Weekly Winners Feb 20-26. 2011

Making a snowman is hard work

Sleddings not her cup-o-tea

Gooby-eyes attack

A date night with my boys :)

I've got a bright idea!

 It wouldn't be a party without cupcakes

 Delicate cake-eating skills

Go check out the other winners :)

I Heart Faces Photo Challenge: Anything but a face

My niece turned 1 recently.  I always think that the best part of a 1 year-olds birthday is their own personal cake. Little ones are usually confused on what to do with a mound of yummy cake; but once they figure out what to do, it's all downhill :)

My little niece was so delicate with her cake; eating with her little fingers one bite at a time.

Go check out the other wonderful entries for this week.

 

Waffle Cookies

I needed a chocolate fix.

Scratch that.  I wanted a chocolate fix this afternoon.  Blame it on the Food Network.  After watching, "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" & seeing a chocolate cake, I immediately got up, grabbed my cookbook & went to baking.

I've been wanting to make these cookies for awhile, and the waffle iron was already out {hubby made waffles for breakfast} so I figured, "Why not."

These cookies start with a nice fudgy dough......thick and chocolatety.

 Plopped into a hot waffle iron {plopped because of it's thickness}

 And sprinkled with powdered sugar

 Lot's of powdered sugar.

 And because I have a Belgian waffle maker, my cookies came out thick & big.......but I don't mind ;)

 Give it a try.

Enjoy.

Waffle Cookies

1 Cup of Butter {melted}

4 {heaping} TBL of Cocoa

1 1/2 Cups of Sugar

4 Eggs {slightly beaten}

2 Tsp Vanilla

2 Cups of Flour

1. Preheat waffle iron
2. In a mixing bowl combine: butter, cocoa, sugar, eggs, & vanilla.
3. Slowly mix in the flour; you want a nice thick dough.  Add more or less according to those guidelines.
4. Spray down your waffle iron & plop down some dough.  Cook as you would any other waffle.
5. When cooked, place onto a wire rack; let it cool for just a bit; sprinkle with powedered sugar.
6. Enjoy!

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Cumin-Garlic Chicken w/Tomatillo Sauce & Chipotle Rice

KA-POW!!!

That was my first thought when I put a forkful of rice into my mouth......Man those southerners can handle the heat :)

Tonight's cooking adventure comes from Rachel from A Southern Fairytale.  I've been venturing out of my comfort zone, trying new foods & such & this recipe fits right into that.  I've never used tomatillos before & frankly I can't remember ever eating one before.

Tonight's dinner was so very delicious....all those flavors....yum!

James especially loved it....LOVED IT.  Especially the tomatillo sauce.  He immediately started scheming on how to incorporate the sauce into other dishes.  For instance: the tomatillo sauce w/ pork; shredded chicken, sour cream, sauce & a tortilla; on chips......

When I was making dinner, I was afraid that adding the Jalapeno to the sauce would make it too hot.  Nope, the sauce was a little bit sauce, and not spicy at all.  With the rice, I decided to add only 1 chipotle pepper {because of past experiences}; and gosh, did it add the heat; I should have used half of one :)  Still delicious nonetheless.

My husband went back for seconds, mixing together some chicken, sauce, rice & sour cream.  He then ate it on tortilla chips.

 He's one happy customer :)

Cumin-Garlic Chicken w/Tomatillo Sauce & Chipotle Rice

You should most definitely try this.

Weekly Winners Feb 13-19. 2011

{All photos taken with my Canon Rebel Xsi}

If I can do it, he can do it

Rose

Remembering 7 years ago......

Peaceful dreamer

French Fries

A Birthday Party

BBQ Chicken Stuffed Baked Potatoes

When I was trying to figure out what meals I wanted to plan for these upcoming 2 weeks, I decided to use one of my favorite blogs {that I like to read}, A Southern Fairytale.  One of the first recipes that I tried {and the one that led me to her site} was Rachel's Blueberry Zucchini Bread.  I had a ton of zucchini bread & was looking for different ways to use it.

{this is my picture}

So, as I scrolled through the recipe index on the site, this particular recipe looked quite yummy & very simple to make.  BBQ Chicken stuffed Baked Potatoes; now tell me that that doesn't sound good....

Thought so.

