More sewing

I have been trying to keep my hands busy (to keep me off of my feet) and my mind occupied (to help me battle depression) and so I have more goodies to show off.

Here's another nursing necklace.

Here's a teether toy.

I had a lot of leftover scraps and a towel so I made some bibs.

I also had some PUL fabric in my fabric stash so I made this very basic changing pad. It's actually not padded, but I wanted something that would fold very compact into the diaper bag. Also, when it is rolled up, none of the changing pad bottom touches the area that the baby will be on...and it should (hopefully) be waterproof.

New summer pizza recipe

It's summer time and that means it is HOT here. Of course, making dinner stinks when it's 115 degrees out. I found a great recipe that can definitely be made without making the house an oven. It is for a Chicken Club pizza. The family gave it a very leary glance when I put it in front of them but it turned out to be a dinner that they asked for seconds so I think it's a keeper.

The other day I made 4 balls of pizza dough for the freezer. I grabbed one out and let it rise all day. I then baked it for 10 minutes. I'm sure you are asking how that makes this a heat free dinner. Well, the reason is that you could TOTALLY use a Boboli ready made pizza crust. The crust does not have to be warm to make this. The ingredients also include chopped chicken and bacon. Again, you can use already cooked chicken and bacon OR use the microwave. I originally saw this recipe from Kraft Foods but I tweaked it to my own liking. You can find the original recipe here http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/chicken-club-pizza-123038.aspx

My alterations were the following

-one homemade baked pizza crust on a cookie sheet

-1 tablespoon of mayonnaise

-1/2 cup of ranch dressing

-2 tablespoons of sour cream

-1 large cooked and chopped chicken breast

-8 slices of bacon cooked (could use turkey bacon as well)

-handful of romain lettuce washed, dried, and chopped

-1 diced tomato

Mix mayo, dressing and sour cream and spread onto pizza crust. Cover with toppings of chicken breast, bacon, lettuce, and tomato. Enjoy. Super, super yummy. I didn't put the cheese on it...I thought it tasted fine without it. It was quickly gobbled up.

Baby steals

So it's no surprise that this new little guy is making me be a bit creative on getting goodies to care for him. So I've been on the prowl for excellent deals. Nothing beats some that I recently came across.

First of all, I found an ad in a baby magazine that if you used a code at Kohls while signing up for a baby registry, they would send you a $25 certificate after at least one product was purchased from the list. I thought, hey, that's a decent deal. I can put some clothes on a registry and send Jake in to buy something from it with cash. Well, guess what?  I didn't even have to do that. I was the lucky recipient of a $25 gift card to Kohls from my work as part of a very nice drawing that they did for nurses day. So I've been paying attention to deals. I found one this weekend. I received an email that I printed off for $10 off of a $30 purchase. I figured I could pick $30 worth of product, use the coupon, use my gift card and come out with all the goodies for $0 out of pocket. Plus, if I got something from my registry, hopefully they do in fact follow through with the $25 certificate.

What did I buy? Oddly, I didn't get any baby clothes from my registry. Because I found cheaper ones on clearance that were just as cute.

What I did get from my registry was a pair of slippers I put on there. I love these kind of slippers for places like hospitals. Why? Because I can wear them there and then throw them in the washer. Hospital floors are gross. I don't want that in my house. Although I love the slipper socks that I have, I don't like wearing them on the hospital floor and then getting into bed. So the slippers work the best. And they were on sale. So I got all these goodies for free. In fact they gave me $2.35 back from the remainder of the gift card. I added up the "Kohls inflated price" and their regular price for all (which is astronomical) was $78. So I think I did well.

Target offers a bag of goodies if you register with them as well, so I signed up online and then went in to get my goodies. I got sample wipes, diapers, a pacifier and a bottle along with a bunch of coupons. While we were there I found this awesome deal. A cute little sleeper (which I love when they are little because comfort is super important to me) for, get this, $2.38. That's cheaper than Goodwill sometimes.

One more deal. I have been searching for the top rated products that make sense to buy. One thing that always irked me is how often baby socks were pointless. There was just some brands that were useless. Like, don't even bother putting the socks on...they will be off by the time you look at baby's feet again. Well, on Amazon, Robeez and Trumpette socks are rated really well for staying on. One problem. They are not cheap. The Trumpette socks are about $20 for 6 pairs. So imagine my excitement when on my thrift store run I found 4 pairs of Trumpette socks for just $2. Yeah. They are used. But they are in perfect shape. And I don't know if you can tell, but two of them are actually Trumpette DISNEY. Yep. those circles are Mickey Mouse heads. Super cool. You can bet I will definitely be on the search for more deals like this!

Evil dessert

For Father's Day I made Jake one of his favorite desserts. Thankfully, this time I did not have any mishaps with the food processor (I once dropped the blade on my toe while making it causes a trip to the ER for stitches). The funny thing is, when Jonah saw me putting it into the oven he started to freak out saying that it was an evil dessert. I was quite puzzled until he asked me why I would make something out of blood. I assured him that it was cherries but he would not believe me. Poor kid missed out on a yummy dessert...and a'la mode too! Just too funny.

So what's the recipe? Here ya go.

Pear (or apple or peach) and Cherry Crumble

Heat oven to 425 degrees

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

5 tbs butter cut in pieces

1 can cherry pie filling

1/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 tbs cornstarch

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 1/2 tsp lemon juice

3 medium pears, apples or peaches (or combination of fruit)

Crumble flour, sugar and first listing of spices in food processor. Pulse to blend. Add butter. Pulse until coarse crumbs form. Pour cherry pie filling into 2 qt greased baking dish. Mix sugar, cornstarch and spices in bowl until blended. Stir in lemon juice. Add sliced fruit. Spoon over cherries. Top with topping. Bake 45 min or until topping is golden brown and fruit is tender. Cool. Refrigerate at least 8 hours. Or be like us and eat it warm with vanilla ice cream.

Try it. You will like it.

Bake off

In my quest to stock up my freezer now that we are down to the last 3 months, I bought two bags of flour from Sam's (regular flour and bread flour) and made a few things. I get 25# bags and put them into smaller bags and freeze them to maintain freshness. But first I made four dozen cookies, two dozen freezer biscuits, 4 balls of pizza dough, scones (that I actually baked) and a scone mix for later.  It took me awhile and I think I got a bit dehydrated because I was so intently working. But it's done and now I'm putting my feet up and trying to guzzle some water. And now I'm a few steps closer to getting a full freezer to prepare for the baby.

I made these scones after making a yummy scone mix that I had gotten from Jake and made for a tea party this past Wednesday. They were so good that I wanted to make some more. I found this recipe http://challengedairy.com/recipes/breads/scottish-scones-with-honey-butter and altered it a bit. 

Scottish Scones

1. 1 ½ cupsall-purpose flour
2. ¼ cupsugar
3. 1 Tablespoonbaking powder
4. ½ teaspoonsalt
5. ½ cup (1 stick)Challenge Butter
6. ½ cupmilk

1. 
   
   Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or two knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
2. 
   
   Add milk, mixing just until moist.
3. On lightly floured surface, roll dough into a circle one-half inch thick. Cut into 10 wedges. Place on greased cookie sheet.
4. 
   
   Bake in a 425°F oven for 12-15 minutes. Serve with Honey butter or Strawberry butter.
   
   
   To make a mix for later I just put all of the dry ingredients in a mason jar and will add the butter and milk before baking.