HoneyBeeHive

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Package Presents

This year I decided I wanted to do something a little different for wrapping the presents. I saw this on, wait for it....Pinterest! :) haha. Of course. Well, I thought it was awesome and just had to find a way to do it myself. :)

Now, this was a project that I had grand plans for, then was ticked off that I'd gotten this far into it and met brick wall after brick wall, wanted to quit, got pretty irritated, pushed through, and was THRILLED with the results. Just goes to show ya that the Super Parents knew what they were doing when they taught me to finish what I started. Great job guys and Thank You! :)

There are plenty of vintage stamps available for purchase on Etsy or Ebay, but when you're a procrastinator like I am, that might not always be a viable option. Instead, you have to go to google images, do some image hunting, dress them up in your favorite photo editor program, print them out on some fancy shmancy sticker paper, and put your paper cuter to work! Sometimes you just gotta take things into your own hands. :)

As for the red and white striped twine - I went to six - SIX - stores to find it and was still empty handed.... well, I gave up and settled on the red and white ribbon. I'm still a little disappointed that I never did get the twine.

I'm also a little disappointed that I didn't get the postage stamp stamp. I looked at only 4 different stores for that one. I wasn't even able to find a blank one online - I did find a bunch that had the north pole on them, but I'm not on the presents are from Santa wagon, so I decided to just use a different type of "to/from" sticker. I found the one I used here - Vintage Shipping Label.

My goal was also to use freecycled paper bags - I thought, what a great way to reuse those paper bags! But unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) not many people have paper bags these days. So instead, I headed over to Aldi and picked up some there for five cents each. Couple that with the half price ribbon, all in all, I spent about $8 on all of my wrapping paper supplies this year. Not too bad when you think about how pricey that fancy wrapping paper is. :)

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Chai Tea Cookies

Wolverine and Wiley Kat are Chai Tea fanatics! I saw CupCakes and KaleChips' recipe the other day on their Facebook and I KNEW I would be making them. What I wasn't sure of is whether or not I'd be able to smuggle any out of the house for Wiley Kat. ;)

These are so good - just crunchy little morsels with a hint of Tea Tastiness. YUM!

Thank you Wiley Kat for coming to the rescue with your Tea Stash :)

Chai Tea Cookies

What's In It:
2 c all purpose flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
contents of one Chai tea bag*
1/2 c butter, room temp
1 c sugar
1 egg
1 t vanilla extract

What To Do With It:
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.

Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar on medium to high speed for 3-4 minutes or until light and fluffy.

Add egg and vanilla, mix well. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until the dough just comes together.

Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill until firm, at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Remove dough from the fridge and roll out to about 1/4" (or a little thicker for a slightly chewier cookie) and cut into desired shapes.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden.

Cool and frost with your favorite frosting. I made our favorite and mixed in another pouch of instant chai.

*I used an instant tea package.

I will absolutely be making these again and I will also try using different tea flavors to keep things mixed up!

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Stain Remover

I would like to take a moment and publicly apologize to my stain remover. I shouldn't have doubted you.

I was in a flurry of making my own cleaners the other day because it seemed like at all once everything was down to the bottom of of the bottle. No problem, I'll make up fresh of everything (in less than 15 minutes) and I'll take pictures to show all of you.

Well, I'd never made stain remover before. I've always just purchased it and with pets, kids, a garden, and lots of experimenting around here, that can get expensive - quick! And besides the cost, who knows what kind of craziness is in there....and the fact that it was an aerosol made me die a little inside each time I used it. I know they are supposed to be safe now with no fluorocarbons and what not, but I remember in grade school the huge campaigns to get everyone to stop using them....that stuff stuck with me I guess.

So I do a little research and people seem pretty pleased with this blue dawn and hydrogen peroxide mixture. I have an extra spray bottle laying around - I think....I'll give it a whirl [Home Alone, anyone? :) ]

When I first mix it up it is blue. I am thinking to myself, won't this just leave blue soap everywhere? So I test it out on a mud stain by the back door. And yes, yes it does leave a blue soapy mess in the carpet. I then proceed to "rinse" it out of the carpet with water. :(

By this point, I have been working on my science experiment for far too long and it must come to an end. It was time to take off my mad scientist coat and put on my mama hat. Under the cabinet the stain remover goes and I'll deal with that later.

So later ends up being 2 days ago and Te-Man has decided to paint his clothing with dry erase markers. The speed at which children can go from happily drawing to graffiti artist is startling.

