Honey Butter With Marshmallow Crème

I dare you to make this stuff and not stick your finger in it.  It’s so fluffy and perfectly sweet.  It is the best honey butter I have ever tasted, EVER!  We had this honey butter once at a BBQ/party that we went to, for years I searched and searched for the recipe.  I finally found it at Real Mom Kitchen. 

The secret ingredient:

My Favorite Honey Butter Recipe

2 sticks butter, softened
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup marshmallow fluff

Whip all together with an electric mixer and serve at room temperature (can be refrigerated and softened).

 

So easy and so delicious!  One thing, a Marshmallow Crème jar, like the one pictured, is one cup, so I usually double the recipe and put it all back in a quart jar.  It keeps well in the fridge for quite a while. 

 

This year for neighbor gifts I think I’ll make some bread/rolls and give them with a little jar of this honey butter . . . still thinking about it . . .

Strawberry Pretzel Salad

This year for Thanksgiving we were planning on having both my family and my husband’s family here at our house.  But the day before my in-laws had to cancel due to the horrible weather.  So I was talking with my husband about what he wanted me to make, you know those special things that you always had at Thanksgiving growing up.  That your mom makes every year.  I realized that we didn’t really have a traditional dish for our “new” family.  This Strawberry Pretzel Salad, was the first thing that came to mind.  This recipes was given to me by a college roommate, I don’t make it often, but I absolutely love it.  It really probably shouldn’t be called a salad since it is not that healthy, more of a dessert really. 

{Photo Courtesy:  All Recipes}

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups crushed pretzels

3 tablespoons sugar

3/4 cup butter or margarine

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

1 cup sugar

1 12-ounce Cool Whip 

1 6-ounce package Strawberry Jello

2 cups boiling water

1 -10 ounce bag frozen sliced strawberries

Whipped cream or Cool Whip for garnishing

 

Directions

Topping: Add 2 cups boiling water to Jello; mix well. Add strawberries to jello. Cool Jello mixture in fridge until thick.

Crust: Melt butter; add sugar. Crush pretzels with rolling pin and add to butter mixture. Press into bottom of greased 9×13 inch baking pan. Bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees; cool well.

Filling: Combine cream cheese and 1 cup sugar; beat well. Add Cool Whip; spread over cooled crust. Pour or spoon thickened jello mixture over cream cheese mixture and set until firm. Spread additional Cool Whip over the top, cover with foil & refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

I’m linking up to these parties! 

 

If you are here from a link party, I am in desperate need of help!  I would love your opinion as to which Christmas card design to choose this year!!  I would much appreciate your help, you can click HERE to see the post about my Christmas card dilemma!  Thanks!

Spinach Salad

I am a picky eater.  But boy do I love this Spinach Salad With Sugared Almonds and Poppy Seed Dressing, but we just call it Spinach Salad.  It is definitely something new and refreshing compared to your regular, iceburg lettuce, tomato, and ranch dressing salad.  Don’t be scared, it is still super simple to make!

We had this at Thanksgiving this year, but it is yummy all year long.  Your friends will be so impressed that you made your own sugared almonds and dressing (like it’s really that hard!  But don’t tell them that!)

{Spinach Salad}
1 head lettuce

1 bunch spinach

3/4 lb. sliced mushrooms

3/4 lb. grated Swiss or Mozzarella Cheese

1 red onion

1/2 lb. bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 cup mandarin oranges, drained

1/2 cup slivered almonds

3 Tbsp. sugar

 

 

{Dressing}


3/4 Tbsp. poppy seeds

1/3 Cup White vinegar

3/4 cup oil

1/3 cup  sugar

1 Tbsp. grated onion (opt)

3/4 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. prepared mustard

 

{Directions}

Cook sugar and almonds over low heat until light brown. 

Mix first 5 ingredients; sprinkle almonds, bacon, and oranges over the top.  Serve with Poppy seed dressing. 

 

{A few things to note}

The oranges can make things a little soggy so add them at the last minute.

I always double the almonds and sugar because they make this salad so yummy and special.

But watch the almonds very carefully when you are cooking them, once the sugar starts to get brownish and forms little clumps things go quickly and burned almonds and sugar stink!

It is super delicious to add Crasins and/or strawberries.

