Knotty Headbands

Here are some really fun and easy head bands that I have been making. I am using old tshirts to make "tshirt yarn." I got the tutorial from "You Seriously Made That" so go on over and check out the site!

Purple from a old tshirt scarf

Sparkle ribbon added to the ends to tie it off

Black & Gray from a old tshirt scarf 

Yello from a old Target Tshirt with a blue satin ribbon

cream tshirt from target with pink ribbon.

Greek Salad

I love salads.  I am totally fine with a salad for dinner. My southern meat and potatoes husband is not. According to him, a salad is fine as long as its on the side of a steak.  I've managed to find a salad or two that he likes enough to not complain when I make it for dinner.  One of those is a buffalo chicken salad because the chicken on the salad meets his meat requirement.  The other is this Greek Salad.  I found the recipe for it on the Pioneer Woman's blog and just tweaked it a little.  I'm just going to give the recipe for the dressing because I'm sure everyone can make a salad.  When I make this I usually use: romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, thinly sliced red onions, kalamata olives, some sliced pepperoncinis and sometimes throw some salami in.

To make the dressing:

Combine a 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, 2 teaspoons sugar, 2 cloves minced garlic, about 10 kalamata olives chopped extra fine, a pinch or two of salt, a few shakes of black pepper.  Mix it together and taste it.  adjust if needed. (It's pretty much the same recipe on the Pioneer Woman's site, so she gets the credit!  i just upped the amount of sugar, olives and garlic, because i found myself always adding more to the original recipe!) I always try to make it in advance so it can sit a while before adding it to the salad.

After you dump the dressing on the salad, squeeze some fresh lemon juice over the entire thing.

This is also really good in a wrap or in a pita.

Recipe: Drip Beef

One of my favorite parts of cooking is making certain meals that remind me of different people.  I got this recipe for Drip Beef Sandwiches from my friend Keara who lives in Oklahoma.  Keara and I met when we both were working for YouthWorks in Minneapolis.  She's been a good friend for years.  Keara's parents own a beautiful ranch in Oklahoma and I've been there a couple times.  It is incredible!  And ranch life is so not what I'm used to.  Last time we were there, I looked out the window and Kirk and Keara were outside with a gun trying to keep a coyote away from the cattle.

If you ever need a place to take a group or want to do a hunting trip, you should look into their ranch.  It's called Spring Valley Ranch.  Click here to see their website.

Anyways, one of the times I was there, Keara made Drip Beef Sandwiches and I've loved them since then.  Even better, you make them in the crock pot, which makes life easier.

All you do for these is get a 3-4 pound roast. I use chuck roast, you can also use a rump roast.  I don't really know what the difference is between the different cuts of meat and I kinda get the heebee geebees if I think too much about my meat coming from an animal, so I just try not to think about it and get whichever is on sale.

Take the roast and trim off any extra fat.  Then take a knife and cut some slits in the meat.  I use the minced garlic that comes in the jar (normally I'm not a fan of the jarred garlic, but for this one it seems to work well). Using about 3 tablespoons of garlic, stuff a little bit of garlic into the slits you've cut in the meat.  Then put it in the crock pot.

Take a large jar of pepperoncinis and dump the liquid from the jar over the meat.  Then cut the stems off the pepperoncinis and discard.  Slice the pepperoncinis into rings and dump them over the meat. 

Cook on high for about 6-8 hours.  Pull the meat out of the crock pot and shred with 2 forks.  I then put the shredded meat back in the crock pot so it soaks up more of the juice from the pepperoncinis.

You can serve this many different ways. I usually get good rolls and melt some shredded mozzarella on them.  Keara's family eats them on rolls with french onion dip on them.  I also think they'd be good in tortillas.

Another great part of this meal is that it makes a lot!  I made this last week and only used a 2 pound roast and got 8 big sandwiches out of it. 

Enjoy!

Apple Sauce

On Halloween Jess, Riley and I went over to my moms to be with her and to help hand out candy. While we were there we also decided to make my moms SUPER yummy applesauce. We all had a LOT of fun being together and making it. Riley liked to help stir the apple sauce but LOVED running to the door to look at the trick-or-treaters when the doorbell rang. Below are pictures from the day - I am no chef or cook by any means so don't mind unique description of words at times :)

My mom uses Macintosh apples. So the first thing you do is wash the apples and cut them in fourths.

Using a boiling pot with strainer you cook the apples until the get nice and mushy. It smells great! 

This is what the apples look like in the pot/strainer after they have been cooked. Nice and mushy. You pour out the extra water and then the apple mush gets transferred into a special pot thing with a crank.

Once the apples are mushy they get transferred into a grinding/sifter pot with a crank. You then crank all the mush through the pot into a bowl.

Cute Lil Ry sitting in a "big girl chair" helping out and eating an apple.

Riley even liked to help crank the apples through the pot. This is where a lot of time goes into. Cranking the apples is a slow process and takes some good arm muscles.

Ry couldn't resist a little finger taste test of the fresh apple sauce!

This is my mom "seasoning" the sauce. She adds brown sugar, regular sugar and cinnamon. This is where her "magic" comes into play because there is no recipe she does it by taste and what the sauce looks like.

When it is ALL done... it is VERY YUMMY!!! 

Riley's painted feet!

Burlap Candles & Wreath

I have been working on putting up "fall" decorations around my house and have been getting some great ideas off of pinterest and blogs I follow. There are lots of different ideas that use burlap. I love burlap! I think it is very fallish. It just so happens that there was  sale at hobby lobby when I was in Fort Wayne - so of course I had to buy some. I used burlap for two different things around the house - sprucing up my candles and rosettes on a wreath. Today I finished my fall wreath today and put up my burlap candles. When my mantle is complete I will post pictures of that.

I used two different colors of burlap: tan and chocolate brown and brown and cream felt for the other flowers.

Finished wreath for my front door!

Burlap Candles

My four finished candles!

Materials: two types of burlap, scissors, tape and pillar candles

Because of how burlap is made its edges fray and pull apart very easily.

Using your darker burlap pull "strings" of it off your giant piece of burlap. You are going to use these burlap strings to tie around your candle so you want them sort of long.

I had four candles that i was using.  Using the lighter of your two burlaps cut a strip long enough to go around your candle and 2/3 as wide as your candle. You will see my darker burlap strings next to my cut strips.

Simply tape one of your burlap down to your candle. Wrap the burlap around your candle and tape the other end down. SO EASY! 

Noticed I frayed the tops of my burlap just for an added effect. If you like it cleaner you do not have to do that and just keep it straight, like the bottom.

 

The lighter burlap wrapped around the candles and taped down. 

Using your dark burlap strings (i used 3-5 pieces) simply tie a simple bow around the candle. If you tie it tight enough it will stay put.

The finished product! So Simple, Yet so Cute!

Gold Satin Flower

While away this week I made my niece and her friend matching gold satin flowers and I thought they turned out great and had to share the final product. The girls LOVED them and said they were great for the fall, which I agree.  I did a tutorial here on them.