Banana Nutella pumpkin bread (or muffins)

As promised, here's the yummy recipe I got from Pinterest :

Banana Nutella Pumpkin Bread
What you’ll need:
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter – softened
2 eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 over ripe bananas – mashed
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons Nutella – divided

What to do:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add sugar and butter to your mixing bowl. Mix together until light and creamy. Add: eggs, vanilla extract. Mix until well combined. Add mashed bananas and pumpkin puree. Mix until well combined.

2. Add flour, salt and baking soda to a bowl. Whisk together to combine. GRADUALLY add flour mixture to wet ingredients. Mix until well combined. Batter will be thick.

3. Spray your muffin pans {or loaf pans} with cooking spray. Fill each 3/4 way full. Add 1/2 teaspoon Nutella to each. Using a toothpick, swirl Nutella through batter. Bake for approximately 40-45 minutes until bread passes the toothpick test.

(I did 2 muffin pans with liners minus 3 I think ,for about 21 minutes)

The girls were so delighted to have them for breakfast and the hubby even took some to work!
Mmmmmm.....I love fall!

My hands are on fire! (and a recipe:)

I know most people have heard the warnings.  I  have heard the warnings. But I ignored them. And I am paying the price. Oh, yes, the jalapeno burn price:) 

I decided to post this to save all my friends out there the burn. Oooooooh the burn!!! 

The other night I decided to make up one of our favorite snacks for an appetizer since my dad was making dinner. (I will post the easy peasy recipe at the end, even though I am mad at it) I was in a hurry and gutting jalapenos with a knife like always, but then also with my hands to speed up the process. I was so worried about getting all those little firey seeds out that I seemed to forget exactly what I was doing. When I was done gutting 10 of them I washed my hands like I always do. But I guess because I was scraping them with my hands so much, which is not the norm...the simple handwash did not do the trick.

 I reached up and itched my nose....

oh no. oh no. no, not the buuuurn!

about 30 seconds later my dad walked in, and I think I had tears in my eyes. My nose was on FIRE!!!!! Oh my burning nose! Who knew your skin could burn like that???

Not me. Thats for sure. It burned for atleast 30 minutes.

This is not the end of my tale. Oh no. I wish it were.

I went out to my dads to eat and my hands started to burn. Oh did they burn!! It felt like I had touched a hot pan for a second. It just wouldnt ease up. I complained a little and of course all my dad could do was snicker a bit and say "gloves, Aprill, gloves" 

Thanks dad-o.

Now this was 2 days ago...and still every morning after I shower, they burn again!!!! What the heckel??? Why?? Water activating burning? Sounds wrong to me.

So from now on, I will be wearing full on, up to the elbow (or maybe even armpit) gloves when I go within 10 feet of a jalepeno. 

They can and will get you!!! Watch out friends!

Who knew there were mountain hardwear gloves called : Jalapeno gloves:)

So, the simple but delicious recipe is:

cut the jalapenos in half, lengthwise and completely scrape out all the seeds. (with gloves!!!, for the love of your skin!)Lay them on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until they are lighter green and curling at the edges a little(once they lose their crunch)

Then you mix in crushed up bacon and cream cheese(about 8 oz. for 10 jalepenos, so 20 halves) in a baggie and cut off the corner. 

Take the jalepenos out of the oven and squeeze your cream cheese mixture into the shells. Stick them back into the oven about 10-17 minutes or until the cream cheese turns light brown on top. 

DEL-I-CIOUS!!

BUT, a WARNING!!!!: Some of them are hotter than a slap-yo-momma hot! and some are deliciously mild. I like to call it a game of Russian roulette. You dont know what you are going to get. After 2 of the hot ones in a row I had to quit the game this time. I fold. 

Now, if you really love them like my dad, there is a cool little rack you can buy for cooking them! Then you just cut the top off and stuff them. in the beginning and let the mixture cook the whole time. Look at this thing:

Spicy Garlic Shrimp and pasta

Can you say deliciousness??? My dad  and I were out working on some projects the other night and he invited me in for dinner. I am always surprised by how quick and simple this dish is for how amazing it is. 

All he does is saute the shrimp (or you could do chicken) in a delicious amount of butter and garlic for a few minutes until beautifully pink.

In the meantime, boil the noodles(we used linguine, but ANY will do).

In the last couple minutes he added some crushed red pepper flakes and the noodles.

He also added some asparagus from his garden this time in while sauteing. Then add the noodles to the rest and toss.

OMG. Yup, I said it, O to the M to the G. So good and so simple. 

Thanks pops!

AMAZING White Bean Chili

I am sitting here at 11:49 PM eating. Yes eating. I've told you about my obsession with food, so I think its time I blog about it a little more. 

My dinner was SO delicious that I had to have another bowl. Yes, I am, in a way tooting my own horn. But really I am tooting Paula Deans horn. hehe. 

I have to give you the recipe and then the little changes I made. It is soo good that papa asked for leftovers.(they are in a jar in the fridge pops:) In case you don't know he is my chef of a father. So that is a compliment:)

Here it is straight from the food network. Ill put my variations in parentheses after each part I changed.(cause I love me some parentheses. And because I can.)

