Bird Seed Ornaments

While perusing Pinterest about a month ago, I came across a pin for bird seed Christmas ornaments. I thought it might be a fun crafty thing to do with Peanut so I gave it a whirl. This is a pretty cheap craft to do. You probably have most of the items at home! Free or free-ish is always good, especially around this time of year. An added plus- apparently a lot of recipes for something like this calls for peanut butter. If you have a peanut allergy in your family, this is a safe recipe for you!

Bird Seed Ornaments

Ingredients:  3/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup water, 1 envelope unflavored gelatin, 3 Tbsp corn syrup, 4 cups bird seed, molds (I used cookie cutters), nonstick spray, straws, wax paper, ribbon or twine 

Step 1- Get a super cute helper. It helps if they are wearing Christmas pjs. Add the flour, water, gelatin, and corn syrup in a large bowl.

Step 2- Mix until well combined.

Step 3- Add bird seed.

Step 4- Mix until well combined. Apparently Peanut didn't think this looked too appetizing.

Step 5- Coat molds or cookie cutters with nonstick spray. I placed my cookie cutters on wax paper to help cut down on clean up.

Step 6- Fill each mold with bird seed, pressing the seed flat. Place a straw through the seed to create a hole for your ribbon. ***Note- this is STICKY!!! You will have bird seed all over your hands. You might want to spoon some into the mold and then place a piece of wax paper on top of it before you press the seed down with your hands.

Step 7- Let the ornaments harden in the molds for 2-3 hours. Carefully pop them out of the molds, remove the straws, and place face down onto wax paper to let the other side dry. At this point, I let them dry overnight.

Step 8- Attach ribbon or twine through your ornaments.

Step 9- Make sure you have some sunny days ahead and then hang your ornaments. From what I've read, these will dissolve in wet weather. Not a huge problem though- the little birdies can eat the seed off the ground!

Good thing Woodman was home to assist with the ornament hanging!

I love those faces!

It's always helpful to have a Lucky Pup as a supervisor.

By the time I got back inside from the ornament hanging and to the bay window, birds had already found our ornaments and were flitting about! I did notice that the birds had a harder time perching on the ornaments with longer ribbon loops. The ornament wasn't very stable and would shake around, scaring the bird. I probably would make smaller loops if I did this again. I also read how some people made larger holes and just threaded the tree branches through the holes to stabilize the ornament, skipping the ribbon step altogether. 

To my teacher friends- this is a super easy project you can do with your class! Doesn't take long at all....don't want to eat up that instructional time! ;)

Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup

When I first started this blog, my main goal was to really critique ideas found on Pinterest. I've seen so many pictures of Pinterest fails. Every project or recipe I've tried has so far worked (or tasted) great. So about ten months ago, while searching for some new recipes to try, I came across this Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup recipe from Martha Stewart. I thought to myself, "Hunh. Not too sure that sounds good, but I do happen to have all the ingredients in my kitchen." I mentioned trying it out to the Woodman. He didn't seem too thrilled about trying it either. Score, I thought! I'd have my first negative project to write about. I made it, we tried it, and....CRAP. WE LOVED IT!!! It even got a 4 year old's seal of approval. The sweet potatoes kind of scared me in this recipe (I love sweet potatoes, but seriously? Boiled in soup???) Holy cow....they were so savory. They melt in your mouth and blend perfectly with all the other flavors.

Fast forward to several days ago. I'm scouring my recipe board trying to come up with meals for the week. I was excited because it was super cold out and that only meant one thing....SOUP WEATHER! The sweet potato soup popped up, thank goodness, because I had completely forgotten about it. I dashed hobbled into the kitchen (broken ankle...read my last post), grabbed a recipe card, and wrote that sucker down. It takes a super special recipe for me to actually take the time to write it down. And now, it's time for you to write it down....  :)

Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup

Prep time- 20 minutes

Cook time- 20-30 minutes

Ingredients-

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 large, yellow onion (diced)
• 2 cloves garlic (minced)
• salt and pepper
• 3/4 lb. sweet Italian sausage with casings removed (or hot Italian sausage if you want to kick up the flavor!)
• 2 sweet potatoes (peeled, diced into medium chunks, 1 lb. total)
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 3/4 cups small pasta shells
• 4 cups roughly chopped mixed greens, such as kale and Swiss chard (I just used kale)
• Parmesan cheese for topping

Directions-

Gather up all your ingredients. I have some lovely, homemade chicken broth stored in my basement, but I forgot to have the hubby get it before he left for work this morning (stupid broken ankle...ginormous Aircast boot and narrow stairs do not mix well). I used Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base instead and added it to 4 cups of water for my broth. 

 Add 1 Tbsp. olive oil to a pot and heat over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until the onion is translucent (about 6 minutes). Season with salt and pepper.

