Scarfs

 I may have a slight addiction to scarfs. Remember when I posted this post for example-
T-Shirt Scarfs

I even went as far as learning how to make my own infinity scarfs using my sewing machine. I gave a ton of them away one year as Christmas gifts. My husband hated the unorganized piles of scarfs laying around and he built me a a custom wall rack for my scarfs that is currently overflowing.

I wanted to share some scarf wearing tips since I tend to in the fall-spring wear them every other day-

1. Really any scarf can be an infinity scarf. Tie the two ends together and wrap it around your neck. I try to "hide" the knot with other parts of the scarf and have it on the back of my neck if I can.
2. Layer those scarfs. I have some really thin scarfs. I like to pair them with a more full scarf ( I have a great light weight grey one) to add a little volume.
3. There are literally 1 million ways to tie a scarf besides infinity. Look on Pinterest and find some interesting ways. My fashion board on there has a ton of ways I have tried. My favorite goes my many names but is pretty simple.
- Start by folding your scarf in half. Put the folded scarf around your neck. Pull one end of the scarf through the folded loop on the other side. Twist the folded loop creating another loop. Pull the remaining end of the scarf through the second loop created. It should make a fun "fashion knot".
4. Scarfs go with any outfit. You would think this is a no brainier but I tend to have people ask me all the time what to wear with their scarfs. Today for example I am wearing a t-shirt, scarf, straight leg jeans, tom's and a t-shirt sweater. A normal t-shirt may be boring but throwing on a scarf makes you look more put together instantly. Plus, it keeps your neck nice and toasty.
5. Scarfs can do double duty. Is it summer and you are going to a concert and you are freaked out about getting cold? Bring a scarf wrapped around your bag. Wear it like a shawl when the temperatures start to dip. Not only is it just enough warmth but you will look super chic.

I highly recommend getting some scarfs into your wardrobe soon the temperatures will eventually start to fall. I know I am well stocked and ready for fall/winter.

Here is Luna rocking a pirate scarf for Halloween and some glow sticks. I wish you could see the cute skull and bones on the scarf. All you can really see is the black outline. As you can tell she loves when I dress her up.








Until next time~
XoXo Emily

Pico De Gallo

There are few dishes in life that you make over and over again and that people routinely ask for. I may have mistakenly made this for work once and people now beg for it regularly. I find it funny that they beg for it because honestly it is so simple to make on your own. There are not a ton of secrets in this Pico. Now for those non-Spanish speakers pico de gallo is a fresh chunky salsa. That is the easiest way I can think of to describe it.

Things you will need-

3-4 tomatoes
half of a white onion
half of a red onion
1 can of jalapenos
1 can of mild chilies
cilantro
salt
lime juice 

Here is a picture of some juicy tomatoes I bought. Pick your tomatoes based on how juicy you want the Pico to be.

I have an issue. It sucks but I cannot cut onions at all anymore. I literally start crying right away. I managed to cut up these two lovelies by myself because the hubby was running the dog. Usually I make him cut up the onions. That is what marriage is for right!?


Back to the recipe!

1. Cut up your tomatoes and onions. I like to keep my pico de gallo chunky so I do not cut anything up finely. Throw them in a big serving bowl.
2. Add the jalapeno and chili's. I use canned because I am slightly allergic to jalapenos and bad things happen to my hands if I handle fresh ones. You can totally use fresh. I would recommend subbing out the canned for 1-3 fresh peppers. You can do the same for the chilies they

are just mild green chilies.
3. Add Cilantro to taste. You can omit this if you hate cilantro. We may not be able to be friends though if you hate it....
4. Add lime to taste.
5. Add salt to taste.

When I say to taste that is the best part. You can eat some yummy pico as you go!

This is what you should end up with. It is so fresh and tasty. I like to make it the night or day before to really allow those flavors to all mix and become happy. Scoop it up with your favorite brand of chips and you have a winner at any football game or potluck.

Now you all know my secret pico de gallo recipe and you can make it for me in the future.


Until next time~
XoXo Emily

Caramel Apple Bar

This weekend was the big party. It was extremely fun and it appears everyone had a great time. One of the tastiest parts of the Halloween party was the caramel apple bar. Everyone loves a caramel apple!

Here is what you need-              
3 pounds of caramels
Evaporated milk (3/4 a can)
Crock pot linerCrock pot
Spoon or stir stick
Plates
Parchment paper
Sticks

Toppings-

Roasted peanuts 

Oreo's

Sprinkles

Mini M&M's

Mini chocolate chips

My caramels came with sticks to make the caramel apples which was fantastic. 

WARNING! Make sure you put a liner in your crock pot so that you are not trying to scrap burnt caramel out of your crock pot late at night. 

You want to start by removing all of the wrappers from the caramels and throwing them into the crock pot at least an hour on high before people show up.  It was helpful to have six people help me with this because 3 pounds is a ton of work! As the caramel melts slowly add the evaporated milk to keep the caramel from burning on the bottom and to make it creamy and easier to dip apples in. Mix the caramel frequently until melted and then turn crock pot down to warm setting.

