Desert Sunrise

Hi there friends!  I hope you are having a great weekend. 🙂

Awhile back, I posted some photos of our beautiful desert sunsets and I wanted to follow-up with some photos of our marvelous sunrises.  I am not a photographer by any means, but I definitely enjoy taking pictures of my desert surroundings.  The desert sky is breathtaking and different every day.  These were taken the other morning.

The photo above was taken facing east (of course) and the photos below were taken facing west.  Out here, the sunrise is beautiful in the western sky as well!

Remember to take time and appreciate and enjoy your sunrises and sunsets wherever you are too!  You get a new sunrise and sunset each and every day! 🙂

Enjoy! ❤

Butterscotch Coffee Cake

Hi there friends!! I hope you all have a had a great week!  Can you believe it’s almost the weekend?

I don’t know about you but, the week after a Monday holiday always passes so quickly for me.  It’s already Thursday evening and I am just now getting the time to post a delicious recipe.

I found it on Pinterest a while back when I was craving butterscotch and…oh my goodness…it’s like heaven in a cake!!  I know that most people make and eat coffee cake for breakfast or brunch, but in our house it’s a dessert item…Yes, we are strange people! 🙂

Did I mention how great this smells while it’s baking? 🙂

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients:

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1 small box instant butterscotch pudding
• 1 small box instant vanilla pudding
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup canola oil
• 4 eggs
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 cup brown sugar

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9X13 cake pan with cooking spray.
• Mix cake mix, puddings, water, canola oil and eggs together and pour into cake pan.
• Stir butter and brown sugar together and sprinkle on top of batter.
• Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Enjoy! ❤

 

Asparagus and Potato Chowder

It’s “Souper Saturday” and I love soup!

I told my family a couple weeks back that I could probably eat soup for dinner every night…almost.  That’s because I would miss tacos, but I make a pretty good taco soup, so I guess I would be able to cope. 🙂

My latest soup came to be due to a great sale on asparagus last week.  It was $1.69 a pound, which is a rock bottom price where we live, so I bought two bunches.  I had already figured on roasting the first bunch with some olive oil and garlic (my favorite way to eat asparagus), but I wanted to do something different with the second bunch.

I was hungry for soup (surprise, surprise), so I thought I would try making one in my Crock Pot (my other love) ❤ with asparagus.  I just started adding ingredients and the following recipe came to be…

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients:

• 1 bunch asparagus with the ends trimmed away and cut into 1″-2″ pieces
• 3 large potatoes cut into chunks
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
• 1/2 teaspoon course ground pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4  cup heavy cream

Directions:

• Add asparagus and potatoes to Crock Pot and toss gently with flour.
• Add spices and chicken broth and cook on low for 4 hours or until potatoes reach desired tenderness.
• Add butter and heavy cream and heat for another 20-30 minutes.  Remove bay leaf.
• Serve with bread, if desired.

Enjoy! ❤

 

“Dirt Cheap” Copper Pot Cleaner

Before…

TGIFF!! Thank goodness it’s Frugal Friday! :):)

Not only is it Frugal Friday, but it’s President’s Day Weekend and Valentine’s Day all wrapped up in one!  Woohoo!

Today, I’m sharing a way to clean your copper-bottom pots that is so inexpensive and easy that you’ll have plenty of money and time left to spend on and with your Valentine. ❤  In fact, I’ll bet you already have the ingredients sitting right there in your kitchen cabinet.

Two ingredients. Really.  Two ingredients!

VINEGAR & SALT

I love this!  Both ingredients are safe to use, inexpensive and most of us have them on hand all the time.

Now, that you have the long (hahaha) list of ingredients, I should explain the detailed process you need to follow to clean your pots…

1. Find a shallow baking dish/pan or container that will fit the bottom of your pot.
2. Pour enough vinegar in the dish so that it will cover the copper portion of your pots.
3. Stir in a generous amount of salt.
4. Place your pots, one at a time in the dish and let soak for a short time (for difficult pots, soak longer or sprinkle with salt directly, pour some vinegar over and scrub gently).
5. Rinse with water and dry immediately (staying damp is what helps them tarnish in the first place).
6. Enjoy using your “new” pots!

After!!

Really difficult, huh?  Lol!

I found this a while back on Pinterest and I loved the results just as much as the results from my previous cleaner.

Have a safe and wonderful holiday weekend!! ❤

 

 

Leftover Candy Cake Bars

Hi there friends!

It’s Throwback Thursday and I’m throwin’ back to just last month when my favorite supermarket was clearing out their Christmas stock at rock bottom prices.

I was able to stock up on various candies…M&M’s for 88 cents a bag, when they’re usually around $3.00-$3.50 a bag and the large mixed bags of Hershey’s (my favs) for $1.00, when they’re usually $4.00-$4.50 a bag.  Awesome savings, right?