 Add sausage and cook until it is brown.

Add sweet potatoes, 4 cups chicken broth, and 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil. 

Add pasta and cook 3 minutes less than what is indicated in the instructions on the package. (Can't have gluten? Skip this ingredient or add gluten free pasta!)

 Add the greens, reduce heat, and cook until the noodles are done and the greens are wilted (about 3-4 minutes). Dish up and top with Parmesan cheese, if desired.

Peanut approved! So thankful that I have an adventurous eater! (Please excuse the kale hanging out of his mouth!)

Give this recipe a shot and let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy!

Making Apple Butter, or My House Smells Like What I Imagine Heaven Will Smell Like

It's autumn and here in the North Georgia area, that means it is apple season! I always enjoy heading up to the North Georgia mountains in mid October to visit Burt's Pumpkin Farm, peep at some pretty leaves (the last two years we have done this by hiking at Amicalola Falls with Peanut), and hit up the apple house. This year I haven't been able to do any of these things. At the tail end of a family vacation to Disney World in mid-September, and I mean literally the tail end of the vacation because we had already checked out of our hotel and were about to head home, I slipped, fell, and broke my right ankle. I could have gotten a shirt, but no, I decided to go all out and get myself a trip to two of Orlando's hospitals for a couple of extra nights, two ambulance rides, emergency-ish surgery, and a pin and a couple of bolts in my leg. Next time I'll just get the shirt. It has taken me about a month to actually start to feel like a normal person. I'm hobbling around in an Aircast boot now, but still have to rely heavily on people to drive me around anywhere. ***fingers crossed the doctor will clear me to drive at my next appointment*** So, there have been no trips up to the North GA mountains to do all my fall activities that I look forward to every year. 

Last week, my mom was coming up to take me to one of my physical therapy appointments. Because the appointment was later in the day, I asked her to drive me up to one of the apple houses along Hwy 575, almost to Ellijay. I was able to see some pretty leaves, get some apples for baking, and some fried apple pies. Yummo! I had it in my mind to make apple butter. I've always loved apple butter but it's usually so darn expensive to buy at the store. I looked around on Pinterest to find the easiest and cheapest apple butter recipe and this is what I've come up with. It has received the Peanut stamp of approval, so it's a keeper. The first time I used this recipe, it ended up only making four half pint jars of apple butter. I just finished a second batch using the same recipe and got six half pint jars. Not quite sure of the difference....maybe I didn't let the apple butter cook down long enough. Oh well, it's still delicious! 

I started out by cleaning all my jars, lids, and rings so that I could can my apple butter once it was finished. I'm sure you could freeze apple butter, since you can freeze apple sauce...but you might want to research that first.

Gather up 6 lbs. of apples. From everything I read, it really doesn't matter what type of apple you use. I ended up using Golden Delicious. Because they are sweeter to start with, you don't have to add as much sugar later on!

Peel, core, and slice your apples. You can do this any way you like. My mom bought me one of these handy, dandy, apple peeler, corer, slicer thing and IT. IS. WORTH. THE. COST. I was able to prep the apples in about 10 minutes, once I figured out how the contraption worked. 

Apple peeler, corer, slicer thing in action. It makes Slinky Apples!!!

Fill your crock pot full of your apple slices. I have either a 4 or 5 qt. crock pot. You want the apples all the way up to the top because they will cook down a lot. In a bowl, mix up 1-2 cups of sugar (I only used one), a tsp. of cinnamon, a 1/4 tsp. of salt, and a 1/4 tsp. of ground cloves. I only had whole cloves, so I used my mortar and pestle to ground up the whole cloves. 

Pour the sugar mixture over the top of the apples. Cover and cook on high for about an hour. Give the apples a good stir, turn the crock pot down on low, put the lid back on slightly ajar, and then go to bed! Let it cook overnight (at least 8 hours). Leaving the lid ajar will help some of the liquid to evaporate and will help to thicken the apple butter. 

 The next morning, stir and mash your apples up. I ended up running mine through the food processor to get them to the right consistency. At this point, I canned my apple butter. I used my water bath canner, filled hot jars (leave 1/4" headspace), removed air bubbles, wiped the rims clean, and then processed the jars for 10 minutes. ***Check your altitude for processing times

While the cans were processing, I had to have a taste test of some extra apple butter that wouldn't fill a whole jar. It was so much better tasting than mass produced, store bought apple butter! 

Two batches of apple butter all ready to be eaten!!!

