This last weekend, we headed up to the foothills to a place called Apple Hill. While we were there, we found canning pears and Granny Smith apples for a really good price. We ended up coming home with 90 pounds of fruit!

Today was a very blustery day here:

So I decided to let Kelsey make an apple cake to take to our Bible Study tonight.

Here she is following the steps from the recipe:

Here is an easy summer treat that your kids can make - Chocolate Pudding Pops!!

Ingredients:

2 cups cold milk

1 small box pudding

1 cup Cool Whip

small cups

popsicle sticks

Mix together the milk and pudding mix for 2 minutes.

Fold in the Cool Whip

Put mixture in small cups, add sticks

Lick spoon when done!

Freeze for at least 4 hours.

We will be enjoying these tasty treats tonight! Yum!

When I was little, I remember my nana making the best bean soup ever. Since she was one to never write down a recipe, I have spent many years trying to find just the right recipe to even come close to nana's. Thanks to Paula Deen, I think I have come as close as I can to that pot of beans. You can find the recipe here.

While on the subject of soup, here are a couple more soup recipes I love to make in the winter time. The first one is Baked Potato Soup. This soup is great with some homemade bread using the recipe from Breadtopia. (I make the sandwich loaf using water). Another great winter night recipe is Chicken Tortilla Stew. I like using the green enchilada sauce with this one and serving it with some homemade cornbread.

Today, I let the kids assemble this yummy treat:

Mix together a small box of instant pudding and 1 1/2 cups of milk.

Add whipped cream and a cup of mini marshmallows.

Put a scoop on one graham cracker square and top with the other. Put mini chocolate chips around the sides.

Wrap in plastic wrap and place in the freezer. Let thaw for 5 minutes before eating.

I haven't posted in a while because my parents were actually here last weekend! We pulled off a surprise birthday party for my sister who just turned 40 last week. She had no idea about the party at all!

Anyway, this week, I have been trying out some new recipes. I found out about this website (if you go to this site, you can download some of the sample books!) from this blog (this blog has some great recipes and tips). Now I have to admit, I have never thought about cooking large amounts of food and freezing it before. But our schedule gets a little busy sometimes and I hate the thought of not eating a good meal at home. So Monday, I prepared Make Ahead Chimichangas. I was able to make enough for dinner that night, plus enough for 4 more meals for the freezer. Tuesday night, I make BBQ Chicken. I bought enough chicken on sale to prepare dinner for that night, plus 2 more dinners for the freezer. Then this afternoon, I prepared Breakfast Burritos. Kev has been eating a modified South Beach diet, so I prepared his with whole grain tortillas and low fat cheese. I was able to put about 24 burritos in the freezer!! I still need to do the French Toast Sticks.

In the refrigerator, I had these ingredients:

Frozen meatballs, leftover spaghetti and some grated mozarella cheese turned into this:

I put it in the oven on 350 degrees for about 35 minutes and we ended up with this for dinner:

Tonight, I pulled out our Resurrection Roll 'recipe' for dessert. We still had some Strawberry Marshmallows that we bought on sale after Valentine's Day.

Here are a couple of photos from the process:

Getting ready to place 'Jesus' in the 'embalming oil' and 'spices'.

Placing 'Jesus' into the 'tomb'.

He is risen!! Have a blessed Easter!!

...that when you fill the muffin tins fuller than the stated 2/3 full that you get something that looks like this:

This is a Paula Deen Blueberry Gem recipe (basically a Blueberry Muffin recipe, I would share the recipe with you but I can't find it on the internet! It is in her Celebrates cookbook.)

Well, the recipe says it makes 18 muffins. I have 2-12 cup muffin pans. I really didn't feel like getting the 2nd pan dirty for only 6 more muffins, so I thought I would just fill the first muffin pan with the extra batter. I thought they would puff up nice and be nice big muffins!

Boy, I was so wrong! They look like mushrooms!! It was really hard to get them out of the pan because they spread out over the top so much! Oh well, they are really yummy though and I can't wait to eat them in the morning for breakfast. Next time, I will have to make 18 muffins like the recipe instead of taking a shortcut! :o)

Back in December, I was asked to post a recipe for this jam. Since it has been rainy and dreary here this week and I really don't have much to post about, I thought I would post the link for this yummy jam!! You can find the recipe here.

I decided to try to find a recipe for this jam after visiting Cover's Apple Ranch a couple of years ago. They had a jam called 'Christmas Jam' that I just loved to have on biscuits, english muffins and bagels. Looking at the ingredients, I decided to search for a recipe and found the one above. Since cranberries are only available for a couple of months, I make sure I buy some extra bags and store them in my freezer.

I hope you decide to give this recipe a try!

As promised here are some links for some of my favorite pumpkin recipes!

Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins,  Classic Pumpkin Pie,  Pumpkin Fudge,  Pumpkin Pie Bread,  Pumpkin Crunch Cake,  Macadamia Nut White Chip Pumpkin Cookies,  Iced Pumpkin Cookies,  Pumpkin Streusel Coffeecake,  Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake

These are all recipes that I have tried and are in my keeper recipe binder. I may not make all of them every year, but it is always nice to have a few really good recipes on hand!

Now onto pillowcases! The 4-H group is preparing pillowcases for kids in children's hospitals as a service project. So the other day, I had both kids use the sewing machine to help make them. This was Matthew's first time using the sewing machine. He did a really good job! Now I need to teach him how to sew on a button and his sewing skills are complete as far as I am concerned.

Here are pictures of both kids at the sewing machine and their complete pillowcases: