5 Fall Faves

I haven't got to experience a lot of "fallish" weather here in the Carolinas, but it hasn't kept me from getting in the fall mood. Some of the things that have helped me do this are in this list, but the best part is NONE of them cost more than $5! Sometimes it truly is the little things in life. So here are a few of my favorites things...

1. Orange Spice Hand Soaps from Bath & Body. I love this new scent so much that I bought 3 of them! 2 Foam versions for the kiddos Bathroom & 1 regular for my kitchen sink. Plus the color coordinates beautifully with both rooms:)

 2. This is a gorgeous oval plate that I picked up at Marshalls for $4! It is a great size, not to big. SO I am sure you will be seeing in several of my Food Posts:)

3. Bear Creek Soups!!! I LOVE these! We have tried several flavors and haven't had a bad one yet. I love putting this packet and some water in my crockpot and knowing I will have a tasty meal with NO effort later that night. That is truly how easy these are, just add water. And while they are a little pricey (especially if you have to buy them in a regular grocery store) I pay just under $4 for them in the commissary. But they are totally worth it since normally all I add is water and usually a meat. For the one pictured (which is our family's favorite) I saute turkey kielbasa and add it in towards the end.
P.S. You can totally make this in a sauce pan in less than 1/2 an hour, but I am having an affair with my slow cooker right now so I put anything I can in it!

4. The Night Before Thanksgiving. This book has been in our house since before Gillyan was born, and we bring it out every year and read it the week of Thanksgiving. It makes me smile because so many of the little things in it remind me of my family. It is written in the same form as the Night before Christmas, so it is a fun read that my kids look forward to:)

5. Starbucks drinks! I love that I can taste the season in a yummy Pumpkin Spice Latte, or cozy up with some Hot Cocoa. But I am loving even more that I scored this box of Salted Caramel Cocoa at TJ Maxx for around 4 bucks! That means I can make my own cup of cozy at home for under 60 cents, and that makes it taste even better:)

Hope you are enjoying what's left of fall, and be sure and leave me a comment telling me what your favorite fall thing this year has been!

Roast 2 Ways & a Bonus.

So I have actually been cooking at home the last couple days, and was so excited about how easy and yummy these recipes were that I had to share! I have been breaking in my new crockpot, and the most recent triumph was this super easy roast.

Easy 4 packet Roast

Ingredients:

1 packet ranch dressing mix

1 packet brown gravy mix

1 packet Italian salad dressing mix

1 packet onion soup mix

1 roast of choice ( I used a 3 lb round roast)

1/2-3/4 cup beef broth

Carrots, Onion, Potatoes cut to taste.

Place roast in crockpot.  Arrange vegetables around the roast if being used.  Sprinkle the mix packets over the roast.  Pour Broth over all.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Now I personally think my roast was totally done at 6 hours on low, but I am sure it depends on the size of your meat and the size of your crockpot. This roast was not exceptional, however it was pretty tasty and did fall apart. I think next time I may skip the ranch packet and double the onion soup mix, but that is just my personal taste. Either way this will be a repeat in the Goodman household. 

Just a note as you look at the photo, I do NOT believe there is a good way to photograph roast beef or vegetables. Especially not if you are an armature! So please base your expectations on the review, NOT the photos;)

 

Now fortunately for our family of four a 3 lb roast made plenty for dinner with leftovers for my next yummy meal! 

French Dip Sandwiches

Ingredients:

1-2 lbs shredded pre cooked roast

4 Chibatta Buns

6-8 slices good white cheese such as Gouda, Muenster or Harvarti

McCormick's Au jus Packet

2 Cans Beef Broth

For this "cake" meal all you will need to do is heat your meat in a saucepan with one of the cans of beef broth. Follow directions on back of Au Jus packet, except replace half the water with beef broth. While the beef and au jus are cooking take your ciabatta rolls, split them and place on baking sheet. At this point I brushed a little butter and sprinkled some garlic salt on the rolls, but that is entirely optional. Place rolls under broiler till light tan. At this point I drained the meat and shredded it even more. Pile meat on one half of roll and cover with 1&1/2 to 2 pieces of cheese, place bake under broiler till cheese is melty and buns are browned. Serve on plate with small bowl of Au jus and chips. That's it:) Again my camera, the lighting in my home, and myself did NO justice to how yummy this dish was. Sorry!

 

The last thing I want to share is the "bonus" recipe. This little gem isn't so much a recipe as a idea. You may notice in my first photo the little yellow pile of stuffing. That is actually a "stuffin muffin"! These were so easy and tasty. All I did was buy Stovetop Stuffing ( I used Cornbread flavor) and prepare according to the microwave directions with butter. Then I scooped the mix into a muffin pan. I made 6 very dense muffins by cooking them at 375 for 12 minutes or so. In retrospect I think it would have been better to make more like 8 muffins, so they would have been a little crunchier. But I also used a stone so that means I could have just needed to bake them longer. However these were a fun new way to eat something that I typically think of as thanksgiving food, plus I loved how they were crunchy on the outside and dense on the inside like a muffin:) Hope ya try one or two ideas of these and let me know!