I kept true to the ingredients of the recipe, but went about my own way of preparing the end product.  Instead of cooking the chicken & onions & sauce in a fry pan, this is what I did:

In a glass dish, I coated two very good-sized chicken breasts with BBQ sauce.  I then sliced up one onion, and covered the chicken with them.  I then sprinkled some S&P & put some tin-foil on top.  I stuck the pan in a 400 degree oven w/ my potatoes & let everything cook for a good hour, hour & fifteen minutes.  After checking to make sure the chicken was done, I pulled the chicken out, shredded it, and then through it back into the pan to soak up all the yummy-juicy bbq sauce.  I sliced open my baked potato, squished it, and then topped it with some chicken & onions, dolloped some sour cream {which my husband was extremely happy about}, and finished it with a sprinkle of cheese.

What a hit!  I really enjoyed it.  So, so, simple....my kind of meal.

I kept thinking that my plate needed something else, but then I told myself that we covered all the food groups ;)

I'm excited for further endeavors into The Southern Fairytale recipe selection!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Have a wonderful loving day!

Valentine Card Tutorial

So, today we're going to get creative.  We are going to make our very own Valentine treats!

As I was surfing around blogland, I read about these Valentine treats.  Very cute......and I wanted to make some of my own.  I happened to go about it a different way in making the picture.

First off, I've discovered digital scrapbooking materials....more importantly, FREE digital scrapbooking materials.  One of the places that I go to is The Shabby Princess.  Most of my papers & embellishments have come from free downloads.

Second, fonts.  I discovered a website {Kevin and Amanda}where they have made available tons of free fonts.  There are so many to choose from, that it takes me a couple of minutes to go through everything.

So, those two things are the beginning to making our project today, and any future projects you might have.

Now, I don't have any fancy photo editing software yet, but I've been quite happy with the program I've been using.  That program: Microsoft Office Publisher.  I've been doing my recipe cards, invites, signatures, greeting cards, and various other things using this program.

So, onto the tutorial!!

First off, open up the program, and you'll come to this:

You'll want to click on blank sizes because we're making our own little picture.

This is the next page.  Now, this is where you're going to decide what size of picture you're going to print out.  If you're going to make a 4x6, then set it up as that size.  If you're going to do a 5x7, then set the page as a 5x7.  Do you see what I'm getting at??  I've noticed that when I create something in a 4x6 format, and print it off as a 4x6 format, the picture is great.  If I do it differently, then the picture gets cropped funny.  For today's tutorial, we're going to make a 4x6 picture.  So click on it or create a custom page and then select create at the bottom right.

Here's your page.  A blank canvas to put on it whatever you want.  We're going to add a background, so click on format and then background

 Click on picture and then select picture.  This is where the digital scrapbook supplies comes into use.  Click on a picture that you want to use.  I'm using a raspberry colored paper with some texture.

 Now you've got your background, we need to add some pictures.  Click on insert, then picture, then from file

 Pick out whatever pictures you want, resize, and arrange in any order that you want.

 Now we're going to add some embellishments.  Click on Insert, click on picture, click on from file & pick out your assortment of embellishments.  I decided to go with a simple ribbon.

Now, we're going to add a text box {as seen on the left side}.  Write whatever text you want, size it, and change it to whatever front you want.  Also, I would make sure to Bold your font, it makes it easier to read when you print.  This is a front that I got off that Kevin & Amanda site. 

 Next, I wanted to add a heart, so I'm going to click on basic shapes, and then click on the heart.  You can make it whatever size you want and whatever color you want.

 Next I added another text box saying "The Clegg Family".

I wanted to keep my Valentine very simple, so I stopped here.  Now we're going to save.  First we're going to save this as a publication.  Go to File, then click on save, then title your project and make sure it's saved as a publication.  Why you ask??  If you save it as a publication, you can always come back and change the original picture without having to start over.  Plus, you can have several pages in one publication.

Second, we're going to save it as a jpeg.  This will allow us to print the picture.  Go to file, click on save as, not just save, but save as.  Name your picture, and then click to make this a jpeg.

 And there you have, your very own Valentine Card.  I usually send mine off to Sam's Club and have them print off the pictures for me.  When it cost $0.13 a picture, that's a price I can afford!

Here's my end product:

The boys and I went through and put candy into plastic sandwich bags, and then I stapled our picture to the outside.  I'm sure you can dress it up a little bit more, but I think going this basic will be just fine for a bunch of little kids.

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