Baked mozzarella Sticks the whole family will love!

My daughter is 5 years old, and a huge cheese person, we usually buy the giant family bags of cheese sticks and they are gone by in only a few days. The kid of cheese doesn't matter to her as long as it is cheese, so when I found this recipe I was very excited and I couldn't wait to make them with her! She had a blast wrapping these and painting them with water :) These are baked so it cuts out a little of the fat, but lets face it with the won ton wrappers, it is a calorie buster! I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did, and let your babies participate in making these!!!

What you will need:
Won ton wrappers
Mozzarella cheese sticks
a little cup of water
a basting brush
Any type of pizza sauce you would like

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees while we are making these up!

Remove your won ton wrappers and lay one flat on a surface, we pre-cleaned the counter to cut back on dishes. Lay it out so that it makes the shape of a diamond, like this:

I sprinkled a little Parmesan cheese and garlic powder on my won ton wrapper to add just a tad bit of flavor! Let the kiddos open up the cheeses to give them something to do while you are getting everything in place!

Then place your cheese on the won ton wrapper like this:

(remember I said I put Parmesan and garlic powder on mine? There it is!!) Take your basting brush and dip it in a little water, just enough to make it wet and "paint" the top corner of your wrapper, this just ensures that it will stick in a second when you roll them!

Now fold both the left and right corners of your wrapper towards each other like so:

Now take the bottom corner and fold it up like this:

Now take your wet basting brush and "paint" both of the top corners, just leave it like it is and brush the water over both of them.

Then roll up the wrapper and place on a baking sheet (ungreased)

*Really important tip, after you place them on the baking sheet, take your basting brush and brush water over them, then turn them over and do it to the other side, this will keep them from looking white and help them brown. I forgot to do this when I made mine so they are whiter than I would have liked them to be*

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes and enjoy!! Be careful if you bake them to long all your cheese will run out and you will have a ton of cheese with none in the wrappers!

This is what mine looked like! They are delicious and I'm not ashamed to say, my daughter and I along with the baby ate all 15 of ours before my husband even got home!

Cream cheese chocolate chip cookies

I have been on a search for a while now to find the best chocolate chip cookie, so far I have not found one better than the creamy buttery amazingness of Toll house cookies. While these are absolutely amazing with their cake like consistency and creamy texture, lets be honest, I'm still searching for a knock off Toll house. However please don't count these out, or you may miss out on a really amazing cookie! One word of advice with these guys, the recipe calls for 2 cups of chocolate chips, when I make them again I am going to tweak that just a bit. The chocolate is overwhelming and I feel like you just miss out on a lot of the cookie! Next time I make these I am going to go with 1 cup chocolate chips, 1 cup crushed walnuts. If you are not a nut fan that's okay too, I would just recommend cutting down the chips a little! I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my family did! Good luck and happy baking!

What you will need:
6 ounces cream cheese
3/4 cups of butter
3/4 cups brown sugar
1/3 cup regular old sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups + 3 TBSP all purpose flour
2 cups of chocolate chips (but like I said, maybe 1 cup chips, 1 cup walnuts)

Preheat your oven to 325, then we can get this party started!

The first thing I did was throw the 6 ounces of cream cheese and the 3/4 cup of butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds, this just softens it up a little, I am not fortunate enough to have one of those awesome mixers that do everything perfect for you, nope mine is a little hand held wand so it has to be pretty soft for me! Don't judge a mixer is on my Christmas list! Anyways your butter and cream cheese should look something like this :

After that take your mixer or wand in my case and make sure you mix this up well, get all the clumps out you can. It should look something like this:

Next throw your 3/4 cups of brown sugar in your bowl and mix it on up again!

 It should have a darker color when you finish, like this:

Then add your regular sugar to the mixture, The color really wont change much at all, make sure you are mixing everything up very well without clumps! Now add your 2 tsp of vanilla, I added a little more because I love the flavor it gives. It will look something like this:

Now is the fun part! Take your flour and add it one cup at a time mixing well after every cup and the 3 TBSP. When you are finished you will have this mondo amazing creamy textured cookie dough:

Doesn't it look yummy??? Now add your chocolate chips!

The oven should be good and ready by now! And you are ready to bake these guys! If I have a ice cream scoop, I would totally use it to dish out my batter, but I don't *sigh* so I just used a big spoon and eye balled it. I made my cookies somewhat large, what can I say we are eaters here! And to help out on clean up I lined my cookies sheet with foil. I don't have a dish washer, it is coming with the remodel in May, so I like to cut back on clean up any way I can! This is what my loaded pan looks like:

Now throw them in the oven. I left mine in there for about 17-20 mins and they turned out perfect! They are yummy, cake, and chocolaty! Hope you enjoy and tell everyone about my new blog!!!