Washington DC Fall 2010

So Steve's work sent us to a leadership conference in Virginia this last weekend. We had conferences Friday & Sunday, however Saturday was "Family Day". So since my hubby has never been to the nations capitol he decided to hop on the metro and drag our family on a whirlwind tour of DC. The kids actually really enjoyed it, and we took a bunch more pics. But I will just post the highlights.
P.S. The Tour of the Capitol Building was arranged by Steve's unit and actually took place on Friday.


Here is the link to see the pics of our trip PhotoBucket Trip to DC 
Hit the Red Slideshow button in the upper corner for the best view with captions.

A Googly Eye Pumpkin & Brain Cupcakes

So if you know me at all you realize that we don't truly celebrate Halloween. Instead my family may or may not participate in a "Fall Festival" with or without costumes, and then the actual night of Halloween we lay low in our home with pizza, goodies, and a family movie. However this year we were put into the position of not being able to gracefully opt out of Halloween activities without it reflecting poorly on my husbands position. So I tried to get in the spirit of things without being to creepy. What I came up with was a variation I saw on a painted pumpkin and then some super basic cupcakes decorated like brains.

So the first thing I tackled was the painted pumpkin. This was a decoration for my Husband's car, which is the vehicle we will be using at "Trunk or Treat". His car happens to be a metallic blue, so since I am a matching freak, I used blue and black as the theme for all his trunk decorations.
If you want to try your hand at one of these, the project is cheap and doesn't require much. Here's what you will need:

• Pie Pumpkin
• Googly Eyes
• Acrylic Paint
• Sponge Brush
• Hot Glue Gun & Sticks

I had seen these in a magazine where they had spray painted pumpkins black or white and then glued googly eyes to them. However I have not had the best experience lately with spray paint, plus I wanted it to be sparkly blue which I couldn't find. So instead I bought a 67cent bottle of sparkly blue acrylic paint at Hobby lobby and used a sponge brush to apply it generously.

I then allowed it dry some, and then applied another coat. I even placed it upside down on a glass and painted the bottom.

After allowing the entire pumpkin to dry completely for a couple hours, I used a hot glue gun and applied googly eyes in random spots.

I thought this little guy turned out fairly cute and he cost me less than $4 total!

I then attempted to make Brain Cupcakes for the Bake Sale that we are having in conjunction with the Trunk or Treat. This cupcakes simply consisted of Red Velvet cake mix cupcakes, and grossly dyed cream cheese frosting. (Please ignore my washing machine in the background! It is simply the only spot in my whole house at night that I can get a decent picture:P)

I had seen the concept online in a couple places, and basically all you do is take your cupcake and then a icing bag with a large round tip and place two lines down the center of the cupcake, with squiggly lines on either side to fill the reminder of the cake. Mine weren't quite as nice as many I had seen online, however the cream cheese icing I used was very soft. So the icing wasn't holding it shape well. However my taste testers (Gilly & Gidey) said they were perfect;)

So while I hope we go back to our quiet home celebration next year, I did enjoy trying my hand a few things I wouldn't have otherwise had an opportunity to do. Happy Fall Festivities!

Feeling Like Fall Finally, so I made Apple Dumplings!

Yesterday was the first day here in Carolina that even pretended to feel like fall. So I broke in my new crockpot with a yummy soup and then made this fun looking recipe I found on a couple different blogs for easy Apple Dumplings. The recipe seems to have originated from Pioneer Woman but I found it on Our Best Bites. I also halved the recipe, the original made 16 dumplings but our family would never eat that many. So I am posting my modified/halved version.

Easy Apple Dumplings

Ingredients:

• 1 Medium to Large Tart Apple
• 1 Can refrigerated Crescent Rolls
• 1 Stick Butter
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 1/2 Tsp Vanilla
• Cinnamon to Taste
• 4 oz Mountain Dew or Sprite

Spray a 8x8 pan with Pam. Peel and cut your Apple into 8 wedges  (I used my apple wedger and it made 10 pieces, so mine were a little small). Separate the can of crescents into 8 triangles. Then wrap each apple wedge, covering it completely with the crescent triangle. I placed my apple at the wide end of the crescent and then rolled it up and tucked the edges over the ends of the apple. Place each crescent covered apple in the 8x8 dish. Now take your butter and melt it in a saucepan. Add to the melted butter the vanilla and sugar. Stir just to combine, then pour over the pan of apples. Then take your soda and pour it around the edges of the dish. Most recipes I saw said to use 6 oz of soda, but I barely used 4 and thought it was plenty! Sprinkle entire pan with cinnamon to taste. Place in oven that has been preheated to *350 and bake for 40 minutes. Once done allow to cool some and then serve with ice cream. The dish make a gorgeous carmelly syrup that I drizzled over the dumplings and the ice cream:)  Yummy and Easy, my kinda recipe!