Almost an entire tide pen and 3 washes later, the orange marker just will not come out of his cute little swishy pants. :( What do I do....certainly not give up - I'm on the Z-Squad! ;) Ah Ha! The stain remover....let's give you a try. I pull it out of the cabinet and it's clear?!?!?! MAGIC ;)

Well, I don't know if it's magic, but it WORKED - his pants are marker free! It has since worked just as well as the store bought garbage on the carpet and the couch (I told you we were messy).

So maybe when the stain remover in your cabinet is empty, give this guy a shot. Just be sure to spot check for color fastness - the hydrogen peroxide makes me a little nervous about maybe taking the color out of stuff.

Homemade Stain Remover

What's In It:

1 Part Blue Dawn

2 Parts Hydrogen Peroxide

What To Do With It:

Mix together in a large spray bottle. Wait until the solution turns clear to use.

Brussel Sprout Bacon Pasta

Ho Lee Cow

This stuff was so good! We had it last week and it's going to be back on the menu this week! YUM!

Wolverine says, "Now THIS is how you can get me to eat my brussel sprouts!". :) Happy to oblige, sir. :)

And...it's beautiful to boot!

Brussel Sprout Bacon Pasta

What's In It:
1/2 lb spaghetti noodles, cooked
1 lb brussel sprouts, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 14oz can/jar artichokes, drained
6 slices bacon
1/2 c parmesan cheese
Salt and Pepper

What To Do With It:
Cook bacon until crispy. Set bacon aside and crumble. Add the brussel sprouts to the bacon grease that is left in the skillet and saute for 3-5 minutes. Add the artichokes and continue cooking for 2-3 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add cooked pasta to the skillet and top with parmesan cheese. Toss to coat.

*Note: I did not get tapped by the fairy wand when they were passing out pasta tossing skills. When recipes say "toss to coat" that pretty much means me flopping around a huge glob of pasta in the bowl... unsuccessfully trying to get the "goodies" to decide to hang out with the pasta. It's like an 8th grade dance in that bowl.

This pasta does not have a sauce and so there wasn't much to "lubricate" the noodles, maybe our bacon just wasn't very greasy, but the next time we make it, we were talking about making a butter/white wine reduction sauce to go with it. It doesn't need it, trust me, but we were talking about playing around with it and seeing if it could go from great to crazy awesome!

Fruit and Yogurt

Don't you LOVE it when you're at Sam's or Costco and they are giving out samples?

The other day they were handing out yogurt samples - I'm not sure the brand exactly, but they were definitely marketed to the youngins and I of course, checked the nutrition label. Over 30g of sugar in each little cup. Seriously?! That's insane! It was the first time Te-Man had eaten store sweetened yogurt and to my surprise he didn't show much more interest in it that he does at home.

What does that tell me? All of that extra sugar isn't necessary!

>Insert long rant about sugar....blah blah blah<

I'm not saying that our family is the epitome of health and that we only eat healthy foods. What I am saying is that I can tell you > 90% of the food we eat does not come out of a box or a can which means I can control everything that's in it, and I feel pretty good about that.

This is a simple way to make sure you are in control of the amount of sugar in the yogurt your kids are eating.

Fruit and Yogurt

What's In It:
2-3 c Full Fat Plain Greek Yogurt
1/2 t vanilla extract
1-2 c Fruit of Choice, frozen or thawed
Sweetener (optional)

What To Do With It:
Blend fruit until pureed. Mix into yogurt, add vanilla. Play with the fruit to yogurt ratio until you are satisfied with the flavor. Add sweetener if desired.

I know the recipe is vague, but that's kind of on purpose. I like to keep yogurt in the fridge because I use it for so many things. And we are always looking at fruit that's about 3/4 eaten and I know that in a day or two I'm going to have to throw it out and I HATE throwing food away.

So, I've started freezing the fruit on a cookie sheet and putting it in baggies. I can then take the fruit out when I want a smoothie or some yogurt and I don't have to worry about what kind of fruit I have on hand. I do this with berries, bananas, pineapple, cantelope, mangoes, cranberries, grapes, etc. I can then mix and match for any flavor I want.

I'd say that in a full 3 cups of yogurt we only add maybe a tablespoon of honey - but you can play with that too. Probably in the beginning you'll want more and then over time you can start to gradually cut it back and no one will notice. :)