Onion Strings

Last night we had a craving for onion rings. I have to be honest,

I haven't made onion rings in a long time!

Sean and I had already decided we were going to use Pioneer Woman's Recipe for

Homemade Buttermilk Chicken Strips and just adapt it to suit our needs!

But, we didn't even have to do that!!

I started looking through my Pioneer Woman Cookbook because I thought

the Chicken Strip Recipe was in there......instead I found Ree's recipe for Onion Strings!!!!

BINGO!!!

Since Ree gives you the 'How To' on her Blog, I'm just going to show you

what mine looked like when they were finished!!

Ta-Da!!

These little do-dads are just as delicious as Ree says!!

I almost couldn't fry them up fast enough. Everyone kept grabbing

them as soon as I put a batch on the plate!

I also decided I'm going to remake these to use on my Green Bean Casserole

for Thanksgiving!

I also got to thinking, How can we eat these delicious onion strings without

the spicy dipping sauce, like what you would get at Cheddars?

I found a recipe on Allrecipes .com to use for the dipping sauce.

It turned out very good!

Golden Pancakes

I love making Pancakes from Scratch!! I can't remember the last time I
 havehad 'store bought' pancake mix in the house. Don't get me wrong, I love

store bought, but here lately, my budget doesn't.

This little recipe can be whipped up in a jiff!! By the time you get all of your

ingredients out and measured your griddle will be nice n' hot!

oil, sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, milk, eggs



T sifting the dry ingredients into the bowl

 M taking a turn at sifting

 The beaten egg!

T carefully pouring in the oil and milk mixture

These babies are ready to flip!!

Just a few seconds on the other side!



They really are GOLDEN!!!!

Smear a little butter on each pancake, drizzle some hot syrup over the top

and why not add a glob of cool whip?

Mm-Yummy!!

Golden Pancakes Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

3 1/2 tsp. baking powder

6 Tblsp. sugar

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup oil

Sift together dry ingredients. Add eggs and 1 cup milk; mix well.

Then add remaining milk and oil; beat well. Bake on hot skillet until golden brown.

Any leftover pancakes may be frozen and reheated in toaster for a quick breakfast!



• This recipe is in a cookbook that I hold very dear to my heart! I will go into more detail about this later. ALOT of the recipes I will be sharing will be coming from this cook book! I can't wait to share all of these yummy treats!!

New Spin on an Old Favorite

Anytime I think of a Broccoli, Rice and Chicken Casserole Recipe, I think back to when I was first married and tried making it. The end result?.......Crunchy rice...... but it tasted good! I guess?!

That was 10 years ago!!! and I've only made it a handful of times. and you guessed it..... each time I thought I could make it better and each time the rice was still crunchy and it just didn't have the right taste to it!!

So, what do I do? I finally decide to try something a little different!!

Here is Everything I put in it!

Chicken Breasts, Chicken Broth, Cream of Chicken, Broccoli,

Rice, Sour Cream, Velveeta, Onion





The first thing I did was put the chicken in my orange pot and pour the chicken broth over it.

I chopped up some onion and threw that in the pot. I let the chicken boil until done.

When the chicken is done cooking take it out and place in a bowl and keep warm.

DO NOT pour your broth down the drain!

Instead, pour your rice in! and cook according to package directions!



'Look Ma! I have eyes and a nose on my hand!'

I forgot #4 had put that on there until I was editing my pictures and I figured, why not just leave it?

So, Miss Handy is cutting up chicken for me with my craft scissors that turned kitchen,

about 5 years ago!!

Your rice will be soft and taste sooo much better!!

and if it's watery? don't worry about it, you need that extra 'juice' anyway!

Here I added my frozen broccoli.



and stirred it up real good!

Dump in the two cans of Cream of Chicken.
And because I support Dairy Farmers Everywhere!

I added the sour cream, Velveeta and I know it wasn't in the picture, but I put

some milk in there too!!!

I added pepper and just a little salt, since Velveeta is pretty salty anyway.

Here I decided to add Cheesy French Fried Onions on top for the sole purpose that

I thought it would taste GOOD!!!

See? You can get creative with anything!!

Fresh Out of the oven!!

The batch I made was too big for a 9x13 pan so I put the rest in an 8x8!

I put a layer of plastic wrap over it and then foil.

It is now sitting in my freezer for a quick meal on a night I either forget to lay something out

or? That will probably be the reason!

