lady friend of my told me to bake only six at a time. I think it makes a difference in taste.

And 20 minutes later I had naked cupcakes ready to be adorned in yummy, creamy oh-so dreamy frosting.

 Next on my list of to-learn is how to ice a cupcakes. I just squeezed the frosting out of a ZipLoc, not very pretty but the taste makes up for it.



Boppy Slipcover, No Zipper

There are a slew of tutorials out there for Boppy covers, a lot with zippers, some with velcro or ties. This is just another way to make one.

Let me start by saying that I hate - I mean hate sewing zippers. If there's a way around them, I'll find it or I just won't sew it in. I suppose it's because they intimidate me or I've just never been taught, or rather, never took the time to learn. Probably the latter.

So, my newest sister in law is having a baby girl and I'm trying to unload as much of my baby stuff on her as I can before my other SIL gives her her old stuff and I'm stuck with all this baby stuff I don't want to take the time to get rid of myself. And with that came a hideous boppy with a cute blue cover and since it would just be wrong to have a sweet baby girl nursing on a blue striped boppy, we made a cover without a zipper. Well, she provided the fleece fabric and kept me company while I sewed. :)

First, I took the old cover off and folded it in half so I could trace a pattern onto tissue paper. I traced it about 3/4" bigger all the way around for seam allowance. Next, I traced another end so that it would overlap to create a pocket.

Next, I traced another end so that it would overlap to create a pocket.Here's the peices:

I cut out two of the large piece and on one of them (the bottom piece) cut off the tip of one side. And I cut just one of the little piece. Putting the two peices together should create and overlap that will stay open so the boppy pillow will slip inside the case.

For the edges that will create the opening, I sewed a 1/4" seam. And then I failed to take a picture of the actual sewing, but I swear I'll get it in here when I create another cover because they are insanley easy. With right sides together, sew all the way around the fabric with a 1/4" seam. Don't worry about leaving an opening, the overlapped pieces will create a pocket.

 Slip in the boppy cover to the cute new one and wa-la-- a boppy cover created without a zipper. Don't you just love work arounds?

New Year Goals

It's a new year; an opportunity to redisgn yourself and make changes you swear you will do each year. Or at least that's the case for me. I'm really not wild about the term "new year's resolution" but rather prefer the term of "annual goals." Because it's the same every year -- lose weight, get organized, save money, blah blah blah blah. Whatever.

Here are the goals that I'd like to acheive this year:
First, say "yes" more to my kids. At least to the one who can talk. I can be a fun mom, now I just have to convince them of it. For starters, my oldest will be five at the end of this month. And we've never had a birthday party for him outside of inviting family and close friends over to our house. So this year, we are going to an archade to celebrate. And maybe yell a little less. I hate yelling.

Second, not lose weight, but get into shape.. or at least a prettier shape. Losing five pounds so far this month is a start, and then I'll be running a half marathon in May. Which reminds me, I need log some miles. I started running in 2010 and I felt so good.

And rounding out the top three is to wear more dresses. Recently, two of my SILs and I watched The Help and were really inspired by the fashion. The dresses were georgous and it also reminds me that I should wear more lipstick. But I'm really cold all the time.. maybe I'll work on the lipstick and save the dress wearing for nicer weather. I won't hold myself to it though, the Northwest can have a late start at nice weather.

Maybe this blog will help keep me accountable. And help me with journaling. Because I don't do as much as I'd like. And of course, I'd like to tune my crafty skills and post what I've done here.

So here's to a new year, and a new me. We'll check back in December; hopefully when I have more than just this one post. (: