Fabric basket....

I followed the tutorial on http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2008/05/tutorial-fabric-basket.html  and made the cutest little fabric basket. It was for a very last minute birthday gift. It turned out really cute and was pretty easy to make following the tute. I will be making many more for sure!

The list of gifts and storage you could put in them is endless!

I'm such a mean Mom!

Yesterday as I was making turkey soup I said to T,

"I feel like such a Mom wearing my apron and making homemade soup."

To which he replies with,

"Ya, and not letting me play video games!"

In my defense I have to mention that the day before he had hit his head quite hard on a locker at school resulting in a headache. Am I so mean for thinking it was not a good idea for him to stare at the TV screen with a headache?

Homemade Turkey Soup

If there is one meal my family all likes it is my homemade turkey soup. OK, T picks the carrots out but that boy is impossible to please! He would live on cheese and cereal if I let him. I think I can only recall 1 time where I did not use the leftover turkey for soup. I take all the meat off the bones and put the bones in a pot along with the skin. I cover it with water, a little bit more water than bones, and I add fresh chopped garlic & spices and let it simmer for a good 3 hours or more. I check on it every once in a while and give it a stir and a sniff :) Then answer "turkey soup" to everyone who comes in the house and asks "Mmmm, what's that smell?" After 3 hours or so I strain all the bones out of the soup, turn off the stove and let it cool down. Then I put the entire pot into the fridge. The next day (yes, my soup is a 2 day process) I scrape the fat off the top of the soup, put it back on the stove and heat it up. Then I add all kinds of yummy healthy stuff like chopped turkey meat, carrots, celery and egg noodles. Although this time I used potatoes instead because I had no egg noodles. Then I add the only non-natural ingredient in my soup; chicken OXO or Bovril. Cook all that good stuff up and pop some biscuits in the oven and dinner is done! I must have been so excited to eat the soup because I foprgot to take a pic of it when it was done. Either that or I was too tired after being in the kitchen all day baking and cooking!

Popcorn Cake!?!?!?

Popcorn Cake ... sounds weird, doesn't it? I must be living under a rock cuz when I found it online I thought that it was something the blogger, herself, had created. Not the case at all! I found out that everyone knows about it and they all claim that their Grandma made the bestest one ever! Ummm Grandma, you never made this for me. Hmm, maybe she forgot? Or, more than likely, she didn't make it because (as she has stated a million and one times) she hates cooking!Anyways, I knew right away that this was something I just HAD TO make! All that sweet, gooey and salty yumminess just called out to me! "Lisa, make me. You know you wanna." OK, twist my rubber arm ;) Basically it is like Rice Krispie squares with M&M's and broken pretzels. And instead of cereal you use microwave popcorn. I only made half a recipe because I didn't know if my guys would even like it. BIG MISTAKE! We all loved it; except for my littlest guy but he doesn't really like anything. Kinda like Mikey on the old Life cereal commercials. Now I am really dating myself! If you have no idea who Mikey is then you are probably too young. But here's a youtube link if anyone is interested. I watched it a couple times. So cute!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYEXzx-TINc

The only change I made to the recipe was that I used smarties instead of M&M's. Only because after Christmas I got 2 huge bags of them for 16 cents a pound! Oh, and I used a cookie sheet instead of a bundt pant cuz then it would cool faster ... meaning we could eat it faster! Smart thinking, right? :)