Fridge Digging crock pot meal. Sausage and Potatoes

Take what you have and make a meal...

I'm the queen of last minute throw together meals...I never seam to be able to plan ahead most days, other than taking a roll of hamburger meat out of the freezer to defrost and then half an hour before it's too late I look in my kitchen to see what I can make with that defrosted hunk of meat.

More recently (the past year) I have renewed my love affair with my crock pot which has made my life much easier now that I'm homeschooling, taking care of a 4 year old and full time care of my diabetic, 78 year old grandmother.

My meals have been limited and changed some, due to my grandmother's dietary needs and her picky eating habits. But, the slow cooker has been my saving grace...The other day I found polish sausage on sale and grabbed a couple, not really knowing what to make with it. Yeah, I can make the usual sausage taco's or sausage and cabbage stew (which I forgot to get the cabbage at the store). But, I figured I would take a look online. I found Heather Reynolds, "Stupid Easy Crock Pot/ Slow Cooker Sausage and Potatoes" on Food.com.

I didn't have all the ingredients for her recipe, but I took the idea and ran with it. After digging around in the fridge I found I had half a package (4 of an 8 oz package) of cream cheese, I didn't have ranch powdered seasoning, however I did have ranch dip, like the kind you use for chips or veggies...and plain yogurt.

So, I chopped up the potatoes and sausage (I used red potatoes cut into small 1/2 inch wedges) and a small onion and placed them in the bottom of the crock pot. I mixed my cream cheese, yogurt and ranch dip in a bowl...added a little salt and pepper and a dash of minced garlic and put it in my crockpot for 6 hrs on high.

Well, it worked! The family loved it and I loved the tangy-ness of it with the yogurt.

So here is the final recipe.

1 cup plain yogurt
3 tbsp ranch dip (ranch flavor packet if you have it)
1 package (1lb) sausage
6-8 red potatoes cleaned and sliced into 1/2" slices

In the crock pot for 6hrs.

Mix it towards the end to make sure that all the yogurt mix is covering all the potatoes and sausage.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

how little mom actually knows...

HOMESCHOOLING!

This has been me a lot lately. If it wasn't for Google I would have no idea what to tell my daughter half the time. She asks some really good questions though...like what is it in Glue that makes it stick? and Why does rubber bounce. I can give her a general idea of why it does what it does...but she wants details, details, details!

I love being a mommy...and I especially love being a HOMESCHOOLING MOMMY!

Felt Fall Leaf and Pumpkin Garland

Fall Leaf and Pumpkin Garland

With the Fall Season here in South Texas you can't really get into the season very well without a little help from some fall decorations. We don't grow pumpkins, we don't have cool weather (it's like mild summer here in the 80's and 90's) and the sweaters and jackets are tucked safely away in the back of the closet for at least another month (or two)...so falling leaves and pretty orange pumpkins are a must to get you into the season.

So, DD and I decided to make the season come alive at home. 

I grabbed my Sizzix die cutter and my fall leaf die and cut out 42 different fall colored felt leaves and 10 yellow (didn't have any more orange felt) pumpkins and decided to teach my daughter how to hand sew!

We started with learning to thread the needle and then we discovered patterns and repetition. We (tried) to stick to the same pattern all the way through (then realized mommy didn't cut enough burgundy leaves).

DD learned to weave the needle in and out and to change the direction from the leaves facing UP, DOWN and SIDEWAYS! (Always a new lesson to learn)

OUR FINAL PRODUCT!!!!

a beautiful 6ft fall leaf and pumpkin garland to grace our dining room window. The great things is that this can be done with felt, paper, store bought leaves, or construction paper cut by hand by your own children. USE YOUR IMAGINATION AND LET IT RUN WILD!

I know this will grace our walls for years to come and every year my DD and I will be able to remember making such a great (easy) and fun craft for our home.

Enjoy Homeschooling!

Homeschooling for Pre-K

My Homeschool Closet

FALL 2013 Preschool (Homeschooling)

Ok, so Pre-K isn't so tough...it's all about learning the simple things in life, ABC and 123 and such...but their are so many more things in life to learn that I'm excited about. Things like, why the sky is blue, what are the seasons of the year and my personal favorite...in the words of my daughter, "when it rains are clouds peeing on us?" (PRICELESS!)