I'm BAAACK! with a Candy Corn Wreath in Hand;)

I know everyone missed me more than words can say!;) To be honest the time away was REALLY good for me, and got some of my creative juices flowing. So hopefully the posts will be a little more consistent, but no promises!

Onto my real purpose of this post...My Candy Corn Wreath!

Now while I HATE eating those vile little sugary candies, I also smile when I see them because they remind me of my favorite Aunt who adores them. So when I saw this wreath on the cover of a magazine I knew I had to make it in her honor. This little guy turned out to be fairly simple and not very spendy, which are both things I look for in any craft.

Whatcha need is pretty basic: 

• Any size Styrofoam wreath ( I used 6 inch because I am cheap & lazy)
• Black duck tape
• Candy Corns ( I recommend Brachs because they are sturdy and some of the prettiest)
• Ribbon
• Hot Glue Gun & several Glue Sticks
• Paper Plates for Glue Gun drippings & Candy Corn picking

 1) Wrap your wreath in the duck tape. This didn't not look that pretty to me at first, and honestly was rather lumpy. But it didn't end up mattering at all.

2) Heat Glue Gun, and grab a paper plate to pour your Candy Corns onto. All the instructions I read said at this point to lay the candy corns out on your wreath to get a good idea how to fit them on. Again, because I am lazy I just decided on a starting point and figured anything that didn't come out right I could hide with ribbon;) I did however follow the instructions to place the rows opposing each other and that worked out great!

3) Continue to glue candy corns on wreath till it is a full as you want. As you can see from my pic above I originally intended to glue only 4 rows, but since I bought the huge bag of candy corns and it was coming together faster than I thought, I went on to do 6 rows which made it very full:) I only ended up having one row not come out "even", and I bet from the pic you can barely spot it, so I didn't worry.

4) After you have glued all the candies in place, grab your ribbon and make a hanger with a bow. My recommendation here would be to go for wide/thick ribbon. I was again being cheap and bought some pretty decorator ribbon(that is actually black & orange, NOT black & pink like it looks in the pic) that was a buck and the wreath is to heavy for it:( However it LOOKS cute!

So there ya have it. A project that took less than 1/2 an hour, and only cost about $10. Granted I did have some Michael's coupons I used on the wreath and tape, however I easily think you could skip the foam wreath and the duck tape by using a cheaper straw wreath with cute fall looking results. Let me know if you try this and how it turns out. Be back soon with pictures of my Gilly Bean's 8th Birthday!

Short & Sweet

I am just logging a short post to let everyone know that I am removing my self from the internet world (sort of).
I won't be posting blogs anymore at least not for a while till I work through this funk. I have also deactivated my facebook account. I feel it takes up to much of my time and isn't something that I usually find uplifting. Actually lately it has been the opposite, it only serves to depress or bring me down.  I am sure none of these actions are very permanent, I just need to know that I can live without FB. And so far my blog as just been making me feel like a failure, which was not the original intent.So what I am getting at is if ya need to catch up with me call, text or even send an email. I am not dead nor am I dying, I just really need some down time...

Tasty Tuesday-Chicken Salad

So strangely enough one of my kids favorite lunches is chicken salad. I love this because chicken salad is pretty easy and says summer/light food to me! I had to play around with a few different recipes to get the flavor and consistency that my family likes, and to be honest I don't follow this recipe exactly. It is more of a guide line so I don't forget any key ingredients. Here is the Goodman family's favorite chicken salad:

Chicken Salad
2 cups cooked Chicken ( I have used it all! Canned, Leftover, Roasted Chicken from the Store, it all works great!)
1/3 cup Sour cream
1/3 cup Mayo
Squeeze of lemon juice
1/4 cup diced celery
1 heaping tablespoon Pecan pieces ( I cut them very fine or the kids don't like it)
Diced onion to taste ( I have used white and green onions, I prefer white but the green looks pretty)
1 tbs dill pickle relish
Dash of salt, celery salt, and about 1 tsp pepper.

Mix Chicken with Sour Cream, Mayo and Lemon Juice. Add in next 4 ingredients and then season to taste with Spices.

I know this is almost to easy to post, but after serving this so many times this summer I felt it deserved a post. You may notice that my recipe is on the dry side, this is how my family prefers it. However this is easily changed to a creamier version by simply adding more sour cream and/or mayo. We have served this on Croissants, French Bread, Wheat Rolls, and even in a ball with crackers on the side! My kids don't seem to care how I serve it as long as I don't put in to many nuts or to much pickle;)  So there is a tasty simple recipe for you, go whip it up and take your kiddos on a picnic!