Weeknight Meal: Easy and Hearty Chicken Noodle Soup (Kid Friendly/Kid Approved)

This is my "cheat" Chicken Soup. It tastes so good, fills you up and is so easy!  I love easy and fast and yummy of course.  I always have these ingredients around so this can even be a week night meal (maybe on a rainy day, winter night, or around flu season. I just cooked this to bring over to a friend that had surgery and couldn't get up and cook for herself, she thought it was as wonderful as I did, so I thought I'd share.  My mom gave me the idea to use canned chicken breast in soups/stews and I've also seen her use green beans also, so thanks Mom for the ideas!


*Veggies you can easily grow in a backyard or container garden and drop into your soup, fresh or frozen
Ingredients: 
Canned Chicken Breast (I use Costco - Kirkland Brand) with liquid
Canned or Boxed Chicken Broth 2-3 cans or 1 carton
Raw Small Pasta: Sm shells, curly pasta (I get the costco pack)
*Chopped Carrots (I just chop up the baby carrots I always have in stock, or throw them in whole!)
*Squash (optional) I froze some from last time I had squash and I thought it was great!
*Peas (Didn't have any but could have used some)
*Green Beans, cut to desired length (can also use frozen)
*Celery - (I used frozen)
Salt and Pepper to taste
*Chopped fresh thyme, oregano, and cilantro (just a little at first, then adjust to taste so you don't overpower the broth)

Directions:
1.  Boil Chicken Broth, canned chicken, and pasta until pasta is a little more raw than you'd like because you have to cook the veggies, but don't want it to get too soft.
2. Turn down heat to about medium and add carrots, green beans, peas, celery and squash.
3.  Add fresh herbs and let boil then simmer for a little while.
4.  Taste the soup and add herbs or salt/pepper as needed. 

The longer you have to let the soup simmer, the better it'll be, but I served it to my family immediately after everything was cooked through and they thought it was very good!  Especially the kids!!!

Sloppy Joe recipe that doubles as a juicy Taco Salad Recipe (no extra sauce required)

My husband really likes Sloppy Joe's and we had some leftover hamburger buns, so I used a recipe I found on Pinterest, and tweaked it just a bit (recipe included below).  I am not a fan of Sloppy Joe's and surprisingly neither are my two girls.  So, here I had a dilemma.  2 lbs of Sloppy Joe meat mix and not enough mouths to eat it!  Of course I would never throw away perfectly good food, but I was not looking forward to eating it either.  I don't know why, but I just don't like Sloppy Joe's!  It's not the flavor, just the sloppy meat in a hamburger bun part.

Well, I had all the fixings to make taco salad, so I tried it and it was delicious!  A lot of taco salads I've had before are dry or not seasoned enough, or you have to put an extra sauce on the top,but this recipe doesn't need any extra sauce and even includes melty cheese!  Yum!

So, here you have two recipes: One for Sloppy Joe Mix, and one for the leftovers - Taco Salad! Or one recipe that can make everyone happy, especially if you have one Sloppy Joe lover and the rest Taco Salad lovers. 

Again I apologize for not having the exact measurements since I just eyeball it.  Please use your own discretion and always taste, taste, taste your food.  It should tell you what you need more of.

Sloppy Joe's Recipe
2 lbs ground beef (Salt n Pepper to Taste)
1/2 onion chopped
1 bell pepper chopped
1 1/2 cup ketchup
1 and 1/2 Tbsp or so of worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp or so of sugar
 Shredded Cheese, mixed cheddar and mozzarella or cheddar alone or mozzarella alone

1.  Brown ground beef in oil, season with salt and pepper to taste, add chopped onions. (Drain some, keep some juices for the sauce, depending on how much liquid in pan)
2.  Add bellpepper, ketchup, worcestershire sauce and sugar and stir til well combined.
3.  Let simmer for 10 minutes or so
4. Layer meat mix onto hamburger buns
5.  Top with cheese, put top bun on, serve with crunchy carrots or celery.
*Add hot sauce or (haven't tried this yet), but ranch dressing??? Lemme know how it is.


Taco Salad (Layer in order for best results)
Tortilla Chips
Chopped Lettuce
Meat mix with melty cheese on top (can heat up meat, topped with cheese in microwave for leftovers)
Chopped Tomatoes

So simple, but oh so yum!  I like to mix mine all together and chow down. 

Baked Salmon in a Herb-Butter Sauce

I was tired of cooking salmon the same old ways I always did, so I decided to go out on a limb and try something that I'd never done or even tasted before and really lucked out!   I
chopped up a bunch of herbs I have in my garden, sprinkled the salmon with some sea salt (Hawaiian Salt), melted some butter and poured it over top the salmon.  It was delish!!!  I actually crave it and it's my new favorite way to eat salmon. Stab salmon with a fork to enhance flavors.   Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 min.  (Check salmon to see if it flakes nicely) I usually lay some foil down inside the pan and cup it around the salmon so that the salmon is submerged in the butter sauce. *I'm sure you could cook it on the grill in the foil also, or foil pan or both for added protection from getting your hands all buttery. 