How to refill a Swiffer Wet Jet bottle with your own solution

I have a wet jet mop and it always seems like the solution I buy runs out faster than the dirt on my floor, with two kids, two big dogs, and two cats, I mop a ton! I always wondered if the stuff in there was actually cleaning my floor, I need something that disinfects AND cleans, not something that just smells good. So I found a handy dandy little trick to help me get exactly what I wanted! A BLEACHING SWIFFER WET JET!!! Oh yes, you heard me right. I am one of them Moms, the one you find mopping the ceilings when I'm really on a roll, the one who thinks the house is never clean even when it doesn't look bad, the clean freak (which by the way is not easy with two kids!) I am in heaven now with my new bleach mop :)

Heres what you will need:
a small saucepan
a empty swiffer wet jet bottle
about 2-3 cups of water

Heat the water in your saucepan to the point of boiling, when it has reached a rolling boil, stick the lid end of the swiffer bottle into the boiling water and hold it there for about 30-40 seconds. Remove it, take a towel or washcloth and put over the cap ( this is only for leverage) and twist. It should pop right off! Rinse the bottle out and put whatever you want it! I would suggest the green Mr. Clean with febreeze, the smell is amazing, it disinfects, and leaves no residue! Or you could just put a couple TBSP of bleach and fill the rest with water. Just a little friendly advice ;)

Anyways I hope you enjoy all the money this will save you on refills, and have a clean wonderful day!

Chick-Fli-A copy cat nuggets with Chick-Fil-A sauce

I absolutely love Chick-Fil-A! I am really addicted, but due to recent crap, I am boycotting. But that is for another topic entirely! Anyways I was craving my favorite chicken ever, and I found this amazing recipe and had to share!

Here goes!

What you will need:
2lbs of chicken tenders
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup of pickle juice (I used the juice from my hamburger slices)
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
4 TBSP powdered sugar
4 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
Peanut oil

First things first cut up your chicken tenders into 2 inch pieces and put in a gallon sized baggie.

Mix the milk, pickle juice, and egg together. Just whisk it until it is good and mixed together! It will look something like this:

Then pour your pickle mixture in the bag with your chicken. It needs to chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Plop that bad boy in the fridge and walk away for a bit:

Add flour, powdered sugar, salt, and pepper to another gallon sized bag. I love mixing with bags, it takes a huge load off of clean up! It should look something like this bad boy:

 

Here is the messy part! After the chicken has set for a couple hours open that bag up and grab the chicken with your little fingers! Put the chicken over into the flour bag and shake it really good to coat the chicken. It will look like this:

Before you pop it in the oil check to make sure it is ready. Grab yourself a little dough ball from your bag and put it in there real quick. It should instantly sizzle and float to the top. Good now if it didn't make a popping noise and try to burn your face off your ready! Put your chicken in the pan, try not to overcrowd the pan, you want them to have some room to crisp! This is what you should have after you get your pan loaded:

Let them cook for a few minutes. My Mom always used to tell me chicken is done when you can cut it with a fork without trouble. Sometimes I take her advice to heart because I will overcook the crap out of everything. I would suggest 5 mins, but that is initially up to you! When you turn them over, they should look something like this:

Aren't they pretty!?!?!
Let them cook on the other side for maybe 3-5 mins, like I said, I can be a over cooker. But they should brown up really nice for you! And TA-DA!!!

Better than Chick-Fil-A nuggets!
Below is the recipe for the Chick-Fil-A sauce pictured above! Good luck and I hope you enjoy and tell others about my new blog!

Chick-Fil-A Sauce:
1/2 cup mayo
2 TBSP mustard
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 TBSP vinegar
2 TBSP honey

Mix all those together and EUREKA!





Home Made Glitter Play Doh

Everyone loves play doh, no matter how old you get it is still fun to play with! The best part is you probably have kiddos so they won't judge you one bit when you dive in and tackle making a play doh snake! I found this recipe on pinterest, where I find quite a bit of my inspiration! We changed it up a bit though by adding glitter and koolaid! My daughter helped me make this, we are huge at allowing her to help in almost anything that is safe, she is only five so it is huge! You should have seen her face the first time I let her use the vacuum! Whew I thought she was going to burst from pure excitement! So here it is, all our hard work jumbled into a huge ball of amazing glitter play doh that smells like berries!

The texture is wonderful and my daughter even left the plastic bag we put it in open for a few days and would you have guessed it would still be soft and unchanged? Like nothing had even happened when you know regular play doh gets hard after 30 mins or less after you quit playing with it! This is amazing, completely non toxic, and is fun for hours!

