Food

Christmas Coffee Lovers Hop!

by // // 48 Comments

 

The fabulously talented and equally as nice Amy Tsuruta has put together a Christmas Coffee Lovers Blog Hop!  Look at this list of awesome sponsors for the hop!

 
17Turtles Veronica Zalis Chris Franco
Add a Little Dazzle Butterfly Reflections Ink Color Cast Designs
Create a Smile Hero Arts Kraftin’ Kimmie
Kreative Kymona Latina Crafter Neat & Tangled
Newton’s Nook Pickled Potpourri Designs Poppystamps
Reverse Confetti Stamp Academy Stamp Simply Ribbon Store
STAMPlorations SugarPea Designs Sweet ‘n Sassy
The Alley Way Stamps Two Paper Divas Verve Stamps
Whole Wild World Your Next Stamp Paper Smooches

 

With all those prizes and the fact that I love coffee, I was up for this hop as soon as I heard about it!
I made three projects for today.  I can’t seem to just stop at one…  🙂

 

 

I am totally in love with these little coffee cups!  They are so cute and you can really dress them up if you want to.  I’m keeping it low-key though.  I die cut the SU joy out of foil cardstock which I think gives it a little pop with that retro feeling cardstock.

 

So Amy pinned a card a few weeks ago that used the Stampin Up Curvey Keepsakes Die and challenged me to make something similar and this is what I came up with!  With just a few snips you totally have a coffee cup!  It doesn’t show but the snowflake is cut from super sparkly paper and I stamped the steam and embossed it with Stampin Up Iridescent Ice and it is really pretty.  The sentiment is a PTI stamp and stamped with PTI Fresh Snow.

 

And lastly is my favorite of the day!

 

 

Can you tell how much I love these little cups!  I used DP from the SU Winter Frost paper stack and the snowflake is a gift from the wonderful Jen Shears!  Just to give you some perspective on the size of these little guys I took a picture of all them together.  The card is a regular A2 size.  These cups are small!

 

 

Now on to the good stuff!  Blog Candy!

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

* Edited to add my giveaway goodies!  When I get to 50 comments I will have another set of goodies to give away! If I get to 100 on my FB page I will give away another set of goodies!
Blog candy
Thanks for stopping by!

Old Fashioned Homemade Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

by // // 1 Comment

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese

Macaroni & Cheese This recipe has been adapted from a Betty Crocker cookbook from the 1950’s.  This is my favorite go to comfort food!

Old Fashioned Creamy Macaroni and Cheese

8 ounces elbow macaroni
2 cups cubed cheddar cheese
1 cup cubed Jack cheese
2 cups creamy white sauce

Heat oven to 375.  Place a third of the cooked macaroni in un-greased casserole dish add a third of the cheese then pour a third of the white sauce over the cheese, repeat two more times.  Bake 45 minutes.

Creamy White Sauce makes 2 cups:
4 Tbl margarine
4 Tbl flour
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
2 cups milk

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat.  Blend in flour salt and pepper.   Cook over low heat, stirring until mixture is smooth and bubbly. Take off heat and stir in milk.  Return to heat and stir constantly until boiling.  Boil and continually stir for 1 minute.

Some tweaks I have tried at different times that turned out yummy:

Little Smokey’s
Mozzarella cheese
Pepper Jack cheese
Smoked paprika on top
You can also make it extra creamy by  adding an additional cup of white sauce.

The original recipe calls for you to melt the cheese with the white sauce but I have never tried that as I am not a big fan of super creamy macaroni and cheese.  I like mine with gooey with strings of cheese.

How do you make your homemade macaroni and cheese?  If you try this recipe please let what you think.  Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Caramel Apple Crumble

by // // No Comments

I have recently found a new apple, new to me anyway, called Honey Crisp.  They are sweet like a red delicious and crunchy like a granny smith.  They are on the expensive side though…  Since I found them in the winter, I am hoping that come summer and fall they will be a little cheaper.  Anyway, I found them at Costco for a good price.  Of course the good price was not so good since there were too many apples for me to eat…  So I went in search of something to make with them.

I found this recipe (& pic) on the blog how sweet it is and since I love using my slow cooker I thought this was perfect to try.  The smell of apples and cinnamon has been filling the house all afternoon making me hungry!  It was delicious but VERY sweet.  This coming from someone who LOVES anything sweet, even the super sweet frosting on bakery cakes!  We did not add the ice cream although it would have been good it would have made me sick.  I think the next time I make this I will use (only a little) less sugar and possibly use granny smiths to give it little tang to it.  For normal people I think you could easily get six servings out of this maybe more if you add ice cream but for people like me whose servings tend to run on the larger size, you can get four.

I will be making this again!  If you give it a try let me know what you think.