Pecan Pie Muffins/Cupcakes

These were so yummy...I am so glad that my office loves to have potlucks because it gives me the opportunity to try out new things!! Not that my family does not like to try new things but sometimes we have a hard time eating all of the sweets that I want to bake!! These mini pecan pies were perfect for taking to potlucks or your holiday party- one suggestion though is to double the recipe and make them in full size muffin pans instead of the mini's...to me the full sized ones were just the right size- I found myself eating a few to many of the mini ones!!

What you need:
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup butter, melted
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all ingredients in a medium bow and mix well.
Spray muffin tin with Pam with flour cooking spray -trust me you want the kind with flour in it.
Fill each 3/4 of the way full.
Bake in preheated oven for approx 18 minutes.

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Fall Table Decoration

I really really want to start decorating for Christmas. Yet I am worried that I will be tired of looking at my decorations before Christmas arrives so I am holding out and going to continue our family tradition of decorating the weekend after Thanksgiving.

So in the meantime I did a little fall decorating. We do not have alot of places in our house yet to put little things up so my entry way table will have to do for now. I have a feeling I will be decorating and working on this house for a very very long time!!!

Anyway if you remember a couple posts ago for my winter wonderland theme I used these containers to put ornaments and snowy candles in them. They are so versatile that today I was able to change the look by adding fall garland and popcorn kernals!! If you are looking for an inexpensive transition piece for November- this is it! I paid only $1.49 for the popcorn kernals!!

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Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread

Another family friendly recipe~Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread. I made this the night before then put in fridge. Saturday morning I threw it in the oven and it was ready in just 30 minutes!
What you will need:
For Bread:
1 unsliced round loaf sourdough bread,
1/2 cup butter, softened,
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Cinnamon Mix:
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 Tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and cook for 30 minutes

Cut the bread lengthwise without cutting thru the bottom, then rotate and cut lengthwise again. This should give you the squares for pulling apart!
Whip butter and sugar together, then add vanilla and honey. Pour over bread making sure to get down into each cut.

Don't worry if you take too long (taking photos of every step) and your butter mix does this.. Luckily a few seconds in the microwave returns it to liquid form!

Bread with mixture poured over top. Next sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mix over all the cuts making sure some gets down in between the bread.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes! When done pour the icing mix over the bread.

The yummy aroma coming out of your oven will surely wake up those in your house and they will rush to your kitchen..trust me! Serve on a large plate (or in our house directly from the pan) and let your family pull apart their cinnamonny pieces!

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Winter/Holiday Centerpiece

I know this it's not even Thanksgiving yet but I wanted to share with you the Winter Wonderland centerpiece I made for my Shutterfly Scrapbook party I shared with you yesterday.

This would make for a perfect transition centerpiece after the holidays for winter and was super easy to create- however I would suggest buying the products for it now as I am not sure how easy they will be to find on clearance after the holidays. I bought everything this year so I will share with you at the end where I found them! Can you guess what the hardest thing was to find?

Not the christmas tree candles- but the plain white candles!! I thought this was going to be so easy to find. But I wanted good ol' fashioned wick candles and apparently the trend now is the flameless candles or ones that were scented. Since I plan to use these candles for many different centerpieces I wanted them to be unscented and white!

Here is my entry way table decorated for my winter wonderland party. I have been wanting some of those glass vases for a while now but Michael's never had them on sale- lucky me in my search for white candles I ended up at GardenRidge and they had these awesome vases in all kinds of sizes for $3-$8 which was way less then M's was charging even at half price! The white candles are sitting in kosher salt - something I already had on hand in my pantry!

Now where to find everything:
Christmas Tree tea light holder: Michael's $15 reg price
White Candles: Garden Ridge (set of 3 $8-10)
Candle Trees: Garden Ridge $8 each
Snow: Michael's @ $4
Glass vases: GardenRidge price varies on size & shape
Blue Ornaments: I had these left over from last year. I used both mini and full size ones.
Kosher Salt for bottom of vases: grocery store

Next week I will show you how I turned my entry way table back into a fall display by using popcorn kernals!