This makes a ton of dressing, we fed eight people at Thanksgiving and we hardly made a dent in the dressing.  But it keeps well in the fridge.

 

 

{Photos Courtesy:  Food.People.Want}

Thanksgiving Recap

I have not gone completely crazy, I know the Thanksgiving boat has sailed.  It is over.  But I wanted to do a little “Thanksgiving Recap” and share my favorite recipes from our Thanksgiving this year and our small but lovely Thanksgiving décor. 

First up on our recap:

I have this HUGE shelf in our dining room.  I love it, it sure holds A LOT of “stuff”.  Here is what it looked like for our Thanksgiving feast. 

Left to Right:
Huge glass cookie jar, stuck in some silk leaves with double sided tape, added fallish ribbon. 

“Keep Calm and Gobble On” free printable found {HERE}

Pumpkin with brown ribbon

12 X 12 frame with fallish scrapbook paper and brown ribbon

Tall tin bucket/vase filled with weedish/wheat from our front yard

 

For the table I made some toilet paper pumpkins.  Leaf placemat from Walmart on clearance for a $1.  Lots of little leaves leftover from my “We All Fall Down” sign.

 

Yes, I took a picture of just a napkins.  I found these at Michael’s for $1 and loved them so much I just had to buy them!

 

I made these little trays with Dollar Store candle sticks and plates.  The plan was to be able to use the in December too, so I added a brown ribbon to make them less Christmasy and my Thanksgivingy.  {Check out this post for the how-to’s on making these easy inexpensive stands}

 

Next up my FAVORITE side dish recipes!

Caramel Apple Turkey

Today for the first time ever I made homemade caramel!  Yeah!  The even better news is that it wasn’t a complete bomb.  I made some caramel apples to take to some women in my church that I work with.  Since caramel apples can be a little Hallweenie and that ship has long since sailed, I decided to use this idea that I found at Be Different . . . Act Normal, to Thanksgiving-ify things.  {Honestly I was sort of lazy and didn’t make all of them into turkeys.}  

I used this caramel recipe from Get Off Your Butt . . . And Bake!  Greatest recipe/blog/instructions EVER! 

{Action shot, how is it that Sweet and Condensed Milk makes everything soo good?}

 

I dipped my apples in caramel (of course) and then in semi-crushed up Reese’s Pieces and chopped pecans. 

 

Wrapped ‘em up in celophane (which I have decided is another one of my crafting musts.  Love that stuff.  Buy the huge roll at Michael’s with a coupon).  Added a ribbon and tag, and they are good to go. 

 

To make your caramel apple into a turkey:

Cut out feathers, head, beak, gobbler, eyes.  Glue eyes, beak, gobbler, smaller feathers to head.  Attach head feather to toothpicks with tape.

Insert toothpicks into finished cooled caramel apples. 

Here’s to what’s left of Fall!  Or what was left of it, we’ve had our first official snow, good stuff that has actually stuck around and not melted away.  Happy Thanksgiving!

 

I am linking up to all these awesome parties this week!

Three Little Turkeys

I posted about these cute little turkeys {HERE}.  And you can find the tutorial on Ucreate by Craft Goodies {HERE}.  I have been dying to make my own!  I ended up having almost everything I needed on hand, but have now exhausted my jumbo popsicle stick supply, so they where easy to pull together.

Two things I didn’t have, paint sticks and feathers.  I picked up my paint sticks at Lowe’s they were free and they had jumbo size, which was perfect for my bigger turkey.  The other thing I didn’t have, feathers.  Checked the Dollar Store and Walmart and found NO feathers!  I finally found some at Michaels’, actually almost a whole isle of feathers!  But I ended up using  raffia in place of feathers so it didn’t matter anyway. 

And now for the big reveal . . . .

 

If you would like rosy cheeks like Wendy’s turkey remember to do that BEFORE you Modge Podge on your beak and gobbler (no one at my house knew the official name of the red hangy beak thing, do you?).  Because after you Modge Podge all over you face, it ain’t comin’ up and there’s no going back. 

Turkey Quesadilla

As in a quesadilla that is made to look like a turkey not a quesadilla with turkey inside, just to clear that up. 

My toddler’s lunch looked like this today.  In honor of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday we had a day learning about turkeys.

