Cheese stuffed chicken wrapped in bacon

Simple chicken for a different taste

6 chicken breast 

Block of your favorite cheese

Pack of Bacon

Preheat oven to 350°

Cut cheese into slices 

Cut chicken breast into half

Places cheese (as much as you would like) on half of your chicken breast then place the other half on top and wrap on bacon. Repeat with the other 5 breast and place on a cookie sheet. Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until chicken is fully cooked. 

Serve and enjoy

~*~Joy~*~

Chicken Tortilla Bake

This is super quick and easy

Chicken Tortilla bake

You will need (I doubled this to feed a family of 9)

3 chicken breast (cut into pieces and cooked)

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 can diced tomato and green chiles (rotel)

1 package of tortillas (I use the 10ct) 

1 package of shredded cheese (I use coby jack)

Preheat oven to 350°

Mix your 3 cans together in a bowl (cream of chicken and tomatoes and chiles)

Cut tortillas into strips then into pieces. 

Start layering in a oven safe dish cut tortillas then some of your soup mix, then chicken pieces. Then another layer of tortillas, soup mix, chicken and end with another layer of tortillas. Bake for 40 mins uncovered. Then put a layer of shredded cheese and cover and bake for another 15 minutes. 

Once it's done it's ready to serve. My very picky kids loved it. I hope you all enjoy 

~*~Joy~*~

Making dresses

One of my many projects. 

My friend was graduating college and asked me to make her a dress. I made her this infinity dress. I have to say it was one of my favorate sewing projects. I plan to make more. I really hope things work out and I can open a little shop someday. Until then I will just have to make them for  friends and family and who ever else. Hopefully once I lose weight I will be wearing one to. 

Hope y'all enjoy

Big Red Cupcakes recipie

Big Red cupcake recipie 

You will need

1 cup butter (room temp)

11/2 cups sugar

4 eggs

3 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup Big Red (room temp)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Preheat your oven to 350° 

Beat butter, sugar on high until it's light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time mix well after each egg.

Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Then add part of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until well mixed. Add part of the Big Red and mix well.

Keep adding flour mixture and Big Red alternating them. End with flour mixture. 

Once fully mixed scoop the mix into cupcake papers about 3/4 full. (Ice cream scoop works well for this.) 

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Allow about 5 mins to cool then remove from cupcake pan to completely cool.

Once completely cooled you can frost them.

Big Red frosting

1 cup butter (softened)

3-4 cups powder sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons Big Red

Cream butter and powder sugar together. Add the Big Red one tablespoon at a time. Once you have reached a good consistency you can stop mixing and adding Big Red. Then scoop into a bag to decorate your cupcakes.

Enjoy

Kitchen is coming together

I have a little "love hate" with the kitchen. Don't get me wrong it's nice and we like it. But it's not my "dream kitchen" and not layed out how I would have done it. 

Doesn't mean all hope is lost though. Just means I get to be creative with how the kitchen is and make it how I like until down the road when I get to do a layout and design I love! I'm all about rustic mixed with stainless. But in the mean time here's how it's coming. 

First! Painted gave it a nice barn red paint job. (Side note we needed a fridge, dishwasher and range. Well our friends gave us the dishwasher and range. And we found a fridge. But the range would not have matched. It was this crazy tan color. So my husband went out and got some high temp paint made for grills and more and gave the old range a new paint job. Now it not only matches but it looks new and nice!)

Did a little decorating and setting up (at which point I'm still changing around and adding to. 

So basically the biggest change in the kitchen was the paint. Then we just did some decor items to which I'll post them and what I used on another post. 

But what I am most proud of in the change in out kitchens would be the Light fixtures I made myself. 

Starting with my bar light over the island. 

It's for mason jars for the globes and I made the boxes for the wiring and to fix it to the ceiling. I made this whole light 1 piece at at time and I'm loving them! (There will not be a how to with these. If interested in them feel free to let.)

I then made a smaller one to match to go over the sinks. 

In this view you can see both lights! They are what has made the biggest change in out kitchen aside from fresh paint. 

Bought a house

Well my husband and I finally bought a house. I had been looking for around 2 years. Him only the past year. Well once I finally got him out to look at his first house that was it. I showed him some others online but the house we saw was it. It's has 23 acres.

6 of which is cleared and the rest wooded as well as a river in the back. The house itself was built in 2006.

 So even at that it's very new house for what we are used to. The owners before finished the attic so it's got 6 bedrooms, 3 baths and a nice kitchen and dinning room, living room, den and reck room. Although they didn't put heating in upstairs when it was being sold they couldn't counted as "liveable sqft". But still even at that we got a amazing deal on the place!

But we have been in our new house almost 2 months and I've been very busy making it into what we want it to look like. 

Simple and easy start to Canning

Here are some basic things you will need. 

1.) Canner with rack (I got this one at walmart for about $20)

2.) Canning utensil kit. It comes with the jar funnel, magnetic lid lifter, air bubble remover/headspace and the jar lifter. It's better to buy the kit then each piece. (Got this at walmart for about $10)

3.) Jars. I have a case of 12, 1/2 pint size jars to can butter, jam and jellies. (Picked it up at walmart for around $7)

4.) a candy thermometer (not a must but I use it instead of having to add parcin into my jelly and jams. (Got it at walmart for around $3)

Now let's get started.

One of the first things would be to clean your pot and jars. Then put some water into your canning pot. 

Remove your two piece lids from your jars and set them aside. Next,

Fill your jars with water and place them on the rack. Once all your jars are in lift the rack then set it in the bottom of your pot. Add more water until it's about a inch or two over the jars. 

Place it on the stove with the lid on and bring the water to a boil. I boil my jars for about 30 minutes to make sure the are good and sterile. (If you have a big enough stove do this at the same time as making you contents to be jared.) Once they have boiled for 30 minutes set aside and make your contents. I'm making pumpkin butter.

As you can see my pumpkin butter is done and ready to be canned. 

Take a small pot and heat some water. Add your lids with the "glue" to the small pot of water but make sure it's not boiling. (I remove it from the heat) this activates the glue and cleans the lids.

Then lift the rack to where you can get to the jars and remove a few at a time. You need to place your hot butter into hot jars. 

I place a few on a paper towel or cloth to let the water come off. 

Next put in your funnel and fill with pumpkin butter. 

Use this tool to get out the air bubbles and check head space (pumkin butter calls for 1/4 in head space.)

Use your magnetic lid lifter to get a lid out of the hot water and place it on your jar. 

Next add the ring and tighten it finger tight. 

Repeat those steps until all your jars are filled. 

Then place all your jars back on the rack for a "hot bath".

Lower the rack into the bottom of the pot and again make sure they are fully submerged. Place on the lid and bring to a boil again. Depending on your altitude you will need to boil for different times. I'm at sea leave so mine only boil for 10 minutes. They say add roughly 10 mins for every 1000 feet. 

Once brought to a boil and left for their slotted time. Removed from the pot and place on the conter to cool. 

Once they cool listen for them to pop. Once they are cooled you can touch the lids and as long as they don't move your jars are sealed and good to go. 

You can store your jars in a cool dark place for up to a year. Make sure to mark when they where made/sealed. 

Good luck on your canning adventure. If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment and I will answer them. Thank you.