Curried Chicken

This is the best curried chicken that we have ever had!!

Hope you enjoy.

Curried Chicken

1. In a plastic bag, shake chicken pieces in flour, paprika, salt and pepper. (It's supposed to be a whole chicken, cut in pieces with the skin, but I usually use boneless, skinless thighs or breasts as well...you just don't cook it as long.)

2. Fry coated pieces in oil to brown on both sides, remove the chicken and place in a baking pan.

3. To the chicken drippings, add the following: fresh, crushed garlic, one diced red or green pepper, one small diced onion, 4 tablespoons of curry powder or paste (I use medium hot paste), 4 tablespoons flour, 1/4 tsp of cayenne (or more, to taste), 2 cups milk, 1/2 teaspoon thyme, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, , 2 cups chicken broth, 1 teaspoon lemon juice.

Simmer sauce to a gentle boil and just thickened. Pour over chicken and bake at 350 degrees until tender. Nice over coconut rice.

Eggnog Latte

Here is a yummy treat to enjoy over the holidays. I think I am a little to addicted to this sweet treat but thats ok; it will only be a holiday treat!!

Recipe and picture come from Savory Sweet Life

For more great holiday ideas check out we are that family

Cinnamon Apple Sauce Ornaments

The mini chef and I made some Christmas ornaments for his Puggles teachers last week. He was ready to go but need a snack half way through the process. His little chef hat was my trail run that I did with a bed sheet. I am headed to the craft room now to make a "good" one.


Here is the recipe for making the ornaments.

Cinnamon Apple Sauce Ornaments

1 cup cinnamon
1 tbsp. ground cloves
1 tbsp. nutmeg
1 tbsp. allspice
1 tbsp ginger
3/4 c. applesauce

In medium bowl, combine cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger & nutmeg. Add applesauce, stir to combine. Work mixture with hands 2 to 3 minutes or until dough is smooth and ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Its easiest to roll the dough out between two pieces of wax paper.

Cut dough with cookie cutters. Using straw or pencil, make small hole in top of ornament. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 150 degrees for 1 hour Remove from the cookie sheet and bake on the oven racks for another hour and a half.

The dough gets really sticky, so be careful when rolling out the dough. Also I've found that simple cookie cutter shapes (hearts, trees, pumpkins, snowmen, etc) work better than shapes that have a more complex edge. Besides hanging these on the tree or mental you can you can also use these ornaments as gift tags.

To store from year to year simply place in air tight container. Place some paper towel around them to keep them from banging around and they will be good for years!

home made fries

Home made fries are so much taster and cheaper then frozen bought fries.


They are simple to make first I scrub the potatoes then I use my fun crinkle cutter (received as a birthday gift) to cut the potatoes to look just like fries. Next I pour some oil over them and sprinkle Steak spice all over. Bake the fries for 10-15 minutes on 400.

Now to freeze the fries so they are available for convenience I simple take them out of the oven and pour the fries (in a signal layer) onto another cookies sheet and place them into the freezer to freeze for 2-4 hours. When they are frozen pop the fries into a Freezer bag and ta-da you have french fries.

When you are planning, or not planning, to have fries simple put them onto a cookie sheet and bake at 400 for 10-15 minutes!

Now the cheap part of these fries. For a single bag of fries the cheapest around here is $2.00. I just purchased 10 lb of potatoes for the same price and all of them will go towards making fries...I would say that is a great savings!

Wooden Christmas blocks

One thing I love about Christmas is finding lots of home made decoration ideas!! This is the newest to my collection finished just last week. Thank God that my dad has a wood lot and a back yard filled with lumber cause I knew I wanted to make some of these blocks after seeing them being sold at a craft fair for $10 a block!

So the other weekend when we were home I made my request for 2 * 2 cubes and headed out shopping with mom. When I returned home I had more blocks then I know what to do with...ok so that is a lie I have LOTS of things I want to do with them.

I made these ones by buying some toll paint ($1). The color I chose was antique white and I used brown card stock for the letters. The letters I cut out with my cricut using the Calligraphy cartridge. Then to give them a "antique" look I inked the edge with some brown ink.


I really love how they turned out!! They look beautiful lined up on the mantel with the greenery, lights and cinnamon applesauce ornaments.

For lots more Frugal Christmas ideas head on over here.

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Christmas gifts

Hey readers..I have been super busy with card making to raise money for a water buffalo that I haven't spent much time in the kitchen or blogging. I am excited to announce that we did reach above our goal!!! wooohooo some family in India is going to be so blessed this year!

