No Sew Swirl Scarf

I've been seeing this cute scarfs around and just came across a great tutorial on how to make them over at Iron Violet Designs. It explains step by step so well! Ive been wanting to make one for awhile now, so I'm super excited that I know how now...

Butter Toffee Cookies

Goddess of Baking

Recipe Adapted from Land O'Lakes
Yield about 4 dozen
Ingredients:
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Butter, unsalted and room temperature
2 Eggs
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 1/2 Cup Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Package of Toffee Bit

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl.  Beat in the eggs and vanilla until creamy.
3. Add the flour, baking soda and salt, mix until  combined.  Be sure to scape the bowl.
4. Stir in toffee bits.
5. Drop dough onto cookie sheet and bake for 10- 12 minutes, or until lightly browned.
6. Cool for a few minutes and move to cooling rack.
7. Enjoy!!

Funnel Cake

Funnel Cake Recipe (serves 6 people)

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 large egg, beaten

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 cup milk,  plus more if needed

Canola oil, for frying

1 cup confectioners' sugar  for topping (you can add 1/2-1 teaspoon cinnamon to the sugar if you want)

Sift flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl whisk the egg and granulated sugar.  Whisk the egg into the milk mixture. Gently stir the milk mixture into the flour mixture. The batter should be a little thicker than pancake batter, but thin enough to pour. Make sure it doesn't have any big lumps. Add more milk if needed (up to 2-3 tablespoons)

Heat 2 inches of canola oil in a pot with deep sides over medium heat until it gets to 375. If you're like me and you don't have a frying thermometer then just heat it until a drop of water sizzles when dropped into the oil. Cover the hole of a funnel with you finger and pour 1/2 cup batter in.  Hold the funnel over the oil and remove your finger, moving the funnel around in circles to create a web pattern (it will look like lots of blobs but as you continue to add batter they will cook together). Cook for about 30 seconds until the batter floats and the underside is golden. Use a slotted spoon and flip to cook the other side for another 30 or so seconds or until golden. Place the funnel cake on a paper towel and let cool for a minute. Use a sifter to top with powdered sugar and serve. 

 

This Chick Cooks

 

 

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls Recipe

heaping 1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1 cup powdered milk

3/4 cup dark chocolate (or other type if you prefer)
3 teaspoons canola oil

Mix together, peanut butter, honey and powdered milk. You can add a little more honey or peanut butter if the mixture is too dry, but you don't want it to be sticky! Roll 20 1" balls. Melt the chocolate and oil in the microwave at 15 second intervals, stirring in between each microwaving session. Dip the balls and place on wax paper to cool. Top with sprinkles if desired.

This Chick Cooks

Eclair Cake

oH sO yUmMy!!! and so easy... Found over at The Country Cook

 

Eclair Cake

Ingredients:

½ (8 oz.) container of Cool Whip
1 ½ cups of milk
1 package of graham cracker squares
1/2 tub of chocolate frosting


Directions:
In a medium bowl, mix together the pudding mix, milk and Cool Whip. In an 8x8 dish, arrange a single layer of graham cracker squares on the bottom.  You may have to break them up a bit to get enough crackers to cover the bottom of your dish.  It doesn’t have to be pretty or perfect.
Spread half of the pudding mixture on top of the crackers.  Layer another layer of graham crackers over the pudding mixture.  Then layer the other half of the pudding mixture on top of crackers.  Top with a final layer of graham crackers.
Put plastic wrap over dish and put in fridge for about 30 min to an hour to allow pudding to set.
When pudding has set up, put the tub of chocolate frosting in the microwave for about 30 seconds to soften (remove lid and aluminum foil top before microwaving).  Take out and stir frosting.  It should be easily spreadable now.
Remove plastic wrap from dish and evenly spread chocolate frosting all over the top layer of graham crackers. Place plastic wrap over top of dish and put back in fridge.  Now, forget about this dessert until tomorrow.  This dessert gets better over time.  The graham crackers need time to soften up.
When ready to serve, slice in squares and enjoy cold!


