Wine Glass Bling

At a recent get together with my favorite girlies, we were thinking it would be fun to make wine glass charms. It's a perfect project to do while your sitting around gabbing and sharing a bottle of vino.
I did some research on the Internet, and they are really super easy to make! You can make them as simple or fancy as you wish. You can buy special ear wires or use basic jewelry wire, like I did because it was already in my stash. In fact I already had everything that I needed.
We made charms that night, which everyone loved! And because I forgot my camera (of course),  I made some more today to share with you.

Here is what you will need:

• Assorted beads
• Jewelry making pliers- bull nose and flat head
• Wire cutters
• Jewelry wire or circle/hoop ear wires
• Jewelry making board

The first thing that you want to do is cut your wire in 4-4.5" lengths. If you are using ear wires you can skip this part. Then, it's helpful if you pick out your beading design and lay it out on the board to see what it will look like. Next, using your pliers you need to bend one end of the wire in a hook shape. 

Now you can add your beads.

Next curve the other end of the wire.

Viola, bling for your wine glass!!

Enjoy!!!

GF Rosemary Chicken Pot Pie

I am gluten free. Not my husband and not my boys. So, as you can imagine dinner is an obstacle at times. Although gluten free food and recipes have come a long way, many times it is still very bland and blah. It usually has a different texture and tastes a little off. On many nights we have ended up making two different meals, one gf and one regular. It's a problem. Needless to say, when I find a recipe that everyone in the house likes and asks me to make again, it's a keeper. Here is one of our favorite gf go to meals. It is the perfect snowy day comfort food. For our family of four (mainly because I have two boys that eat more food than most small countries) I have doubled the original Pot Pie part of the recipe it is enough to fill a 3 qt. baking dish. 

GF Rosemary Chicken Pot Pie

Prep time: 20-30 min.

Cook time:20-25 min.
Servings: 8-10

What you need:
2c cut up cooked chicken
4c chicken stock
1c carrots-diced
1c celery-sliced
1/2c onion-minced
1c peas
3/4c GF flour mix like Pamela's or Bisquick
4-6 tsbp water
1/2c cream or nondairy substitute
2-3 sprigs fresh Rosemary (discard stalk after removing leaves)
1/4c fresh parsley-chopped
Salt and pepper to taste


One Biscuit Mix recipe to top the pie. You can use any recipe you like for the biscuits. But I usually just use the GF Bisquick.


Preheat oven to 375°.
Cut up chicken and set aside. Place the chicken stock in a large saucepan and bring to a boil; add carrots, celery, and onion and cook for 15 minutes. Stir in the peas and chicken and cook for 5 minutes longer.
Mix the flour mix to a thin paste with a few tablespoons of water. Thicken the stock with the flour paste and cook on low for 1-2 min. Stirring constantly, add the cream and season with salt, pepper, parsley, and the rosemary.
Pour the cooked pie mixture into a 3 qt. baking dish or individual casserole dishes and top with dropped biscuit dough (I use approximately 1/2 tablespoon for each dropped mound and leave about 1/2" in between them). Bake on top of a cookie sheet for approximately 20-25 min. or until biscuits are browned and pot pie filling is bubbly.

Enjoy!

Weekly Menu & Shopping List

I have been planning a weekly menu for our meals for about 2 months now, and have been able to cut our grocery shopping bill in half! Just by doing better planning! I think that is amazing. My husband and I both work full time jobs and had gotten in the habit of cooking what ever was quick and easy. We were grocery shopping every night, because we would forget to take something out of the freezer. When you shop nightly you ALWAYS end up spending more than if you were to go once a week. Unfortunately our grocery store is only a short distance from our house, so it became easy to go nightly.
We are both proud to say that we have stopped that bad habit. We have been eating and cooking delicious new foods and trying new recipes. It has been a great experience for us all. We actually got the motivation from my dear friend over at Modern Homesteading: Maine-ah Style. She did a pantry challenge to start off the new year, feel free to check it out. Let me know if you decide to take up the pantry challenge and how it works for you. I have really enjoyed trying new recipes based on what ingredients I have on hand.
One thing that I have been looking for and finally decided that I could just make myself using photo shop is a weekly menu and shopping list all in one. Something pretty. This is what I came up with, and there are 2 more in the works. I couldn't wait to share these with you though!

You can download them for free here:
menu 1
menu 2

They are sized to print on standard copy paper.


Enjoy!

Super Sweet Ipod Valentine's!

Sorry that it's taken forever to post this! Our friends over at Delightful Order have a great ipod Valentines craft that we made on Sunday. So easy to make and not super girly-which Sam loved.

Here's what you'll need:

• Sweetheart candy's in the small boxes- they are on sale everywhere right now
• Reese's mini peanut butter cups
• ribbon
• glue- I used hot glue.
• scissors
• free printable ipod design find it here

First, you want to print out your ipods and get them all cut out. This can be a little tedious and your child may need help if they have 20+ kids in their class, like Sam. Second, get your glue gun plugged in and warmed up. Sam has used a glue gun in the past and is able to do so safely with close supervision. Do this at your discretion- I would suggest just letting them watch or actually using different glue, if necessary. Next, get your ribbon cut (we used approximately 8" lengths) and knotted (we tied the ear buds together about half way down). OK, so now you are ready to glue it all together, we did the ipod cover first but I soon realized that it may have been better to start with the ribbon. You can do any order that works for you. Lastly, glue the ribbon to two Reese's cups for the earpieces.

Viola~ ipods!

This was a lot of fun to make, and we actually had a little Valentine Crafting party with my sister and her kids with sledding and mint hot chocolate (which both Sam and his Auntie love). Thanks to Delightful Order for this great idea and the free printable!!

Here are some of the other Valentine's we made:



Let me know if you make these and how they turn out!

XOXO

~a



Valentine Subway Art

Just printed out this cute Valentine's Day subway art print from The Bonjour family over at

http://libby-bonjour.blogspot.com/2011/01/photobucket_26.html

There are 2 different sizes and a few different colors to choose from. And it's so cute!! What do you think?

XOXO

~a

Gluten Free Snow Day Blueberry Muffin's

It's a snow day here in Maine today! They are calling for 2 ft of snow and blizzard conditions, so naturally we are all home in our jammies.

What a lovely treat it would be for my children to have homemade blueberry muffins on this cold and dreary day! OK, great idea, but wait I want some too!! As the Gluten free mommy here, it's always hard to make cookies and treats that I can't eat. So I decided I would try to figure out a way to make them using what gf ingredients I had in the pantry{'cause there is no way I am venturing out to the supermarket in this!} And I dont' know about you, but I always seem to feel like I am experimenting every time I cook gf.... 

So here is what I used 

• 2 1/2 cups GF Bisquick
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup milk
• 6 tablespoons butter melted (can use vegan butter or margarine)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla
• 2 eggs
•  2 cups organic whole frozen blueberries

• Heat oven to 375°F. Place paper baking cup in each of the 12 regular-size muffin cups.

• In medium bowl, stir 1 1/4 cups Bisquick mix and the brown sugar with whisk. Making sure the brown sugar is well blended (No clumps).  This pastry tool actually worked really well...

• 
  
• Make a well in center of the mixture. In small bowl, stir milk, butter, vanilla and egg with whisk until well blended. Add to dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened. Stir blueberries into batter; spoon batter evenly into muffin cups. The batter will be thick and will not rise as much as regular muffins, so fill to top of muffin cup.

Bake approximately 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool 5 minutes. Remove from pan to cooling rack. Serve warm.

Enjoy!!!

XOXO

~amy