Vegetable Christmas Tree

This Christmas tree was so fun to make and it turned out excellent! I always have the hardest time trying to figure out what to get my grandma for Christmas. Last year, I made a fruit Christmas tree so this year I decided to make a vegetable one. What else am I supposed to get my awesome 89 year old grandma??

So, to start, I got a 12 inch foam cone and I  hot glued it to a square piece of wood. I did this because the fruit and cheese are heavy and if it doesn't have a stable bottom it will topple over. Then, my sister cut out small square pieces of felt and glued them to the base of the cone so that it looked somewhat like a tree skirt and it covered up the ugly piece of wood. Then, the last thing you need to do is to wrap tin foil around the foam. Last year when I made the fruit tree I didn't do this but I think its a good idea so that the vegetables aren't coming in contact with the foam.

Supplies:
Cheese- use whatever type you'd like
broccoli
cauliflower
cherry tomatoes
Christmas cookie cutters
12'' foam cone, or smaller if you'd like to make a smaller one
wooden block
hot glue gun
felt- optional
candy (to look like gifts under the tree)
toothpicks

Then, you can put the fruit on with toothpicks however you would like. We were planning on doing all broccoli and cauliflower as the main part of the tree and then using the cherry tomatoes and cheese as the ornaments but we realized we didn't have enough, so this is what we came up with.

Now, just something  to think about, with the cheese star on top, and the block of wood on the bottom our tree was about 17 inches high. Luckily my mom had a shelf that was adjustable so we could fit it in the fridge overnight. We then put a plastic bag over the tree and tied it so that the cheese and vegetables wouldn't dry up.

On the bottom of the paper plate, we put candy bells to make it look like ornaments and to hold down the pieces of felt hiding our block of wood. 

Now, I officially out of ideas on what to get my grandma for Christmas. Maybe I'll find another edible Christmas tree idea. 

Turkey

I cooked a turkey this week!!! It's probably not that big of a deal but I was  really proud of myself. And, it tasted absolutely delicious! I couldn't stop eating it and I'm not a huge fan of turkey so that's saying something.

I told a friend of mine last Sunday that I was having some people over for dinner and I was cooking a turkey and so she asked me how I was doing it. Well, I had no idea. I had never cooked one before. So, needless to say, she lent me her roasting pan, which was perfect, I don't know what I would have done without it. She also gave me a Reynold's oven bag. This was awesome because it held all of the juices in the bag instead of in the bottom of the  pan, so after the turkey was done cooking we just dumped the juice from the bag into a pan to make the turkey gravy. I am so grateful for my friend's help or it never would have turned out this good.


Here is the turkey defrosted and out of the bag. I took out the neck of the turkey but I couldn't find the innards, you know, the heart, liver, etc. So, I just assumed my turkey didn't come with that. But, after my turkey was fully cooked, I found them, under the neck cavity. So, make sure to check the body AND the neck cavitiy for giblets. In the last picture of the turkey, there is a hole in top, which shouldn't be there, this is why. the giblets were in the neck cavity and as it cooked it ripped open the skin, so that part of the turkey was a little dry, unfortunately.

Ingredients:
1- 10-18lb turkey
1 reynolds oven bag
olive oil
fresh rosemary
fresh tyhme
salt and pepper
lemon, sliced in half

After I got it rinsed and dried, I salt and peppered the inside of the body cavity and placed half of a lemon and some fresh rosemary inside. Then, I lathered up the outside of the turkey in olive oil. I then put salt and pepper and fresh thyme on the outside of the bird and placed it into the oven bag without letting the top of the bird touch the bag. Then I tied the bag closed, put 6 slits with a knife in the top of the bag and put it in the oven which was preheated to 350 degrees. I let it cook for about 3.5 hours and when I took it out of the bag, the turkey was so tender it was falling off the bone. I tried to get a pretty picture of the turkey right out of the bag but it was so tender that it is falling apart. So, its bad for the picture part, but when you are getting ready to cut it up and serve it, you couldn't ask for anything else.

Crock pot potato soup

Happy late Thanksgiving! I 'm a little late I know. Since we traveled to Arizona to celebrate Thanksgiving  this year, I didn't make anything for dinner. Last year I made a pecan pie and brought it but this year I had too many things going on. I did however buy three, 10 pound bags of potatoes. They were on sale for 99cents each. The question now is what to do with them all. So, I decided to try one of the many crock pot soup recipes I've been looking at. I tried this recipe from Hannah.  It was so easy and delicious. It does make a lot of leftovers though. I would recommend cutting the recipe in half if you are making it for two.

