Oh so Clever!

So, we bought our house about a year ago, and we are still trying to figure out what we want to do with it. How we want certain rooms designed, what certain things we still need to purchase, and how do we pack as much as we can into small spaces, such as a pantry!

Anyone else have that problem where you wish your pantry was 3 times bigger? You see all these cool things on Pinterest on how to save space, well my lovely A created a space saver all on his own 🙂 ❤

We had this shoe rack in our coat closet that we used for all of our shoes,

but the shoes would constantly fall down behind the bars and it just got really annoying. So we took it down and got something different.

 

 

 

 

 

Well after A took it down he had this brilliant idea to put it in our pantry! Man was this such a smart idea! It works so well for all of our boxed things, such as cereal and pasta. MY HERO ❤ ! We still don’t have tons of room in the pantry but it is so much less crowded and maybe a little more organized 😉 !

What sorts of things have you done with your pantry to help organize/space save?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shredding Chicken with Kitchen Aid

While making some amazing taquito’s (recipe will be posted some time soon!). I needed to have shredded chicken and I have tried this before and MAN IT WORKS!!!

 

I have done this previously with full chicken breasts (but have no pictures) and here I did it again using chicken tenders and it works just the same with both!

• First cook your chicken all the way through (I boil it, when I know i want to shred it).

• Place the hot chicken in your kitchen aid with the paddle attachment

• Turn that sucker on high and watch it shred your chicken

• Voila

• You got yourself some shredded chicken to do what you would like 🙂

Your welcome!

Have an amazing Easter weekend everyone!

 

Rust Eraser

Looking for a cheap easy homemade remedy to get rust off of my knives, I ended up coming across this solution that works great and it is so EASY!

All you need are your knives, a tall glass that will fit all of your knives that you need to de-rust into them and lemon juice.

Just soak the knives in the lemon juice for a couple minutes and then scrub them with the rough side of the sponge, the rougher the better and easier to get off the rust.

That is it, and it definitely works wonders!

Before:

Rusty Knives

During:

Knives submerged in lemon juice

After:

Rust free knives

No one loves Rusty knives, go ahead and de-rust those knives!!

Peventing water from boiling over pot

So I found this tip on Pinterest a while back! It said to prevent a pot from boiling over to just have a wooden spoon over the top…WHAT?!?! First of all, how can it be that easy and what the heck does that do?!? Well, I tried it and can you believe it! It worked! I have no idea why it worked but it did. So now, you can put that pasta in the water and walk away (nonstick pot of course so the pasta doesn’t stick to the bottom)! That is fricken awesome! I don’t do this much, one because I forget and two because I normally don’t have a nonstick pot and have to continually stir. But I highly suggest you try it out!

Here is a picture I stole from the pinterest post 🙂

The boiling over PREVENTOR!

If any one knows why this works, please let me know I am VERY curious! 🙂

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Glass Stove Top Cleaner

You know that big thing in your kitchen that takes up a lot of the room? Yeah, you know exactly what I am talking out! I don’t know what it is, but I feel like I can NEVER keep the top of my stove clean…the inside has that “awesome” self cleaner that takes FOREVER and smells AMAZING hahaha, well what about the outside!? Those scorch marks and rings around the burner, that have been there forever…well I came across a cleaner (on Pinterest of course!) that uses very few ingredients that you probably have around your house, and I love it, it works really good!

Like I said I found this awesome tip on Pinterest and it was adapted from this website: http://behindthestudio.com/2011/06/15/how-to-clean-your-glass-cooktop/

Here are the things you will need:

A smaller sized cleaning towel that will span over your stove nicely (and one that you wouldn’t mind getting gross, because this ain’t no pretty job!)

Baking soda

Dish soap

First I would go over your stove with a wet sponge to get off the top layer of crud so you can really get to the scorches and rings.

Next place your towel in a big bowl with hot water and some dish soap, squish and swirl it around to soak up some of that soapy water.

Then take the baking soda and sprinkle it heavily all around the stove top, get a nice layer going

Now take the towel out of the water and ring a good bit out, you want it pretty wet but not sopping, then place it on top of the baking soda on the stove and let it sit there and soak fir about 15min.

After the 15min, rub the towel around on the stove, cleaning off the grossness off the stove (I usually scrub a bit around the rings, which is where most of my marks are.

When you are done pull it off, rinse and repeat (the only difference the next times are that I leave the old baking soda on and just spread it around and add a little more where needed) I probably have to do it 3 or 4 times to see a good difference, but it is so worth it!

Well go ahead and give it a try and let me know what you think :o)

Cow Themed Baby Shower

You know that Minnie banner I posted a couple days ago? Well I had the honor of throwing that little girl (well her mom) a baby shower too!

Now this was one of my first “events” that I planned so it isn’t the greatest but it turned out well thanks to the help of my Best Friend!

Here are the pictures from the party…thankfully my Best Friend remembered to take pictures! Love her!!!

Our table setting

For the Table we had a white table cloth with black & white plates and white silverware wrapped in cow print napkins. For the centerpiece we had little cow planters that we stuck a balloon weight in, that was tied to one pink, white and cow print balloons.

Favors

For the favors, they were little cow statues that we found at the Christmas tree Shops (for the record I thought these were HIDEOUS, but knew my sister would love them!), that we wrapped in netting and tied curling ribbon to. We also had candy boxes with the cowtails candy in them, which went with the theme and is one of my sisters favorite candies.