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Super Kohl's Coupons!! Kitchen Aid Mixer under $150!!

So I was browsing the Blackfriday ads this morning on http://bfads.net/ . I have been dying for a Kitchen Aid Standmixer and saw that both Kohl's and Lowe's had the white 4.5 qt classic one on sale for $179-$200 Awesome deal..but no way my husband was going out for it the day after Thanksgiving- that is sacred hunting time!! But the regular prices depending on size were $259-399 and are way over our budget so I guess I would have to keep waiting or try and score a deal for myself on Black Friday.

So I got to thinking I wonder what the price would be if I used a Kohl's coupon today- well no luck finding any kohl's coupon codes in my email or purse- so that ruled that idea out. Then I clicked back to the home page of the Black Friday sale ad and saw they had a special post all about Kohl's Super Coupons!! They had the 30% off coupon code NOVSAVINGS good for all Kohl's charge card holders (that's me, waving hand frantically in air) and on top of that they had a 15% off coupon good for orders over $100 and valid even if you don't have a card there. The 15% off coupon code is PGO15OFF. And even better you could stack them!!

At this point my heart is racing..will it work....

I log on to Kohl's and put the Classic White 4.5 Qt Stand Mixer in my cart.

Reg Price $259.99
Sale Price $233.99
30% off -$70.20
15% off - $24.57
Subtotal: $139.22 That's $120 off!!
Tax: $9.98
Shiping $3.25 (normally free but there is a surcharge due to the weight)
Grand Total: $152.45

Oh my goodness...can you say I was doing the happy dance!! I can't wait for Christmas morning to get here!!

Oh and in case you want one of the colored ones here is how they break down:

KitchenAid Artisan 5-qt. Stand Mixer (comes in lots of colors)
regular $399.99
sale $359.99
30% off -107.99
15%off -37.80
Subtotal: $214.20 That's 185 off!!
Shipping Surcharge is $7.50 for this one!

KitchenAid Professional 600 Stand Mixer (comes in a few colors)
regular $499.99
sale $399.99
30% off -119.99
15% off -42.15
Subtotal: $237.85 That's $262 off!!

**Please note my math may be off a bit- if you are going to stack the 15% off coupon you have to first deduct the 30% off coupon- it is not 45% off sale price!**

Now everyone run online and get yourself one..you know you have been regretting the fact for years that you never put it on your wedding registry!!

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Digital Scrapbook Party

I thought I would change things up a bit today and share with you some photos from my Winter Wonderland Digital Scrapbook Party from Shutterfly. A couple months ago I received an email from Shutterfly- whom I love dearly- and it talked about a chance to win a FREE scrapbook party for myself and 14 guests! I took a pretty long break from digital scrapbooking and now have the time to get back into it so I thought this was the perfect opportunity for me to jump in and share it with my friends!

The party was hosted by Shutterfly and House Party. I logged onto the House Party site and applied to be a host- thinking there was not much chance I would be suggested. But to my delight I was!! Wohoo!! My package would be arriving in just a few weeks!! Wohoo!!

Shutterfly provided each of my guests a free 8X8 photo book + 10 free holiday cards! How awesome was that. Inside my box were also sample cards, a $10 credit to sugarplum, an easel to display my favorite scrapbook, balloons, and a CD with feedback from others who had created a photo book thru shutterfly. Here is a photo of everything I had for my guests (the photobooks are mine- everything else is from shutterfly) I decided to go with a Winter Wonderland theme and immediately started searching pinterest for ideas on winter decorating. Here is a variation of what I came up with- I will be detailing the centerpiece and entry table decor in the next post.

If you have kids who love to play the most recent game out on the Xbox360, you love to cook, or do crafts you need to check out HouseParty.com. Once you set up an account you can apply to host as many parties as you like. They provide you with the goodies- you provide the friends and food and tada you have a party! No strings attached!! This would be perfect for girls night outs and get togethers. Parties are typically planned for a couple months in advance and new ones are always being added.

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Pizza Balls

Another great family friendly recipe that the whole family can get involved in cooking and these are oh so yummy....