Apple Butter Recipe

Ingredients

• 6 lbs. apples
• 1-2 cups of sugar (to taste)
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Procedure

1. Peel, core, and slice apples. Put into your crock pot.
2. In a bowl, mix together sugar, cinnamon, salt, and cloves. Pour over the top of the apples.
3. Cover and cook on high for one hour. 
4. Stir apples, reduce heat to low, and put lid back onto crock pot, slightly ajar.
5. Cook overnight, for at least 8 hours.
6. Mash your apples up into an apple butter consistency. You can let your apple butter cook longer now until it has reached your preference of consistency.
7. Following standard canning procedures, can your apple butter. Leave 1/4" headspace. Processing times are dependent on size of jars and the altitude of where you live. 

Enjoy!!!

Rosemary Honey Butter

While on vacation in Panama City Beach a few weeks ago, our family ventured over to the St. Andrews Peninsula area to spend a day at the beach. After a full day of fun in the sun, we had dinner at a place called Joe Mama's Pizza (mainly because we thought the name was funny). We ended up having some amazing wood fired pizza; but, I fell in love with the rosemary honey butter that they served with warm bread as an appetizer. I had been dabbling in making my own butter at home and immediately decided to try to recreate this flavored butter once we got home.

Making your own butter is not hard. All you need is heavy whipping cream and a container with a lid (you could use a stand mixer but there's something fun about shaking it up in the container). Your kids could even do it. Rule of thumb- the bigger the container, the more cream you need, the longer it takes. If you are having a kid help make butter, give them a smaller container. Mason jars are perfect for this. I use a pint jar, but if Peanut was helping me, I'd pour some cream into two half-pint jars for he and I to shake. ***Side note- I'm picturing having Peanut make some butter as a way to calm down when frustrated. Are you mad at Mommy? Take it out on this jar of cream!!!***

Gather your cream and jar. Better cream= better butter. All I have access to right now is Kroger cream; however, the butter made from this still tastes pretty darn amazing! Start out by pouring some cream into your container (about half full...or half empty if you are a pessimist) and putting the lid on. I let the cream sit out for 10-15 minutes to warm up a bit. Butter forms when the cream is about 50-55 degrees F. You can do this straight out of the fridge, but just know that you'll be shaking your jar for a lot longer while the cream warms up. Then, start shaking! Turn on the T.V., talk on the phone, or turn on the music and have a dance party to keep you entertained while shaking your cream. You are going to shake, and shake, and shake, and shake....until you have butter! Here's what will happen- you will start shaking your cream and you'll be able to hear the liquid sloshing around inside. As you keep shaking, the cream is going to get really thick and you won't be able to hear the sloshing any more....KEEP SHAKING. Trust me. You'll feel really silly because you are going to think nothing is happening. KEEP SHAKING. Just when you think your arms are going to fall off, all of the sudden the cream will pull away from the sides of your jar and you'll hear sloshing again. That means you are done! This will take anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on how warm your cream was and how much you used.

After 8 minutes of shaking....very thick and not a lot of sloshing. KEEP SHAKING!

15 minutes later- BUTTER!!!

Once you hear the liquid sloshing around in your jar, dump your jar into a strainer and separate the liquid (which is now buttermilk) from the butter. Rinse your butter under cold water to removed excess buttermilk and then pat dry with a towel.

From here, you can add a bit of salt if you like salted butter and then form into whatever shape you want. The first few times I just put it in a plastic container. Put it into the fridge to harden and enjoy!

If you would like to flavor your butter, put it into a bowl and mix in your ingredients. For my rosemary honey butter, I went out to our trusty rosemary plant and picked off a few sprigs.

Rosy the rosemary plant

I then had to run back to my bathroom to get my raw, unprocessed, local honey. Why is my honey in the bathroom you ask? For face wash, of course!

I chopped up my rosemary and added it to the butter (it ended up being about 1/2 Tbsp.) and then added 1 Tbsp of honey (after tasting the butter the next morning, the honey flavor wasn't super strong, so I'll probably throw in 2 Tbsp of honey next time). Mix everyone up.

Put your butter into a plastic container and put into the fridge to harden. I put mine on a piece of wax paper, rolled it up, and then twisted the ends like a peppermint candy before putting into the fridge.

You can use the butter immediately, but if you let the flavors meld a bit, it tastes way better! 

The butter will need to be eaten within a week or so due to the fact there aren't any extra preservatives in it. My family has found that it isn't too hard to do! Enjoy!