Cook’s Note: This dessert does not take long to prepare but it definitely needs time to set up.  Make this the night before you actually need to serve it.  Also, I really love making this with banana pudding instead of vanilla – so good! Also, I am told this is delicious using chocolate graham crackers and white chocolate pudding.

Cooking the Cookbook...

If your in the market for a cookbook...
May I suggest this one! One word! AMAzING!! I have prepared many recipes from this book, and I can't think of one that my family didn't like. It's worth your money, especially if your not a huge gourmet cook. If you just want yummy tried and true recipes you can trust. Worldwide Ward Cookbook is where it is at. She (Deanna Buxton) has 3 books. All have been found to be an asset to a cooks arsenal.

Sew Simple... Sew Cute!

The big trend here in California...Pillowcase Dresses. So adorable. A sewing group in my ward made some with zebra print and a band of fabric around the bottom in hot pink, or purple or yellow or blue trim and matching ribbon! Some did spring polka dots. They made them shorter than this picture and paired them with the cutest leggins and flip flops (which they embelished... but that's another post) The babies had huge fun headbands and the older girls just had some fun hair pieces. Gave me spring fever! Give it a whirl... I am almost done with mine. So excited!

Honey... I'm home!

I don't know how the rest of your evenings go... but at our house, When THE MAN gets home from work, he is hungry! Finding easy, yummy things to cook are super high on my priority list. THANK GOODNESS for bloggers who make my job easier! If you like sweet and sour recipes, this is right up your alley! Honey Glazed Chicken was a HUGE hit in our home. Ages ranging from 2-31. YUM!
* Our family tip/preference: use slightly less ginger in the sauce. ENJOY!!

Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham Cupcakes

I love Dr. Seuss. I don't know where my love came from but I have had a little obsession with him lately. So being his Birthday today I have been finding a lot of fun things in honor of him. When I came across the cupcakes, I had to add them here so I can make them and keep them forever. The fact that its sugar and non the less, another cupcake, of coarse I had to keep it!
Found at Kara's Cupcakes

KEY LIME CUPCAKES
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel
1/4 teaspoon neon-green food coloring
3/4 cup buttermilk

FROSTING
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

CUPCAKES

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin pan with 12 paper liners. Whisk both flours in medium bowl. Beat butter in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar; beat to blend. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then next 3 ingredients (batter may look curdled). Beat in flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with buttermilk in 2 additions. Spoon scant 1/3 cup batter into each liner.
Bake cupcakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool.

FROSTING
Beat all ingredients in medium bowl until smooth. Spread or pipe onto cupcakes.

1+1+1=1

For all you moms out there with Preschool aged kids, I have found the most wonderful site for you. Its another one of those pitter patter finds!

1+1+1=1

She has made tons of fun activities to help kids learn their numbers, letters, tracing lines, counting and everything else you could imagine to help your little ones get a head start on learning.

Be sure to check it out!

Oh... Did I mention that it is all free to download! Even better right...

bring on spring

This was a really cute fun way to help bring a little spring into our lives. A super fun activity for the little ones to enjoy... Spring Leis found over at

Simple As That

here's what you'll need:

-some string or yarn

-straws cut into peices (about 1 inch long)

-contruction paper or scrapbook paper for your flowers, flower centers & leaves

-markers, crayons or pencil crayons to decorate your flower pieces

-a hole punch to punch holes in the center of all your flower pieces



Church Site

I just found a new website that has lots of fun and cute things for church and church callings... I haven't looked into with too much detail yet, I was just too excited when I found it that I ran right over to spread the word.

Sugardoodle

Baked Coconut Shrimp with Pineapple Jalapeno Dipping Sauce

Source: The Girl Who Ate Everything and Tablespoon

Baked Coconut Shrimp with Pineapple Jalapeno Dipping Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 Tablespoon lime juice
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh jalapeno pepper
• 1/2 cup pineapple preserves
• 1 pound uncooked large shrimp peeled and deveined
• 2 egg whites
• 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 cups sweetened flaked coconut

Directions

1. Combine lime juice, jalapeno pepper, and pineapple preserves in a small bowl and mix well. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
3. In a small bowl beat egg whites with a hand mixer until soft peaks form.
4. Place cornstarch and coconut on two separate plates. Hold shrimp by the tail and dip and coat the shrimp with cornstarch. Next, dip the shrimp in the egg whites and finally in the coconut coating well.
5. Place shrimp on the cookie sheet and bake for 15-17 minutes or until coconut is a golden brown. Make sure to turn it once halfway through (around 8 minutes into cooking time) to make sure both sides brown.
6. Serve with pineapple dipping sauce.

