supper hero cookies

While my brother was in town we made super hero cookies. They were cute.

You don't have to get cookie cutters in order to make new cookie shapes, just find images on the computer that you like and pint them out. (Simple shapes are the easiest.) Cut it out of the paper and then place it on the dough and cut it out with a paring knife.

Sloppy Joes

Another recipe that my husband requested I get from his mom. It is a quick family favorite now.

1 lb ground beef

1 can baked beans/pork and beans

1/4 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp pepper

1. Brown ground beef and drain.


2. Add remaining ingredients, stir and cook for about 5 minutes and serve with hamburger buns.

My Taco Meat

A few years ago I found out that my mother-in-law didn't use a seasoning packet when she makes tacos. So I got the recipe and have since adapted it to our families likes

1 lb ground beef or ground bison meat
1/4 cup dry onion flakes
1/2 cup of Salsa
2 tsp garlic powder or 2 cloves garlic crushed
1/4 tsp chili powder
pinch of pepper

1. Brown meat with dry onions. Drain off fats.


2. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until the extra juices from the salsa cook out.

We love these left overs. We use them to make goulash, quesadillas, or just more tacos/burritos another day.

Rice Goolash

We have a family story about my grandma making goulash for my grandpa when they were newly married that has lead to a few more funny family stories. So when Sam and I were first married I looked up a goulash recipe and tried it out. We really liked it, but the noodles near the top didn't get cooked right and ended up being too crunchy. So I began improvising with the recipe and adapted it over the years. It's one of my favorite recipes to use when I have a bunch of left overs in the fridge.

MY RICE GOULASH

1 cup taco meat

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

2 cups brown rice

1 cup frozen corn

1 cup spaghetti sauce

Mix everything together. Sprinkle with any extra cheese. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

Tips:

• If you are using left over rice, you will want to break the rice up with a spoon or your hands before you add it to the other ingredients.
• If your corn is stuck together, then put it in a strainer under running water and let the water break it up for you, then it will be easy to mix.
• If I don't have any extra taco meat, I like to use frozen meatballs. You can put six at a time in the microwave for 1 minute to de-thaw them. Other wise it would take a long time to cook them in the oven. Or if you want to go vegetarian, add a can of beans (rinsed and drained.) If you are not using the taco meat you will need to add some extra seasoning. So either use a spicy spaghetti sauce, or add some of the seasonings that are in the taco meat recipe when you are mixing all the ingredients together.

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

Birthday cookie recipes

For my daughter's birthday party this year we asked people not to bring gifts, but to bring cookies. Everyone brought 3 dozen cookies, they all took a few of each kind home. Here are the cookie recipes that were at the party.

• Chocolate crinkles and
• Chocolate Noogies both from familyfun.com
• Double-Drizzle pecan cookies from tasteofhome.com
• snicker doodles the recipe was almost the same as this allrecipe.com version, the only difference was that our cookies had an added ingredient 1 tsp vanilla
• sugar cookies from bakeat350.blogspot.com with piped royal icing and flood icing from universityofcookie.com (The only difference in the recipe is that I use honey instead of Com syrup and leave out the lemon flavoring in the icing recipe.)
• We also had some waffle cookies. I can't find the recipe, but here is one I found on allrecipes.com
• And some Oatmeal Chocolate chip cookies that I can't find something similar online so I've typed the recipe here

1 cup butter
1 but brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 cups oatmeal
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes

coast Gaurd Cookies

a man at church passed away last week and I was asked to bring some treats for the services. Since my Grandpa just passed away and I was not able to attend any of the services I was excited to help. Aparently he served in the US Coast Gaurd, so I looked up the symbol for the coast gaurd

And did my best to turn it into a cookie. Now that I'm looking at them side by side, I see that my lines are slanted in the wrong direction. Oops!

School clothes for Gwen

I've been trying to find some school clothes for Gwen. As she is getting older she is running out of stuff in my "grow into" box. I guess I need to start searching the clearance racks at the end of the season more and buy for the next size. Anyway, I've been overwhelmed by the cost of buying a bunch of full price/"sale" clothes all at once. She REALLY wanted a polka dot dress and polka dot shoes. So I found both of them and I don't think they will look to silly together. Since she is SO into wearing dresses right now, I also got her some tights so she won't get too cold on the walk to school and on the playground. I figured I should make her some more dresses. Here is the pattern I got New Look 6639 I used some pre-embroidered fabric I could in the denim department. The fabric is black, and feels like stretchy denim with bunches of cherries sewn onto it. Here is how it turned out, with the shoes she wanted.
I think it will look great with a red or a white t shirt and black tights. The pattern was easy to follow. I don't think I actually read anything, I just looked at the pictures next to each written instruction and was able to figure it out. It also has an option for sewing the dress with 6 square pieces making up the front panel. I think I will try making a denim dress out of some old jeans with holes in them next. (If we didn't toss them out already :)
Things to remember for next time

• If you add the ruffle instead of hemming like normal it is long enough to be a dress, otherwise you will need to wear it as a tunic top with leggings.
• The fabric I used to make the ruffle was some left over silky blanket binding. but as I was sewing it the binding got caught in the feed dogs on my sewing machine and snagged a little bit, so I have a feeling that it will get ruined quickly on the playground and in the washing machine by Velcro. When that happens I'll just remove it and add a red cotton ruffle.
• The button holes were not as bad as I thought they would be. I did them by hand with embroidery thread and that gave me SO MUCH more control than trying to do it on the sewing machine. I'm interested to see how they stand up to being put through the washing machine.
• I'm not sure if I made a size too big or if I just needed to fit it to Gwen before I sewed the side seems up, but I think that it would be better if I cinched the elastic to be a little bit tighter in the back.