This is how I did the recipe:

Easier Broccoli, Rice and Chicken Casserole

1 lb Chicken Breasts

32 oz Chicken Broth

2- 10 1/2 oz cans Cream of Chicken

16 oz bag of Frozen Broccoli

3 cups Rice

A chunk of Velveeta

Big Scoop of Sour Cream

1/2 of a medium onion

and a splash of milk to rinse your cans out!

1. Place your chicken breasts and Chicken broth in your cooking pot.
2. Chop up your onion, put it in with the chicken and bring to a boil.
3. Once the chicken is done, remove from pot and place in a bowl and keep warm.
4. Cook rice according to package directions in the chicken broth.
5. While the rice is cooking, go ahead and cut your chicken into bite size pieces. or shred it.
6. When the rice is done, throw in the broccoli, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, Velveeta and milk.
7. Season with a little salt and pepper to taste and give it a good ol' stirrin'!
8. Pour the mixture into a 9x13 pan.
9. Cover with French Fried Onions
10. Bake in 350* oven for 15 minutes or until the onions are golden!

Halloween a week later

or almost two weeks!! But whose counting?? I guess I am!! Can you believe Halloween has already come and gone like that? That means that Thanksgiving is almost here!! EEEEKK!! ha! I thought that word was only used for Halloween!!

Okay, back to HALLOWEEN!! If you are a 'Plan Ahead Person' like I'm not but really trying hard to be....You can pull these little do-dads out and whip them up next year!!

Aren't they scary?  My Friend Tina over at Mommy's Kitchen made them for her family.  Mummy Dogs!!! I love it!!! 

Now onto another Halloween treat that can also be used for FALL in general! Can't beat multi-purpose can ya?

I am stating right now: I WILL GET BETTER AT REMEMBERING TO TAKE PICTURES WHILE I'M MAKING THINGS!!! They are almost guaranteed not to be very good pictures but I will take pictures!!!

This picture is the white cake batter I mixed up, tinted with food coloring and placed in these awesome bottles!!

I squirted the batter into the mini cupcake papers alternating the three colors and then baked them!

ALL 96 of them!!

At 9 o'clock at night. Because that's when EVERYONE does it!! Right? Nope! that's just me?

and this next picture is my icing I'm so proud of !!! The yellow and orange turned out magnificent!!
I can't believe how giddy I get over making simple little cupcakes!!

I have to tell you that I'm really not too fond of Candy Corn (unless it is mixed with nuts) but these little cupcakes!! Oh, if the girls wouldn't of had their hearts set on taking these to school! I probably could have eaten ALL 96 of these little bad boys!!!

 Yummy-ness!!!!!

Now to box them up and send them to the already sugar- overloaded kiddies!!!

I should have bought another box!!

About those boxes, I stumbled upon the nifty-es little store one day! (Apparently I was the only person who did NOT know about this place, because everytime I told somebody about it in ALL my excitement, I would get a 'Oh yeah, that place has been there FOREVER!!')

Anyway, just incase you do not know about it and you don't want anyone talking to you like that.

I'm going to quietly post the link right HERE and then you'll know!!

Peace Out Girl Scouts!!

Jess

Movie Night!!

            Since school started back in August, there seems to be something going on just about every night during the week! Between taking the girls to Girl Scouts, Awana and Gymnastics..... Wednesday is about the only evening we get to spend any time together as a family.

    and my older kids are only in 4th and 2nd Grade!! Not to mention they participate in the same activities on the same nights! What am I going to do when THAT changes????  Yikes!!! I guess I need to just enjoy this while I can!

Okay, back to Wednesdays!!!

           This particular Wednesday, we chose to have a Movie Night!!

          and you can't have MOVIE NIGHT without first eating Pizza and drinking Soda in the Living Room!!

                  I just had to add that picture because they are so stinkin' cute!!!  A little bias? Not at all!!!!

and here are our movie goodies!!

Candy Corn!!! Snickers!!!! and what is that bowl of goodness in the center???? I don't remember the name of it, but I found it in the Halloween candy section and.....Oh My Goodness!!!! That chocolate covered popcorn and mini pretzels was almost to much goodness for me!!!!

and you are probably wondering what movie it was right? You will NEVER guess!

TRANSFORMERS 2!!!!

Yes, I do question my parenting skillz sometimes! Why do you ask?