Now its on to Christmas decorating which I will probably be posting my new creation on Friday and gift making. Here is on thing I am working on for Eben. Its a chef hat and apron. I will probably give it before the holidays so we can get some great photos of him with it on!



Works for me Wednesday is having a great Christmas addition so head over there to see 100's of ideas.

Also this site, chocolate on my cranium, has great gift ideas for you make it yourself kind of people.

Meal Plan

I am sure many of you faithful readers are just waiting for me to up date this thing so you don't have to look at the product review any longer. So here is my meal plan for the week. Also with getting closer to Christmas look for lots of cool VIDEOS on how I make many of our Christmas favorites.

Monday: Sausage spaghetti
Tuesday: BBQ Chicken on a bun
Wednesday: Bible study Christmas sweet potluck (I'm taken meat balls)
Thursday: Soup
Friday: Tacos
Saturday: Turkey noodle casserole
Sunday: Leftovers

Product Review

Ok I know I already did a whole post on how much I really like these Norwex products but I really want you all to know just how much I love the laundry soap!!

I received this laundry soap last Christmas and did my first load of laundry with it on boxing day. It is now Nov. 17th and I still using the same bag of soap. I figured I do about 6 loads of laundry each week. So lets do a little math together.

This week is my 49th week using the laundry soap.

A minimum of six loads are done each week

49 X 6 = 294 loads a laundry

Laundry soap cause $24.99 / 294 = 0.085

So for each load I spend ~0.09 cents!!!

I can't even believe how good of a deal that is!! The reason it is so good and last for such a long time is because you only have to use about 1 tsp / load. And even better is if you have a front loader you use even less so it will last between 18 months and 2 years!!!

Here are some facts on the laundry soap that you will find over here

he Norwex laundry detergent is seriouly fantastic. Things to know about it:

• Safe for High Efficiency machines (please follow your machine's warranty, though)
• Low-sudsing, scent-free, biodegradable and it washes 60-70 loads (or 120-140 loads if used with the Magnetball).
• Superior stain removing powder, whitens whites, brightens colors and cuts grease and grime on clothes.
• Has optical brighteners and color enhancers.
• Contains no fillers or perfumes, so is safe for newborns and people with sensitive skin or eczema.
• Excellent stain remover when mixed as a paste and/or a spray-on solution

NOTE: No fillers mean less wear, fading and pilling of clothes. There is no residue left on the clothes so clothes will not attract dirt as quickly. It decreases clogs in the machine’s drains, too.

The reason I am doing the review now is because my sister in law Deja is giving all proceeds from on line orders to purchase live stock for needy families in 3rd world countries. Why not hope on over to Norwex healthy cleaning and stock up!!!

For more great works for me ideas check out life as mom

Meal Plan Monday

So last Friday night we tried Chicken Nachos a delicious crock pot recipe I found over at 365 days of crock potting. They turned out really great! It was one of those meals where you just feel like you are going to over eat and come to find out you can hardly finish what is on your plate.


Even the babe enjoyed them!


So this weeks menu is pretty simple

Monday: Turkey soup and biscuits

Tuesday: Pizza

Wednesday: Turkey Enchiladas

Thursday: Clean out the fridge

Friday: Sandwiches

Saturday: Not cooking

Frugal Baby shower decorations

The other weekend we had a baby shower for one of my closest friends Genieve.



So I wanted to share some of the very cute decorations we used to dress up the community center a little bit.

This diaper cake was the center piece of the room. It was created using cloth diapers. These are becoming very popular not only as decorations but as a gift too! What a nice present it is to receive diapers!


Another thing we did was use different boy and girl outfits to make this little baby clothes line.

Some games we played included: Guessing how many bubble gum where in this jar.

Also we did these little words of wisdom note cards. This was an idea I got from another friends baby shower! (Thanks Naomi). What we had the guest do was fill out the cards with some advice that they had for the first time parents. Now the parents aren't suppose to open them until the baby comes along! I am sure they will find lots of little treasures in those cards.

The clothes pins on the card were for another game where you weren't allowed to cross your feet or your legs.

We had such a fun afternoon playing games, opening presents and eating!!! And after we left the shower we went back to Genieve parents house to eat more. Isn't this a cool chip that she found and what a great picture hubby got!!




For more frugal ideas head on over here.

Cinnamon Floss

photo by Micah Peterson

So I decided to make up some cinnamon buns using a recipe I have had for some time now. They are called over night cinnamon buns. Which just means you do all the work one day, let them sit in the fridge overnight, take them out in the morning and put in the oven. Hubby says they were the best he had tasted in a long time. * Just a side note the recipe says it makes 12 but I made 24!!

