Stay-Soft Brown Sugar

Everyone has "tricks" to keep their brown sugar soft. I have heard them all, and even tried them all. (Anyone ever put a piece of bread in your brown sugar container?) And guess what? They NEVER work! Sorry, but they don't.

 

A million years ago (maybe like 10) when we got our vacuum sealer, I started putting my brown sugar in jars and then sucking the air out - it worked great!  Then, I got lazy and stopped using the sealer.  It STILL worked great!!  I have been putting my brown sugar in jars ever since, and never ever ever had one speck of hardened brown sugar.  Seriously.  It's that easy.  Who knew?

 

 

 

When I open a new bag of brown sugar, I just pour as much as I can into a wide-mouth jar* and then poke it down with the tip of a spoon. I don't pack it tight, but kind of jab at it, so it fits better and gets any lumps out.  I keep doing that until it's almost to the very top.  Then I just store them in my pantry to use as needed.

 

 *I use wide-mouth so it's easier to spoon out.  And I also like the smaller jars, but you really can use any kind you want.

 

 



So that's it!  I recently converted my sister to this jar method and she loves it!  Try it and see what you think.  

 

2 Week "Power Cooking"

I have done what I call "Power Cooking" for years, but it was always for myself. (Chicken breasts, sweet potatoes, etc. so I could have healthy food to eat during the week.)

 

I never thought of doing it for my family! Ha! Well, people have inspired me - and I thought I would finally give it a go. :)  I have teenage boys in sports/school activities, a husband who works late, a 9 year-old and a 2 year-old who can't wait that long for dinner.  It was really hard to make dinner when everyone eats at different times!

 

So after reading lots of blogs and checking out books from the library - I decided to start small and just try the 2 week meal idea first. 

 

My family is not big on repeats, unless I have a few weeks in between, so I actually printed out a blank calendar and made a 6 week menu.  I made 11 meals for the freezer (we'll have baked potatoes, hoagies, etc. on the other nights, so I didn't need to freeze anything for that.)  So some of the meals that I had doubled, will actually be used later in the month.

 

Note: These are not complete meals that you just take out of the freezer and cook.

I decided I wanted to use my family's favorite meals, that I would be making normally, but just figure out a way to make them easier and have most of the cooking done ahead of time.

 

These look really gross, sorry - I took the picture after everything was frozen. I was worried that they would sit out too long otherwise.

 

Next time I do my power cooking, I think I will do a whole month (yikes!) and see how that works. :o

 

Here is my menu:

Pork Tenderloin (2 meals)

Old-Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup - I froze just after you shred the chicken, before you add noodles and milk.

Beef Enchiladas (Just the filling, because the tortillas get really soggy if you make it first and freeze it. Trust me - yuck!)

Chicken Marinade (2 meals worth) - I just froze the chicken right in the marinade, so it will marinate as it thaws and then we just throw it on the grill!

Pasta e' Fagioli Soup - As with the chicken soup, I froze it before adding the pasta.  I will just let both soups simmer and warm up awhile first.

Baked Potatoes with Chili

Lasagna (2 pans) - Assemble and freeze in a disposable pan.  Easy peasy.

Chicken & Wild Rice Soup (I froze the chicken and veggies to assemble in the crock pot.)

Hoagies

Tacos (Meat only) - Brown meat, add seasonings, cool and freeze.

California Wild Rice Salad (I froze the cooked, shredded chicken only, for this recipe.)

Potato and Ham Chowder - Could freeze the chopped onions and ham - I didn't.

Homemade Mac-n-Cheese (my kiddos LOVE it)

1 night to eat out - when I do my next day of Power Cooking!!

 

I even went crazy and cooked bacon to freeze and also made cookies! (I freeze the dough in balls, so we can just pop them in the oven anytime.)

 

 

Okay, so I just made the oatmeal cookies today - whatever. haha :) I think I will always freeze extra any time I am in the 'baking mood', especially for the holidays! 

 

So you see that nothing repeats, and I actually have some meals to use for next time!  Yay!

 

I am really excited to do this again - it's kind of fun to have all the hard work over and done with.

 

It only took me about 4 hours, but I will say that my back was killing me and the kitchen was a total mess! haha

Which is why I plan on eating out the night I do my power cooking! :)

 

 

 

Have fun cooking, everyone!!

Fun Summer Cards

I have a confession.... I hate scrapbooking! Hate it! I don't know why. I think it might be because it takes for-ev-er just to make one page, and I have mountains of pictures. Ugh!

I do however LOVE to make cards! Once you figure out your card design, you can whip up like four at once.  And they are sooo cute. 

I also love summer!!

So today I thought I would just post some of the fun summer cards that I have made in the past.

My sisters and I get together and have card-making weekends, where all we do is make cards. So fun! :)



For the cones - I just scored some tan cardstock, cut it to look like a cone and sponged a bit of brown ink over it.  Then, I cut a circle with a scalloped punch, and cut off part so it looks like ice cream scoops.  The background is a Cuttlebug embossing folder.  Pretty simple.

These are flip flop cards that I made with some really great Hawaiian paper that I found.  I just made a template shaped like a flip flop and cut them out.  Then, punched holes and used ribbons for the top.

This one is a fun shaker card that kids would love.  You can find lots of tutorials online for shaker cards - they are pretty easy to make.  I filled it with sand and tiny shells.

My little sister really liked this card - me, not so much.  I don't know why - maybe it's just the lettering, I don't know. We ran the tan paper through my cuttlebug, scored it and then flipped it over so it looks kind of like a graham cracker.  Then, we used the scalloped punch for the bite marks.

I really like the colors in this popsicle card - so summery!

WARNING:  I have a bunch of lemonade cards coming up....sorry - I was obviously on a lemonade kick one day! haha :)

This is just a pocket card.  I made some of these for hot cocoa in the winter.  I don't even know if you can still buy lemonade packets like this anymore.  It would be cute to put a bunch of those individual water bottle flavor packets in a pocket card, too.

This is a matchbox card - basically it just folds the opposite way a normal card does, and you use a staple to hold it.  Super simple.

Here is the inside.

This last one is a lip gloss card that I made for my Activity Day girls a couple years ago. (I can't believe I still had one left!) haha

You can't see it very well, but there are tiny clear beads along the rim of the glass.  The colors are fun, too.

The inside holds a lip gloss!  You can also search for lip gloss card tutorials - I'm sure they are all over the place. :) 

Well, that's it for now.  Have a fun summer!! :)