Prep all the toppings by cutting up nuts and smashing oreos. My friend Marshal is a oreo smashing pro. Put the toppings on plates so it is easy for people to grab. 

Rip a piece of parcenment paper off to place your toppings on. This is where you roll the apple. Make sure you make a "road" out of toppings for your apply to pick up. If your "road" is not thick enough the apple may stick to the parchment paper.

Here is how to get that perfect apple.

#1. Insert stick into apple. 

#2. Slowly roll and dip into caramel that is in the crock pot. 

#3. Allow excess caramel to drip off back into the crock pot. 

#4. Roll your apple in the toppings and make sure evenly covered. 

#5. Place on parchment paper to dry. 

It took a little of trial and error in the beginning but once I had the technique down I had everyone making perfect apples. After they were dry we placed them all in fresh parchment paper and into adorable caramel apple treat bags!

I wish I took more pictures but we were having way to much fun. 

Until next time~

XoXo Emily

Painting Pumpkins

I hate pumpkins guts. Due to this I have a love hate relationship with carving pumpkins. This year for my Halloween party instead of carving pumpkins we are doing a caramel apple bar. More on that on a later post.  (Anyway back to the pumpkins). Since we are not doing them at the party I can do whatever I want this year. I decided I wanted to paint my pumpkin. It is of course less messy and I do not have to get my arms and hands full of goop.

What you will need to do this project:
A pumpkin
Acrylic paints ( teal, white, black, red, green)
Paint brushes (I used two large and three small brushes)
A paper plate to put your paints on
Paper towel
A glass of water (I have an actual tray to clean my brushes in if you are not that fancy this works fine)
Paper bag 

First you want to clean off that pumpkin really good they can be muddy. The back of my MINI Cooper knows this all to well. It was raining and I may have thrown dirty pumpkins on the leather seats. Whoops.

Once clean set up your work station. As you can see in some of my pictures my work station is constantly an organized mess. I do a lot of projects so it is organized chaos at all times. I always have a ripped paper bag laid down when painting so I do not get my gorgeous butcher block desk all full of paint. Ryan (the hubby) would die if I let that happen.

Make sure you have all the brushes you think you will need to start. No one wants to be digging around with paint on their hands.

I painted his nose first as I knew teal would require more than one coat of paint. I then moved on to paint the white in the eyes. I thought it would be fun to have one large eye and one small one. After that was done I painted the teeth for the pumpkin. Look at those buck teeth!

 Painting the cheeks red was a fun step and challenging because it is hard to paint a circle on a round pumpkin.

I then moved onto painting the black in the mouth. This is where you want to make sure you wipe your brush off if you get any white on it. Use that paper towel for this!

Once this was completed I could start to go in and do the fine details like outlining the mouth, eyes, nose and cheeks. I also decided to draw on some crazy eye brows.

Notice the paint all over my paper bag? Protecting your working surface is so important.

The very last thing I did was add the green eyes to my funny pumpkin and the white to the cheeks.

For my very first painted pumpkin I think he turned out fantastic. What are you doing this year are you carving or painting? I hope this helped you see there are other options than carving out there.

Until next time~
XoXo Emily

Sugar Cookies

This week is a busy week. I am working a lot of overtime and trying to still manage to prepare for my big Halloween party this weekend. I plan on sharing some of my all time favorite recipes with you still. Today I am sharing a family cheat with you though. Every year for Christmas I have my girl friends over and my mom to decorate cookies. (I know it is Halloween week stick with me!) There is no way with the hundreds of cookies we do that I could home make all of the dough for the sugar cookies. I mean I could but who has time for that? So, when I am in need I sneak off to my local grocery store (Festival for you local people) and I buy a tub of dough. The tub of dough makes around 50 cookies.

For the party I wanted the cookies to be festive so I used my trusty pumpkin cookie cutter. I threw some flour down on the island in my kitchen and started rolling and cutting the cookies. We have done a lot of experimenting on what works for this process. Here are some hints on what works to make awesome shaped sugar cookies.

#1. Make sure your dough is cold. Not frozen but cold. I take my dough out of the freezer at least an hour before use and put it in the fridge. The colder the dough the better the cookies look and the less they spread all crazy.
#2. Flour, flour and more flour. You are going to need flour for your counter, for your hands, for the rolling pin, for the cookie cutter and the spatula you use so the cookies do not stick to everything. Use it liberally on everything. You may look like a mess but that is okay.
#3. Wear an apron. My mom made me a really cute one this will help you from getting cookie batter and flour all over your clothes.

#4. Parchment paper. I am blessed with double ovens at my house. What that means is that I can quickly bake 50 cookies in an hour. I do not like using a ton of cookie sheets though and I want to be able to remove the cookies quickly and reuse the cookie sheet fast. You can use two cookie sheets and quickly swap out cookies by pulling the parchment paper off the cookie sheet and cookies onto a flat surface to cool. I use my wood cutting board to cool the cookies. See how happy the cookies look on the parchment paper!
#5. Oven temperatures should be monitored. The tub of dough said to have the ovens at 350 degrees and to bake for 7-11 minutes.  Here is the kicker all ovens vary. My top oven cooks at a much lower temperature than my bottom oven. I sometimes refer to the bottom oven as hell as it burns everything. Therefore, I can set them both to 350 degrees but I need to watch the cookies and make sure I take them out before they burn. I always burn at least one batch. Whoops.

