Saturday 31 August 2013

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Popsicles


This is perfect for all young and old to enjoy on a sweltering hot day, after a long walk in the park, or as a light dessert. It was a huge hit with my kids :D

INGREDIENTS
  • 4 large bananas peeled
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup of peanut butter 
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • a pinch of salt
Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender until smoother. Pour the mixture into your Popsicle molds and let them freeze until solid, Usually about 4-6 hours. To remove the popsicles from their molds dip them into a glass of hot water for a couple seconds before pulling them out to prevent breaking and having half popsicles instead of full ones (took me a few tries to remember that one haha) ENJOY!

I also found this other way of doing it by pouring the mixture into silicone molds to make bite size freeze snacks for that quick chocolate fix! :D

Thursday 29 August 2013

DIY Recipe Binder

I am very sure that out there in the big world are some of you who have a big binder or little (yet big) box of magazine recipe clippings, print offs, and disorganized recipe cards that are in an abundance. You either google, yummly, or even sneak your families secret recipes and shove them into your stash spot of great recipes that always come in handy for hearty meals and afternoon cake bakes with loved ones. I know I do, and am still in the process of organizing my binder. I knew that somewhere out there, in this great big world of the love of food, was some inspiration to getting my recipe book in tip top shape and actually into categories :D

I wish to share with you the top sites I've found my inspiration from, and when I get my external hooked up and out of the box in the basement, i'll share my own template I've been using :) I hope you all enjoy, and hey, if you have a cool idea or design that you, or someone you know or currently blog to, please, don't be a stranger and share share share! I would love to see what others have come up with and how it has given them a helping hand in the kitchen ;)
  1. Pretty Prudent
  2. Keeping Life Creative
  3. Etsy (search recipe binder) you'll find lots of amazing templates and inspiration for DIY
  4. Alaina Ann
  5. Pinterest - DUH! seriously, holy cow. SO many ideas and free templates and printables and cool designs to use yourself :)

Am I crazy to say that one day I wish my recipe binder looks like this?! :D


Tuesday 27 August 2013

Home made Body Scrubs

I love home made anything, and more than 95% of the time, it comes out better than anything I've ever bought from the store, and for a fraction of the price. I WIN! :D These are my most favorite and just super amazing body scrubs that cost you probably 5$ if that to make, and you most likely have all of these ingredients in your home, if not, go pick some up!! Plus each of these scrubs lasts me anywhere from 1-3 months, depending on how big a batch I make. Let's get started.

 

VANILLA AND BROWN SUGAR BODY SCRUB

INGREDIENTS
  • 2 cups brown sugar
  • 1 cup white granulated sugar
  •  1 cup of baby oil (or tanning oil - might add a nice coconut scent to it too)
  •  1 tbsp vanilla extract
  • A big glass jar or plastic tub that has a really good seal on it, I just used a mason jar <3
STEP 1
Start by mixing together the brown & white sugar until there are no clumps (or very little).

STEP 2
Add in the cup of oil, and vanilla extract and mix together really well. 

VOILA! Your done, now scoop it into a container and have at er. Seriously though I have made TONS of this stuff for christmas, and birthday gifts, even valentines day where I made it red with food coloring, and everyone loves it, my sister in law begged me to make her more this year lol she uses it all the time. It's a fantastic body scrub and is so great in the shower it makes your skin soft, and smells super nice. Alright, moving on to the hand scrub!

LEMON SUGAR HAND SCRUB

 INGREDIENTS
  •  2 1/2 cups white granulated sugar
  •  1 cup oil (your choice of course)
  •  4 tbsp of lemon juice3
  •  lemon zest
STEP 1
mix together the white granulated sugar with your choice of oil until combined well

STEP 2
add in your lemon juice and lemon zest. To add lemon zest (cause i was one of those that was like WTH is zesting?! haha but get a small grater or zester* and just shave some of the skin into the mixture. You dont have to add zest to this, but I did because it made it smell lemony longer, and added some nice color bits to it :)

I have a jar of this sitting on my sink because i am constantly doing dishes all day, and cleaning so it gives my hands a break, and always adds that extra bit of moisture and gets rid of all the dirt and grime that builds up on my hands. 

HAVE FUN SCRUBBING! 









Food Frenzy Thursday: Scotch Eggs



I can't even explain how much I love scotch eggs. As my family is British we've consumed a lot of these bad boys and they are just delicious! This recipe is a simple one that I follow at least because my mother wouldn't give me her mother's mother's recipe for this one, darn it...

What You'll Need:
  • 4 large eggs
  • 10oz of ground sausage meat
  • 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
  • 1 tbsp chopped parsley (fresh if you can)
  • 1 spring onion, very finely chopped
  •  salt and pepper to taste
  • 4oz of plain flour, seasoned with salt & pepper
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 4oz breadcrumbs
  • vegetable oil for deep frying
 STEP 1
boil your eggs (with the shells on) and heat over a high heat to bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer for 5-10 minutes. I usually do about 8/9 minutes because then you know that there well cooked, but still slightly soft and not overcooked.

