Tag: homemade

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The Only Celebrity Cookbook I will Ever Buy

Andi

If you’ve been missing my casual cooking and recipe posts, I apologize. I’ve been trying to cook and haven’t had much time to try new recipes. But, I did find a new cookbook and it triggered a need to cook.

Now, if you know, you know I do not like celebrity cookbooks. I am intrigued by them, so I pick them up, but end up just putting them back without even trying to make anything. The only exception was Chrissy Teigan’s Cravings Cookbook. I was able to make a few recipes and they were pretty good. The peanut cluster bites in there were to die for!! Having said that, I also returned it to the library and haven’t bought it or picked it up again. There never has been a celebrity cookbook I loved enough to actually purchase it.

UNTIL NOW

For some people, who knew Snoop Dogg back in the day, this may seem so odd. How could this guy, of all people, write a cookbook? I did not. I did not discover Snoop Dogg until I was an adult, where I’ve also realized I knew his songs but had no idea it was him or who any of these artists were. So when I heard about it, my first thought was, “well duh, he’s like BFFs with Martha Stewart”. Who by the way, did help him with this. But I realize how this may be odd. But I promise, this book is worth it.

I picked it up despite my general dislike of celebrity cookbooks because every time I’ve seen him, he’s always so chill and seems down to earth and genuine. This book reiterated that to me. It’s full of good meals, several of which has simple ingredients I use on the regular. Even the pictures of his pantry and kitchen look nice, but they aren’t over the top extravagant. It was so amazing.

But the real test came when I tried to make one of the recipes. I chose the Pork Chops and Mashed Sweet Potatoes. I expected it to both take me a long time and make a lot of dirty dishes, but I was surprised to be proven wrong on both. It only took me about an hour to make, and far fewer dishes than I thought. I was pleasantly surprised. The entire family loved it too, so it was delicious as well.

And if you still need convincing that this is the best cookbook on the shelf, then allow me to share his quote on Biscuits and Gravy.

“If you’ve been Down South, then you’ve eaten this on plenty of day breaks. This is that real soul food classic. The key here is to get those biscuits fluffy. And that gravy, well thats gotta be like that humid air of a Dirty South Summer- extra, super thick. But eat too much of this and you might as well just take your ass right back to bed. This ain’t for the meek. It’ll put your ass right back to sleep.”

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Hat with Flowers Craft

Andi

I got this hat and decorated it for the Royal Wedding a few years ago. The ribbon flowers I’d made and glued on have long since fallen off, and I was left with this, bland, little sad looking hat.

So this is what I was starting with. I had some plastic flowers, a little ribbon, and a hot glue gun with glue sticks.

First, I removed some of the lace ribbon. It was excessive and looked like it was falling off. Off with it. But I added some orange and green ribbon to give a base to add flowers to.

I picked up three bundles of flowers I thought looked good together. Three was plenty. I had extras left over afterwards.

I didn’t have much of a set plan going into this, so I added flowers where I thought they fit. I’m not an expert by any means, and a hatmaker would probably laugh at how badly my hat looked at the end. However, I’m not trying to be an expert or a hatmaker. I’m the one wearing this hat.

Final product: flowers everywhere!

I like color, I like flowers, I like eccentric things. So for my style and my purposes, this hat was a success! I do not remember what I spent on the hat when I bought it, maybe $10? The ribbon was given to me, the flowers were $1 a piece. My hot glue gun was about $10 when I bought it as well. Not a huge expense for me and it gave me an hour outside doing something in the fresh air!

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Chicken Chili Soup

Andi

Simple meal? Easy to assemble? Throw it in the crockpot? I’ve got the recipe for you!

I love a good crockpot recipe. Really, I have this love affair with my crockpot, it is my friend. I’ve made this recipe a few times and tweaked and adjusted it until it was delicious.

2-3 Chicken Breasts

1 can Diced Tomato

Broth

1 can Black beans

2 cups of Cheese

1 Bell pepper

1 Jalapeno

1 Onion

2 tsp Cumin

2 tsp Chili powder

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 can Corn

I say 2-3 chicken breasts because this is dependent on how big your chicken is and how big your crockpot is. Adjust to size. You can put them in frozen and it’s no big deal. Add the tomato, beans and corn, just a can of each. Chop up the fresh vegetables. Add in the jalapeno and the onion. You can use whichever color bell pepper you want. I’ve used both green and red and they tasted just fine. Add the chopped bell pepper as well. Add the cumin and chili powder and a dash of salt and pepper. Add enough broth to cover the chicken breasts. Do NOT add the cheese yet. Save that for later. Turn on to high for about 3 hours, then turn down for another couple hours. Coming back to mix the ingredients every hour or so.

When your chicken has cooked through, pull it out and shred it up. Re add the now shredded chicken and now add the cheese and any additional salt or pepper you think it needs. If you love spicy and it’s not got enough of a punch, add a dash of cayenne. Mix all together. Turn down to keep warm and let it sit until that cheese is good and melted.

