Chicken Cesar Salad

I made this the other night for a potluck with the in-laws. Big hit with the fam! I always hear, "I don't like Cesar salad, but this is good!"

Cesar Dressing
1C Mayo
1T Lemon Juice
1t Worcestershire Sauce (such a funny word...)
1 Clove garlic (the other night I just used like 1 1/2 t garlic powder instead)
1/4t Salt
1/8t Pepper
1/2C Parmesan Cheese (the powdery kind) 
1T Milk or half and half

Just mix together

Cesar Salad
I like to make a "not your typical Cesar", because really who wants a salad with just lettuce? So along with roman lettuce I added tomatoes and cucumber. Then the normal croûtons and grated Parmesan cheese (I didn't have any) and the chicken of course. We've done it 2 ways, the recent was just grilled chicken and then in the past we did breaded.

(How I make my breaded chicken is dip in egg, dip in Itailian bread crumbs, bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. Dice chicken and add to salad.)

You can either add the dressing to the salad and mix, or let people add it themselves. For this big salad (hard to see how big in the picture) I only used a little over half of the dressing.

Enjoy!

~CJ

Painting Pumpkins

What is Halloween without pumpkins? Traditionally it's carving pumpkins, but with a toddler I wanted something that would involve him. How about Painting Pumpkins???

My little bug loved it! He had so much fun! It took him about 30 minutes and he didn't want to stop there.

This was a fun way to include him this Halloween  His pumpkin sits outside our front door and he admires it anytime we go outside.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Emergency Preparedness!

This topic has really been on my mind lately. Last night at my Ward's Relief Society we talked about storing food storage. I'm teaming up with my sister in the next few months to work out making a rotating can shelf.

My goal for 2013 is to really get a 6 month supply. Ideally a year would be great, but I'm starting small. I would say start with a 3 month, but I think if we really needed to we could get by for 3 months. Well minus water!

I came across a blog called Prepared LDS Family. It it a very nice reference, one of those this is what you should buy this month type of things. I'm probably going to be referencing it a lot next year. Here is the link.

Any tips or tricks that you have would be awesome! You can comment here or email me craftsbycjg@gmail.com
~CJ

Spooky 7 layer bean dip

Ok so I love this time of year! It's not my favorite, but it means my favorite is getting close! Every October my family and 2 other families we've known since before I was born get together and have a black and orange dinner. What is this you might ask? It is so much fun! All the food is black and orange. Ex. black olives, baby carrots, Doritos  Whatever people want to bring. The main course is dinner in a pumpkin. I'll do a post on that later. We also always have orange jello with those plastic spider rings in them. So much fun. The last few years we've tried stepping out of the box. This is what I came up with last year.

If you have never made a 7 layer bean dip before start! They are so easy and always a big hit. My usual bean dip is this (Layer in order)

Refried beans
Sour cream
Guacamole
Cheese
tomatoes
green onion
olives

For this Halloween one I focused more on the halloween colored food showing; green guacamole, orange cheese, and black olives. I also ended with an extra layer of sour cream to make the web. I just put sour cream in a zip top bag and cut the end. It was pretty simple to do. I LOVE my little spider made out or an olive!

It was a huge hit! I'm trying to brainstorm ideas for something fun for this year, it's Sunday!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

~CJ

Partying with:

Puppy Party- Doggie Bags

This is post #5 on my little bugs 1st Birthday Party. Scroll to the bottom for links to the other posts.

This will be the last post. It was so much fun to see how it turned out in pictures it was a lot of fun and not as much work as I was worried it would be. 

This post is for the Doggie Bags, loot bags, treat bags, prizes, whatever you want to call them. With it being a Puppy Party, doggie bag fit perfectly.

I just used the white lunch sacks and decorated them. I actually had these on hand from my Nephew's birthday party. I just decorated them with a strip of yellow paper with paw prints stamped on it. I die cut some dogs and wrote each kids name on it. Then added a collar out of ribbon. I like how these turned out.

Puppy Party- FOOD

This is post #3 on Little Bug's 1st Birthday Party. One thing that I always hate about doing posts on parties is I never get all the pictures I want to do a detailed post. I'm seeing now what I should have took pictures of.

For the food we didn't want to do a full on meal because we wanted to keep this party to minimal spending. So we offered a few finger food for party guests.

5 little ducks felt board song

5 Little Ducks (Please forgive my camera)

I've been wanting to do something like this for awhile, you know make those fun kid songs a little more fun. Since I'm lacking a computer and my little bug is too young to criticize my artwork I just drew my animals. I'm sure you could find cute clip art of different ducks to use.

Candy Bar Boquet

***OLD POST

Are you still needing a gift for your sweetheart for tomorrow? It's not too late, this project only took about 15 minutes once I had all the stuff gathered.

When Valentine's Day first started appearing at the store I noticed this candy bar bouquet. It looked like a fun gift for a guy. Immediately I thought I could so make that! So I took another challenge, could I make one cheaper than what they sell them for??? I decided to make one for the hubs!

 This one was at Fry's. It came with a vase, Dove chocolates, 3 Hershey candy bars and one of those $1 box of chocolates that aren't really any good. (personal opinion). Then of course the cellophane and ribbons... This particular one was selling for $16.99.

