Life, Family, and Home - Simplified & Sweetened
Graduation season is upon us. Some of the colleges around here have already held their spring commencement ceremonies, and the high schools will be coming up shortly.
For those of you looking to buy the perfect gift for the high school and college graduates in your life, here is a list of links to help you out.
More graduation posts coming up! Have a great day!
Sometimes it seems like women (namely, mothers) are the hardest people to buy for. Since Mother’s Day is coming up this week, I decided to do a few posts on gift ideas. Here’s a list of general gift ideas for you to keep in mind this week as you search for the perfect gift for your own mom, or for other moms you know.
6. Candies, cakes, and treats – Get your mom some fancy chocolates or a gourmet cheesecake, or present her with your own homebaked masterpiece.
7. Photo album or scrapbook – Mom’s and grandmoms love pictures of the kids. Put together a photo album or scrapbook of the kids. This way your mom will have all their photos preserved without all the work.
8. Craft and scrapbook supplies – If your mom sews, scrapbooks, or does any other kind of crafting, you could buy her some supplies or get her a gift certificate to the craft store.
9. Salon/Spa Day – Get your mom a gift certificate for a day at the spa or a beauty salon, or better yet make it a mother-daughter day of it. Take your mom out for a morning at the salon, followed by lunch and an afternoon of shopping. Or share a day of pampering at a dayspa.
10. Dinner – Take your mom out for dinner, invite her over to your place for dinner, or bring the homecooked meal to her.
Since Cinco de Mayo is coming up, I thought it appropriate to have a spicy Mexican style dish for this week’s recipe. I found this recipe in Taste of Home back in December and tried it out. It’s just as flavorful as it is colorful, and that’s saying something. My husband loves spicy food, and this recipe definitely got his seal of approval!
Here’s something kind of fun for you. I found a link to this quiz on 3 Sides of Crazy. I found it interesting because the description fits me exactly. In fact, I should have known I’d be a “shy violet,” before I even took the thing!
Here were my results:
“You have a shy personality. You tend to hesitate before trying new things or meeting new people. But once people get to know you, you open up and show the world what you are really all about.”
(They left out pensive and overly analytical and cautious. But then again, maybe that’s just me! )
Hello everyone. For the first time, I’m doing a Works for Wednesday post. It is a blog carnival on Rocks in my Dryer. Since I already have MPM, Recipe of the Week, and other posts to do every week, for right now I won’t be participating in WFMW every week, but I’ll try to participate as much as I can.
For this post, I wanted to introduce a new product to you. It is called Bundinos, and it is found in the frozen section. After a little research I found that these are made from the same company that makes Michelina’s frozen dinners, which has a great line of frozen pastas.
Bundinos are sort of a cross between mini pizza rolls and hot pockets. They are essentially meat, cheese, and other fillings inside of grilled, oven-baked bread. They are a little over in an inch wide in diameter, and they are a great for a quick, tasty, mess-free snack. They are also reasonably priced at a little over $2 for a box of 9.
There were a few flavors available (and sorry I can’t remember them all). But I purchased the Chicken, Swiss, and Ham flavor, and I was highly impressed. The cheese was very creamy, and all the ingredients had a great taste. And unlike a lot of these kind of snacks, none of the filling leaked out during the cooking process, nor did it ooze out after being bitten into. So you don’t have to worry about a mess, and you can cook them up in 2 minutes or less.
Usually I’m a little picky about microwaved foods, but these were a great value, and I’ll definitely buy again! They were very flavorful and different, and I think they’re great for a quick snack or meal. And I think the kids would like them too. Overall, I give them 5 stars out of 5.
Last week of April already? Okay…my how the year is flying by. This week I’ve included a recipe for Chicken Taco Soup, sort of a variation on another recipe that I came up with. And I’ve included a link to a recipe for Cheesy Chicken w/ Pasta. Happy Meal Planning!
Monday- Grilled Ham, Turkey, and Cheese Sandwiches w/ french fries
Tuesday- Chicken Taco Soup w/ chips (recipe below)
Wednesday – Cheesy Chicken w/ Pasta & steamed veggies
Thursday – Leftover soup and fajitas
Friday – Lemon pepper porkchops, herb rice, and green beans
Saturday – Pizza
Sunday – eating out…I’m thinking Chinese
Chicken Taco Soup
A while back I decided to take a casserole recipe and change it up a bit to make a soup/stew. My husband loves the casserole and was very surprised and impressed by the soup. This is very tasty recipe for anyone who likes spicy food.
I must confess, I didn’t write down how much salsa I used in the soup. I believe I mixed in a cup and then added more without measuring, so I just made an estimate here. But my dad always lived by the rule that “a recipe is just a suggestion,” and I like that rule. The amount of salsa used for this recipe is really an issue of personal preference, so I think you can be your own judge.
Ingredients:
2 cans cream of chicken soup
2 cans Tyson all white chicken breast (or 3-4 cooked chicken breasts, chopped)
1 1/4 cup chicken broth (or water)
1 tablespoon chilipowder
1 teaspoon garlic salt
3/4 to 1 3/4 cups of salsa (depending on your preference for spicy stuff, and on how thick you want the soup to be.)