So, on September 16th we start the fall season of homeschooling for DD's Pre-K. We started with a lot of the basics...like ABC and 123. Most of which she already knew...

Fall Leaf Alphabet Matching Game

Her lesson plan for this semester was

• Memory Verses (1 per month)
• Bible Reading (the Eager Reader BIBLE)
• Math - Basics of 123 etc. with adding in telling time, reading the calendar etc.
• Alphabets-ABC...
• Sight Words - DOLCH sight words for Pre-K
• Unit Study- Changes monthly depending on the lesson plan
• and a weekly, daily or monthly CRAFT depending on my ability at the time.

So, far Memory Verses and Bible have been the most constant, because even on busy days, like shopping days and doctor's appointments with great-grandma, we are still able to wake up in the morning and go over our memory verse and read a few pages in her BIBLE.

Although going through the Sight Words, proved to be more difficult than I had imagined. I discovered that I could write the word "AND" in all capitals and she could read it...however, if I wrote the word "and" in lowercase, she was drawing a blank. So...sight words are put on hold for a little bit till we work on Capital and Lowercase letters for a bit.

I have to admit that is one of the things that I love about homeschooling...the curriculum can be customized to fit the individual child's needs and not what fits the state standards.

The Unit studies have been the most fun in my and DD's opinion. in September we studied the weather starting with Wind, Clouds, Rain and the Sun. We made Wind Socks, Cotton ball clouds and colored coloring pages. It was a blast...and I learned a lot as well. My daughter really grasped the concept of Evaporation and now when I'm cooking she knows that heating up the water makes steam which is evaporation. (Amazing for a 4 year old...IMHO!)

This month we are learning about the different Seasons and focusing on the season of Fall.

Fall Leaf Garland (Learning to Hand Sew)

Fall Leaf Garland (Learning to Hand Sew)

Candy Corn Popsicle Sticks

"My Fall Book" With Fall Leaves mailed
to us From Colorado.

November we will be learning all about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims and Indians.

And then in December we will be learning about Christ's Birth.

As I'm sure you can tell I'm totally excited about school work and love being able to see my daughter light up as she learns something new every day.

 DON'T GET ME WRONG! Not every day is a barrel of sunshine! We have rough days...days she doesn't want to color, or write out her alphabet...but the good days outweigh the bad and we are getting their little by little. Check out my Instagram link on the side to see some of the pictures from the lessons and crafts that we have done as well as my Homeschool Pinterest board to see what has inspired me to do more with my little girl!

Have fun homeschooling!

Turned off the tv and found out my daughter had an imagination.

We have been the world's worst when it comes to TV watching. For years, the first thing we have done waking up in the morning is to turn on the TV and even had it on while going to sleep at night. Now that my grandmother is living with us, her obsession with HGTV has overrun the living room and the whole house...compounded with the fact that her hearing isn't so good and the volume is really loud has made me go a little insane.

Growing up in a homeschool family, we NEVER had the TV on in the house during the day...we woke up, snuggled with mom in bed for a bit, did our chores, eat breakfast and lunch (cooked lunch for dad's lunch break) and then did schoolwork or some kind of homeschool activity in the afternoon. Then when dad got home from work...the news came on and if we were lucky, we got to watch a family show in the evening time. Not till my little sister came along did we have the TV on during the day...and that something like teletubbies or some other kids show.

Now that we have started homeschooling my dear daughter this past month, the TV has become quite a big problem in the house. We even had to ask my grandmother to go to her room to watch her one millionth time watching the same show on HGTV (can you tell I'm totally burned out on HGTV...lol). 

The first few days and even week were really rough, DD asked to watch her shows almost non-stop. finally we had to start telling her it was a privilege not a right to watch tv. A few rough days and all of a sudden and miracle happened...my daughter discovered, she had an IMAGINATION!!!!

She now is playing in her room with her toys, making up games with her dolls and begging for me to play doll house with her. It has been so refreshing to have a 4 year old who actually wants to play instead of stare at the TV and vegg out all day.