Serve hot. If you wish to garnish with cilantro and a lime wedge, do so! I put extra cheese on top, but that’s because I also love my cheese a little too much. Tastes pretty good with tortilla chips as well, extra tasty if you serve with those hint of lime tortilla chips.

Soup is delicious any time of year, but right now, if you are still cold and the chill sets in after the sun goes down, I guarantee this recipe will warm you right up!

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Quick Quiche and Casserole for a Busy AM

Andi

Meal prep, how are you going to handle it? You’ve got a busy morning and you don’t want to throw pop tarts at your kids on their way out the door. What do you do?

One of the things I do, is use preprepared casseroles and quiches. Both of which are pretty simple.

The casserole first, only has a handful of ingredients. Gather together a tube of croissants, eggs, cheese, and whatever veggies you like. Mix together the veggies, cheese and egg in a bowl. Place the croissants in a dish rolled up and poor the eggs mixture on top. Place in 350° oven for about 30 minutes. Pull out and allow to cool completely. Cover securely and put into the freezer. When you intend to eat it, put it back into the oven for 20 minutes or so until it’s good and warmed through.

For the quiche I use a store bought pie crust. This is even more straightforward. Its eggs, meat, veggies of your choosing, and cheese. Whisk all ingredients together and poor into the crust. This one goes in an 350° oven for about 20 minutes. Same thing, cover securely and place in the freezer. When you pull it out to eat, warm it in the oven about 20 minutes.

Both of these I would prep and eat within a week or two. This is not a save forever in the deep freeze kind of situation. But on the morning of, it makes breakfast easy. Pop it in the oven and get everyone dressed and everyone’s teeth brushed while its warming up.

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Blanket and Pillow Set

Andi

For Christmas, I am making my son a blanket set. Blankets are pretty simple to make, and I decided I could walk you through the process. Since I was going to have all my equipment out anyway making my son’s blankets.

First of all, you’ll need your fabric. For a large blanket that they can grow with and use for a long time, I get a yard and a half. For a pillowcase I’d get a yard. If you don’t need it all, then it’s better to have too much than too little. I prefer fleece and flannel for blankets and pillows just because they’re soft and cuddly.

Second, wash your fabric before you use it. This is important. You have to wash the fabric before you try to work with it.

Pillowcase first:

Measure your pillow. I only say that because I have a thick fat therapeutic pillow that doesn’t fit into a regular sized pillowcase, but my son has a small kid sized pillow. So measure the pillow you’re making the case for. Add about an inch to your dimensions and cut out the base fabric. Then, cut out a contrasting fabric for the end. Length the same as the base fabric, and about 4 inches wide. This will be folded in half, so it gives you a 2 inch casing on the end of your pillow. You’ll end up with 4 pieces as pictured above.

With the casing, you’ll be sewing the two casing pieces onto the two base pieces first. Sew right sides together. Lay flat and iron the seam down. Then fold the other end of the casing over about finger width, and iron that down. Fold over to cover the seam and iron the folded edge, forming the casing. Stitch straight across. I used a zig zag stitch on this part.

I tried a new seam on the actual pillowcase part. This would be for those who don’t own a serger to seal their seams.

I sewed the pillow together wrong sides together, the direction the pillowcase will end up facing. It will look as pictured above when you get it stitched together.

Then flip inside out, and iron it flat. Stitch down again, concealing the unfinished edge inside. Be sure you make the stitch far enough over that it covers the first stitch you made. Flip inside out again and examine your handiwork.

Pillowcases usually take around 30 minutes or less to make, from start to finish.

Blankets are very simple, but due to the larger size, take longer to make.

In general, I fold over the edge and stitch down. With flannel, iron the edge down to make it easier. Then fold over again and zig zag stitch, trapping the unfinished edge on the inside.

The hardest part are the corners. To make a perfectly square corner is fairly painless. All you need to do is cut the corner off. The cut piece will be triangle shape, and your corner will now be a plateau. It will look like the picture above.

Then you can fold both sides down to make a perfect corner and pin down as shown in the photo below. I’d stitch the corners straight across to secure them down before moving on to your edges.

Another way to do the edges of a blanket is to encase it with biased tape, or ribbon. This works well with fleece as folding fleece on top of itself can get fat and cumbersome quickly. It’s a simple fold over the ends and zig zag stitch, as pictured below.

Blankets generally take an hour to hour and half. It may take me longer because I have to pause frequently to attend to children, but that’s my average.

My completed product was a fleece blanket, a flannel blanket and two pillowcases. Simple, but useful.

I know for a fact that I eyeball my sewing way too much. An act I am positive my seamstress mother would be disappointed in. One side of the fleece blanket looks like it could be sold in a store, the opposite edge looks much too haphazard. In regards to my children, they don’t care. But in regards to professionalism I know I need to work on that aspect.

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Teigan Candies

Andi

I got Chrissy Teigans new recipe book and guys, I actually love it. I generally don’t go for celebrity cookbooks as they tend to be full of expensive ingredients or tedious processes. We are on a budget, I can’t afford mutton. And I have kids, I don’t have time for a time consuming recipe.

