Hey all, so I have been experimenting with different techniques in the kitchen. My latest concoction was... AMAZING. I'm pretty sure my husband hates me because I feed him so much sugar and fat and yet he has to stay fit enough to pass his upcoming APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test).
This latest recipe was based off of this recipe that I found on Pinterest.
All I did was substitute the oreos for Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and Voila!!
INGREDIENTS:
1 package of Nestle Premade cookie dough. Slightly softened.
24 Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (they were on sale at Walmart!)
1 box of brownie mix and the water/oil/eggs required by the mix
1. Preheat the oven to 350. The blogger for the oreo bars suggests lining the pan with foil or wax paper and then spraying with cooking spray. I was lazy and didn't do this and my brownies were a little tough to get out of the pan. I don't think the taste suffered any though!
2. I took my tube of cookie dough and I cut it into half inch disks. I then layered the bottom of my pan with the disks and then smushed them together to create one solid pan of cookie dough. I found that cutting them first helped me to evenly distribute the cookie dough. ALSO, if you want thicker brownies you can use an 8x8 pan rather than the 9x13 pan I used, and then you only need 12 Reeses Cups. I would still use a whole thing of cookie dough and an entire batch of brownie batter though.
3. Layer the entire pan with the Reeses Cups
4. Make the brownie Mix as directed on the package.
5. Pour the brownie batter evenly over the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups
6. Take a minute to eat the leftover brownie batter. I know I know I know you're not supposed to because of the eggs, but I freely admit that in this case I am a rule breaker and it is just delicious!
7. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Let cool and enjoy!
I'm not as good at taking food pictures as other bloggers might be, but use your imagination, because these were just fantastic!
Great! Everyone have an amazing day and check out my other blog posts. There are some other recipes and also a ton of handmade jewelry!
Hey everyone! I hope you are all having a glorious/sweltering day. I know I am!
So, many people have been asking me about the jewelry I've been making. I started making jewelry to give myself something to do down here in UCLA (Ugly Corner, Lower Alabama) but I've discovered I really love being able to create something usable and beautiful or fun. I love allowing myself to be super creative, or at least to use the ridiculous amount of beads I've purchased over the last couple of months. Below are a bunch of pictures of pieces I've created. The red heart necklace is spoken for (by me!) but the rest of it will eventually (hopefully) be sold on an etsy account I have yet to make. I was thinking that I might name my store JK Boutique, with the tagline being "It's Jewelry. It's Kismet." Do people know what Kismet means? Please leave your suggestions for boutique names in the comments section below. I would be happy to get the help and if I choose your name, FREE EARRINGS. Seriously.
Awesome. So here are some of the pictures of stuff I've made. I was thinking that earrings would run between $8-12 and necklaces around $15-20 ish. Awesome.
OH! Also, PLEASE forgive the crappy photography. I haven't really figured out how to take pictures of this kind of thing, although I did find a great use for my china dinner plate :) Note: The flash sometimes made strange reflections, and the colors are much more vibrant in person.
Red Heart Necklace Repurposed from an Italian Glass pendant given to me by my inlaws :)
again
Bird's Nest Necklace
Again
Close Up Bird's Nest Necklace
Sorry, I had a really tough time capturing this one
Asymmetrical necklace.
Psychedelic Sweetheart Necklace
Psychedelic Cherries Earrings
Again
Cute together!
Garden Party Earrings
Inspiration Earrings in Crystal
Happy Tears Earrings
InspiRED earrings
A Whole New World Earrings
Purple Vineyard Earrings
Cosmic Earrings in Pink
Cosmic Earrings in Pink
Aztec Lime Necklace and Earrings
Close Up
Jazzercise Earrings in Pink and Lime
Purple Heart and Silver Sweetheart Earrings (PS. The purple ones are Much More purple than in the picture)
More Inspiration Earrings. They say, "Believe in Love," "Never Never Give Up," "Live Laugh Love," "Live Your Dream," "Karma," "Love and Be Loved."
I've also made some other awesome necklaces and even a charm bracelet, but they were gifts and I gave them away before I got pictures. I have an awesome one with wooden beads, and some beautiful blue beads with silver filigree work that I gave my mom for mother's day.
So leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Hey everyone! So a lot of people have been asking me what it
is that I do exactly in Alabama. To be honest, that question is something I’ve
been asking myself for months, and my lack of an answer has been really
frustrating for me. It’s one of the reasons I stopped blogging for a while. I
got discouraged and felt like the things I was doing down here weren’t that
important.
