Wonder What I've Been Up To?

Sorry for being MIA for over a week. We've moved! At the last minute, the house became available to us a week early, so we moved a week earlier than we had intended. That threw my whole blog schedule off.

We are so happy in our new house, but still busy trying to organize everything. I hope to be back to blogging recipes soon.

Here's a photo of our new house . . .

The upstairs is a 3 bedroom house and the downstairs is our home child care (with a bathroom and laundry room). It's perfect for our home business.

Friday's No-Cook Lunch

What's everyone's favorite lunch?

Vienna sausages

Frozen Veggies (still frozen)

banana slices

Oyster crackers

It's something everyone looks forward to on Fridays, even me because it's no-cook.

Rice Cooker Couscous

The rice cooker is an easy way to boil liquid. I put in a can of vegetable broth and turned it on "Cook".

When the broth was boiling I turned it down to "Keep Warm" and put in 2 cups of Couscous. I let it set for 5 minutes.

Easy and fast! I really love couscous when cooked in vegetable broth. I have made a big batch of couscous this way and put some in the freezer for later. It comes out great when reheated in a mini crock pot, although I think putting it in the microwave would work fine, too.

Couscous

Pumpkin Pancakes

I love breakfast foods! For years I have been making pumpkin pancakes from scratch, but I had some baking mix I wanted to use up and wanted to try pumpkin pancakes from it.

3 cups baking mix

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 T. pumpkin pie spice

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 cups milk

Mix all ingredients together.

I put 1/4 cup batter on a heated and greased griddle. When done on one side, I flipped and cooked until done on the other side.

They turned out very yummy! I like them with a little butter and sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar.

As usual, I made enough to freeze for later meals. Yum!

Pumpkin Pancakes

Broccoli-Ramen Salad

I'm always writing down a recipe here and a recipe there, sometimes printing a recipe I find interesting. When things get busy, I stack the recipes to file or try later. I was going through a pile of recipes, putting them in the proper place to file them and came across a recipe that I don't know where I got it, but it sure sounded good and I had almost everything on hand!

Broccoli-Ramen Salad

1/2 bag broccoli slaw

1/4 cup canola or olive oil

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 package Ramen noodles (uncooked)

The original recipe also called for almond slivers, sunflower seeds, and green onions (I didn't have any of those on-hand).

Mix the brown sugar, oil, vinegar, and packet from the Ramen noodles.

Crush the noodles and toast them in a bit of oil. (I personally think this step is unnecessary, and will skip it next time.)

Combine the dressing, noodles, and broccoli slaw and toss well.

It gets better the longer it stands in the fridge. And, oh my, was it delicious and even more delicious on the second day! I can hardly wait to go to the store to get some more.

Chinese Salad

Molasses French Toast

I wondered what would happen if I put molasses into my French toast batter?

I beat together six eggs, 2 cups of milk, 1/4 cup molasses, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1 teaspoon nutmeg. I dipped wheat bread in, and fried in some canola oil on each side until browned.

It was delicious! I put a little pat of butter and sprinkled a bit of cinnamon and sugar on them.

I made a whole loaf of wheat bread. I had some for dinner (I love breakfast for dinner!), then put the rest in the freezer for future meals.

I will definitely add molasses to my French toast again!

French Toast

Greeting Cards

We've saved our children's greeting cards they've received over the years. They were just sitting a box and I didn't know what to do with them, but wanted to do something with our daughter's and present them to her for Christmas.

I searched the Internet and read where some have put their cards in a scrapbook. I didn't know what that would look like, but I waned to give it a try.

I had a 12x12 scrapbook with lots of page protectors. I also had some 12x12 decorative papers all in the same "girly" theme, perfect for our daughter. I decided to use adhesive squares to attach the cards directly on the page protectors.

I roughly sorted the greeting cards by year. It was pretty easy finding the one-year-old cards, two-years-old, and so-on.

I had a lot of cards (our daughter is in her 20s). I decided to make each page lay-out into one year; so in the photos it shows half a lay-out for her sixth birthday. I arranged the cards to over-lap, but open where you can read them. It was like a big puzzle.

I had more cards than I could display, so I dropped the extras into the sheet protectors.

When I got done I had a HUGE scrapbook. I had to get some scrapbook extenders to make it look right.

I gave it to our daughter and she LOVES it! She tells me all the time she has been looking through her book. It was well worth the effort.

Leftover Mix-Up: Turkey, Stuffing & Apples

This recipe came in handy after our big Christmas meal.

Grate one apple in a bowl. Add stuffing. Add shredded leftover turkey. Heat in mini crock pot.

It would heat well in the microwave, too.

My stomach is growling now just thinking about it. I wish we still had those leftovers! I might make up some stuffing and use chicken instead.

It was a big hit with the toddlers, too! They all ate all I had.

Bread Stuffing