What you need:
1 can of biscuits
Pepperonni or sausage
Shredded Mozzarella
Muffin Tin
Cooking Spray

1.Spray your muffin pan with cooking spray or Pam.

2.Use a knife or kitchen scissors to cut each biscuit into 4 sections- I used the generic kroger biscuits and they were a bit small I would suggest purchasing name brand biscuits if possible.
3. Cut up pepperonni or sausage to small pieces.
4.Then put 3-4 sections in your hand, add cheese and filling(pepperonni) and squish together like a snowball. This is where your little ones can help- they love squishing it all together! Place each ball into a section of the muffin pan.

5. Bake according to biscuit instructions or at 350 for around 15-17 minutes or until golden brown.

These were heavenly- however we had a bit of trouble getting them out of the muffin pan- guess I added a bit too much cheese. Other friends have made these with no problems. But no worries the boys in my house made sure to scrape out as much as they could of the leftovers in the pans!!

Enjoy!

~Elizabeth

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Chocolate Dipped Smores

I needed to come up with something quick and yummy to take to my office Halloween Potluck. I had seen a recipe for chocolate dipped smores and thought since we had most of the ingredients already around that I would give these a try.

I love to make things with my kids- it's no problem to have my oldest help me but I often struggle to find things my 5 year old can do with me beyond just dumping the ingredients in the bowl- so I get real excited to try even the simplest of recipes if she can help. This was one of those so round up your kiddos so you all can create smores tonight!

What you will need:
Graham Crackers
Mini Marshmallows
Chocolate chips (also used to make the dip)
sprinkles for the top


Preheat oven to 350
To start break apart your graham crackers and place on aluminum foil lined pan
Place mini marshmallows on one side and chocolate chips on the other
Place in oven for just a few minutes until chocolate chips are soft and marshmallows have started to poof up - if you use big marshmallows they will poof alot faster!
Once melted to your liking, place one side with marshmallows and one side with chocolate chips together and squish them together! (This is a great time to taste your smore to make sure they are perfect before you make the next batch!)

I put mine in the freezer for a few minutes to help set the chocolate while I melted the chocolate chips for the dip. Place some chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl (I used a drinking glass or mug) for about 30 seconds or until melted. Stir the chocolate until smooth- and dip your smore in until you have covered the bottom half of them. Sprinkle with any toppings you would like
I have also seen some variations with different chips or melted toppings. To turn these into smore pops just use half of a graham cracker, larger marshmallows & chips. When you take out of the oven insert a lolipop stick on top of the marshmallow before you put the chocolate side on top. Allow some extra time in the freezer to set the stick and chocolate.

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Candy Corn Marshmallow Treats

Yep you guessed it - another pinterest inspired treat to make with my kids...Are you starting to figure out why I named this blog "A Sprinkle of Inspiration!"

This time I wanted to make something with my daughter and send it to school for her kindergarten class as a treat for after fall break.

These were so fun to make- and the chocolate melts were so yummy I had a hard time keeping myself from eating the leftover melted chocolate!!

What you will need:
Wilton Candy Melts in Orange and Yellow
Marshmallows
Lolipop Sticks
Lolipop Bags for wrapping later on

I could not find yellow so I purchased white candy melts and added candy coloring- not food coloring. Insert a lolipop stick into each marshmallow then stand upright on wax paper tray. After melting chocolate in microwave for about 20 seconds or until melted dip marshmallows about 2/3 of the way in the orange chocolate. Then put finished marshmallows in freezer for a few minutes to let chocolate harden. Once harden and dried- dip marshmallow into yellow chocolate 1/3 of the way up and set on wax paper tray- again you can put them in the freezer to speed up the hardening process.

Ours were not perfect- to be honest nothing is ever perfect or straight if I am involved in it. My daughter helped me dip and it was more fun for us to do these together then to make sure that the dipping was perfectly lined up! Afterwards we placed them in the lolipop treat bags and tied an orange or yellow ribbon around the bottom to seal it.

I have seen these where they are then stuck into a small hay bale but I never got around to the store to buy one- so ours were just neatly placed in a bag for school.