The Diaper Cake

This is a diaper cake my Best Friend & I made for my sister. Just made with diapers and cute little things she would need for Chloe. I love the pink cow on top, it is funky but oh so soft!

The cake

The lovely cake with a cute cow candle I found!

The paint a onsie table 🙂

We also had a Paint-A-Onsie table, everyone was able to paint a onsie for Chloe, this was used as a guestbook and the best/cutest painted onsie won a small prize.

One of the onsies all decorated

Here is just one of the cute onsies, I’m pretty sure my Aunt made this 🙂 So crafty!

Well that is about it, we had some games that I really can’t remember anymore, but we did some things that I think are great for any baby shower, here are some tips!

1. Have everyone write their address on an envelope that belongs to the thank you cards (yes this means you have to buy them in advance lol), but it helps the mommy to be, all she would have to do is fill out the card and put it in the mail, not only that but it saves her the hassle of getting addresses that she may not already have.

2. When you send out the invites, put a little note in there saying if you bring a pack of diapers (any size) you will be entered into a raffle. This is Great! They will have a chance to win a prize but also the mommy to be will have a bunch of diapers (this would really help them out, these babies are expensive!)

It was a fun day, my sister got a lot of great gifts and now beautiful Chloe is growing up fast and is as precious as ever!

Huge thanks! Just want to thank some key people in the success of the party! Obviously my Best Friend who is always my right hand! My sister in law who helped out a lot and made sure things went smoothly! My mother in law who helped prepare the food. Also my mother for providing the beautiful cake!

 

Oreo Marshmallow Brownies and a Batter tip!

I am always up for trying anything with Oreo in it!!!! 1. It’s a cookie and 2. It’s a fricken OREO!!! mmmm do I love an Oreo, it is like a cookie heaven!

I’m not sure what I made these for but all I can say is they were pretty amazing! I should probably make them again sometime soon!

The recipe was adapted from this website (found on Pinterest): http://insidebrucrewlife.com/2011/09/oreo-marshmallow-brownies/

Ingredients

1 brownie mix (I highly recommend Fudgy ones!)

16 oreos, broken in quarters (I just broke them up into bigish pieces)

1 c. marshmallow fluff

1 bag Kraft jet puffed chocolate covered mallow bites, frozen (I couldn’t find these, so I just melted chocolate chips, let it cool (enough so it doesn’t melt the Marshmallows), then folded in a bag of marshmallows and put them in the freezer (made the day before), then broke them up to add to the batter)

4 crushed oreos

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Mix up brownie mix using the 2 egg directions. Spread 1/2 the batter in greased 9 x 13 baking pan. Place quartered oreos on top of the batter. Drop fluff by spoonfuls on top of oreos (I tried to spread it as much as I could, I wanted to try and get it all over instead of just spoonfuls in certain spots). Toss half the chocolate covered marshmallows on the batter.
2. Drop spoonfuls of the rest of the brownie batter on top and carefully spread it out. It is ok if the marshmallow isn’t covered all the way. Sprinkle the top with the crushed oreo crumbs and the rest of the chocolate covered marshmallows.
3. Bake for 25 minutes (I normally bake it like 5 minutes less than what the box says, because my oven seems to bake faster) Cool completely. Makes 16 squares. (I cut them into smaller pieces so we had smaller “bite” size pieces and many more)

Plate of delicious Oreo Marshmallow Brownies

Ooey Gooey Goodness!

I definitely suggest you give this recipe a shot,  it was a huge hit and it won’t let you down!

Enjoy this scrumptious Oreo heaven!

*A little tip when mixing most brownie and cake batters, is that I mix them with a fork! It mixes  pretty well but leaves it a little lumpy which I find helps keep it moist (this could be just coincidence but 98% of the time they come out very moist!)

Frosting/Icing Bag Tip

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a huge fan of pipping bags, they are messy and never seem to work right for me, so I normally use Ziploc bags and cut a corner off to beautify my masterpiece :-). The only problem with the Ziploc bag is filling it with the frosting, it is a major balancing act and task in itself! I can picture myself now awkwardly trying to hold the bowl, the Ziploc bag and trying to use the spatula at the same time, to get all the frosting in the bag. Yep, you probably guessed it, about a quarter of the frosting has ended up on the counter or floor at this point!

Well, problem is solved! A little while ago I had come across this tip (on Pinterest) and man, has it saved my life! With all the baking I do, this has made things so much easier! I can’t believe how simple it is too!

Ok, so all you do is take a glass cup, place the Ziploc bag inside it (un-cut  corners), and push it as far down as it will go, then fold the Ziploc part over the sides of the glass (it should stay by itself), and then you are good to pour/scoop the frosting into the bag mess free! Pull it out, zip it up, cut a corner and go to town decorating.

Icing, Ziploc bag, glass cup & spatula

Placing the Ziploc bag into the glass

Folding over the ziploc part

Pouring the Icing into the Ziploc bag

Voila…Icing is in the bag and there is no mess!

No awkwardness and no mess! How easy is that! You really can use this tip for anything, other than frosting/Icing, and you can put a tip into the corner too if you wanted a nicer style. I hope this has made your life a little easier, as it has made mine!