I have since learned that I was wrong. I had a conversation
with my husband about the Jewish mitzvah (commandment) of tzedakah (giving
charity). In the Jewish faith, it is a mitzvah to give 10% of your earnings to
charity, and while we have a tzedakah jug that is a huge glass jug that used to
have peach cider in it that we picked up in South Carolina on our drive down
here last summer, it isn’t so full. The conversation started because I wanted
to give more tzedakah and my husband said something truly simple that I just
hadn’t thought of before that moment. He said, “Oh. I was just considering your
volunteer work as tzedakah for the time being.” I had been looking at my
volunteer work as a way to keep busy and I was looking at it as purely selfish.
I know it sounds silly, but the thought that I was actually giving back hadn’t
crossed mind. Usually this works the other way. People want to give back and
don’t ever think about how the skills they learn and utilize in volunteer work
helps them with careers later on in life or even just in their personal
relationships.
I may be a little backward in how I got into this whole
volunteering business, but I have since learned how special volunteering really
is. Jews believe that to save a life is to save a whole world, and the same
applies to volunteering. To help another person is really helping the whole
world.
So as of this moment, I am now volunteering in five
different positions. Below is a little description of each.
I am the FRG leader of my husband’s flight class. FRG stands
for Family Readiness Group. It is for the spouses and families of the soldiers
and is also for the soldiers themselves. I am a source of information, support,
connection, and fun. My job is to connect the members of my husband’s flight
class and give them the information that is necessary to their lives. What time
is the gate closing today? How do I get childcare? When will their training be
over? What is Family Day? I also plan activities like barbecues and possibly a
dance/get together at the end of training.
I volunteer at the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan,
Alabama. The past two weeks, I’ve been helping out with their art camp. The first week
we had younger kids, 7-9 and this past week we had older kids 9-13. They did
different art projects and were introduced to the fundamentals of art like
color and pattern, symmetry and perspective, paint, collage, batik, murals, and
pottery. I have also volunteered with them when they went into third grade
classrooms throughout the area and taught the students about Cubism and
Picasso, and made tangrams with them.I have decided to apply to Masters programs
in Museum Education. I really want to work with artifacts and the archaeology
side of museums, but seeing the faces of these kids light up when they see,
make, or experience art is worthwhile in and of itself.
I am helping one of the offices on post with their filing.
Case in point. They hadn’t alphabetized their filing cabinet in three years. I
can help!!!
I am teaching a vegetarian cooking class on Tuesdays in
August. I may also start volunteering in the afternoons now that Art Camp is
over. All of this is for the Edge Program on post which gives pre-teens and
teens something to do in the afternoons after school is out or during the
summer. Each day is different, but each week follows the same pattern for a
month and then it switches up. Fort Rucker just built a new Teen Center, so
once it officially opens I will probably help out with activities there as
well. I love how volunteering works. I walked into the office, sat down with
the mastermind of the Edge program, talked about things I like to do, and ended
up promising to teach teens how to cook. The menu is something along the lines
of Ratatouille and Homemade Pasta, Eggplant Parmesan, Stuffed Peppers and Taco
Salad, and probably banana bread and pumpkin cookies thrown in their somewhere.
I have become a chef in my own home, so we will see how that translates to
teens used to a diet of steak and potatoes, and who have probably never eaten
an eggplant. It should be fun.
Finally, I have been taking AFTB classes, and I have become
an instructor after an intensive week of instructor training. AFTB is Army
Family Team Building. There are three levels of classes that you don’t have to
take in order. Level One is basic Army knowledge: military acronyms, the rank
system, customs, how to read your earning statement, your benefits and
entitlements, etc. This class is an Amazing introduction to army life and a
great way to make friends who are going through the same things that you are
going through. Level Two is about Personal Development, including conflict
management, communication skills, personality, strengths, and crisis and coping
etc. Level Three is all about Leadership and how to strengthen your team and
yourself using your skills. It is about communication and encouragement, and
team dynamics and problem solving from a leadership standpoint. AFTB really
helps army spouses thrive in the army community by giving them knowledge, and
resources, and helping them become resilient and self confident. It helps them
learn to rely on themselves, help others, and learn to ask for help as well as
where to look for that help. After going through the AFTB training myself, I
really see how tight a community the army really is if you take advantage of
all that it has to offer. I may also now be in charge of the Fort Rucker AFTB
newsletter, but we will see how that pans out in the next month.