When I got home, I did the good thing and “hid” them all in my “baking box”, so I could use them later for baking projects.  I used half of one of the bags of Mint M&M’s for some yummy minty chocolate cake bars and half of the other bag to decorate my youngest son’s birthday cake.

I still had a good bit of candy left (a whole bag of mixed Hershey’s) when I was looking for a fun dessert for my family last weekend.  So, I figured I would try to make some cake bars with some of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Trees.  They were sooooo good!

There are endless combinations you could make with different candies and cake flavors…this is just one idea.  Here’s what I did…

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients:

• 1 box cake mix (I used yellow for these)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/3 cup milk
• leftover candy (desired types and quantity)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 8X8 baking dish with cooking spray.
• Stir cake mix, egg and canola oil together in mixing bowl until well combined.
• Spread evenly in baking dish.

• Press candy firmly into batter.

• Sprinkle top with candy crumbs, if desired (a couple of my trees fell apart, so I made crumbs).

• Bake for 30 minutes or until knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

 

Enjoy! ❤

Crock Pot Honey Garlic Chicken

Hi there friends!

I have a deep, dark secret to share with you today.  I know you will be surprised and maybe even a little shocked by my admission, but I feel it necessary to get this out in the open and deal with any consequences that may come my way.

Are you ready?  Well, here goes… I love my Crock Pot. ❤

Yes, I love my Crock Pot.  No, I don’t just like my Crock Pot…I honestly do love my Crock Pot.  I love being able to add all my ingredients, turn it on and walk away to take care of other daily chores.  Then I get to come back at the end of the day and have a delicious dinner waiting for my family.  Not to mention the wonderful aroma that fills the house.

Whew!  I feel so much better now that my secret is out in the open and no longer hidden. 🙂

Now, that I’ve come clean, I’d like to share a recipe that I used to make chicken the other night. and it took no time at all…thanks to my Crock Pot.  I served it with some easy-to-make sesame noodles and steamed broccoli.  Yummy!

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients:

• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano

Directions:

• Place chicken in Crock Pot.
• Whisk remaining ingredients together and pour over chicken.
• Cook for 6 hours on low or until chicken is completely done.

It honestly doesn’t look this orange-y.  I just have terrible lighting in my home. 🙂

Enjoy! ❤

 

Almond Poppy-Flax Pancakes

It’s Tuesday.  Only three more days until the weekend. 🙂

I know, I know, why am I thinking about the weekend when it’s only Tuesday?  Well, in our house, it’s when we get to make fun and yummy food for breakfast.

I’m not a big breakfast eater and, to be honest, pancakes were never one of my favorites.  I’ve never been a big fan of using a lot of syrup, so they were always quite bland to me.  That was before I started “doctoring them up” a few years ago.

I started out by just adding milled flax seed to them to help “health them up” a bit.  Then I started adding all kinds of different ingredients to them.  One of my favorite additions has been oatmeal…until now.

As you might have figured out from some of my previous recipes, I absolutely love to add almond flavoring to all kinds of things, especially muffins.  In fact, almond poppy muffins are my all-time favorite, so why not try almond poppy pancakes?

I’m sure glad I did!!  They tasted like almond poppy muffins in pancake form.  Yum!

An extra-added bonus…they are so easy to make!  And, remember, pancakes freeze wonderfully, so you can easily have them on your busy days as well…

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients:

• enough prepared pancake batter for about one dozen pancakes (I cheat and use prepackaged mix that just calls for water)
• 2 tablespoons milled flax seed
• 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
• 1 tablespoon almond extract

Directions:

• Add the flax seed, poppy seeds and almond extract to your batter and cook as usual.

Enjoy! ❤

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Hi there friends!  I hope your week is off to a great start!

Today was one of those “out-of-the ordinary” days for me.  My boys had a school holiday, my youngest woke up with a “bug”, so he hasn’t been his usual self today, and hubby had the afternoon off, but had to go to work this evening.  If that description of my day has you lost, I understand…I feel the same! 🙂

I don’t know about you, but when I have days like today, I love to have some good old-fashioned “comfort food”.  The recipe I’m sharing completely fits that order!  Seriously, soup always makes us feel good and calms us, right?

This recipe is adapted from a “copy cat” recipe I found on Pinterest for Panera’s famous broccoli cheese soup.  I <3LOVE<3 their broccoli cheese soup and I have to admit that this is pretty darn close!  And it’s made in the Crock Pot, even better!!

Here you go…

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients:

• 4 cups fresh broccoli, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• approximately 12 baby carrots, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 1 pound sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

Directions:

• Add all ingredients, except half-and-half and cheese to crock-pot. Cook on low 4-6 hours or until vegetables are tender.
• After vegetables are tender, mash with potato masher. Add half-and-half and cheese and heat until warm and cheese is melted, approximately 30-60 minutes.
• If desired, serve with some crusty bread for dipping.

Enjoy! ❤