Here are the cookies in the top oven getting all golden brown.

#6. Let the cookies cool. This is important for many reasons. You want to make sure they are cool so they do not bend or break when you try to stack them. I do not know about you but I do not enough space for 50 cookies to cool sitting out currently. (My kitchen table is being worked on by my hubby which is another blog post on its own) Therefore, I have to stack the cookies after they cool for about 5 minutes then stack them. It was fine and they cooled like this until it was time to frost them. Here they are chilling. Make sure you allow enough time for them to cool or the frosting will melt off of them into a puddle.

#7. Toppings are important. A good topping on a cookie can make or break the cookie. For Christmas cookies we always use cream cheese frosting. It is fantastic. Today I used some really fun frosting from my mom. Caramel apple and maple bacon. YES, bacon and there are even little bacon bits to put on top. You can really top your cookies with anything or even eat them with nothing on them at all. Sorry, I was so focused on decorating and trying not to eat all the frosting out of the tubs I forgot to take a picture of the finished cookies. They look and taste delicious.
 #8. Storing. I actually have specific Tupperware I keep just for cookies.  You want something that you can layer the cookies in. In between each cookie layer add parchment paper so that the cookies do not stick together. Make sure you allow the cookies to sit and dry after frosting for at least an hour before storing or the frosting is going to stick to everything. Trust me it is not pretty.

Now I just need to find the willpower to save them for the party this weekend and not eat all of them. I will be temped as they sit in the containers. Dreams of bacon in my head!

Until next time~
XoXo Emily

Today Is A Gift

My husband is a rather positive individual and always knows how to make me smile. He shared some rather beautiful poetry with me today that I would love to share some with all of you. 

This is one of my favorite quotes of all time from the movie Kung Fu Panda-

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present.

Ryan (my hubby) was curious about the origin of this quote and found this insightful information-
 
In the 1902 book, "Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday: Garden Delights..." by Alice Morse Earle, it is noted that the words "Time Waits for No Man" is a play on words or punning device of "gnomon" that has been used on sun dials. A gnomon is a pointer on a sun dial. Somewhere along the way came the full quote which has been truncated by some to your version. 




The full quote often reads: "The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present." 

I find this sentiment to be beautiful. Things are going to happen in life and we cannot control we have to let it go. We have to "let it be" as my tattoo and the Beatles say. Let us take every day and cherish it as a gift and something to be relished with zeal.


 To bring some laughter to your day here is some of the loves of my life being sassy.

Luna is the husky that was digging in this picture and Stella is the Norwegian forest cat in the other picture sitting on a box. 






  
I hope you are able to do something loving for others today and try to enjoy some part of your day. Even if it is like me watching the sunset on the way to work. It was  fantastic and I would have taken a picture to share with you but I was driving. 

Until next time~

XoXo Emily 

Crock Pot Ham

Ham. My husband loves it! A couple times a year he asks for it. I am totally okay making it because I can use some of the ham for pea soup. The lovely thing about making things in your crock pot is you can set it and come home to delicious things. I use mine about once a week. This recipe is a lot of trial and error through the years.

What you will need-
Ham (try to get bone in. I could not find one in the size I wanted with the bone in so this is not bone in)
A can of coke (at least 8 ounces)
Brown sugar

Put the ham in the crock pot flat side down. I always try to get a ham that is between 4-8 pounds. Anything bigger tends to not fit in there. Trust me many times I have had to cut off chunks of meat to cram the ham in the pot.

This is when I add the 8 ounces of coke. You can substitute a lot of types of liquid here.
Some additional options-
Root beer
Pineapple juice
Sprite

I like to add some sort of liquid that has acid in it to make the ham a little tender.

Now it is time to add  that tasty brown sugar. I would say on this ham I rubbed about 1/2 cup of sugar on the ham. The amount you use is going to vary on the size of your ham. This ham was a 5 pound ham with no bone. I really wish it had the bone in but alas the grocery store failed me this shopping trip.



Does this not look extremely tasty?
I let my ham cook in the crock pot on low for 8 hours. All you are really doing is heating up the meat if it is pre-cooked. A lot of other recipes state that 4 hours is enough for cooking/warming time. That is fine but I am a working women so it gets to sit in there a tad bit longer. I have a warm setting on my crock pot and it keeps the meat warm after cooking if I am not home right at 8 hours. This is fantastic with all the long hours I put in at my job. We ate this ham for dinner last night and it was perfect. Smear some mustard on a slice and it is heaven. I will be using left overs for pea soup tomorrow. Hope you break out that crock pot sitting in your cabinet gathering dusk soon!

Until next time~
XoXo Emily