I was so pleasantly surprised with the kinds of recipes I found in her book. I also liked that she included both her parents in the book with childhood recipes they made for her growing up. I seem to have horrible luck making Thai food, but this is almost making me want to try again. I tried probably the easiest recipe first, these peanut clusters.

Perfect for Christmas! For real. If you have a Christmas party or family gathering to attend, these are literal perfection. And pretty quick to make as well. And they are yumm-mmy! So delicious. Of course, I love peanut butter and just nuts in general, so they can’t go wrong. Everybody, go snag this cookbook. It really is the best. You can purchase it, or, probably find it at your local library. Get to snacking!

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15 Bean Soup

Andi

My grandpa used to make this amazing soup that tasted so perfect it’d make you lost in a moment of bliss. He, of course, never wrote the recipe down, and then he forgot what he put in it. I tried for years to recreate that perfect flavor but failed, again and again. Finally, I’ve gotten close enough to satisfy me.

Cajun 15 bean soup dry beans

Half the cajun soup seasoning

Kielbasa

Chicken or Beef broth or bullion

Garlic (to taste)

Lemon Pepper

Paprika

Cayenne

Cumin

Parsley

Salt and Pepper

Lemon Juice

Chopped onion

Diced Tomato

I use the bag of cajun bean soup, but set the flavor packet aside.

You will need to soak the beans overnight, or if you forget like I do half the time bring to boil for 10 minutes and then sit for an hour. The beans will need to be cooked for a couple hours. One of my secrets is that I don’t cook the beans in water. I use half broth and half water, or I’ll drop a bullion cube in the pot if I don’t have any broth. After the beans get underway, get to chopping the other ingredients. Add the meat after the beans have been cooking about 30 minutes, but hold off on the veggies.

After about an hour on the stove add the tomatoes and onions, spices and lemon juice. I don’t measure the spices, to do so would be a disgrace to the way my grandfather cooked. Then it’s just a waiting until the beans are fully cooked through. Probably about another 45-60 minutes, but just keep checking until the beans are soft. Keep warm until you are ready to serve. It also warms up nicely for leftovers.

This soup is perfect for a cold day, or a warm day, really it’s perfect for any day! My kids love it, my husband loves it and it warmly reminds me of my grandpa. This is delish family recipe that really doesn’t cost much and makes a good quantity.

Of course I suggest it.

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Precious Ornaments

Andi

I have these ornaments, and they’ve been on every tree I can remember. They are a pair of figure skaters, and they were made by my Grandma Fern.

Well, she wasn’t really my grandma. She was my dad’s brother’s wife’s mom. So she was my cousins grandma, but not mine. But she lived down the street from my aunt and uncle and we visited every December.

She did a lot of bead crafting. I can remember her craft room with an entire wall of drawers filled with every color bead you can imagine. She gave me several ornaments over the years and I still have most of them. This pair was one of the first.

She had rheumatoid arthritis, and gradually her hands became more and more stiff. Eventually she became unable to handle the small beads. The last ornament she gave me is a little elf that my son now thinks is his.

Her last few years she developed alzheimer’s and she passed this last year. I’d not thought about it until I pulled all these beaded ornaments out of their boxes and it rushed over me. I hadn’t seen her in the final stages, but in a way, I don’t regret that. In my mind, I still see the smiling face cheerfully showing me how to craft. That’s the face I want to hold onto. That’s the face I remember when I hang this skating couple on my tree.

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Cranberry salad

Andi

With Thanksgiving here and all the December holidays just around the corner, everyone will be cooking. But what if you aren’t great at cooking? You could just go grab some rolls or a fruit tray from the store and call it a day, or you could mix up the easiest cranberry salad ever made. So if you want to bring a homemade dish to the family gathering but aren’t super successful with cooking, I’ve got the solution for you.

Calling this a salad is a bit of stretch because it is anything but. However, it’s been Cranberry Salad as long as I can remember, so that’s what I’m calling it. My mother used to put this all in a blender and then stick it in the fridge for a day so it came out more like a jelly, but I kind of like the chunks of fruit in it. I open all the ingredients and add all of them to a large bowl.

1 Can Jellied Cranberry Sauce

1 Can Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce

1 Can Fruit Cocktail

1 4oz package Walnuts

1/2 tub of Whipped Topping

Marshmallows (optional)

As I said, my mother would blend this all together but I don’t. It mixes just fine with a spoon. But, and I cannot stress this enough, use a plenty big bowl. If you want to use the pretty bowl that matches the other dishes, mix it in a big bowl and transfer to the pretty bowl when you are finished.

Now, my husband insists it has marshmallows on top. I never remember there being marshmallows and I’m pretty positive he’s thinking of something different, but this sugary bowl can’t get worse with more sugar, so I topped my bowl of “salad” with Marshmallows.

If you’d like to, make a day ahead and leave in the fridge, covered, for 24 hours. It isn’t mandatory, but it does firm up a tiny bit and may be easier to dish out.

This takes a grand total of about 10 minutes from start to finish, and will most likely be a big hit with every child at your dinner. Just be prepared for the sugar rush that’s sure to follow.