Breakfast Casseroles Bites

My baby starts Kindergarten tomorrow. He is so flipping excited. Me, not so much. It isn't because I don't want him to go to school. Trust me, this last week has gone by so slow. He and I definitely need a regularly scheduled break from each other after two months of almost solid one-on-one time. I hope this doesn't make me a bad parent, nor do I want it to come off that I don't love him. Momma just needs some quiet time. But I digress...back to why I am not excited about school starting back up. I am not a morning person. It takes me a while to get going in the morning. I'm the person who will set four different alarms on my phone, only to snooze all of them and wake up with 15 minutes to get ready to go. Not being a morning person makes getting a kid up, dressed, fed, and to school somewhat difficult. Peanut's breakfasts last year for PreK consisted of either frozen waffles, cinnamon toast (or toast with jam), cereal, or an apple sauce pouch with a granola bar. I didn't win any parent of the year awards with that carb heavy breakfast menu. This year I'm going to try to be a little better on the breakfast end. I'm sure we will still be rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off, but Peanut will not be eating frozen waffles five days in a row. He and I brainstormed a list of five different breakfasts and before bedtime, he will choose which one he wants the following morning. No breakfast will be repeated until he has had all five choices. One of the breakfast ideas he came up with was Breakfast Casserole Bites (he calls them egg cups). We were introduced to these babies about two years ago when a friend brought a big frozen batch of them on vacation. They are pretty easy to assemble ahead of time and freeze beautifully. Pop them in the microwave and voila! Yummy breakfast goodness. If you make these, I really recommend buying silicone muffin liners. They cut down on cleanup and help keep the "bites" separated when freezing. Just don't forget to take them off before microwaving!!!

Breakfast Casserole Bites

Makes 12 (I always double the recipe)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Ingredients-

• two pieces of sandwich bread (I usually fish out the butt pieces of the loaf to use for this)
• 8 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 4 oz grated sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/2 lb cooked, drained, and crumbled bacon or sausage

Step 1- Place liners in muffin pan. I'm sure you could grease the cups and forgo the liners, but I've never made them this way.

Step 2- Cut up bread into 1/2" pieces and distribute evenly throughout the muffin pan.

Obviously, I doubled the recipe.

Step 3- Sprinkle an even amount of meat into each cup.

Mmmmm...sausage.

Step 4- Whisk together the eggs and milk.

 Step 5- Evenly distribute the egg mixture into the cups.

Step 6- Add an even-ish amount of cheese to each cup.

Step 7- Bake 15-20 minutes in a 350 degree oven until eggs are set and cheese is bubbling.

Step 8- If freezing, let cool, remove from pan, and store in a freezer safe container. Separate layers with wax paper. 

Once frozen, pop one into the microwave (remove liner and put on a microwave safe plate) for one and a half minutes. Then.....enjoy!!! Each "bite" is roughly 175 calories, depending on  the quality of your ingredients.

Hopping John

My mouth is watering just thinking about this blog post. I'm not sure the entire history of Hopping John, or what it is traditionally in the dish, but I'm sure you can Google it. I do know it is usually a southern dish made of black eyed peas. I would equate it to a black eyed pea stew. I usually serve it for our New Year's Day dinner (you know...the whole black eyed peas on New Year's bringing you good luck and all...). But then, I also have started throwing it into a monthly dinner rotation because it is that good. Bonus points, Peanut loves it and requests it often. He thinks it gives him extra jumping powers. Honestly, the only special powers it does give him comes from the gaseous emissions from his rear end!

Hopping John Recipe***

***I found this recipe on Pinterest, but once we made it and loved it, I wrote it down in my recipe book and deleted the pin. Since then, I can't find where I got the original recipe. If you happen upon it, let me know and I'll give that person credit for this delicious meal!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb package of black eyed peas, soaked overnight
• 3 large sausages (casings removed)
• 4 slices of cooked bacon (chopped into smallish pieces)
• 1/2 cup red onion (chopped)
• 2 tsp. minced garlic
• 1/2 cup diced celery
• 1/2 cup diced carrots
• 1/2 cup diced bell pepper
• 4-6 cubes bouillon (I usually use 6 beef cubes)
• 6 cups hot water
• 3/4 tsp. cumin
• salt to taste (after cooked)

Directions:

1) Plug in and turn on a standard sized crock pot (4-6qts??) and turn on (low for 7 hours or high for 4 hours). Add the water and bouillon cubes. Let the cubes dissolve while you are prepping all the other ingredients.

2) Drain your black eyed peas and put them into the crock pot.

2) Chop and saute the onion, garlic, bell pepper, carrots, and celery for 5 minutes or until tender. Add sauteed veggies to the crock pot.

Love all the colors. PS- this smells WONDERFUL!

3) Using the same pan that you cooked your veggies in, cook and crumble the sausage. Drain and add to the crock pot. 

4) If your bacon hasn't been precooked, cook it, set onto paper towels to drain, chop up, and throw into the crock pot. (I don't have a picture of this because I had cooked the bacon the night before).

5) Add the cumin to the crock pot. Stir everybody up, put lid on, and cook on low for 7 hours or high for 4 hours. Serve over rice and with cornbread.

Into the pot everyone goes....

OM NOM NOM!

Try to keep your family from eating this all in one sitting, because as good as it is the day of, it's even better as left overs!!!

Enjoy!