Don't get me wrong, I love Disney Junior and all their adorable shows. My daughters favorite right now id Doc McStuffins. However, when all the TV shows are out of her brain...she has actually started to use her brain and I'm LOVING IT!

I hope this trend continues and she becomes even more independant of the "Boob-Tube" and uses that creativity for something productive.

Now, when she wakes up the morning she tells me "Mom, TV rots your brain!" And I can't help but laugh and agree!!!

Daddy eat my cookie...Pineapple coconut bread/cake.

This morning started out like any other morning...we got up as a family, my dear husband made us some PB&J sandwiches for breakfast. However, my daughter asked if she could have the last sugar cookie...I don't normally let her have sweets for breakfast, but we all had been eating them up and I figured she had better get one before they were all gone (she hadn't had many of them since they were made). So, I said "Yes!" But she had to eat her breakfast first. So like a good little girl she put the container with the cookie in it, back in the kitchen and even told her daddy that she was going to eat a cookie after she eat breakfast. 

My Sweet girl eat and asked if she could have her cookie now...I said yes. However, my husband had a deer in the headlights look...HE HAD EATEN HER COOKIE! He obviously wasn't paying attention when she told him she was going to eat the cookie and he gobbled it up with his cup of coffee. Daddy obviously felt aweful that he eat her cookie, so I told her we would make something good to eat later to replace the cookie she lost. So I went hunting for a recipe that I could make with the self rising flour I had just bought on a whim at the grocery store the other day. 

 

This started out as a pineapple cheddar cheese bread recipe I found on Yummly.com but cheese and pineapple didn't sound good to me...so I replaced it with coconut and made a few adjustments.

Coconut Pineapple Coffee Cake.

2 cups Self Rising Flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 can pineapple (I used chunks, but you can also use crushed) (JUICE INCLUDED)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons oil (I used coconut oil)
1/2 cup sweetened coconut
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350

Sift together SRFlour, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl mix pineapple and juice, eggs and oil. Poor wet ingredients into the dry ingredients mix till well combined. Add sweetened coconut and mix a little more to incorporate.

Poor into a cake pan or 9x3 greased bread pan.

Bake at 350 for 1 hr.

*Before baking any kind of bread, muffins etc. I usually sprinkle a little sugar on top...I sprinkled coconut and sugar on top of this cake before baking it...the coconut and sugar make an amazing crunchy sweetness to the top. I also sprinkled some powdered sugar over it before it cooled off out of the oven.

My husband described it as pineapple banana bread...it started out as a bread recipe but to me it turned into  simi-sweet coffee cake that was just right and very moist. It was a big hit with the family tonight after dinner.

Other than the hour baking time...this took no time at all to make and was super yummy.

SO thanks to Daddy eating my daughter's cookie, I now have an amazing, easy cake recipe to take to bake sales and dinner parties, as well as a quick cake to make for evening dinners. I can't wait to try it tomorrow morning with a cup of coffee!

ENJOY!

Just around the corner...HALLOWEEN!

I told you I would be back!

So I've been getting really uncomfortable lately with my Baby Peanut growing bigger every day. So far I am almost 5 months pregnant and have already started to feel the kicks, and turns and all the other fun stuff that comes with being "with child". However, the exhaustion and other not so fun stuff has also been driving me crazy.

I'm looking forward to the new seasons ahead. Here in South Texas we are really only about 2/3rds of the way through summer...though friends up north are already getting BLESSED with cooler weather. SIGH! I can't wait till I can bundle up with my BIG PG Belly and enjoying a cup of hot coco!

So in the mood for the season I made a FREE BANNER for you all to decorate for the upcoming holiday!

Click on the LINK to download the free PDF "BOO" Banner...print on cardstock or regular printer paper and cut out. I love to hang my banners on a pretty ribbon or curling ribbon.

I would love to see your pictures of your banners hung up at your house or office! SO PLEASE TAKE A PICTURE AND SEND THEM IN TO ME! PLEASE!

Have a great end of summer and stay cool! I know I will (inside my house with the A/C on low...lol!)