While I was cutting up the long cinnamon roll hubby decided he wanted to show me how to make movies and put them up on the blog so here is my first try at a movie.




Now I am assuming you know why the post is called cinnamon floss and no I didn't use the same piece that night to do my teeth...but what a great way to cut the dough!!! I will be keeping some floss in the kitchen cupboards from now on.

Here is an amazing photo hubby took of the buns the next morning hot out of the oven!


For more kitchen tip ideas head on over to Tammys site!

Broccoli Flowers

I got this beautiful bouquet of broccoli flowers from hubby!!! Aren't they pretty...hehehhe

Mondays Meal Plan

I'm pretty late getting this out but here is whats cookin this week. I may not get to bloggin too much this week as I am getting Scatter Joy Cards ready to do its first craft show. I will share more maybe later this week. But I am so excited to be preparing for my first 12 scrap booking crop on Saturday...hopefully I can get lots done and have food for my boys made!

Monday: Baked beans and Mac and Cheese

Tuesday: Mexican Lasagna

Wednesday: Left overs

Thursday: Turkey Supper

Friday: Quesadillas

Saturday: Pizza

Play dough fun

So this week we have had a bit of the flu in the house. Yesterday was one of the first days out of bed for this little guy so I decided to do some at home fun with him. I whipped together a home made play dough recipe and we went to town on his coloring mat. I loved the idea from frugal family fun of having a big washable shower curtain to use to color on with crayons, washable markers or chalk. It also worked really great for playing with the play dough. This heavy duty curtain was purchased at a yard sale for only $1!!!

I had a bunch of plastic cookie cutters that I let him use to play with as well. The recipe for the play dough was fast and simple.

1 cup flour
1 package of Kool-Aid
1 Tbsp cream of tarter
1/4 cup salt
1 Tbsp oil
3/4 cup boiling water

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add oil, then pour boiling water in and mix thoroughly. Store in air tight container in the fridge. Should last a few months!

For more frugal ideas check out here

Nutmeg Sugar cookies!

Oh my I just love these cookies and since the babe is now feeling better, had a touch of the flu this week, I decided to make a batch of these to munch on while I sew up some baby gifts.

The recipe is from Taste of home they are a delicious soft cookie with a hint of nutmeg. The best part is the course sugar that I sprinkle on top. I just noticed the recipe says it makes 6 dozen...wow. I didn't get that many only 2 and then some maybe thats because I like these cookies a bit bigger!

Last week of October

So here is my last meal plan for the month of October. Sorry there isn't any pictures but I am just putting this together fast this morning...we had a long weekend with a flooded basement!

Monday: Chicken Spaghetti
Tuesday: Porky Joes and fries
Wednesday: Roast, potatoes and veggies
Thursday: Stir fry or leftovers
Friday: Pizza
Saturday: Baked beans

For more meal plans head on over here

Pumpkin mousse

This was a big hit at the dessert table this Thanksgiving!!! I found the recipe over at CD Kitchen! The recipe was so simple to make and easy on the budget as well. I had bought the cream cheese and cool whip on one of my trips to the states for 0.99 cents each!!! And all the other ingredients I had laying around the house. For the cookies I made them myself using our ginger crinkle recipe.



So here is the recipe and for the complete recipe head on over here.

8 ounces cream cheese -- softened
1/4 cup sugar
16 ounces canned pumpkin
1 box instant vanilla pudding mix
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 cup cold milk
4 ounces frozen whipped topping -- thawed
24 gingersnaps

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in pumpkin. Add pudding mix and pumpkin pie spice; mix well. Gradually beat in milk. Fold in whipped topping.

For truffle
Spoon in some of the pumpkin mixture. Break up cookies and layer over the pumpkin mix; repeat layer on more time and top with some extra whip cream!

For individual dishes
Spoon about 1/4 cup each into serving dishes. Crumble 2 gingersnaps over each. Divide remaining pumpkin mixture among dishes. Garnish with a whole gingersnap. Chill until serving. Refrigerate leftovers.

For more frugal idea check out life as mom

African Doughnuts

Since moving here 4 years ago I have wanted to learn how to make these delicious "African" doughnuts that my friends make. So my friend Lilian and I decided to tread off some cooking skills. I showed her how to make mashed potatoes and she showed me how to make the doughnuts.

Now she doesn't follow a recipe but did a good job to write one out for me. The doughnuts are kind of little fritters but a little sweeter!