STEP 2
Drain the eggs after they've finished cooking and cool under cold running water, and then peel the shells off.

STEP 3
Mix the sausage meat with all your herbs, and onion in a bowl and add your salt & pepper.

STEP 4
Divide the sausage mixture into four and flatten each out on a clean service into ovals about 5`` x 3`` (this doesn`t have to be exact as all eggs are a different size)

STEP 5
Roll your egg into the flour and then wrap your egg in the sausage oval. Make sure the coating is smooth and completely covers your egg.

STEP 6
Dip each egg into the beaten egg, coating it thoroughly, and then roll it into the breadcrumbs and completely cover. If you want them EXTRA crispy you can repeat this step once more.

STEP 7
We have a handy counter top deep fryer. It`s a god send. Seriously, if you don`t have one, you`ll love it. The first time we got it we actually spent 2 hours deep-frying EVERYTHING haha. BUT if you don`t have one of those take a deep set pan and fill it with your oil about 1/2 - 2/3 of the way with oil and heat the oil until a breadcrumb sizzles and turns brown when you drop it in.

STEP 8
Place each scotch egg, CAREFULLY into the hot oil and fry for about 8-10 minutes until golden brown and the sausage meat is completely cooked.

STEP 9
Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain onto paper towel, as this soaks up any excess oil still sizzling out of it.

Serve warm or cool. We love to serve ours with a big breakfast of toast, bacon, home fries, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, and plenty of ketchup :D Enjoy!


Sunday 25 August 2013

DIY Polymer Clay Pretzel Pendent Tutorial

My sister and I have a slight obsession with pretzels, i don't know why, but we just do. That and peanut butter, but we'll get to that later. I saw these on the internet just looking up cool accessories and i'm like, "holy crap" i could make these myself, and A LOT of them. I'm a big DIY'r, anything you can do yourself and save you money, it's golden. Now i searched around and couldn't find an actual tutorial on how to do these, and I would use my camera but it doesn't have video so it'd be in still frame and it's low on battery so it's charging right now but i'll post pictures later, and once I find the rest of my polymer clay and bedazzler gems, we'll be good to go! But for now i'll just explain what i did the first time when i did this months ago. A lot of my stuff now is still in boxes as we just did a huge move :) thanks for your patience :)

You Will Need:
- wax paper-
- polymer clay (any color you wish)
- gems
- necklace kit (or just an extra chain with an undooable loop to attach the pendent to the necklace)
- oven preheated at 275

STEP 1
start out my warming up your clay just break off a huge chunk and start rolling and kneading it around in your hands for about 5 minutes. It's easier to work with when it's been warmed up. This also gives you a chance to add stuff to your clay, like if you want to make it tri-colored and what not. I added a bit of glitter to mine so it had a nice shine to it when light hit it :) I also secretly have a huge obsession with glitter..

STEP 2
This step is completely up to you on how big you want your actual pendent to be and how thick depends on how much you will need, i broke off about 1/2 - 3/4 of the polymer (mine were in small bricks) 

STEP 3
start rolling your clay into a snake or "sausage" ON the wax paper as it will stick to your table like mine had done and was stuck there for like the next 2 weeks.. awesome. keep rolling it out till you find the right thickness you are satisfied with.

STEP 4
make the shape of the pretzel. I found this to be quite tricky considering if you made it too small, when you twisted the middle mine kept breaking, that's why I had to go back and make it thicker a bunch of times. TRIAL AND ERROR! as i always say :) Alright, try and make this a loose design don't try and push it together so it won't come apart or you'll leave dirty fingerprints all over it and it'll just look weird. 

STEP 5
once you've completed the task of making your actual pretzel, it's time to bling it out! The gem i used was slightly bigger than the one in the photo above, but that's just how I roll, like a boss! But you don't want it too big that all people notice is "geeze, look at the size of that gem on that pretzel!" see it even sounds weird, so, just don't do it haha

STEP 6
CAREFULLY take your clay pretzel and move it onto a baking sheet. Word of advice: it's best to use one that is like a throw away, or one baking sheet strictly dedicated to polymer crafts. You don't want clay to touch where your food goes either. Gross. Alright, now put it in the oven (preheated to 275) and bake for about 15 minutes. Check the back of the box your clay came in, as some clay brands have different bake times. Once there done, let them dry COMPLETELY. Meaning after 5 minutes don't pick it up with your hands because it'll still be soft and it'll break and you'll be back at step 1, or it could potentially still be quite hot and get a burn. 

STEP 7
this step is optional, if you want to add anything else to it, add a glaze to give it a nice sheen if you do not like the matte look. Have fun with this as you can make any type of pendent out of clay you just have to get creative with it. Happy Crafting!