Cakes

Since my camera cord is temporarily misplaced, I decided to stop procrastinating another blog and do a cake blog. I have decided that buying a cake although good and easy is not always the most cost effective!

I started making my own after I ordered my son's 1st cake and it was a sheet cake with a sticker on it. Seriously I could have done that for $30!! So here are a few of my creations! Enjoy!! I've also made a Lightning McQueen and a Crown! They are somehow not downloading!

I also am willing to make cakes for others so let me know if you are interested! :)

Spring Fever

With the amazing weather the last couple of days it's got me thinking about summer. Summer is full of flowers and gardening. I have been trying my hand at gardening and flowers the last couple of years. The gardening part has gone great, the flowering part, not so much. However, with Spring Fever kicking in, I have been thinking about both!

This year I'm going to do some different things with my garden, but it will include squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, lots of peppers(of all colors), carrots, okra, and that's all for now! I have already told my hubby to be ready to make me a double the side garden spot this year, so he has been warned!

Flowers are going to go in the front of the house in the pot deal we have. I have been ignoring this spot for about 5 years, and the spot on the other side is going to also turn into a flower garden.

That's my small rant on Spring Fever. Can you tell I'm excited for summer? Are you guys gardening this year? What's going in your Garden?

Valentines Day Recipe w/ 4 ingredients!!

This is a ridiculously EASY recipe. I made this for my Valentine and he thought I had spend a long time working on it. It did take me about a 1/2 hour at first to cut the chicken and fat ect, plus it was my first time so it was a little dry. It did turn out good though!

This is for 1 serving so I had to triple as I made three.
5oz Boneless, skinless, chicken breast
Laughing Cow low fat Swiss cheese triangle
1oz of Ham
salt & Pepper

Flatten out the chicken by pounding it out. Using a butter knife spread the cheese out over the entire chicken. Place a piece of ham down and roll up keeping it in place with a toothpick. Put salt and pepper to your liking.

Bake COVERED for 20 minutes, then take off foil and cook another 15 minutes.
Bake at 350 Degree's

This is what it will look like when it comes out.

Recipe of the Day

Backyard BBQ beef cups

12 ounces ground beef
1 small onion, finely chopped ( I used minced onion)
3/4c. BBQ sauce
1 package Pillsbury crescent recipe creations seamless dough sheet

Preheat oven to 375. Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with "Pam"

Bring a lg. skillet sprayed with Pam to med. high head. Add beef and onion. Cook
Reduce head to low stir in BBQ sauce and let simmer for 5 minutes

Roll dough out into a 12x9 rectangle using a knife cut into 12 squares.
Place each square into a muffin cup, and press it into the bottom and up along the sides to form a dough cup for the beef.

Evenly distribute beef mixture among the cups. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.
Let cool and chow down! :)

Another way to make this easier is to have your hamburger already made. I had made up a couple extra pounds so this literally took about 10 minutes to put together!

Pantry Challenge Week 2

We are on to week 2 of this pantry challenge! Last week went well, with no eating out and no extra trips to the store for anything! To me that is what I call one BIG success!

This week is a little different. I have spend $50.00 roughly in groceries. Due in large part to the meal swap. I now have 4 extra meals in my freezer to eat throughout this challenge which to me was worth it!

I put the other $50 we generally use for groceries in our savings so that will be nice to have next month! This week I am a little behind posting this and I was not feeling the best so we have already ate out for our one time this week. Here is what the rest of our week looks like.

Thursday: Left over Chow Mein (freezer meal)
Friday: Homemade BBQ bf Pizza
Saturday: I will be at a Valentines Bazaar all day so will probably have Jeff bring me a piece of left over pizza or something. They will eat leftovers. PLUS my mom will be here so we may go out to eat?!?!
Sunday: Runza Casserole

Then for Next week my goal is to only go to the store for milk, eggs, bread, and cereal.
Monday: Leftovers
Tuesday: Meatballs (freezer)
Wednesday: Pizza Meatloaf(freezer Meal)
Thursday:Left overs
Friday: Pizza (homemade)
Saturday: Something with Chicken ( I haven't found the recipe yet, will let you know!)
Sunday: Chicken Fried Steak *ww recipe*

This week besides the few things I need for these items, I will be stocking up on some really good Safeway sales!

Recipe of the week and my first attempt at homemade bread

Alright. The LONG awaited recipe for the pizzafied chicken.

1/4c. crushed tomatoes
1 stick light string cheese
5ounces boneless skinless cx breast
1/4c. each bell peppers and mushrooms
2 TBLS diced onion
4 slices turkey pepperoni chopped
garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper for seasonings

Preheat broiler.
Pound the chicken until it is uniformly 1/2 inch thick. season. Bring an oven-safe skillet sprayed with Pam to medium heat on the stove. Add peppers, mushrooms, and onion and cook until soft. 4-6 minutes. Remove and set aside.

Respray skillet and add chicken. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side. (until cooked through)

Top chicken with tomatoes, string cheese(chopped) veggies, and turkey pepperoni.

Place skillet until the broiler for a few minutes until cheese is soft and pepperoni is crisp.

**DISCLAIMER: I realize it looks DISGUSTING, however it is the best chicken recipe I have found in a LONG time. Plus it's healthy so how can you go wrong?!


Next up, my very first EVER loaf of bread!!!!!! Now, I have used my beloved bread machine several times to make dough. I have never make a loaf of bread. Here is my perfectly browned and VERY YUMMY smelling bread. You know how Rachael Ray says we need smellevision I think we need smellibloggin', :) okay, so that didn't really make sense, but you get how good it smells!

Working out?! What is that!?

This week has NOT been a good week for me!!! We went out of town and I went crazy. Instead of getting back on track when I got home, I kept going! Oops. Today I took the kiddo's to the library for story time and picked out a couple of DVDs to workout to.


Now this DVD kicked my butt. After I got home I jumped on amazon and read some reviews. It didn't get GREAT reviews, but more so so ones. I had in my head this was going to be an easy cheesy workout. I read that Cardio 2 was the way to go, but I figured I would start with 1 just to be sure. WOWZA, I was OUT. OF. BREATH. after about 2 minutes. I guess I'm not as in shape as I thought.

I ended up doing 3 out of the 5 workouts for a total of 30 minutes. It was a good workout and I can definitely feel it in my arms after the upper body one. I get these for 2 weeks, then I'm going to go switch out. Our library has about 20 workout DVDs for check out, so I was thrilled to find it! :) They aren't all biggest loser ones, in fact I think this was the only one that was there.

I also check out a Valerie Bertenlli one, so we will check that one out as well. The reviews on that one were horrible! However, there are 2 different workouts on there ranging from 20-40 minutes. Short enough to keep my attention, but long enough to work up a sweat!