I am glad I know how to make these now! They are always my favorite at our parties and pot lucks!

steak sandwiches

This is a delicious meal that my mom is famous for! I am so excited to be making these for supper this week!

Steak Sandwiches

Fry up onions with garlic, ground steak (mom bought us some in the states), green and red peppers. Add your favorite BBQ sauce. Place meat mixture into sub buns; grate cheese on top and bake until golden brown!!!

We will be serving these with homemade french fries!

Caramel Apples

So last weekend we celebrated our 2 year anniversary of living here in the bestest court!!!! So to celebrate we wanted to give each neighbor a gift and with the 24 lbs of apples we picked up this is what I came up with.

 

 I got this recipe from my friend Niki who made over 100 of these for wedding favors...she is one brave women. I wasn't that courageous to attempt that many my first time so I just did a little over a dozen.
They were a labor of love that is for sure. So here is the "recipe". You take caramel candy (peel them) and melt them down. I melted them in a coffee can or apple juice can in a double boiler and to make it creamier you add a little bit of coffee cream. Now don't add too much cream cause it will make the apples too sticky...trust me I had it every where!!!! Once they are dipped you place the apples on a cookie sheet lined with PARCHMENT paper NOT WAX paper...please every one repeat after me...NOT WAX PAPER. It will make an absolute mess. Now your job is done for the day just leave the apples in the fridge. The next day you want to dip them in the chocolate so place apples in the freezer for ~1 hour (try not to leave them too long it makes the apples turn funny). Then you melt down some chocolate, I used chocolate chips, but use whatever you usually do and dip your cold apples in the chocolate. Once they are dipped top with score bits, peanuts, chopped nuts, candy sprinkles pretty much anything you can find in the house.

Tie some nice ribbon around them and ta-da they look great and taste even better!!

To give away as gifts we wrapped them up in gift wrap but be sure to put parchment paper under the apples.
We have lots of peach baskets so I put the apples in them and delivered them to all our special neighbors! I will be braving the caramel eliminates again this week as I prepare some of these for our family for Thanksgiving!!


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Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Oh this to me this the most wonderful time of the year.



I love fall decorations outside on peoples lawns and steps. I just love the colors of mums accompanied with hay, corn stocks, pumpkins and gourds. Also I love how nice the tables look at Thanksgiving meal and of course I love the foods that we eat at this delicious feast!! I will be sure to take lots of pictures of our families feast this year so I can show you all!

This week will be a busy week as we prepare for the thanksgiving weekend and I have lots of good ideas I want to do that I will be posting all week so keep reading as you may want to try them for your family!

Whats cookin

Monday: Baked beans, hotdogs and bread
Tuesday: Pork roast and potato casserole
Wednesday: BBQ ribs and fries
Thursday: Clean out the fridge
Friday: Picnic
Saturday: Thanksgiving meal!!!!!

For more ideas check out Laura's site

Mexican Rice turned Quesadilla

This is a great way to get a lot of meals out of one batch of rice. I posted a while ago how I used left overs in the fridge to make some Quesadillas but this time I didn't have anything in the fridge so I made up some Mexican Rice.

So here is some what of the recipe

Cook rice and add to the water some Taco Seasoning. Once cooked add some corn (frozen or canned) to the pot along with salsa, beans (I did have some maple beans left over), and peppers. Once done take Tortillas and place mixture in the middle of the shell. Top with cheese and fold the shell over. Bake in a 350 oven for 10-15 minutes and serve with sour cream and salsa.

These are great to have when company comes over or to have the rice made up in the fridge for a quick and easy lunch!

For more frugal ideas check out life as mom

Cute personalized baby card

I love making cards!!! Besides being in the kitchen the craft room is my second favorite place in the house. Lately I have been making this type of cards for baby shower gifts. Its cute and simple to make. I just did a Google search and found a template and instructions here. These ladies are very beautiful and cute with the ruffled edges. I don't have that fancy stuff so this is what I did with just a template (that the one above). After cutting the design out I glued on this pretty patterned patter, inked the edges, attached these cute snaps I found at the dollar store, and labeled it with a letter for the baby's last name.

These cute little baby cards are a great accompaniment for any baby gift.

For more works for me ideas check out we are that family!

Now thats a banana split

Friday night here is always take out style food so to go along with that, my wonderful husband, made us a banana split!!!

It was very creative of him to put it in this big salad bowl. There was lots for all of us seeing how our family is only the two of us and our little guy who isn't even two yet! hehe.

The babe doesn't get treats like this a lot, can't you tell, so he really enjoyed cleaning out the bowl!!

