Well that's the pits!

 

You know what's the pits?  Having been gone for so long!  Thankfully I had a loyal reader email me asking to come back and with school out I'm able to find a little more free time.  You know when things get busy, a Mama has to take care of her family first. But I will try to find a few minutes for all of my fans too!  You know what else is the pits?  Having a big ol' bag of fresh cherries and no cherry pitter!

Not a problem for Ma Bacon.  I found out that Bacon Jr. and Bacon bit share my love of cherries.   So I found a good sale and decided to treat us to a yummy and healthy snack.  I was able to describe to Bacon Jr. how to not eat the pit inside, but there is just no way to give a toddler a cherry and have him not eat the pit!  But my dilemma was that I didn't have a cherry pitter.  And honestly I didn't want a tool I'll only use a few times. I knew there had to be a way to pit all the cherries without one and you know I found it!  I searched online and found some people using paper clips.  When I tried that I just couldn't get the pit out right and it took FOREVER.  When you have a toddler who thinks he's starving waiting on a bowl of cherries even a minute is forever!  So to make the process go faster- I found a trick using a pastry tip, which thankfully I happen to have lots of.

First start off with washing your cherries. I think you can figure out how to do this right?! Next I had to find my pastry tip. I had a lot of these cheap plastic ones. It seemed to be the right size and it had the little 'teeth' on it so I used that.  I think a metal one would hold up better, but I made due with what I had.

 Once I got the pastry tip, I took a cherry and picked off the stems. This is an excellent job for all those little helpers around my house!  All the stems off? Can you tie them in a knot with your tongue? Not many people have this talent that Sis Bacon and I have!  It's not easy.  And not necessary to pit your cherries either!  Take a cherry with the side you removed the stem down and place it on the top of the pastry tip.  Then gently, that is a key word because if you push too hard you will get cherry juice everywhere, down on the cherry.  The pit will jump right out.  No not all of them come out as nice as this one. It all depends on how ripe your cherry is.  Some split apart, and some jump out from the side.  It makes it all the more exciting!

Take the pit and toss it on your pit pile and start again.  This actually goes really fast. I was able to pit my whole bag of cherries in under 10 minutes. 

Now since I used a plastic pastry tip it did bend a little.  That's ok, I just bent the prongs back and kept going. This is where a metal tip might work a little better. 

 

 See all better again!  A few other tips, Once if you don't like cherry stains on your counter, make sure you wipe up the cherry juice right away.  Also if you don't want to explain where your red fingers came from, gloves are a good suggestion too!  There you go. Now you can enjoy your bowl of pitted cherries.  These didn't last long, Bacon bit was all too eager for me to be done!

 

Well it works!

If you have a baby or toddler I'm sure you've seen those cute little food pouches they sell.  Bacon Bit loves them!  And so do I.  They are quite handy when we are in the van traveling or out and about.  Just twist off the top and hand it over.  Bacon Bit can drain one in under a minute I believe, I'm not complaining since he gets a dose of fruit in his diet.  He still prefers mostly veggies and that's ok too!

 There happen to be a few problems with those cute pouches that I'm not overjoyed with however.  The biggest is the cost, for a 3-4 ounce pouch of baby pureed food costs between $1.35-$3!  Not quite budget friendly.  But I have to admit even convenience of them has over ruled our budget a few times.  I was talking to another mom with a toddler the same age as Bacon Bit saying how I wish they made something re-usable like the pouches. Especially since I have a whole tote full of baby food that was given to us that needs to be used up and Bacon Bit makes a HUGE mess with a spoon and bowl of sauce.  She told me that she simply refills them.  I have to admit I had my doubts of messes trying to refill the darn pouch, but she told me to just try it. So I did and I was happily surprised!  Want to refill your own pouches? Here's how!

What you need:
empty baby food pouch with cap
medicine syringe (bigger the better!)
baby food sauce or any kind of pureed sauce





First take your pouch and rinse it out.  I held mine under the water and let it fill up a few times.  You can even add a small drop of dish soap to it.  Once it's filled I hold my finger over the opening and give the pouch a few shakes really good.  Repeat this a few times until the water runs clear. 

