Card Wreaths

I am seriously loving Pinterest!  Last week I found card wreaths via Martha Stewart and just knew I had to make one or two! 

All you need is an embroidery hoop, clothes pins, wide wired ribbon, and a hot glue gun.  Within minutes you will be ready to hang your cards.  These look great in a house that is very antique loving and rustic like the Westra house, but would also look great in a more modern home if you rattle can the hoops and pins with a beautiful rich color.  Either way this is a fun and easy project that helps us enjoy all the holiday cheer all our family and friends from around the globe are sending our way.

Breakfast Fun-For Dinner!

Here at the Westra house every Wednesday night I serve breakfast for dinner.  I found this super adorable snowman pancake on pinterest and just knew I had to make it for my kids.  We do love our snowmen!! 

For our protein I made our favorite breakfast casserole.  I got this recipe from Kurt's mom years ago and it really is our go to recipe for holiday brunches or for when we have company.  The best part is you can make it ahead of time and pop it in the oven when you are ready.

Amish Breakfast Casserole

1 pound browned sausage

1 medium sweet onion

8-10 quality eggs lightly beaten

4 cups frozen shredded hash brown potatoes thawed

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 1/2 cups(12 ounces) small curd cottage cheese

1 1/4 cups shredded Swiss cheese

Brown and drain sausage.  In bowl combine remaining ingredients.  Add sausage.  Transfer to greased 9x13 inch pan.  Bake uncovered for 1 hour at 350 degrees.  Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

You may have noticed that I typed "quality eggs" in the recipe.  I cannot stress the difference in flavor not to mention nutritional value in quality farm eggs.  I know Heather would agree with me.  She does get her eggs from my chickens after all.  No seriously if you are able to buy farm eggs directly from a local farmer-do!  They are so much better for you and they taste amazing!  Once you do this you will never go back to store bought eggs I promise!!

I hope you all enjoy the casserole!

The Best Taco Salad Ever!

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?
Mama Heather and her family that's who!  Last night we had the Wood family over for taco salad.  Seriously this is the best taco salad dressing I have ever eaten!  Now I can't take credit for this recipe but I will happily pass it along to all of you.  An amazing mother of five named Mama V. graciously passed her recipe to me after one of our church potlucks.  She told me this is how all the people in Michigan make taco salad.  I'm not sure if that is true or not.  All I know is she lost me as soon as she mentioned Doritos.  Yes this taco salad has Doritos in it!  YUMMY!

Taco Salad

Salad Dressing: 8 oz Thousand Island Dressing

1 TBSP Taco Seasoning

1/3 Cup Sugar

Mix together and set in fridge for a couple of hours.  I always double this dressing recipe because I have a large family causing me to make a pretty big salad.

Evan's Taco Salad Ingredients:

The amount of each ingredient varies by how many portions you are preparing

Lettuce or salad mix

Tomatoes

Cheddar Cheese

Kidney Beans

1 lb hamburger browned and drained.  Add taco seasoning to the meat and let cool till warm.

Tortilla Chips Or Doritos broken into pieces

Prepared Salad Dressing

Mix it all up and enjoy!

Dipped Snowflake Cookies

I saw these cookies on Pinterest (The Decorated Cookie) and decided that this would be a great project for my kids!  She used the white fudge covered Oreos from the store, and she also used frosting for decorating.  I decided that I wanted to use white chocolate to cover my Oreos and use candy melt for the decoration - partially because I wanted the decoration to harden on the cookie and partially because these were the ingredients I had in my house!

First, collect your ingredients:

1 bag Oreos

1 bag white chocolate morsals

2 tsp oil

1/2 cup candy melt (any color)

decorating bag (or a zip loc)

wax paper

Pour the bag of white chocolate morsels into a microwaveable bowl.  Add oil.  Stir and microwave for 1 minute.  Stir.  Microwave at 30 second intervals until completely melted.

Drop Oreos into melted chocolate.  Use a fork to remove from chocolate and place on wax paper to cool.