This will definitely become and family treat for us as its much cheaper then going out for ice cream!

Trash to treasure

So last Friday I was way to busy to post anything cause I was working on this little project!!

I had been saying to hubby that I wanted to get a small book shelf for the babes room. One that could hold those little books and eventually flash cards. So with that thought imprinted in my head I headed out to value village for their 50% off day!! While you can image my great delight when I spotted this old spice rack for $2.00 (price after 50% discount)!!!

When Micah got home I was so excited to show him and let me know my dreams for this gem. The next day I headed out to the dollar store to pick up some blue paint and brushes so I could get to work painting it up nice.

So after two coats of paint here is the babes new little book shelf (I did for $4) for his new big boy room!


For more frugal ideas check out life as mom

DIY tie shirt for the little guy

I don't know about you other moms with boys but dressing them up with a tie is not my favorite thing. As soon as I put one on this little guy he is trying is hardest to get it off. So that is where this very cute shirt comes in handy. I have seen them many times of different sites but this is where I got the tie patterns from.



For some reason, defiantly not from his mother, he doesn't like the camera and it takes a fast finger to get a good shot of him. See how fast it went from good (I like the editing) to bad..hehe..


He looks so cute with this shirt on and no taking off the tie. He is so stylish. These are also great to give away as baby gifts for those new little guys as the tie can be sewn onto any size onesie or t-shirt. And if you don't sew and live in this area my friend sells the T-shirts at Smilebugs Baby!

For more works for me ideas check out we are that family

Apple picking

So we just got back from apple picking. Last year the babe was a little less mobile; making it easier to pick more apples. This year he was a big help..to the orchard that is as he tried to eat just about every apple he found laying on the ground.

So now I am home with 24 lbs of apples and a sleeping boy. Giving me just enough time to search through my blog to find some recipes and ideas. Here is my apple picking/recipe post from last year. I am sure I will be creating new things so look forward to seeing them!

oh ya and this is going to help me so much this year!!!

Apple butter and Cider recipes

Portioned apple crisp

Meal plan

I am so glad that I have now set aside one hour a week to work on my meal plan so I don't have to think about it on Sundays! Here is what we are cooking up this week.

Monday: Spaghetti, Salad and garlic toast
Tuesday: Chops, Mashed potatoes and veggies
Wednesday: Stir fry
Thursday: BBQ lentils
Friday: Tex Mex Chicken, French fries and veggie sticks
Saturday: Baked beans, scallop potatoes

For more ideas on what to cook check out here

New Kitchen decor

So my new Cricut has come in handy in more places then just the craft room. Ever since I saw an infomercial on it I wanted one just to use for vinyl lettering. So now with my own Cricut here is my new kitchen decor.

I used chocolate brown vinyl and the Jasmine cartridge to create this beautiful bible verse over my kitchen window. I just love how it turned out. So for all you readers who have a Cricut or access to one this was such a cheap project. The package of vinyl was $9.00, my Cricut a gift and I borrowed a cartridge from a friend of the font I wanted. There are many different colors of vinyl you can get and lots of different cartridges so if you have friends you can borrow to do say yellow ducks in the bathroom or something! hehehe


For more works for me ideas head on over here

It's a new week

I am back...sorry readers I guess I forgot to mention that I was going to be away last week. I was in the big city of Toronto taking a training course for Home with a Heart. I had a great time but now I am back to work meal planning up a storm.

So this week

Monday: Easy Enchilada Pie
Tuesday: Chicken and Potatoes
Wednesday: Mac, Hamburger and Tomato (Mexican style)
Thursday: Baked beans, hot dogs and homemade bread
Friday: Mexican rice and Nachos
Saturday: Out for supper
Sunday: Leftovers

For more ideas on what to make this week check out these meal plans

Busy time of year

This time of year is so busy for me around here because I am re organizing everything. I started last week cleaning out the cupboards and making my bulk barn list of spices, herbs and baking supplies that need to be replenished.



I am still loving my "baby jar" system. I was finding it difficult to remember where the spices where and which container I had place them so I made two list which are now attached to the inside of my cupboard with all the spices in the "bottom" and "top".

I have also been cleaning out the freezer and doing the basket organizing in there again. Now that the babe doesn't have any special pureed food it can be used for something else. I think I replaced it with home made convenience foods like pizza pockets, fries, burritos and pigs in a blanket.



Now that I am organized again we will be stocking up on lots of fresh veggies and fruit to freeze for the winter.

For more great organizing tips head on over here.