Next flatten out your pouch. Make sure there is no air in it.  If there is, I was told when you go to fill it, the puree will spray out of the pouch making a bigger mess!

Now take your syringe and fill it full of your puree.  Hold it over the opening and squeeze the sauce inside.  Repeat until you filled up the pouch.  It's just that simple!

Once it's full, twist the cap back on and either hand it to baby or place it back in the fridge.  I just saved myself a whole lot o' bacon for my pocket!!  And Bacon Bit is very happy to get his favorite pouch sauce more often. 

Now I'm not sure how many times you can refill the pouch, but even if you refill it a few times before tossing it will save you money.  And time wise I am able to refill a pouch in less than 2 minutes.  So not bad at all.  I'm so happy my friend shared this tip with me! I hope it helps some of you too.

Never be afraid to fail!

Yesterday I decided to not leave the kitchen. Ok that's not entirely  true, I did get out side and shovel the snow that fell but otherwise I dedicated yesterday to a baking day.  I was tired of the kids complaining about having to have cereal 'AGAIN'?! (insert whiny kid sounds here).  I knew I wanted to make some danish puff since I happened to have 4 dozen eggs in the fridge, but I wanted to stock the freezer too and decided to make muffins. Lots of muffins! 

Mr. Bacon always loves the apple pie muffins so those went on the list.  I even added some walnuts to them! I was craving the yummy 2 ingredient pumpkin muffins.  But I have some extra time still and decided to make one more kind.  Digging though my recipes didn't spark any thing I just had to have, however digging though the pantry sparked my creative side!  I thought of how easy those pumpkin muffins were to make, just cake mix and a can of pumpkin.  Then I wondered if it was that easy with other mixes.  I happened to have a carrot cake mix on the shelf.  And a bazillion containers of applesauce baby food left over from Bacon Bit that needed to get used up. No I had no clue going into this if it would work.  But hey that's how great cooks are made.  There is a deal of science when it comes to making food, however there is always a space to be creative too.  Some of our favorite meals were one's we put together on our own like our curly chicken and peas and our lemon garlic chicken!  They are family favorites.  If we never experimented around, we would never have found them. So with my cake mix and applesauce in hand I headed to the kitchen. 

I dumped the cake mix and 2 cups applesauce in my mixer and away it went. I was surprised how it turned out.  In the bowl it wasn't thicker and dense like the pumpkin muffins mix. It was light and airy.  I honestly was a bit worried about how they 'd turn out.  I scooped them into mini muffin pans and baked them in a pre-heated 350* oven for about 16 minutes.  Took them out of the pan and let them cool on a rack, all but one. Nope I couldn't even wait for them to cool down to try them. I popped one in and they were amazing!  No heavy dense taste like the pumpkin muffin, just light delicious.  Success! 

 I happened to find a container of cream cheese frosting in the pantry as well when I was digging in there and though it would make the perfect topping to these muffins.  Yes it defeats the purpose of making 'healthier' muffins with just applesauce, but it's better than having made the cake according to the box and then putting the frosting on right?  They were a huge hit with all of us here and with Mr. Bacon's co-workers how happily sample my kitchen creations.  Ok the good one's anyway! 

 And to show not all my ideas turn out well, here was a flop!  I made a gallon of yogurt yesterday as well. I pulled out one of the gallons of milk I froze in the freezer back in August.  I had no idea if frozen milk would work for yogurt since I hadn't tried it yet.  It seemed like a good day to try. And Little Miss Bacon has been asking for some 'mommy yogurt' too.  I followed my recipe and filled three quart jars with vanilla yogurt.  Earlier in the day I took out a bag of frozen strawberries, yup the ones from the garden I packaged earlier, they've been wonderful to have all winter long.  I drained the strawberries saving the juice in a separate bowl (the berries went into a banana strawberry smoothie Bacon Bit and I shared).  With the yogurt left after filling the other jars, I added the strawberry juice.  I had thought it would make wonderful strawberry yogurt that Little Boy Bacon would like, he's not entirely hooked on just vanilla regardless of what I add in it.  Well I could tell from the moment I filled the last jar it would be a flop.  Straining the yogurt left a lot of chunky parts.