Here is a video about AFTB that is really quite fantastic. :)
Anyway, volunteering down here has really become my life. I
volunteer and then I come home, do some housework and inspire myself on
pinterest. Then I make lists of brownie recipes and other chocolatey goodness
that I find and add it to my lists of crafts I want to do. WARNING: everyone
might get homemade gifts this year. Pinterest = <3 but that may be another
post on another day.
Hey everyone! Long time no blog. I got a little down down
here, but I am back and I promise to make more of an effort to entertain you
all with a little glimpse into my Northern life down here in the South.
So Independence Day is HUGE in the Army. The soldiers all
got a mini weekend in the middle of this week so I decided to make my husband
something really special to show him how much I support him and his role in
defending our country. I got the idea to use fruit from some Flag looking toast
that I saw on Pinterest (tomorrow’s breakfast), but it’s me, so it had to be
something sweet. What was born was Independence Pudding! Check it out!
Ingredients:
1 Large Box of Jello Instant Pudding (Vanilla Flavor) 61/2 –
8 Servings
3 Cups of Milk
1 8oz tub of Cool Whip Light
Red and Blue Food Coloring. I used Betty Crocker Classic Gel
Food Colors
A couple handfuls of Ruduced Fat Nilla Wafers
1 Banana
Half a Package of Strawberries
Half a Package of Blueberries
I started out making the Vanilla Pudding according to the
directions on the box. After 2 minutes of whipping, I then added the tub of
Cool Whip, whipping it into the pudding mixture before it had time to truly
set. The cool whip lightened the color of the Vanilla Pudding and added volume
and lightness. French Vanilla Pudding has a lighter color to begin with and I
would use that in the future.
* Note *
I thought about using cheesecake flavored pudding, but I thought the flavor
would be too strong next to the fruit. The choice is yours. Banana might also
taste great with this.
I then separated the mixture into three separate bowls,
leaving twice as much pudding in Bowl 1. Bowl 1 I left as it was and put it in
the fridge. To Bowl 2 I added a squirt of blue food coloring and stirred it
into the pudding. It came out slightly more green than truly blue, but it still
looked pretty cool. To Bowl 3 I added a squirt of red food coloring. I put
these in the fridge to set.
I then washed the strawberries and blueberries and cut up
the strawberries and bananas into bite sized pieces. I also crushed a handful
of the nilla wafers into large crumbles.
After I had cut the fruit, the pudding was set and ready to
go. In order, I layered White vanilla pudding mixture, Strawberries, Blue
vanilla pudding mixture, a combination of Bananas and Nilla Wafers, Red vanilla
pudding mixture, Blueberries, the rest of the White vanilla pudding mixture and
topped it off with super small crumbles of the Nilla Wafers.
This is the banana/Nilla Wafer layer. My husband LOVED the crunch right after I made it, but I love when it gets a little soggy and tastes like cake.
Looking back, I would add more fruit to the fruit layers to
make them more visible, but all in all it looks pretty cool and patriotic and
tastes DELICIOUS! My husband loved it and I can tell that this is going to
become a regular part of our 4th of July celebrations, Promotions,
Hail and Farewell’s and other army related celebrations.
Moving to the south has been quite a culture shock for me.
It’s warmer, people drive the speed limit, some people have accents, and most
radio stations play all country music or cut their country music with some
Christian music and priestly sermons. I’ll admit that I was a little
discouraged at first and kept mainly to my ipod in the car, but a couple of
weeks ago I found my radio station. Woof FM. The Wiregrass’s station for
continuous soft rock and winning, and not only a station with great music and
the occasional… ok… I haven’t heard this on the radio before, but it’s music I guess… and kinda catchy… song, but
also a source of legitimate entertainment in news, figures of speech, and
awesome finds.
Examples:
1. The 20K Giveaway. They call out cash card numbers all the
time and you win $100. If you hear the woof woof howl and you are caller number
10, you win $100. If you listen to Woof FM at work, tell them so, and they show
up and you are listening to Woof FM at work, you win a plush baby woof woof (a
what?), $100 cash, and for you and your coworkers a gift basket from Woof FM
and wait for it…. delicious food from McDonald's. (Wow. Slow claps please for the most over exaggerated description of McDonald's and an "awesome" prize.) Also, once you win any of these
prizes you are entered into the drawing for the 20K Giveaway. Good times.