Finely Chopped Herbs:
1 small sprig of thyme
1 4 inch sprig of oregano
1 sprig of rosemary
Some parsley (to taste)
2 leaves of sage
2-3 cloves of garlic (or more according to your taste)

Other Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter
Hawaiian Sea Salt 

 *I used sea salt because I was using unsalted butter and I actually preferred it to using regular butter, so that is how I will be cooking it from now on.  I really think the sea salt is key to the awesome flavor without actually tasting the salt.  *Just a sprinkle top and bottom of the fish so it's not too salty

Boneless/Skinless Salmon (I buy the pre-packaged ones from Costco)
*I used 4 fillets for this amount of herbs, they are about 4 oz each

Shell Ornaments - Used in Beach Themed Wedding (Favors)

I wanted to do a different theme for Christmas this year, so I decided to make shell ornaments.  I found a bag of assorted white shells, painted some Elmer's glue on them, glittered them, then hotglued an ornament ribbon on the back. They are so easy to make, but soo pretty.  The bride from the last wedding I worked on saw them on my tree and had to have them as her wedding favors, which was perfect since the wedding was the first weekend in January.
        I highly recommend  http://www.qualityshells.com if your local stores don't carry bags of shells, like here in Hawaii.  I ordered sand dollars and starfish, and every shell was in perfect condition, in a timely manner.   As far as I researched, they were the cheapest online! 

Here are the supplies you will need: shells (think about what size you'll want and how it'll look on the tree you are putting it on.  Mine was a tiny tree, so these shells were perfect.)  Glitter, glue (maybe a paint brush if you don't want to use your fingers)  Ornament ribbons (I bought these already tied)  and Hot glue gun.* I did it out in my carport on a piece of cardboard

I used iridescent glitter, which I would recommend.

Here are the ornaments all done! 

This was my tree this year.

Here they are again, used as favors in a beach themed wedding. 

Happy Thanksgiving! Crafts and Recipe Critique

This year I had people over for Thanksgiving since we are away from family.  Since I was entertaining, I wanted to add just a little more fall/autumn decor to spice it up a bit.
How I made the sign: *If you had a cricut or something like it, this would be a lot faster to make.
-I bought some textured scrapbooking paper that had these raised polkadots ( in mustard, a camouflage brown, and a nice autumn red).
- I traced a cd onto the paper to make the circles, then hand cut them.
-I also hand cut the lettering like my other sign (from computer generated lettering) and printed it on an off white cardstock.  The off white went a lot better with the colors I chose.
-Then, I found leaf templates online, printed on cardstock, then traced them onto the fall colored paper, then cut those out.
-Then I glued everything together (using elmer's glue)
-I bought a burlap ribbon from Ben Franklin and decided to use that to hang the letters on.  I hot glued the circles onto the burlap ribbon.  That worked great.

 Below: My daughter and I made these adorable and yummy acorns!  Pinterest inspired.  I saw a pic of these on pinterest, but no instructions.  I assumed they used frosting or melted chocolate to stick the Hershey kisses to the MINI nilla wafers (don't use the bigger ones, it won't look good), but I thought Nutella would be delicious, so that's what we did.  We used Nutella as the glue and used a toothpick to make the "stem" of the acorn.  These were a hit.  Thanks Pinterest and whoever came up with these!

 Below: I used the burlap ribbon I used for my "Give Thanks" sign to decorate vases I had around the house.  I filled the 1st vase pictured below with tangerines because I couldn't find little pumpkins but it still added that pop of color I was going for.  If I could find small lemons, I could have used those also. I filled the 2nd vase below with pomegranate seeds as an appetizer.  The 3rd vase is just for decoration purposes and I filled that with macadamia nuts that I had laying around the house that I didn't get around to roasting.  They looked fall-ish, so I filled a vase with them! 

I also tried this pumpkin pie cupcake recipe (this is not my picture, mine didn't look this nice) that I made for dessert at my Thanksgiving dinner.  I found the recipe on Pinterest.  I made the mistake of filling cupcake liners 1/3 way full instead of 1/3 cup like the recipe said.  Which made my cupcakes pretty shallow, but it still tasted great.
*Critique: 4 Stars
 Here is the link :
http://bakingbites.com/2009/10/impossible-pumpkin-pie-cupcakes/

Congrats Sign tutorial

Supplies Needed:
-Scissors
-Elmers Glue
-Tape
-Ribbon
-Old cd
-Black Cardstock
-Gold Spray paint (or print letters onto gold paper)
-Letters : C O N G R A T S ( I made mine on the computer, cut them out, then spray painted them
-White cardstock for the letters
-Gold Paint Pen

*You can always substitute different colors to match your theme.

First, use your old cd to draw circles with your gold paint pen, then cut them out around the gold line.

Second, Print out letters on cardstock and cut them out.

Third, spray paint letters to desired color.

Fourth, glue letters to circles.

Line the letters up in the correct order before you start stringing the ribbon through.

Punch 2 holes on each circle.  One on each side (not right in the middle so it doesn't flip around)

 

 

Secure with tape in back.

1st Birthday Party -Zebra Print Themed

This was the invitation (to set the tone of the party)

Birthday cupcakes with zebra print wrapper

Picture display of her 1st year

Lesson Learned: Do not blow up balloons too early, they will lose their buoyancy.  I would say an hour before party would be ok. 

Pink and Black Tulle and Hershey Kisses, so easy!

The centerpieces had a tower of oreos inside