That afternoon when my daughter got home- we all could not wait to check her bag and see if there were any extras leftover- and to our excitement there were a few still left in her bag! Yippee!!

You can find the original inspiration Here

Happy Baking!
~Elizabeth

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Halloween Treats - that didn't make the party!

Another pinterest inspired treat- meringue ghosts! Original recipe can be found Here

We gathered all the ingredients and started out to make our ghosts- we did these about 3 days before the party as the recipe said they last a couple of days afterwards! And so we started beating the egg whites.
After beating for about 30 minutes we decided they HAD to be stiff enough..right..I mean it did not say it would take an hour to beat..so we decided to start the process of piping the ghosts.

I did not have a real pastry bag so I just used a zip loc bag and then cut off the corner. The recipe said these would make around 36- but we made 60+ so obviously I did not make big enough ghosts- this became very apparent half way thru when they started to look more like blobs then ghosts! I attempted to put 2 mini choc chips on them and they barely fit...so what did we do...we created eyeballs or cyclops instead! Yep nothing like having a creative family to come up with something out of this mess! We cooked them for the 1 1/2 hours then waited....the recipe said they would melt in your mouth- nope no melting at our house! So I left my 2 pans of cyclops on the stovetop and walked away disappointed- only to catch my husband later sneaking some and commenting about how good they were!

Needless to say these did not make it on the party table and we are classifying it as an epic fail! But hey sometimes that happens- and just to keep this blog real I thought I would show you that sometimes the recipes don't always turn out! I should comment later as I was telling a coworker about how they turned out she asked me had it been a rainy day- which it had so maybe that's what the problem was!!

~Elizabeth

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Teen Halloween Party Food

Here is part 2 of my son's Halloween Party. Part 1 was all about Mummy food but here are some of the other items we made for his party! Let me just say 2 things!
1. Over buy decorations as it does not go nearly as far as you think it will.
2. Teenage girls will not eat much if there are teenage boys around!! Although they did eat up the pretzel rods and mummy smokies!!
I saw this great drink dispenser at a friend's birthday party and rushed out to Sam's to get one for myself and even better it was on clearance. It was perfect for our Halloween Party as it had a center part made for the ice however I put mini skulls in there- then as the kids drank the blood (I mean hawaiian punch) the skulls were revealed. Just as a side note this dispenser holds 2 jugs of Hawaiian punch!

Bones Breadsticks- I found the recipe
Here

These again were so much easier then I thought they would be- you just take the breadsticks and roll them until they are thin enough to tie the ends up. I used spaghetti sauce instead of dip to give it more of a bones and blood look. One thing to note was I made these in advance and then reheated them right before the party- they were ok but no where near as good as the ones we tried the night before right out of the oven. So if you can I would suggest having these be the last things you cook before your party.

Cheese Fingers served on a Silver Platter!
Again super easy to make but a bit time consuming. Take String Cheese and cut in half- then cut a sliver off the end to make the fingernail- the original version I saw had almonds as the fingernails but my son came up with Pepperoni to use instead- so we had red fingernail polish!! Cut the pepperoni to fit the sliver and push lightly into cheese- you could add a small amount of cream cheese here if you need to- we didn't. The take the back of your knife and make 3 knuckle marks in the middle of the cheese- you could also do these towards the other end if you wanted more knuckles on your fingers.

Witches Hats:
These are great for your younger children to help make. They are simply fudge stripe cookies turned upside down with a hershey kiss attached to the top with orange wilton icing!

Pretzel Rods:
We had leftover chocolate melts from a treat I had made for my daughter's kindergarten class so we used those to make chocolate covered pretzel rods. I will tell you we used the Kroger Pretzel Rods because they appeared to have the fewest broken in the bag- and none of them broke during the process. Just dip in your favorite melted chocolate, sprinkle with holiday sprinkles and lay on wax paper and put in freezer to dry for at least 20 minutes. I then added them to a bowl of candy corn so they would stand up and be easy to grab!