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients:
5 pounds russet potatoes, diced, NOT Peeled
5 Tbsp TS Garlic Garlic  (I don't have garlic garlic so I used 2 Tbsp Garlic salt and 1 Tbsp garlic powder)
1 large onion, chopped
64 oz chicken broth or stock
16 oz cream cheese
bacon, sour cream, chives, or shredded cheese for toppings

Directions:
Combine first 4 ingredients in your crock pot, cook on low for 8 hours or on high for 5. Purée soup in food processor with cream cheese. (I don't have a food processor and I didn't want to use a blender so I just put the cream cheese into the crock pot and used a hand mixer. It worked great. It left a few chunks but I thought it tasted really good that way.) Serve warm topped with bacon, sour cream, shredded cheese & chives.

This recipe is pretty easy and it tastes really yummy. I was happy to find a way to use 5 of the 30 pounds of potatoes I bought.

Extreme Couponing

Have any of you seen the show Extreme Couponing? Well, lets just say I loved it and I watched every episode there was to see on Netflix and now I want to be an extreme couponer. Not seriously, but I thought that I would probably save a lot more money if I would look at the sales for the week and compare it to the coupons I have. I usually just use a few random coupons every time I go to the store. But, I decided to go to the grocery store with a plan. So, here is what I did. If any of you live in Southern California, I go to Ralphs, which I believe is a Kroger grocery store.

They have a deal, buy 5 items, get $5.00 off at the register.
So, I went to coupons.com where you can print out coupons and found the items that were part of the 10 items that are already on sale.

1. marshmallows- on sale for $0.69- use coupon .50 off two bags of Kraft marshmallows
only $0.44 a bag after coupon

2. stovetop- on sale for $0.88 each- use coupon $1.00 off any 2
only $0.38 each after coupon

3. cream of chicken or mushroom soup- on sale for $0.69- use coupon save $1.00 on any 4
only $0.44 each after coupon

With some of these coupons, they say "Walmart" on them. They are manufacturer's coupons, when they print, they will not say Walmart on them and you can use them anywhere you want. Don't let it dissuade you from printing it.

One thing I learned while trying to be an "extreme couponer"... is that you can use "manufacturer's coupons anywhere. If you look at the top left corner of your coupons, they will either say manufacturer's coupon or store coupon. Sometimes coupons will print at the register when I'm at Albertson's for example and as long as they say "manufacturer's coupon at the top, I can use it at any grocery store I want. It's also nice because I get coupons in the mail from Ralph's all the time and most of them say manufacturer's coupon on the top, so they are accepted at any grocery store. One lady at the register looked at me yesterday when I handed her a coupon that said Ralph's at the bottom, but I told her it was a manufacturer's coupon and it should work so she scanned it and it worked.  YAY!!!


I don't think I'll ever have the courage to ring up a grocery bill any where near what they do on Extreme Couponing but I hope to start shopping a little smarter.

PF Chang's Mongolian Beef

I absolutely love PF Chang's. I love their lettuce wraps and especially their Mongolian Beef. I decided to try a copy cat recipe. It was delicious! Leftovers were gone by Monday afternoon. This recipe was also very easy, which makes me love it even more. It didn't have any of those questionable ingredients either. You know, those ones where you wonder if you will ever use it again for anything else. So, overall it was a great recipe and I made it in just 45 minutes. I got the recipe from Six Sister's Stuff

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon ginger, minced
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup water
¾ cup dark brown sugar
vegetable oil , for frying (about 1 cup)
1 lb flank steak
¼ cup cornstarch
2 large green onions, chopped

Directions: 

Sauce:
Heat 2 tsp. of vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over medium/low heat.  Don't get the oil too hot.
Add ginger and garlic to the pan and quickly add the soy sauce and water before the garlic scorches.
Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce, then increase the heat to medium and boil the sauce for 2-3 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Remove it from the heat.

Beef:
Slice the flank steak against the grain into 1/4" thick bite-size slices. Tilt the blade of your knife at about a forty five degree angle to the top of the steak so that you get wider cuts.  Dip the steak pieces into the cornstarch to apply a very thin dusting to both sides of each piece of beef.  Let the beef sit for about 10 minutes so that the cornstarch sticks.  As the beef sits, heat up one cup of oil in a wok (you may also use a skillet for this step as long as the beef will be mostly covered with oil). Heat the oil over medium heat until it's nice and hot, but not smoking. Add the beef to the oil and sauté until brown. Stir the meat around a little so that it cooks evenly.  After a couple minutes, use a large slotted spoon to take the meat out and onto paper towels.  Dab excess oil off meat with a paper towel and add to medium saucepan with the sauce in it.  Put the pan back on the oven over medium/low heat.  Add chopped green onions and let sauce simmer until warm. Serve over rice.

I also steamed broccoli and added it on the side. You can put it into the sauce with the beef as well if you want to give it more flavor. 

