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The Big Book of Babycakes Cupcake Maker Recipes: Homemade Bite-Sized Fun!
By Kathy Moore and Roxanne Wyss
Twister Dance Review and Giveaway
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Playing games together as a family is something we love to do. And I recently had the chance for my family to try out the new Twister Dance Game from Hasbro. Now I am sure everyone is familiar with classic Twister, which is a fun party game. But now that I am older and less flexible there is no way I can twist my body into the pretzel positions that game requires! In addition the vinyl mat for Twister never folds up neatly and fits back in the box, so we rarely get it out to play. This new Twister game doesn’t require impossible body contortions, and it has separate Twister spots, not a huge vinyl mat.
Labor Day Weekend Family Game Night and Picnic
My oldest daughter, Grace, decided to come home from college for the holiday weekend, and even better she brought her roommate, Ashley, with her. They wanted to get away from schoolwork and relax for a little while. This called for some family fun, so we planned a Family Game Night picnic
Rubbermaid LunchBlox Sandwich Kit Review
With school starting up it is time to think about packing healthy lunches. Even though we homeschool we are out of the house one day a week at a homeschool co-op, so we have to brown bag it that day. We also have two long days while my daughter is attending community college, so that is another two days we need to eat lunch on the go. Packing a lunch is a great way to save money, and make sure the food we are eating is healthy and not junky fast food.
Baked Chicken with Rice and Tomatoes Recipe
When I was growing up one of my favorite meals that my mom made was baked chicken, cooked on top of rice mixed with cream of mushroom soup. But I don’t like to cook with cream soups, because they have so much fat and sodium. So this is a healthier version of that meal, using tomatoes instead of cream soup and adding more vegetables.
What is in Your Fridge Right Now?
Here is a fun Blog Carnival, started by Trisha at MomDot, the “Get to Know How Badly I Eat†Challenge. She challenged bloggers to show the contents of their refrigerators and pantry with no staging! So here is mine,
The refrigerator
Renting LOL at Redbox for a Teenage Movie Night
My sixteen year old daughter Eleanor is a huge Miley Cyrus fan. She watched every episode of Hannah Montana multiple times. She owns all her albums, and when her first movie, The Last Song, came out she went to see it in the theaters with her friends for her birthday party. So naturally she was interested in seeing the new movie starring Miley, LOL, which was just released on DVD.
Chicken with Tomatillos Recipe
This is a nice chicken stew type recipe using tomatillos. Around here we only see tomatillos in the stores for a few weeks, so it is nice to make something using them when they are available. I got this recipe from my mom, although she usually makes it with pork and I like it with chicken. It is quick and easy, and can be make in about half an hour.
Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes and Sausage
This is a quick pasta recipe with a little bit different taste. The tomatoes are roasted instead of sauted, which gives the dish a deeper flavor. I also like this recipe because it is easy to keep the sausage separate until the last minute, so I can keep it vegetarian for my daughter.
NCAA Football 13 Review with a Giveaway
NCAA Football 13 was released last week, and my son wanted a copy to try out all the new features and manage his online Dynasty team. The game was released a few days before he left for a week at Boy Scout camp, and he wasn’t expecting to get it until he got back, but I thought it would be fun to get it beforehand and play it together as a family. So I headed off to Walmart to pick up a copy.
Butternut Squash Agnolotti with Grape Tomatoes
A few days ago I posted a recipe for Buitonis Chicken Marsala Ravioli, and today I have another Buitoni pasta recipe, this time using Roasted Butternut Squash Agnolotti. This recipe is even easier than the first one! When using these kinds of gourmet filled pasta I don’t like to make a sauce that is too complicated, because I want to be able to taste all the great flavors of the pasta.
The Roasted Butternut Squash Agnolotti is filled with butternut squash, impastata ricotta, aged parmesan, grana padano and is accented with amaretti cookie crumbs. I loved this pasta, I think because it had so much cheese, and in so many different varieties. The sauce I paired it with is a simple tomato and green onion sauce, and the key to making this is not to cook the tomatoes too much. You want the tomatoes to be warm, but not completely cooked. I used multicolored heirloom grape tomatoes for this, so it would be prettier, but it would be fine with all red ones.
Chicken Marsala Ravioli in Pesto Spinach Cream Sauce Recipe
Recently Buitoni sent me some of their new filled pasta to try out! They make all kinds of yummy refrigerated pasta that is available in many grocery stores. I like that their pasta is more exotic than standard boring pasta. Cheese ravioli is good, but there is nothing special about a dinner of cheese ravioli served with spaghetti sauce. Sometimes I want a pasta dish that is more exciting, and looks like I spent a lot of time making a special dinner.
I received this Chicken Marsala Ravioli, which was delicious. It is a filled pasta with white meat chicken, roasted portobello mushrooms, onions, ricotta, parmesan and asiago cheese accented with marsala wine. It almost seems like too many ingredients for one ravioli, and it certainly isn’t boring or ordinary.
Planning Summer Fun
Summer is here and it is time to grab summer fun! With the Fourth of July approaching it makes sense to celebrate, so I planned a little Independence Day/Pool Party party for my family. The first step – buying party supplies of course!
So I headed to the store with my 16 year old daughter, who loves to plan celebrations. The first thing we needed were some more pool toys. Our rafts did not make it through the winter, but these ones look like fun.
Summer Gardens – Self Watering Planters
I love growing my own vegetables every summer, they just taste better when they are fresh picked from the garden. This week I was thrilled to find that I already have a red tomato!
WonderMill Grain Mill Review and Challenge
I recently had the chance to take the WonderMill Grain Challenge, where I was challenged to make 5 different whole grain recipes in 2 months and post about on the Grain Mill Wagon blog. This was lots of fun, and to help me complete the challenge I received this WonderMill Grain Mill
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