2. The other day, one of the news anchors for the radio told
me that the place for me and my family to be this Tuesday night was IHOP. Free
pancakes. Now isn’t it great that my radio station lets me know when and where
there are FREE PANCAKES! It’s like college all over again. In Alabama.
3. Real news in Alabama is just awesome. Did you know that
Alabama passed the “Saggy
Pants Bill” in Montgomery County. Yes, that is what it is called and yes,
it is now ILLEGAL to wear saggy pants that show your underwear because it is
considered disrespectful. If you are a juvenile, you can be fined up to $100
and if you are an adult, you can be fined up to $150 for wearing saggy pants in
public. This bill passed in the house 59-0. Freedom of expression, watch out!
The Saggy Pants Police are out and they are hungry!
4. So this isn’t so Alabama specific, but Alanis Morissette
redid her song Ironic. As we learned in my high school, the most ironic thing
about the song Ironic is that most of it isn’t ironic at all and there are only
two instances of actual irony. See here for a breakdown of
why this is so. HOWEVER, in her new remake of the song, she added an ironic
statement! “Meeting the man of my dreams and meeting his beautiful wife” has
now become, “meeting the man of my dreams and meeting his beautiful husband.”
LOVE THIS NEW VERSION. Ironic statements and support for gay marriage all in
one fantastic line. You HAVE to check out this video and pay attention around
2:44. Also, I love the fact that my new radio station chose to play this version
rather than the older more PC version.
99.7 Woof FM!
PS. All this talk about Alanis Morissette is really making me want to watch Dogma where she plays G-d. Handstands and all. LOVE KEVIN SMITH.
As promised, I give you Claire! So last Sunday, we adopted a
puppy! She is about 10 months old and super adorable, as you can see from the
pictures. We think she is part golden retriever, and she is part chow, which we
know from her black tongue. We think she might also be part lab, but she is
also only 30 pounds so she has some smaller dog in her too. I think she might
be part English shepherd because she looks the part and she tries to herd us
when we go walking. She always stays by our side and doesn’t try wandering off,
which is great, but she also likes to circle us and gets under foot. We found
her in the Dothan classifieds. A couple of months ago she was brought to the
animal hospital because she was hit by a car. She had broken her leg and needed
pins put into her pelvis. We also think that she was mistreated in her previous
home because she was really shy around people. Because she needed more care
than could be given at the hospital, one of the volunteers took her home to
foster her. Four months later, trying to find a home, we found Claire, or
rather, Claire found us. We decided to keep the name her foster family gave her
after much discussion, little agreement, and finally adorable nicknames: My
little chocolate eclaire, and clairebear. My Clairebear hobbles all over our
living room as she is learning to put more and more weight down on her bad leg.
She had muscle atrophy in that leg from disuse as she was going through all of
the surgical procedures and recuperation, but we have seen so many strides on
so many fronts.
On the way home from her foster family, she was drooling all
over the backseat of our car. My husband was driving and I was petting her and
singing to her and trying to calm her down but she was shaking. Of course my
husband had to comment that drool can be a precursor to puke, so I was super
grateful that I was the one in the back seat with the carsick scared puppy and
not safe in the front seat driving not like a maniac of course. She was also
really afraid of people. She would shake and had to be coaxed into coming into
a room with strangers. Her foster family had other dogs, and her foster mother
told us that she would bond to us quicker because she couldn’t bond to dogs in
our apartment, but I am amazed at how true that has been and how great she has
become around people. We brought her to a friend’s house this past Saturday
night, so basically a week since we got her, and there were 4 couples. She was
a little hesitant to come inside, and proceeded to pee all over their kitchen
floor, but she warmed right up. She actually went up to one of our friends whom
she had never met before without being introduced, and I have never seen her do
that before. She also made friends with Ky, the giant husky mix with whom we
brought her to socialize. She even became so comfortable as to steal a couple
of his toys, and he is a good 50 pounds bigger than she is.
So from shy puppy who wouldn’t leave her kennel to crazy dog
that runs/hobbles around our apartment wanting to play, she is adorable. She
was even chasing her tail last night. She also jumps like a cricket when she
gets excited. She sheds like it is her job, but we got a FURMINATOR and I brush her every day so
that has kept the shedding to as much of a minimum as possible. I am amazed
that something with such a tacky name works so well, but I am glad that it
does. She is dark brown and all of our rugs are cream colored. It is also a
good thing I am not allergic to dogs, and thank goodness my father in law is an
allergist who told me so, after giving me the test as his kitchen table…
awesome I hate needles but now we have a puppy so it is ok.