So I set out to make mine... I gathered all of my supplies. Most of it I already had on hand I just needed the candy and the foam to stick it into.

 You will need:

Vase

Skewers

tissue paper or cellophane (I only had tissue paper on hand)

tape

foam (I bought it from DollarTree)

Your filler I used the Crunch heart shaped chocolates.

Candy Bars I decided to use 6- Crunch, Kit Kat, Heath, Almond Joy, Hershey Almonds, and 100 Grand

Ribbon or tulle

First fill your vase with your filler. I didn't even use an entire bag.

 

Then tape your skewers to the candy bars. I was first rolling the tape and sticking it on with the stick in between, but later they would fall off so I would recommend just putting the tape on the normal way.

 Then get your form. I never realized how messy these were.... then stick your candy bars in. I laid it down because it wouldn't stand up straight.

 Wrap your form with tissue paper and stick into vase... Tie with ribbon or tulle.

Then add your own personal message

Now for the price match up. I think it might be close...

Frys to buy it was $16.99.

For me to make mine cost was...

candy bars- $3.75

filler candy- $3 have some left

foam form- $.50

Total= $7.25

However that was because I had a majority of the stuff, If I were to buy everything estimated cost would be...

Vase- $3 (cheap ones from Walmart)

Skewers- $1 for a pack of 100

Candy filler $3

Candy bars $3.75

Tape $1

Tissue Paper $1

Total= $12.75 

You would still spend less AND have stuff left over. Sounds like another win to me! I understand that when buying from stores you are also paying for the employee to assemble it together for you, but seriously this took very little time. 

So if you have a craft closet like mine you could make out with a nice gift for your valentine for under $8. Are it is more customized because you can choose his favorite candy! This would be perfect for any gift giving holiday or just because. Men love surprises too, almost as much as chocolate:) Or maybe I'm thinking of me...

I've also seen these with different snack items that would be fun also. Do you have any out of the ordinary bouquet ideas? One of these days I'm attempting a fruit bouquet.

~CJ

Chicken Taquitos

So since I am still lacking a computer I have no access to recipes. It requires planning and looking it up at one of our parents houses. (The Hubs' mom's computer just recently stopped working so now we are really limited)

One day we had some tortillas that needed to be used. Immediately I thought taquitos, but since I didn't have the chance to look up the recipe I made one up and it was gooood! So I thought I'd share...


Ingredients:
2 Chicken Breasts
1t chili powder
2 scoops sour cream
2 can diced green chilies
1/2 t garlic powder
a dash of salt
cheese ( I just winged it)
Tortillas (I used the burrito size because that is what I had, but any size will work depending on how big you want them.)

Bake chicken breasts for around 20 minutes at 350 degrees.   

Shred Chicken up, it's even easier if you have a food processor. It took like 5 minutes!

 Next add in all the ingredients and mix together, some of the cheese too...

 Spread the mixture on the tortilla. I was making these for lunch with no sides so I made them pretty big. If you were doing these as like an appetizer or something I would make them smaller with the fajita size tortillas not the burrito size. I made 6, but I think if you watched what you put in and used the smaller tortillas you could get around 12.

Roll them up and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes add some grated cheese on top and bake another 5 minutes until melted.

Top with whatever ingredients you choose. We personally love guacamole!

~CJ


Linking to:

Post transfers

So as some of you may know I used to have a blog with my Sister-in-law Jen and friend Laryssa called ourdiydiaries. I decided I wanted to go my own direction with a blog and we went our separate ways. They are now blissful55. You may be wondering why I am going over all this... #1 They are awesome and have so much fun stuff on their blog. If you don't already, you should follow them. #2 They are reorganizing their blog and decided to let me move over my posts to my blog. What does that mean to you? Lots of posts coming your way!!! They may be duplicates if you already followed us so don't get annoyed,just put up with it for a little bit! I really appreciate it! I love all my followers and the chance that I have to share my love of crafting and teaching my son with you. Thanks for following! ~CJ

Pipe Cleaner Accessories

The other day the little bug and I played with pipe cleaners. He liked bending them and loved when I made them into accessories! Like these pipe cleaner glasses!

 It took 2 pipe cleaners, one for each "lense" and ear piece. We also made a bracelet. Those were his favorites!

Sometimes I find myself spending too much time doing stuff for me (sewing, crafting, pinterest etc), I leave my bug to entertain himself. I missing out on so much fun and making memories. I'm trying harder to focus on doing fun silly things with him each day!

~CJ

Ps this is my 50th post! Kind of exciting!!!

Color Sorting

HAPPY OCTOBER! (This means I can put up Halloween decorations now right?)

I hope you had a great weekend! Mine was fun. As usual my laid back Saturday turned out pretty busy.

My little bug is getting really good at matching things up. So I decided to make him a sorting tray. I picked up a serving tray last weekend from Goodwill for $.50 on half price day. I was going to paint each compartment, but using paper was much easier, faster, and this way I can switch them out for different colors.

 So far we have only sorted pop poms, but he loves it! He doesn't quite make it through all of the balls, but he gets enough to go through a few of each color! He loves Blue and that is the only color he says. Everything is BLUE!

I hope this gives you an idea to do with your little one. You don't even need a tray. just paper would work. I've done this with Egg cartons and plastic Easter eggs before too!

~CJ