Bow Tie Themed Baby Shower

 

I helped throw my first baby shower a couple of weeks ago. It was awesome. There were about 5 girls that all pitched in to help throw it. I think it turned out adorable. We had a bow tie theme. My friend Wendi made the invitations that were so darling. I meant to take a picture of my invitation but I forgot. But, you can order them here if you would like. I made baby bow tie onesies to match the gray, blue and red invitation color scheme and my friend Alicia pinned them and turned them into a banner to hang over the mantle. I made small bowties out of felt. I just used a hot glue gun. Then I sewed one snap onto the onesie and hot glued the other snap onto the bow. That way, you can unsnap the bowtie and throw the onesie in the wash. They were really simple and easy to  make. I think I might try to make more using cute fabric next time. I'll let you know how that goes.

For the food, Wendi made the food labels with the same bow tie scheme. We had, blue frothy punch, pineapple and strawberry mini skewers with fruit dip, vegetables with hummus, blue and red cupcakes and water bottles with cute bow tie paper around them. My friend Christi also made the bow tie back drop behind the table. Sorry the pictures aren't very good. There was a lot of light coming through that window. I made the fruit skewers and the fruit dip as well as the blue frothy punch. I had bought white ducks to float in the punch and I had made mini bow ties and hot glued it on their necks, but they fell off. I should have used super glue. So, we had a duckless punch. 

Here is the recipe: 

 1 pkg berry blue unsweetened Kool-Aid

 1-2 liter Sprite

 1-64 oz white cranberry juice

 8 scoops vanilla ice cream

 1 c sugar, or to taste 

 In a large punch bowl, stir together the Kool-Aid, Sprite and cranberry juice. Stir in sugar to taste. (I used the full cup) Float scoops of ice cream on the top. The ice cream melts somewhat and turns the punch a beautiful baby blue color with frothy white clouds floating on the top.

The night before the baby shower I was lying in bed and I thought,  I should probably stick the sprite and cranberry juice in the refrigerator. I would recommend this. The ice cream still made the punch frothy with the liquids already cold. 

The fruit dip for the pineapple and strawberries was to die for! A friend of mine gave me the recipe in a text. That's how easy it is. She said that it is best with pineapples and strawberries so that's what I got but I also tried bananas and it was good with that as well. 

Ingredients: 

Mother's macaroons

2 cups greek yogurt or sour cream

2 cups brown sugar

I made mine with greek yogurt and it was really yummy. Mix two cups of the greek yogurt or sour cream with two cups of brown sugar. Add crumbled cookie pieces. Chill and serve. I doubled my recipe and still only used half of the macaroons. It's up to you how much macaroons you would like to put in. And viola! 

 

I think it was a successful baby shower. It's always fun to buy or make cute baby things. They are so precious. I wish Crystal and John the best of luck with their new baby Thor.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

 

I've really been wanting to make chicken lettuce wraps lately but I remember making them in college and it was so much work. I found an awesome kitchen tool that is a complete life saver though! I used a pampered chef chopper that my sister in law gave to me for my wedding. It worked great to chop up the mushrooms, water chestnuts and the bamboo shoots. That's the part that's time consuming. Other than that, its a pretty simple recipe. It feels so healthy too with the lettuce. Yum! The ingredients can be pretty unique and expensive if you are not used to Asian foods but, its totally worth it. Sometimes I'm skeptical to buy expensive ingredients because I'm not sure if the recipe will turn out and then I'll be stuck with this expensive ingredient with nothing to put it in. But, this recipe is totally worth all of its ingredients! The first bite my husband took he said, "This tastes just like the Chang's." Yes, my lettuce wraps compared to P.F. Changs. I am truly honored.

I got the recipe from Spoon Fork Bacon

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon water
2 teaspoons low sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
½ teaspoon black pepper
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

cooking sauce:
2 ½ tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
2 ½ teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon sesame oil

6 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons ginger, peeled and minced
4 ounces shiitake mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed and diced
½ cup bamboo shoots, drained and diced
½ cup water chestnuts, drained and diced
2 green onions, thinly sliced

1 head butter lettuce or iceberg lettuce, washed and leaves separated

garnish:
1 green onion, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds

1. Place the first five ingredients into a small bowl and whisk together. Pour mixture over the chicken and stir together. Set aside and allow chicken to marinate for 10 minutes.
2. Place all ingredients for cooking sauce into a small bowl and whisk together. Set aside.
3. Place 2 tablespoons oil into a large skillet over high heat. Sauté chicken for 6 to 8 minutes or until half cooked. Remove from skillet and set aside.

4. Pour remaining oil into the same skillet and place over high heat. Sauté the ginger, garlic and shiitake mushrooms for about 5 minutes. Add the bamboo shoots and water chestnuts and sauté for an additional 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
5. Add chicken back into the skillet; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Pour the cooking sauce over the mixture and stir together. Lower the heat to medium and allow the mixture to thicken, 2 to 4 minutes. Stir in the green onions. Adjust seasonings.

6. Remove from heat and allow chicken mixture to cool slightly, about 5 minutes. Top with a sprinkle of green onions and sesame seed and serve warm with crisp lettuce cups.