2 cups cheese
1 can rotel tomatoes (optional)
Mix all ingredients together, heat to boiling, then lower the heat, stirring occasionally till the mixture is cooked through. Serve with chips, and top with cheese, sour cream, and/or salsa if desired.
Visit orgjunkie.com for other ideas and more info on MPM.
In case anyone was wondering, the reason I didn’t post anything for Menu Plan Monday this week is because my husband is out of town for half of this week. Since it’s just me here, I didn’t really have a need to plan a big menu. But MPM will be back again for this upcoming week.
In the meantime, here is this week’s recipe of the week. This was a featured recipe on pilsbury.com recently. These are great for a snack, appetizer, or quick lunch and dinner. And since I’m on my own this week, it seemed like an easy and tasty meal for me to make for myself. Yum!
I realize that the posts on spring cleaning, taxes, and other stuff have caused me to neglect my Sweet Thursday posts, so I decided to do one for this week. And I honestly couldn’t decide what to post on for the longest, and then I got inspired this morning and decided to have some fun and do a little “taste testing.”
My husband loves powdered donuts and bought a bag at the store the other day, and as I struggled to think of what I would post on today, I saw the bag of donuts on the counter and decided to be a little wacky and put some toppings on the donuts to try out. The toppings included chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, peanut butter, pancake syrup, and strawberry syrup. (yes, I just happened to have all of that on hand, and no, I don’t weigh 500 pounds. But I do love ice cream and sweets, as you can probably tell! Luckily I have a high metabolism.) Well, anyway here are the “highly scientific” results of this experiment.
Chocolate Syrup Donut – This was quite good. It reminded me of a chocolate turnover in a lot of ways, and it reminded me of a lot of the chocolate desserts w/ powdered sugar that you get in resturants. I actually think you could make a plate of these, and it would be a really cute (and easy) dessert for the kids.
Caramel Syrup Donut – This was not bad, but somehow the powdered sugar just seemed to overpower the taste of the caramel. Maybe if I had some of that extra thick caramel like the kind they use at some resturants and fast food joints, it would have been better. But in this case, I wasn’t very satisfied.
Peanut Butter Donut – I actually used some peanut “syrup” that they sale in a bottle for ice cream. It basically tastes just like regular peanut butter, only maybe a little sweeter. I really did this one just for fun, but it was actually a lot better than I expected. It had an “interesting” taste that I’m not sure how to explain, and it was actually one of my favorites over all.
Pancake Syrup Donut – On this one, my results are inconclusive. I didn’t really care for this combination. However, this was the last thing that I tasted, and I think by that time I was getting a little “donut-ed out.” Also, it may not have been the combination but the kind of syrup I used. I had a different brand of syrup from what I usually get, and incidentally I tasted the syrup by itself and didn’t care much for it. So perhaps with my usual brand (log cabin) I would have liked the combination better.
Strawberry Syrup Donut – This was made with Hershey’s Strawberry Syrup, which I highly recommend to you, if you’ve never tried it. (by the way, add it to vanilla ice cream and milk for an awesome strawberry shake!) But back to the donuts, I figured that the strawberry syrup would taste good. I mean, if donuts, strawberry, and powdered sugar can’t go together, what can? I’m usually more of a chocolate person myself, but I actually liked this better than the chocolate. It reminded me of strawberry shortcake. In fact, I imagine you could top these donuts with a little bit of strawberry syrup, a handful of strawberries, and a little whipped cream, and it would be excellent. So….yeah, I think this was probably the best overall. And again, you could make a tray of these, and it would look like a bunch of little gourmet desserts.
All in all, this was a fun little activity, and the food wasn’t too bad either. If you like powdered donuts, you might want to give it a try. Hope you guys enjoyed the post!
Hey guys. For a while, I’ve been thinking a lot about home businesses. I don’t have kids yet, but I do have hopes of being a stay at home mom. My mother stayed home with me when I was a kid, and I feel that it’s important, and it’s just something I want to do.
At the same time, I’d like the opportunity to make money. Money isn’t everything, but in this day and age, it’s just about the closest thing to air. So over the past several months I’ve been contemplating & considering different business ideas. I’ve come up with several ideas, some of which I may try if I can get the money & “stuff” I need (& assuming I have the time). But for right now I’ve decided to try this one.
I enjoy writing and I’ve had a lot of experience with writing & I’ve also worked in business for several years, so I decided to set up a website (actually a blog) to market my skills as a writer and an virtual assistant. I’m still in the process of working out all the details and deciding exactly what I’m going to do. (in fact I haven’t even posted all my virtual assistant information yet) But I wanted to go ahead and sort of introduce the concept here and hopefully get some input from you guys.
For more details on this, visit http://simplysweetconsultants.blogspot.com
If you need help with anything for your home office, your small business, or your personal blog/website, I’d love for you to hire me. Or if you know somebody that’s looking to hire a virtual assistant (for online or offline tasks), a copywriter, or anything along those lines, please send them my way. (and I’ll come up with some way to thank you later!)
When I have more details up on the website, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I invite you to check out and let me know what you think.
