Light and delicious carmel popcorn

We love quick and easy treats at our house.  This one was given to me by my mother in law.  Love it, and hope you will to!

1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup karo syrup
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups uncooked popcorn

Heat milk, syrup, sugar, and butter on the stovetop until well blended.  Pop 1 1/2 cups popcorn kernels in an air pop machine.  Pour carmel sauce over popped popcorn.  Mix well and then spread out on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Store in a air tight container.

This recipe makes a lot!  Enjoy

Going on a treasure hunt

It is so hot where I live and my kids do not do well with prolonged exposure to the sun.  So, we have had to come up with other ways to entertain ourselves.  I thought of this idea and it worked better than I had expected.  It gave us several days of activities to do together and the kids got to show their own creativeness.

The first thing you do is purchase a treasure chest.  I went to my local JoAnn Fabrics and used my 40% coupon to get our treasure chests.  While you are at the fabric store purchase 1/2 a yard of outdoor fabric.  You will use this fabric to make your treasure maps later.

I let the kids use basic acrylic paint that is super cheap to paint and decorate their own treasure boxes.  They enjoyed the activity and it keep them occupied for about 25 minutes. (My camera had a smudge left from little fingers that I didn't notice until later. )

Several days later we made our treasure maps to lead to our treasure chests.  One helpful hint I have discovered dealing with paints and children is to place only a few drops of water in each color.  This way when, (because you know it is when), they accidentally tip the tray over it will only spill a minimal amount.  I use a syringe, probably due to my medical background, but it is the easiest way I have found  to control the amount of water and where the water is going.  I picked this one up during a trip to the pharmacy.  They are very handy to keep around.  

My little painters had fun creating their treasure maps and explaining what everything meant.  I think their favorite part was painting the X.  Using the outdoor fabric will prevent leakage through and it will not make a mess.  I cut the 1/2 yard of outdoor fabric into manageable squares of about 14 X 14.

Here are our masterpieces.   One thing I would like to do, but have not yet is find a few rocks outside about a quarter in size and spray paint them silver and gold.  This way we can actually have some "treasure" in our treasure chests when they find them on their hunt.  

Happy Hunting

Chocolate powdered sugar cookies

I have loved these cookies since I was a child.  The kids and I made them today for a family reunion.  They were the hit of the pot luck!  Enjoy

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1 2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup cocco
1/3 cup milk
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/2- 1 cup powdered sugar

Directions:
In a stand mixer cream butter, sugar, and eggs.  Sift dry ingredients together and slowly add to butter mixture alternating the milk.  Put the dough in the fridge for 2 hours or until firm.  (If you don't follow this step the dough will stick very badly to your palms and you end up making a huge mess.)  Roll into balls and then into powdered sugar.  I like to roll 12 balls at one time and place them into the powdered sugar, it seems to make less mess that way.  Bake 12 minutes in a 350 degree preheated oven.
Enjoy, I dare you to have just one.

Chocolate candy cookies

The kids and I were looking for something fun to do together and baking usually ends up being the activity of choice.  I looked in my pantry and found a bag of our favorite chocolate candies.  On it was this recipe and it turned out great.  

Chocolate candy cookies

Adapted from Mars Brand

Ingredients:

1 cup butter- soften to room temperature

2/3 cup brown sugar

2/3 sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups chocolate candies (we used milk chocolate M&Ms)

Directions:

Cream butter and sugars well.  Add the egg and vanilla and mix well.  Add flour, baking soda, and salt slowly into the butter mixture, mix until combined.  Fold in the chocolate candies- if you don't fold they will be crushed by the stand mixers power.  Chill the dough for 1 hour.  (we didn't and they were fine, but if you have the time it would be good too. )  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place dropped cookies onto a parchment lined cookies sheet 2 inches apart.  Bake for 11 minutes.  

The ultimate light and fluffy vanilla frosting

I found this recipe over the weekend and love it!  The frosting turns out so light and fluffy you want to keep going back for more.  I love how simple the recipe is and how all the ingredients are already in your pantry.

This recipe makes enough for 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
food coloring is optional

Directions
In your stand mixer beat the butter for 2-3 minutes or until pale and creamy.  Add powdered sugar and salt, mix on low until combined, then turn up the speed to medium and beat for another 2-3 minutes.  Add vanilla and beat for an additional 3 minutes.  You are now ready for the food coloring.  I would suggest adding the coloring one drop at a time since the color will darken with time.  I did not have a pastry bag so I put my frosting into a gallon sized bag and cut off the bottom to make a hole for piping into the cupcake.  I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do.

Personalize your space

My mother and I were out shopping a few years ago and saw some adorable window curtains, only problem, they were very over priced.  We looked at the curtains more closely and discovered they were a simple white curtain with store bought ribbon sewn around the edges.  I was able to find some plain white curtains and some ribbon that match perfectly with the bed set I had for my daughter.  Here is a tutorial of what I did to personalize curtains.

First purchase curtains in a neutral color, I did white because it will be simple to change whenever I need to.  Then find some wide gross grain ribbon I would suggest at least 2 inches in the color of your choice.  I did green polka dot. Measure the length of your curtain from top to bottom and across the bottom.

Next sew the ribbon 1 inch from the edge along the side and bottom of the curtain.

I decided to sew the corner by stopping the vertical ribbon high enough for the bottom horizontal ribbon to be 1 inch from the bottom.

Because our house is west facing it can get REALLY hot, one way to help this is by purchasing curtains with black out material already attached or go to your local fabric store and purchase black out material.  I had to do the later.  It was simple to attach.

Lay your curtain on the ground all spread out, right side down.  Lay your black out material over top right side up.  Pin the material in place along the top and down the sides, trimming the black out material to the size of the curtain.  Next sew the black out material along the top first and then down each side.

And there you go, simple personalized curtains that keep out both the heat and the sun.  Enjoy