What you will need:
1 cup flour
1 cup water
2 tsp cream of tartar
1/3 cup salt
1 tbsp veggie oil
2-3 tbsp of glitter, any kind will do just don't do too fine. you can add more or less, just eye ball it until it looks like you want it to
1 package of koolaid this color was very berry

In a 2 quart sauce pan add flour, water, cream of tartar, salt., glitter, and koolaid.
Add the water and veggie oil to the mixture.
Turn the burner on low-med heat, the mix will be lumpy, don't panic it is going to for a minute!
Now stir, stir, stir. Don't stop stirring either! It will start to thicken a little. This could take 2-3 minutes depending on your stove top. Just keep on stirring! Once it starts pulling from the sides and sticking around the spoon it is done!
Put it on some wax paper, or I used foil, and let it cool. Then just mush it around a few minutes before you hand your hard stirring work over to the kiddos, this ensures you do not have any lumps.
Enjoy your good smelling play doh that lasts for days with out being put up!

Hope you enjoy!
I know my son sure loves it!

Guacamole

My husband is a mexican food fanatic, anything mexican he absolutely loves! So to cater to him, I started playing around a little bit with some things I had never tried before, tacos, home made flour tortillas, enchiladas, you get the point. After many many hints I finally agreed to make guacamole. Now I never was a big fan truth be told I loathed everything avocado, but I found this recipe and I have to say, I actually crave it with chips, on tortillas, tacos, doesn't matter, it is YUM!

Here is it! Hope you enjoy!

4 ripe avocados
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
2 roma tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1 lime juiced (I like to get some of the pulp in there too!)
1 garlic clove minced

Peel and seed your avocados and place into a large bowl. Add onions, tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, and garlic. Take a masher and just go to town, when you have a smooth texture to your avocados you are done. You are supposed to let it chill covered in the fridge for about an hour, but I can NEVER wait!

Blevins Family Pumpkin Bread

With all these Fall recipes floating around I have seen a ton of pumpkin pies, pumpkin fluff, pumpkin dip, ect. And it has been making me crave it like crazy! So I busted out the old cook book my Mom gave me before she passed and went to work on the pumpkin bread that has been in there for ages! I won't say it is the best because lets face it pumpkin bread is pumpkin bread, but it is pretty darn good!

Here goes! BTW I am super bad about telling people exactly how to make things, so if you have any questions at all please just ask!

1 1/2 cup flour (self rising works great)
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 cup pumpkin
1 cup brown sugar (great tip, if you put a couple big puffy marshmallows in your brown sugar it wont clump!)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
2 tbsp butter

Add all dry ingredients together then add all the wet ones!
Bake in a grease loaf pan (I used pam) on 350 degrees for 1 hour
As soon as you get it out of the oven immediately wrap it in tin foil! It will be moist and amazing!
ENJOY!

Best DIY window and glass cleaner ever!!

I call it "The Orange Miracle"! I was recently roaming around and I found this amazing 2 ingredient recipe for a wonder working glass cleaner! Don't believe me? Well okay. But here it is, no jokes, no gimmicks, just plain old amazingness in a spray bottle! Now if you are anything like me, you can NOT stand the smell of vinegar, I don't know it smells dead or something! But it cleans windows and glass so beautifully! So this is what I did!!

Go get ya a 28 oz regular old spray bottle (I bought mine at the Dollar Tree), peel 3 oranges (the recipe called for 2 but like I said vinegar :-/), and some good old fashioned white stinky vinegar! Take the orange peels and break them up to about quarter sized pieces or at least small enough to shove in the bottle, but not so small that your sprayer is going to suck it right up the tube. Shove those bad boys in your handy dandy spray bottle, and fill it up to the fill line with vinegar. Wait about 24 hours or so and BOOM a good smelling glass cleaner that is safe for your babies and pets! The orange peel makes for a perfect shine and smells heavenly. I left my orange peels in there, and probably will until the bottle runs out, then its time to start all over. Above is a picture of my perfection!! Hope you like this and good luck!!

What you need:
28oz spray bottle
the orange peel from 3 oranges
white vinegar

A little introduction

Hello everyone!
I am so excited to finally be on the web learning from you and teaching you new things! Here is a little about me! I am 25, don't let my age fool you there! I know, I know I should have totally been able to do this whole thing so much sooner, but what can I say, computers are not really my thing! I am a VERY hard working stay at home mother of 2, My daughter is almost 6 years old and my son turns the BIG 1 next month! I have been married for 5 years (on Oct 20th) to a wonderful man who is very hard working, my best friend, and the best dad ever! Right now I am super big about pinterest! Has anyone ever heard of the site?? Oh I love it! I get a ton of recipes from there and so far only one has been a nightmare, crock pot french toast, maybe just not the way to go! Anyways back on track here! I love to cook, sew, craft, restore old furniture, read, write, photography is a huge passion, and pretty much anything to do with the outdoors, I am there! Every few days I promise to post something new and fun! We are starting on Halloween next Monday, my daughter has Fall break so it was pretty perfect! We are huge holiday people around here so don't be surprised if I post multiple things a day once we get started! Anyways hope you all enjoy! I'm having a blast already!