Cookies and Cotton

It's been awhile

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Woodard) — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 21:07:00 +0000

Life hasn't been exactly that exciting lately....and that is how I like it.
News on the home front

The oldest went back to his father's this past weekend so we are once again trying to get back into a routine.

He starts 2 grade this week. :( time flies

The youngest is teething and is trying to push me over the edge.
We are trying to potty train the middle one and she might just get the job done with making mommy crazy.

Seriously whoever thinks girls are easier to potty train are whacked.

We have been helping my in-laws move.
I want to sew something but can exactly decide on what.
I want to bake something, but everything sounds good I want to bake it all and that just sounds exhausting.
I want to make something delicious for supper tonight, but can't think of that either!

So all in all I have been indecisive and boring this past few weeks. Oh well can't be crazy all the time.

Peanut butter and banana chocolate chip cookies.

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Woodard) — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 17:00:00 +0000

I bought WAY too many bananas the other day. I couldn't help myself they were only .10 cents a pound!

After about 10 loaves of banana bread and two gallon bags of sliced bananas later, I decided to try something else. Thus peanut butter banana cookies were born.

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter

3/4 cup of chunky peanut butter

1/4 cup of white sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 bananas

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups of flour

1/2 cup quick cooking oats

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup of chocolate chips

Mix first 5 ingredients until thoroughly combined, add eggs one at a time once mixed in add vanilla. Next add flour, oats, baking soda, and salt. Once all combined add chocolate chips. My dough turned out slightly runnier than regular chocolate chip dough, but it tastes just as good! Salmonila shmalmonilla.

I used my 1 inch cookie scoop to drop these onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Remove from baking sheet immediately to cool on wire rack.

These look like normal plain jane chocolate chip cookies, but take one bite and you wont be disapointed. The banana flavor along with the peanut butter and chocolate is amazing.

The Mary Kay Look VoxBox from Influenster

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Woodard) — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 02:43:00 +0000

Some of you may have noticed the Badge I have over to the right of all my blog pages, just above the blog archive. And for those of you who haven't feel free to look now.....I'll wait.

I am a member of Influenster. It is free to join all you have to do is request and invite. You link your social media accounts and they "follow" your activity to see how influential you are. The more you do the higher your score is. The higher your score is the more and better items you will get sent for FREE to try and review.

The box I got this time was the Mary Kay voxbox. The items in this box are AMAZING, and the items are all full sized!

A little ditty about each item.

Isn't it cute!

The box includes an eye shadow, lash lengthening mascara, lash primer, an eye color/concealer brush, and the most futuristic lip stick I have ever seen! I love all the items in the box and can't wait to try them all.

"I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes."

Cookies and Creme Bars

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Woodard) — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 19:00:00 +0000

These are amazing and I HATE oreos! I first saw them on another blog I follow Ring around the Rosies. She calls them Ninja crispies. Me I think they taste like cookies and cream so that is what I dubbed them in my house. These are super easy to make.

Ingredients:
1 bag of marshmallows
1 package of oreo/chocolate cookie
3 tbs butter

You will need to crush up the cookies, I used a gallon zip lock bag, as shown above, and a rolling pin, and set aside. This is amazing OHMYGODMYKIDSAREDRIVINGMEINSANE therapy. I might just have to take to cookie whacking more often.

In a pan over med heat add butter and marshmallows. Stirring constantly so you don't burn the marshmallows.

Once all the marshmallows are all melted add the crushed cookies to the pan while stirring to mix it all together.

Once it's all mixed together add to a lined 8x8 pan. I am not one that usually hassles with lining a pan, but this stuff is WAY sticky. I put mine in the refrigerator for about a half hour. Patrick was impatient and couldn't wait any longer. They were still a little gooier than I would've liked, I think another half hour and they would be perfect.

Do these not look amazing?!?! Trust me they are. Like I said, I HATE oreos, and these are really good.

Side Note: Who doesn't love a cute baby picture?? He loves to help mom in the kitchen.

He is currently teething and wants to eat everything! I am a firm believer that babies should come with teeth!

What's for dinner-Sausage and Perogies

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Woodard) — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 02:44:00 +0000

You would think as someone who is at home with the kids all day we would always have extravagant well thought out dinners. Well as much as I would like that it NEVER happens for a few, OK make that one main reason. I always forget to take something out to defrost.

Because of this we often have meals where the meat can thaw/cook at the same time. And the one we had tonight was super easy and we all love it. Enter sausage and perigees.

I first learned about perigees at a super bowl party at work. Evidently people in Pittsburgh eat perogies. After trying them this girl in Iowa, now eats them too.