Once chocolate has cooled and hardened, place candy melts into decorating bag (or a ziploc) and microwave 10-15 seconds at a time until melted completely.  Take bag out and smoosh (a technical cooking term) the candy melt to mix it up between intervals.

Then decorate away!

Juice Top Ornaments

My kiddos really enjoy giving gifts at Christmas time.  With such large family the gift expenses can get a bit out of hand pretty fast!  Last year I gathered up my kids and all my nephews and niece for a holiday craft that they could gift to their grandparents.  Juice top ornaments are a fun and easy-not to mention affordable gift that adds a personal touch to that special loved one's  holiday decor.   Here is what you need:

1. An image-this can be personal photograph, pretty scrap booking paper-really anything

2. Terrifically Tacky Tape-this comes in a role or in sheets.  Either one works for this craft.

3.  A juice top

4.  Ribbon

5.  Clear Micro Beads-I use Martha Stewart luster glass micro beads from Michael's

6.  Ornament hanger-purchased a pack of 20 at Target

7.  Glue-rubber cement works best

8.  Scissors

Once you pick out your image trace the juice top around it to get the right size

Set your Tacky Tape on top of you image leaving the protective layer on.  Today I used the role tape so I had to set three lines of tape on my image.

Cut out your image.

Glue your image onto the juice top.

After a few moments your image will be set.  Take off the protective layer careful not to touch the image.

Sprinkle Micro Beads on top of image. 

Spread the Micro Beads over the entire surface.  Pour off extra beads back into original container.

One option is to cut out a card stock piece to glue on the back.  This adds a nice finishing touch.  This particular ornament reads, "Owl Be Home For Christmas"

Punch a nail hole into the top of your ornament big enough for your hanger to fit through.

Add some ribbon-wired works best, and hang on the tree! 
Very Fun!!

Peanut Butter & Jelly Smoothies

We love, love, love smoothies in our house.  We also love peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.  So why not combine the two!?!   

Peanut Butter & Jelly Smoothies

Berries

Milk

Yogurt (I use Nancy's Plain)

Honey

Peanut Butter

If your berries are a bit tart you could add some sugar or a bit more honey.

A great way to start your day!

Thank Goodness For Comfort Food!

I love myself a good meat loaf!  Bet ya didn't know that about me!  Anyways, what I don't love is a dried out hunk of meat topped off with a dab of ketchup masquerading as a meatloaf.  You all know what I'm talking about.  We've all eaten that ole thing at least one time in our lives.  Well no more my friends, no more!   Now you can make you and your family the yummiest, moistest, most fab meatloaves this side of the Mississippi.  The best part(besides the taste of course)is that there are no fancy ingredients.  I mean really don't you just hate it when you see a picture in a mag. of something that makes your mouth water only to find the recipe back on page 475 with all weird ingredients.  You will not find recipes like that on this blog.  Heather and I have way too many kids between the two of us to drive around to five grocery stores for something smancy.  Okay, back on point-the ingredients for personal(that's right, I said personal)meatloaves are as follows...

1 lb ground beef

1 package stuffing(stovetop brand is great for this)

3/4 cup onion either fresh or dried

1/2 cup BBQ sauce(I use Sweet Baby Ray's)

1 1/4 cup chicken broth

Place all the ingredients in a bowl.  Roll you sleeves up your going to dig in with your hands.  Make patties.  Place patties on a baking sheet.  I always spray my baking sheet with Pam so the meat doesn't stick.  Now the meat is going to be very moist.  You might even think to yourself that maybe you are missing something because it feels like it may fall apart.  Don't worry it is supposed to be like that.

Once you have all your patties on the baking sheet top them with either ketchup or more BBQ sauce.  Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.

At our house I served them with ranch mashed potatoes, corn from my garden, and green beans.  Dessert was homemade canned applesauce. 

So there you have it folks, good old fashioned comfort food.  There's nothing like it!