Cheesy garlic bread

Garlic bread is something we REALLY enjoy with our pasta meals.  So of course when I spotted this on pinterest I just had to try it out.

The recipe was easy to follow and the bread turned out delicious!  It has now become a favorite in our house. 

Hasselback Garlic Cheesy Bread

yield: 2 loaves

Ingredients:

1 cup Warm Water

1 Tablespoon Honey

1 envelope Active Dry Yeast (2 1/4 Teaspoons)

1 teaspoon Salt

3 cups Bread Flour

Olive Oil, For Greasing Surfaces

⅓ pounds Sharp White Cheddar, Or Any Other Cheese You Prefer

½ cups Garlic Butter

Directions:

In a large bowl, stir water, honey and yeast together. Let yeast proof 5 minutes. Once you know yeast is active, stir in salt and the flour in 1/4 cup increments. If you are using a stand mixer, be sure to not increase your speed higher than a 2 or ‘stir’. Once dough starts pulling away from the sides and the bowl seems to be pretty clean, set a timer for 5 minutes and walk away. Let the machine knead the dough. After 5 minutes, dough should be smooth and tacky but when touched shouldn’t leave any dough on your fingers.

Grease the bowl and the dough. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let rise 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Punch down dough and cut into two equal portions. Form into two long baguettes the length of the cookie sheet. I like to twist mine because it looks cool, but it also keeps its length and doesn’t shrink. Cover with plastic wrap and rise 30 minutes. Start to preheat oven to 400 degrees F and place dough close to the oven where it’s nice and warm. Once oven is preheated, remove plastic wrap, from the dough reduce oven to 350F, put the bread into the oven and bake 20 minutes.

In the meantime, slice the cheese into thin slices and melt the butter.

Pull loaves of bread out of the oven after 20 minutes and brush with the melted garlic butter. Bake another 5-7 minutes or until bread begins to turn a golden brown. Remove from oven and cool 15 minutes.

Cut 1-inch slices 3/4′s of the the way through the loaves. Brush garlic butter in between each slice and fill with a slice of cheese. Bake another 3-5 minutes or until cheese is completely melted.

Serve immediately.

Here is the bread hot out of the oven and ready for cutting and adding cheese

Cheese all in

Wrapped and ready to go back in the oven

Fresh out of the oven and ready to eat with our spaghetti.

Snow man in a jar

Say hello to our little snowman friend!  I decided last year after Christmas that I would decorate our house with snowmen during the winter months to help keep the winter blues away.  So my friend Sera and I worked on these felt snowmen; while Eben colored paper snowmen.  I can't take any credit for how cute this guy turned out cause Sera made it.  

So now when the Christmas decorations come down our snowmen go up until we decorate for spring time.  We place some of them in vases with a little bit of salt in the bottom to make them look like they are built on snow. 

In our new house we have this great circle window where we put him! 

Activity basket

So how do you get any work done with two little ones in the house?  My answer is our activity basket.  This basket is filled with so much fun stuff for the kids to do.  So while I am preparing supper Eben runs and gets the basket and brings it to the island where him and Jaelyn keep busy.  I really love having a kitchen with a island cause I am right there interacting with them.  

Our basket is filled with many different activities.  It has paper for cutting, coloring books, activity books, crayons, markers, and play dough.

Even though Jaelyn is little I really love the color wonder book for her.  Its a coloring book that comes with special markers that only show up on this book.  I like it for her cause the markers don't get on her clothing or the high chair where she colors. 

Eben gets the real deal a pencil box with all kinds of goodies. 

And here are some of the creations that Eben and Daddy have done together!

So do you have any tips for keep the kids busy while you get some work done??

Pinterest Thursday

Hello Readers!!!

   So today I want to share with you what I will have on the blog each Thursday.  I have decided that Thursday I want to hear from my readers, so its your turn to shine.   I want to do this by seeing what you guys are pinning and doing.

A lot of times we just pin, pin, pin but I want to know what you guys are pinning and making.  Now you can either share a positive experiences like the recipe turned out awesome or look at my totally cool sewing project I did.  Or you can share the bloopers.  I know for me I have some things I have pinned not turn out the way I thought which is a huge bummer but I want to be able to share those with you guys as well.

Please share what you are pinning by heading over to my facebook page and share there or just leave a comment on this post for all to see.

Here is a success

Apple Nachos which the kids (and us)  LOVED

And a not so good

These no bake granola bars were not a hit with the kids.  The looked so good but my kids and my niece and nephew just didn't like the texture

So lets hear you readers what are you pinning???

Apple Nachos

Pin It 

This is a new favorite snack in our house and I just have to share with you.  I found the recipe on Pinterest (what would we do without it these days....be more creative! hehe).    So we decided to make them for a mornings snack.  

Eben is very helpful in the kitchen and I find that if he helps me prepare the snack or meal he usually eats more.  So he got to be the apple peeler.  I really lovet his apple peeler that I got for Christmas a couple of years ago.  And now that Eben is old enough he can help me out by doing this job. 

This little gem peels, cores and slices the apple all at the same time.  Once the apples were ready Eben loves to eat the spiral necklace that the skin makes. 

Here is some what of a recipe I used. 

Apple Nacho Recipe

1-2 Apples

Chocolate sauce

Melted peanut butter

Caramel sauce

Craisins

Chocolate Chips

Skor pieces

Nuts (Almonds or Pecans)

Lay apples out on a plate, pour all sauces over apples and add toppings.