Peanut Butter Cup Trifle

Source: The Girl Who Ate Everything

Peanut Butter Cup Trifle

Source: The Sisters Cafe

1 (9x13) pan of baked brownies, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 (5.1 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding

3 cups milk

½ cup creamy peanut butter

2 tsp vanilla

1 (8 ounce) container thawed Cool Whip, divided (or use homemade whipped cream)

20 peanut butter cups, crumbled (do not buy bite sized; you could get away with less...but why?)

6-8 peanut butter cups to garnish.

Combine pudding and milk. Beat for 2 minutes. Add peanut butter and vanilla, beat until smooth. Gently fold in 2 cups cool whip or homemade whipped cream.

Layer in trifle dish ½ the brownies, ½ the crumbled peanut butter cups, ½ the pudding mixture. Repeat. Top with cool whip and peanut butter cups. Chill at least four hours until serving.

Valentine's Lover's Lotto

Over at While He Was Napping I found this very cute Valentine's idea. Its scratch off lotto tickets! So darling and actually dont look too hard to make, and better yet... if you dont want to take the time to make them, you can buy them at her etsy shop!

Valentine's Printables

It is what it is there are multiple ideas of ways to use this cute free printable


These fun cupcake wrappers are free to print off at Food Art Party, so fun for a little Valentine's treat!

This is a free printable for 4x6 but also has instructions on how to get bigger at her site, While He Was Napping


These fun cupcake toppers and banner are free at She's {Kinda} Crafty plus on her blog there are lots more cupcake toppers to choose from! All very cute, be sure to check them out!







This is found at Hands on Housewife, to get a copy you just have to comment and leave your email and she will send you a copy! She also has some super cute treat bag labels available!



This download is very fun, in addition to these cute toppers there is tic-tac-toe, cupcake wrappers and much more! Very fun! It's Always A Party At The Parker's




This one comes from Lil Luna, it also comes in a couple other colors too!

Peppermint Treats

These Peppermint Brownie Bites look oh so yummy... They were found at Inside BruCrew Life with instructions located at the link!

They were based off the recipe from Joy of Baking for these yummy Peppermint Patties, which you find at her link too!

Valentine's Wreath

This darling masterpiece was found over at I'm a Yarner, I fell in love! It looks time consuming but well worth it! Click the link for a full tutorial!

Chewy Coconut Cookies

These looked so yummy, and I cant wait to make them. I found them over at In the Mom Zone. I just copied and pasted her instructions.

Chewy Coconut Cookies
To make these, you'll need:
*1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
*1/2 teaspoon baking soda
*1/4 teaspoon salt
*1/2 cup butter
*1/2 cup packed brown sugar
*1/2 cup white sugar
*1 egg
*1 teaspoon vanilla extract
*1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
*Chocolate chips, semisweet chocolate squares or almond bark
{I also added 1 tsp of cinnamon}
Preheat the oven to 350*
Combine the flour, soda, salt {& cinnamon} in a bowl.
In another bowl, cream the butter & sugars. Beat in the egg & vanilla. Once that is combined, gradually beat in the flour mixture. Fold in the coconut.
You can drop these by rounded teaspoons and bake for 9-11 minutes.

OR, you can do like I did and chill the dough, then roll them into balls and slightly flatten with a sugared glass (like you would with sugar cookies) and bake for 9-11 minutes.
Allow cookies to cool then either dip in melted chocolate or drizzle chocolate across the cookie (drizzling is very easy & fast using a fork). You can also leave the chocolate off-- they taste good plain too.