Do you?

~*~

Do you improve your left overs from Thanksgiving?

Our favorite is Turkey Shepherds Pie!

For something new this year, we made Betsy's Roasted Carrots 

and they were delicious! 

~*~

Happy Thanksgiving!

~*~

Happy Thanksgiving!

And here's me this morning, cutting apples for my cranberry chutney.... 

Have a blessed day with your friends and family and...

Make a memory!

~*~

Most requested recipe

~*~

"Janeen, you're going to bring the Sweet Potato's right?"

My most requested recipe at Thanksgiving...

is Naomi Judd's Sweet Potato Casserole!

I lurve cookbooks but my favorite are the ones that have

MORE than just recipes, I enjoy the stories behind them!

Naomi's does not disappoint!  Her cookbook is full of wit, wisdom 

and delicious EASY recipes with ingredients you already

have at home.

And here it is...

Sweet Potato Casserole

3 C. mashed sweet potatoes (about 2 lb. sweet potatoes)

1/2 C. granulated sugar

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 C. milk

1/4 C. butter, melted (1/2 stick)

1/2 t. salt

1 t. vanilla extract

TOPPING:

1/2 C. packed light brown sugar

1/2 C. chopped walnuts, pecans or other nuts

1/3 C. all-purpose flour

1/3 C. butter

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a shallow 2-quart casserole.

In a medium bowl, stir together the potatoes, granulated sugar, eggs, milk, butter, salt and vanilla and scrape the mixture into the prepared casserole.

Make the topping: In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, nuts and flour and cut in the butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over the top of the casserole. 

Bake, uncovered, in the 350 degree oven until heated through and lightly browned, 30 to 35 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Weekend Random

~*~

Making my To Do list... A LOT to do this week!

Grocery shopping for our turkey and fixin's 

Over the moon excited about the Royal Engagement

Donating my hankies for the local ladies at our long term care facility

Teaching my girl to bake this cake for our church dessert auction tomorrow

Get the recipe here

~*~

Testing for technical difficulties

~*~

I'm experiencing technical difficulties on the blog

Test posting...

Thankful

~*~

Thankful!

I've been preparing to facilitate our next women's 

bible study that will begin in January.

(hence the reason for my absence of visits to you)

Although my women's ministry typically uses the video and workbook

style... for example, a Beth Moore study that is already outlined

and ready to go... I take it a step further. 

When I prepare, I'm reading a lot of additional 

material that can help me understand scripture 

so when it's my 15 minutes to facilitate - I am able to share 

with our ladies a LIFE application of what we are learning

that week, something that they can understand and use TODAY.

To do this I have the NIV bible, 

a bible summarized handbook and a bible dictionary.

I want to share with you something I am so thankful 

to have stumbled upon recently 

and I think that it may be useful to you too!

When your reading scripture, do you get stumped on a particular passage?  

Do you read something over and over and still not 'get it'?

Yep, me too!  I was googling the book of Matthew and in the 

search results I found this...

DVD's made into The Visual Bible!  

Several books of the bible follow the text of scripture through dramatized video!

They are produced very well and use scripture Word for Word!  Lurve it!

Take a look HERE to watch a quick reference.  Enjoy!

~*~

Have you heard ?

~*~

Have you heard about the Benefit Brow Bar?

Benefit is a brand of cosmetics that specialize in make up for your face. My favorite is their Brow Bar because with my lop-sided brows, it's become my cosmetic quest to have lurvely brows instead. ha

I bet ya' all just looked at my picture to see my brows didn't ya?

My friend Ann, who knows my of my particular 

quest to have brows of perfection, told me about this particular product. 

It comes in Light, Medium and Dark.

One side is a tinted wax to shape your brows 

and the other is a soft powder to fill in with.

I LURVE IT!

~*~

What to do?

~*~

~*~

I made these Chunky Apple Cinnamon muffins tonight

for breakfast tomorrow and as you can see

I slightly over filled the pan.

Perhaps "slightly" is being used loosely here.

Oh my stars, how am I going to get them out of the

pan without making a mess?

UPDATE...

They flipped out intact and no mess!

Amen!

~*~

It's back!

~*~

It's true!  Starbucks has brought back this season

my beloved Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate!

My girl and I recently ran some errands together,

(5 long hours and no complaints of "Are we done yet?")

so I rewarded her with a trip to Starbucks to get some hot cocoa.

As I was looking up at the hot cocoa board, I saw it ...

Then I sighed softly and ordered quickly!

***Warning, do not look at the calories on this. 

Just ENJOY it and move on!***

Now I can't get the drink out of my head! 

I must learn to make it at home!

The hunt begins for a clone recipe!

~*~

{Insert mind blowing, earth shattering, 

heart stopping SHRIEK here} 

Fun when there's no sun

~*~

What to do when it's raining outside?

Make Paper Airplanes!!

We went here to get some fun ideas!

 

~*~

I lurve YouTube!

~*~

There are days that I just lurve living in 

this time of technology to enjoy things

such as this....

I was surfing YouTube last night looking for

a memory and I so excited to find this one because 

it reminds me of when we saw Kent & Candy Christmas at a local church when I was pregnant with my girl.  

He personally prayed over us and she 

sang many gospel songs for everyone.

This particular song just slays me every time.

Click here to see video

Enjoy!

~*~

It's that time again,,,

~*~

It's that time again...

After carving pumpkins, we'll watch the Charlie Brown classic! 

Update** We'll watch Charlie and the gang after the baseball game.  ha ha

Congratulations San Francisco GIANTS!

What traditions do you have with pumpkins?

~*~

A New Favorite

~*~

I've found a new favorite movie from the BBC...

I like this adaption for  

romance from a classic novel.  

~*~

Inspired

~*~

Inspired!

This is the movie that started it.

My kids and I lurve it.

Good old fashioned story of family, lurve,

and the County Fair!

My Son said, "Mom, you could do that."

I replied, "Do what Son?"

He said, "Go to the fair and win a ribbon."

I said, "What would I enter to be judged?"

He said, "Your Pig Candy or something else yummy. 

It doesn't matter, it's all good!"

That got me thinking...

and thinking some more...

regardless of the outcome it would be fun, we'd make a memory

and of course I could blog about it! ha ha

So that's why I want these books for my birthday or Christmas...

gotta know who my competition is! 

    

So in the upcoming year,

I will research, go over my own recipe box and decide what to enter in the Baked Goods category in our next local county fair.  If it wins, I can move on to the State Fair level.

Do you go to your county fair or state fair?

~*~

A new toy!

~*~

I recently received a gift card and 

knew exactly what I wanted to buy with it!

A French Press Coffee Maker!

I lurve my cup (pot) of Tea

but I prefer coffee first thing in the morning!

Now for some coffee humor!

~*~

Starting my wish list

~*~

I'm starting to make my 

Birthday / Christmas wish list... 

This is first on my list...

Marjorie Johnson's 

The Road to Blue Ribbon Baking

Second on the list is this...

America's Best

Blue Ribbon Winners

State Fair Recipes

~ What's on your wish list?~

~*~

Birthday Memories!

~*~

Birthday Memories!

We rotate the kids birthday parties 

(friends or family)

every other year and this year was the family year...

Simple decorations but full of fun!

~*~

A Year of Tea Pots

~*~

Life is resembling normalcy here again and with that brings

some free time to blog!  I thought I'd share these DARLING mini teapots that my Mother-in-Law gave me a couple of years ago. I display them on my curio cabinet every month. She has a set that I admired from afar and when her best friend was giving hers away, she KNEW exactly who would appreciate them!  ME!

Introducing my year of tea pots!

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Do you have a display of "something"?

~*~