Santa Gift Wrap

Thanks to Pinterest I was able to wrap the gift for Nate's brother's family so that he could take it home on the plane with him. :0)

Tie Wallet Wristlets

I'm posting!! 

I saw this on Pinterest and when I went to the link, it took me to Esty and wanted $22 for one.  No, thank you.  I had just gone through my husbands ties and pulled out all the ones that he hasn't worn in years and packed them in my craft box.  Luck for me, we haven't taken that box to storage yet. :0)

I made my own pattern and I'm very happy with the result.

Here is the one for my mom.  This purple matches her phone perfectly!

This one is my sisters.  I LOVE how it turned out.  Of course, it is the third one I made and the third one is always better. :0)

I have another one all ready to put together that I'm going to put here as a tutorial. :0)  After I get my kids Halloween costumes finished. :0)

Marinara Sauce

For Labor Day I got to spend the day at my Mom's house, using her kitchen to can the jelly from the last post and make and can this marinara sauce.

I do not like red sauce.  Ask anyone at Papa Murphy's Pizza.  I always go for the garlic sauce.  If it has red sauce, I put as little as I can on it.  When I made this the first time, I made it because I had some fresh tomatoes and needed to use them up.  Everything else I always have on hand so in it all went.

Amazing!!!  We ate it on pasta, pizza and used it for a dip.  So good.  I decided there and then that I would can it when I got my tomatoes from my garden this year.  I had to get a little help from my in-laws garden to, I had given away too many tomatoes.

Look at all I came home with.  I still have another batch of jelly I'm going to make and some birthday cake baking to do tonight.  Can't wait to have all this for the winter.

Mint Jalapeno Jelly

Can I say that I'm super excited to try this today!  This is the first time I have made something out of my own garden.

I have never been a fan of hot foods.  Just didn't like that burning sensation in my mouth.  So the first time I was offered Jalapeno Jelly I refused.  Did not sound good at all.  Could not believe that someone would make jelly out of jalapeno's.

Then I caved and tried a bit.  Ended up eating half a jar by myself.

If you have never tried this, you must at least try it once.  On a cracker, with a bit of cream cheese.

The website I got the recipe from had these other idea's to use the jelly with.


1. on toast
2. as a glaze for chicken and pork chops
3. as a condiment for lamb
4. on a cold meat sandwich, especially post-Thanksgiving turkey
5. as a de-glazing sauce
6. on brie cheese baked in a puff pastry crust
7. peanut butter and jelly sandwich
8. on a grilled cheese sandwich
9. on vanilla ice cream
10. on steamed carrots
11. as a dip for won tons
12. as a dip for grilled sausage bites
13. on warm biscuits with breakfast
14. glaze for chicken wings
15. spread on cornbread
16. with cream cheese on a bagel
17. on pancakes
18. on a Dutch Baby (see earlier post)
19. in hot tea
20. put into the center of cupcakes
21. mixed with greek yogurt as a vegetable dip
22. on top of cheesecake
23. as a glaze for shrimp
24. between layers of a chocolate cake
25. and right off the spoon

Now I have a ton of ideas to use mine for.  Good thing I'm making more. :0)

Zucchini Brownies

These are on my list to make again today.  And they will probably be gone before I can take a picture again. :0)

You would not know that these are made with zucchini if I didn't tell you.  They are that amazing!  My children love them, my neighbors love them, I could eat the whole pan and not feel a bit bad about it. ;0)  If you have zucchini that your neighbors want to pawn off on you of you were ding-dong ditched and left a ton of zucchini on your door-step, use it up in these and you will be begging for that zucchini that no one can get rid of. ;0)

Chicken Pillows

We needed to do something with chicken.  I had some biscuits in the fridge and the cream cheese.  I know that this recipe calls for crescent rolls but going with what I had...   they would have been better with the crescent rolls.  We still loved them though.

You can get the recipe here if you don't have it.  We ate it with some rice and loved the sauce.  I had some left over chicken filling stuff that I used the next day on some tortilla's with some cheese, fresh tomatoes from my garden and cooked it on my skillet so that it was crunchy.  So good!

Root Beer Float Cupcakes

I have had this recipe on my to-try list since February.  I was going to make them for my son's birthday.  Well, after getting around to making them finally, I'm glad I didn't make them for his birthday.

They will be on my make again list.  They were amazing!  I will do a few different things to them.  I will wait to put the root beer on the top until after I take the cupcakes out of the pan.  Making them that moist made it hard to get them out without them falling apart.  I will not put frosting on them.  I am a frosting person.  Love it!  But the glaze for these were so amazing that I will just put that on and call it good.

Don't worry.  I only used A&W's root beer in everything it called for.  No schnapps. :0)