Ingredients:
Perogies
Sausage-I often use kielbasa for this as well
onion-I like using red for the color
Peppers-Any color is fine, again I like the different colors so I use green and yellow
1 stick of butter
chicken bouillon/chicken stock
water
Olive oil
1 garlic clove
Salt and Pepper to taste
Red pepper flakes-optional

I used two boxes of perogies and two sausages. My 7 year old eats like a 40 year old man!

Ingredients not pictured, butter, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.

Start by dicing onion, peppers, and slicing sausage into about one inch disks, make sure the are all around the same size so they heat evenly. Sometime if I'm feeling fancy I cut them at an angle.

In a pan over med heat add 3 tbs of butter and a couple turns of the pan of olive oil. Then add onions and peppers.

Add perogies to a separate pan of boiling water. I only boil them until they are just warmed through. Once warmed I drain most of the water leaving a 1/2 in the bottom of the pan. I then add the rest of the stick of butter and turn heat on low. Stir occasionally so they wont stick to bottom of pan.

Once the onions and peppers are slightly translucent add the cut sausage. The sausage is already cooked so you really only need to heat it up. I cook them until the sausage becomes brown and crispy.

There you have it, supper is done! This dish is in no way healthy for you but it is oh so delicious. Who doesn't love mashed potatoes in a pasta!

Side Note: Is this not the most ridiculous looking red onion ever!?! I took me 10 minutes to find a red onion at the store today and then I found this "Red Torpedo onion" No lie, that is what the sign read. I apparently didn't get the shape shifting memo......

I did this a little bass ackwards, but oh well!

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Woodard) — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 01:56:00 +0000

Welcome to my new little creation!

I have always thought it would be "fun" to start a blog so here I am. I know this is a little backwards since I already have wrote about the cute little rag quilt I made, but oh well, I have never followed directions in my life yet; why start now?

After publishing my first post I was surprised to have had 41 people read it! That might not be impressive to some, hell many, but for me I felt like I was famous! :0 Doesn't take much to excite me!

A little about myself. I live in a smallish town in western Iowa. I have three children (7, 2, and 5 months) and just recently became a full time stay at home mom. Most days I love it, some days I want to pull my hair out. Especially on laundry day, I HATE housework. Or on days it rains, kids won't melt....right?? In the end it is all worth it, I think.......

I am a self proclaimed AMAzing baker and an OK cook. I haven't poisoned anyone yet! ;)

In my spare time I coupon, scour the web for all things FREE, read, crochet, and spend time with my kids, and my new found love (again) sewing.

It's hard to say what this blog will be about. Who knows really. I don't want to really write about one thing in particular. So who knows whatever tickles my fancy that day, or week, or month. Hopefully I will remember to do this every once in awhile.........

Leave a comment! I would love to hear from all of you reading this. What would you like to see? Recipies, sewing, kid stuff? Let me know!

My new Obsession

noreply@blogger.com (Jessica Woodard) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 04:23:00 +0000

So I have been wanting a sewing machine for years, and I mean YEARS. I finally got one about a month ago. I was all excited when I got it went to Hobby Lobby and was looking at the fabric with the fam. And you know what they ask me to make........pillows........really, how boring. But I did it. I mean I had to break it in somehow.....right? So 800 pillows in every fabric design later I started something really cool last night. A rag quilt. I for some reason find these things amazing. They are actually quite warm also. I decided to start with the babies quilt because it would be the smallest.

This is the fabric I chose for the babies rag quilt.

I Cut all the fabric into 7in squares. Man did THAT take FOREVER! I then laid it all out in the pattern I wanted so the backs would be with the fronts and the batting would be in the middle and then pinned them all.

All laid out

Once all pinned I sewed an X in the middle of each square not sewing all the way to the edge leaving about an inch at each point.

X marks the spot

I really didn't get all hot and bothered if the fabric didn't stay perfectly even. Once all of the squares had the X, I then cut them again down to 6.5in taking 1/4 in off of each side. This took me awhile to get this down. for some reason my brain could not comprehend the math from 7in to 6.5 to make a square. I had to make about 4 squares over. :/ NOW my friend they are all perfectly even and square! I then pinned the squares in their rows and continued sewing. and sewing and sewing........and finally I saw the light! I was done.....or so I thought. Once you get done sewing you have to snip the edges to get the "rag" effect. Man that was boring and tedious. But trust me in the end it is all worth it.

Finished!

To really get the "rag" effect it is best to wash and dry the quilt. With my leftover oopsie squares I got even craftier.

Tada!

I call it the raggy taggy cuz I'm cool like that. I also whipped out one of these crazy numbers.

The Very Taggy Caterpiller

And after stabbing myself repeatedly because I had to repin this one a bazillion times because I kept pinning the legs on the wrong side of the fabric I called it a night.