Happy Partying!
~Elizabeth

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Teen Halloween Party: Mummy Food

So I know it is November but since I just started this blog I thought I could play catch up for a bit. My 14 year old son wanted to have a halloween party this year and since we now have the space to entertain I said Ok!

I immediately went to my favorite addiction on the web, Pinterest to start searching for cool teen food options! I am going to break this up into a few posts but today we will start with the Mummy themed food!


First up: Mummy smokies! This was super easy to make and a cute spin on pigs in a blanket! Take a can of crescent rolls and pull apart the crescents- then cut each crescent into strips- wrap the strips around your smokie to form the mummy cloth. Cook as directed on the back of the crescent can. Then use mustard or ketchup for the eyes. (Considering my son frowned when I started adding the mustard as eyes I left some blank for those who do not like mustard on their hot dogs!)

Mummy Spinach Dip & Crackers

I found this next recipe Here

It was alot easier then I thought it was going to be- however I should have let my crust rise longer then the suggested time.

The original recipe called for the eyes to be made out of olives but since this was a teen friendly party and I did not have any olives around- I used wilton's candy eyes! It was a little creepy with it staring back at me!



Next I cut & scooped the inside part out and added my favorite spinach dip & wheat thins for dipping. Yummy Mummy!Happy Halloween!

~Elizabeth

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Hearth Room & Breakfast Area Reveal

I still walk around our new house in amazement. I still feel like I am dreaming- I can not believe that this house is OURS...that we finally have the space we need for living and entertaining. It's been 2 months since we closed on our new house and while there is still plenty on my to do list for decorating and fixing up I felt it was time to share some before and after photos with you all.

One of the biggest selling features to this house was the kitchen/hearth room/breakfast area. These rooms are all connected and I knew the minute I walked in they would be the center of our home and family time. I loved that in our old house we had a huge island- it was where the kids and I cooked and baked and I knew that I would never be able to have a home without one again! Lucky for me this home had one! Along with a huge kitchen that includes 4 ovens! Yes you heard me right there are 2 ovens built into the wall and then the previous owner added a double convection oven (although I am ashamed to say I have yet to self-clean or use the convection oven..yeah yeah it's on the to do list!!). I must admit I am a bit intimidated by it and afraid I will burn everything I cook in it! I have not done much as far as decorating goes in the kitchen so I will show you around the hearth room and breakfast area instead!

Ok.....Since I know you were dying to know what a kitchen with 4 ovens looks like- here is a picture of the kitchen before we moved in!

Before: The hearth room. The previous owners had these shades on all the windows throughout the downstairs. Notice the beautiful red curtain on the back door. It was so long you could not even open the door without it getting all tangled and drug underneath the door! I see lots of potential here!! After: We replaced the shades with 2" white faux blinds on all the windows and back door. Added the valances and viola! We have color!! I was so lucky that there was the same amount of windows as in our old house so I was able to just take down our old window valances and install them here instead! (Especially since I had just redecorated our old house 2 months before we wrote the offer on this one!) I still need something to go in that corner- something with height and shelves- I want something like this. Ashley Buffet

What do you all think? I need something that I can hide the DVDs, craft supplies, and Wii games in the bottom but then I would have shelves up top for decorative pieces.
Before: The view from the other side- looking into the breakfast area. Again those shades on the windows and the biggest window did not have anything on it!




After: Looking towards the breakfast room. The family tree photo wall came from Bed Bath & Beyond and is perfect for big walls that you don't want something boxy to frame in the wall. Since the branches on the tree are all open and flowing outward it makes it seem like it takes up more of the wall and gives it that open feeling. (note: the brown leather is all the same color- it's just the lighting on this photo, sorry) I still need some more decorative items in this room- maybe a tall floor vase with branches coming out of it..Target has some I love but just waiting for them to go on sale!


I love, love, love our new wall art! I ordered it from a daily discount site, Zulily from a company called Wall Quotes. I already have my list of more that I want to order, that is unless Santa is good and brings me a Silhoutte Cameo so I can make my own wall quotes!!


Well that is all for now- look for more before/afters as I finish up the rest of the house!
~Elizabeth

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