 

{To Make Your Own Turkey Quesadilla}

The head is a Jumbo Marshmallow cut in half.

I glued everything on the head with peanut butter.

The legs and beak are cheese cut into small rectangles for the legs and a triangle for the beak. 

 

P.S. I have a fun toddler friendly turkey craft to post tomorrow!

“We All Fall Down” {Fall Décor}

Made this to add to my “Fall Décor”.  I was inspired by Lorie at Be Different . . . Act Normal, she has this fun way of labeling her posts, her label for fall is “We All Fall Down”.  So I took it and ran with it. 

{Supplies}
burlap
cardboard
stapler
paper
Modge Podge

 

{To Make}

Cut up your cardboard box, I used a Costco diaper box.  I kept a side and the bottom and then folded it in half at the seam.  I thought two layers would be better than one.

 

Fold in half, tape together well.  Measure burlap, cut down to size of cardboard with about two extra inches on each side.
Staple burlap to cardboard, pulling tightly.  Doesn’t have to be too pretty, this will be the back.

 

I used my Cricut to cut out my tree and about 60ish leaves.  (Both came from the “Stretch Your Imagination” cartridge my wonderful hubby got me for Christmas last year.)  I laid out the leaves before I Modge Podged everything down.

 

Finished!  Love it!  Every time I walk past it I feel so proud. 

I {Heart} Thanksgiving Printables

Now I don’t want to be negative or anything, but the other day I was reading through my blogs in my Google Reader and came across a crafty blog where the author was discussing how she thinks Thanksgiving is boring!  I was shocked, maybe I took it a little to seriously, but still was shocked!  I won’t go into Christmas decorations being put in the stores earlier every year, blah, blah, blah, Christmas music, blah, blah, blah, commercialization, blah, blah, blah.  I won’t rant about those, but really Thanksgiving gets passed over.  And I don’t think it is boring, but to each their own. 

Now I am going to get to my point.  There are a ton of cute printables (FREE!) out there in blog land.  I have been waiting for just the right ones to print off and add to our Thanksgiving decorations (which only consists of a wooden turkey my mom just gave me, and some fall pumpkins that aren’t too Halloweeny, so they are staying out for another month). 

I just uploaded these two puppies at Sam’s and cannot wait to go pick them up tomorrow afternoon!  So excited!  I have empty frames just waiting to be filled.

{THANKSGIVING SUBWAY ART} by Bunch of Craft

 

There is also {THIS ONE} from Craftily Ever After, but I felt like other matched our décor a little better. 

 

The {SECOND ONE} I am printing, is also from Craftily Ever After:

 

I think I am going to print some of these off for my the sisters I Visit Teach to give to them this month!

Larry the Turkey Cupcakes

This is another one of my favorites from last year.  Honestly probably the fanciest and funnest (I know, not a word) cupcakes I’ve ever made.
I originally found the idea HERE at Duncan Hines.
I somewhat tweaked the decorations, here’s a little break down of what I used:

It is looking like we might be having Thanksgiving at our house this year, I am wondering if I’m going to be crazy enough to make these . . . maybe . . . we’ll see. 

Oreo Turkeys

It is only the fifth day of November and already my “Thanksgiving” bookmark folder is bursting with fun ideas!  I can’t wait to try them all out!  First I wanted to share one of my favorites from last year.  I made these cute little Oreo Turkeys from Cookies and Cups with my friends’ little boy who was about three at the time.  We had so much fun, even though a lot of our “Turkeys” turned into spiders, but still a fun project!

Oreo Turkey

For complete instructions click {HERE}

 

And I can’t help but share a fun song for the kiddos about a turkey named Albuquerque.  My students last year loved this one!  It is even more fun (if your kiddos are old enough) to have them try to spell “Albuquerque”!

Albuquerque Turkey
Sung to: "My Darlin Clementine"

Albuquerque is a turkey
And he's feathered and he's fine
And he wobbles and he gobbles
And he's absolutely mine!
He's the best pet you can get yet
Better than a dog or cat
He's my Albuquerque turkey
And I'm awfully proud of that!
And my Albuquerque turkey
Is so happy in his bed
'Cause for our Thanksgiving Dinner
We have spaghetti instead!

Song Found: www.canteach.ca