Now its time for the critics to test taste them. 

The verdit is plan to see in the next pictures!  They were a hit and gone before I could even blink.  The kids loved them and then that weekend I made some for some friends and we devoured them just as fast. 

What a great treat!  Why didn't I think of it my self. Like I said at the start....good thing for pinterest! 

Head on over to I heart nap time to check out what other mama's are up to. 

Valentines Party

As you all know by now I love LOVE and I have been having so much fun celebrating this month.  One thing I love to do each year is invite friends and family over to celebrate with me at a Love party.  You can see last years party here.  All the guest were required to do was bring a snack that was red, pink, white or brown!  Each lady did an awesome job of making something so creative.  

My house has had love decorations all over it since the first of the month and will probably stay this way until I change to spring theme or we repaint the house! heheh.  The table has a heart shaped basket on it with some card games to play. 

The microwave also got a makeover with a red tissue pom pom but instead of making it fluffy in a ball shape you make them so they sit like flowers.  I love them.  Along with the flower pom pom is the box of love fortune cookies I made for hubby and a heart shaped jar filled with red, pink and white gum balls. 

.   

I love scrap booking so of course I like making cute things so each cup had a special valentines saying on it! 

The cups where then placed in this cute tin by the pink drinks.  We also had some rootebeer and sprite to go with the theme as well. 

One thing I always like to do at the party is make sure I have a dish of love coupons for the ladies to take home with them.  They can either give them to their husbands as a special treat for him to enjoy or they can give it to him as a special treat that they want to receive.  The ladies sure had fun going through them to be sure they got a good one to take home with them. 

So now let me share with you the awesome treats that everyone brought!  From the picture just above you can see the delicious red velvet heart shaped whoopie pies.   And a tiny little bit of the chocolate brownies. 

Now on the cake stand were individual cheese cakes with raspberries on the top!  Oh and did I forget to tell you there was an oreo on the bottom for the crust.

This very delicious and colorful nacho dip was a hit.   And what would a girl party be without a tray of fruit and special pink dip to go with it. 

Pink cupcakes with sprinkles were a hit and we enjoyed eating them all weekend as well.

Even though we were all girls what would a party be without bacon!!!  These bacon shaped hearts were a BIG hit that everyone enjoyed. 

The chocolate pretzels were on the coffee table in the living room...I love sweet and salty snacks.   There you have it the party treats!  I am so bummed I forgot to get a group picture of every one together. I guess it will have to wait until next year.  

Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

I think chocolate dipped pretzels have to be one of my favorite snacks.  I am a sucker for sweet and salty.  Because I love them so much I try to keep this treat for special occasions and one of the them is Valentines day.   

                               

Pin It 

There are some disadvantages to pinterest and blog reading when you live in Canada cause a lot of the recipe you see we can't get the ingredients here.  Luckily for me we live close to the boarder and are able to get over into the states to pick up some things.  So this time around I was on a search for this Make Your Own Almond Bark Coating.  It was the best $2.88 I spent.  The chocolate melts so smoothly and it was so easy to work with.  I now know what I will be stocking up one each time I go to the states.  

When the chocolate was melted we poured it out on a plate so we could get a good portion of the pretzel rod coated.  Once coated we sprinkled with some valentines sprinkles and placed them on wax paper to harden. 

I love the colour of the pink and red sprinkles on the white chocolate. 

This was the special snack I made for my valentines party (post is coming soon) so I wrapped them up all pretty and placed them on my decorative plate to serve.  I couldn't decide if I wanted to do a plate of chocolate and a plate of white.

But in the end I went with a plate of them mixed together. 

For more awesome craft ideas check out tatertotsandjello. 

Peterson LOVE day

Can you feel the LOVE???  

No really there was a whole lot of lovin going on from sun up till sun down.   This morning when I walked into Eben's room to say Happy LOVE day and tell him I loved him; he reminded me very quickly that his name was Sonic so I said I love you Sonic and he replied " I love you to Princess Peach".  

To celebrate love day as a family we decided to dress up and pretend like we were going to a nice restaurant; which Eben named Sonic Restaurant.  To set up for the restaurant we made a little sign that said Sonic Restaurant and a menu card that said:

Sonic Special

Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo

or

Kraft Dinner

served with love potion and a brownie on stick for dessert  

                                               

So before we set the table and daddy got home from work we put on our nicest clothes...  

and fanciest shoes.

Jaelyn is such a helper so she helped me set up the table all pretty.

Right now Eben is pretending that his new name is Sonic and has given us each a new name as well so we played along with him and I made place cards with each of our names.  

With the table all set we were ready to be seated and enjoy our meal. 

After supper we had a dessert buffet with the kids.  We had brownies on stick, chocolate dipped pretzels and of course grapes with some yummy dip. 

After the kids went to bed it was time to party!!!

So we curled up on the couch to watch the 3rd part of a marriage series we are doing called Real Marriage. We took a break in the middle and Micah made me a very delicious Strawberry hot chocolate 

They were as delicious as they look! 

Here is a little blogging note that no one tells you.  The dipped chocolate will melt when heated! 

We had a very great LOVE day and look forward to celebrating the whole month of February....I mean what else are we suppose to celebrate when its snowing and - 20 outside.   I hope all you readers had a great LOVE day as well.