Ingredients

• 1 pound dried navy beans ( I used 2 cans of white beans and 1 can white kidney beans.)
• 5 cups chicken stock
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 3/4 cup diced onion
• 1 1/2 cups chopped green chiles (fresh or canned) (i used 2-4 oz. cans)
• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 to 2 teaspoons ground black pepper(I used 1)
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
• Pinch red pepper flakes
• 1/2 bunch cilantro leaves, chopped

Directions

Rinse beans well, cover with cool water, and soak for 2 hours. Drain. Put the beans in large pot with the chicken stock and bring to a boil over high heat. (You get to skip this 2 hours if you use the canned beans like I did. Which made step one for me just mixing the broth and beans over med. heat while I prepared the rest).

In a saucepan, heat the butter over medium heat. Add the garlic, onion, and chiles and saute for 5 minutes. Add chile mixture to pot with beans. Add the chicken, cumin, oregano, pepper, white pepper, red pepper flakes, and cilantro. Lower the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, for approximately 1 1/2 hours. Serve with cornbread, if desired.

(I sliced corn tortillas, put them on a baking sheet, sprayed with evoo and baked at 350 for 15 minutes. Yummy, crunchy dippers!!!)

**note: This was about a 'medium' (salsa speaking) in spiciness. So if you wanted less, just omit the crushed red pepper and maybe add less black and white pepper too)

Oh, my it is delish!!! We love chili around here, so thought we'd try it with a new twist. You are going to want to try this!

Macie Grace is turning 6!!

I cant believe our little girl is 6 this week!!!! Where did the time go?!! I remember bringing her home from the hospital, her first bath, her little badger baby cooing sounds, cuddling her up in her blankies….oh the memories.

I know, even though I say I don’t, I like to have my birthday be MY day. Brandon and the girls make my meals, get me things, do whatever they can to make it MY special day. So I want the same for the girls. I want them to remember their birthdays as special days. I want there to be traditions they look forward to and cherish. This year are in Vegas away from most of our friends and family, so I don’t want Macies mind to be on that. We are having a little party with just us and her grandparents ( thank goodness for them), but we are going all out. Well, $20 all out. No, really! I am challenging myself to only spend $20, but make it big. I have so many supplies already and so many ideas floating around in my head (and on my pinterest board) So, I'm going with the motto: “why buy, when I can make” Now on the third hour of making the giant ‘6’ pinata I was seriously questioning this motto, but I forged on. I have made a bunting banner, a pinata, tissue paper flowers, cake stands, cupcake flags, painted trays and frames and still have lots to do. Brandon is also making a slideshow to music to show at her dinner. She chose hamburgers, hot dogs and fries as her bday dinner. I cannot wait for Wednesday and to show you all the pictures of the result. I want to show how much you can make without the party store. I think homemade is way nicer looking too. I'm also hand making some gifts for her. A quilt, a mermaid costume for her doll, a chair and a birthday tshirt. Here is the shirt for her to wear on her birthday to school.

Who wouldn’t want to wear a giant number shirt???? Well, I guess at a certain age you wouldn’t, huh? Please no one make me a giant 3-0 shirt in 18 months. I may cry. But, 6 is cool.

We also made cookies for her class tomorrow and cupcakes for the party.

Heres a couple sneak peaks at her bday preparations. Ill be back in a few days to show the party.....cant wait!!!

You getting the color theme here?

Happy Birthday tomorrow baby girl!!!

Christmas in the desert

The girls had a great Christmas! One of the highlights of it all was their shock when they walked into this:

They didn’t know what to do. I don’t think they quite realized who they were for. They are complete with their names on the license plates and “Princess” plates on the back. They have been riding them around the neighborhood non stop.

They were also just as thrilled every day when the mail came. It was amazing the love we saw in that mailbox in the days leading up to Christmas. Thank you everyone who sent them something. When a card came with their name on it, they ran home, yelling as they opened the door to go show daddy.

What a great time of the year with family and fun!!

And we again ate waaay to much delicious food! Thanks grandma!!!

BBQ and M and M's

I did FINALLY get to do some garage sale browsing this weekend and got a few cute finds. I got a few cool frames for some chalk boards, a great white serving dish and some decorative balls:) hehe.

I also got this cute little stand for the kitchen that I'm going to redo.

Some more adventures here in Nevada:)
 We found a cool shopping/food center called "The District". Someday I will have a visitor and can shop there:) Anthro, Pottery Barn, Ben and Jerrys, Loft and the list goes on and on. We walked around and ate at the DELICIOUS Lucilles BBQ.

They look excited to eat:)



Yuuumy!



We also took a trip down to the strip with the girlies. We took them to the MGM to see the Lions habitat...awesome! This picture does not do it justice. We also got to walk underneath them while they were laying down WITH the trainers!

Then we went to

'their castle" , the Excaliber.

and to M and M world

This is my quick attempt at a panoramic. People just wouldn't hold still!!:)



Vegas Baby!!!!

An evening in Papas garden

My dad has had an amazing garden going for the past couple years and the other night we decided to go take a gander with him while he was watering. I was thinking about how I wont be able to do that soon.....just "wander" out to the garden. Its so peaceful to be outside enjoying North Idaho. Heres a peak at some of its goodness.....Good Job on all the goods papa and Chuchie!

Beautiful right?? Now go eat your veggies and enjoy some outdoors!