 I decided to give it a go anyway, at least it looked pretty!  I incubated the yogurt for 8.5hrs. and as soon as it came out of the water I knew it was a disaster!  The strawberry yogurt separated out completely.

 

  And I had no idea if it was good or not so my monster who lives in my garbage disposal ate it!  (yes the kids think there is a monster that lives inside our garbage disposal who eats all our scraps).  So that experiment didn't work, you can't win them all. However I did learn that using milk that was frozen for months in the freezer works great to make yogurt.  The other three quarts turned out just fine.  You win some, you lose some, but never give up trying!

And I'm back!

Thank you all so much for putting up with my absence!  Ma Bacon took a much needed break during this busy time of year.  With the holidays, kids schedules, Mr. Bacon's work and much more I had to put the blog on the back burner for a bit.  Also during this time I decided to finally do something for myself!  Why do we mom's put 'us' on the back burner all the time?  I have decided to make make myself healthier for the new year and I have started exercising. While there was not a ton to lose, the spare tire had to find a new home! I'm happy to say in my time off I'm already lost a lot of inches and pounds.  I'm quite happy with the progress in such a short time.  If you haven't done something for yourself in a while, do it!  It's an amazing feeling.

But I'm back to all my wonderful fans here.  Thank you for sticking around while I was away. Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and Happy New year too! Sheesh I did miss a lot huh?!   I have to say I was shocked on all the new readers I've seen this over the past few weeks.  Thanks for visiting. I have found that a lot of you came view how we budget our groceries.  I love when my blog is shared. Hopefully soon I can post another shopping adventure and meal plan with everyone.   I'm also going to try to clear up some of the questions I found were asked about how it all works, I seem to find lots of questions about just what we eat! If you have a question you'd like answered feel free to email me! (please no spam or junk mail!)

So what else  have we been up to?  Well the in December my siblings and I decided to surprise our parents for a family Christmas.  It was a fun, busy weekend and one of the best presents our parents got.  One thing we decided to do was a white elephant (or dirty Santa if you call it that) present exchange.  Our limit was one $10 gift per adult to play.  That got my creative side thinking.  I decided to do up some candy bouquets to pass on.  I think they turned out great!  This is easy to make in a short time and a huge hit!  Now I know what you're thinking, Ma Bacon, I don't want to worry about Christmas for 11 more months. I know me either!  But hey Valentines day is coming and these would be a great gift for your sweetie.

Here is what you need:

Container- I found these cute metal buckets in the Target dollar spot!

bamboo skewers

assorted candy of your choosing

Tape

Green floral foam- I used 3x3 squares for this found at walmart

Tissue paper

Candy cane, red pompom & brown pipe cleaner

Start by taking your container and pushing the foam square into the bottom. 

 

Next take a skewer and some candy and start taping candy to them.

Next fold up a piece of tissue paper, be creative as you want.  Take your skewer and poke a hole though the bottom of the tissue paper.  Then insert it into the foam block in your container. I did this for 3 pieces of tissue paper. Securing them down with a skewer to help prevent them from falling out. 

I even placed a piece of tissue paper in the front as well as the back of the bouquet.  Once you have a few sheets of tissue paper in there, continue to tape candy to skewers and place them in the foam.  I used scissors to cut the skewers down to different lengths to create a full bouquet appearance. 

I taped a few small (mini) pieces of candy together too and then placed on a skewer.

 

And to add something else I added a few kiss rosebuds.  To make the rosebuds, first cut a piece of clear plastic wrap about 4 x 4 inches.  I rough guess when I cut them, remember Ma Bacon rarely measures!  Then place 2 kisses bottoms together in the middle of the plastic wrap and fold the wrap around them.  Secure the 'tail' of the rosebud to the secure with tape. 

Add on more than one bud by following the same steps.

 

 Keep placing candy in where you think there's a bare spot until the candy bouquet looks nice and full.  

 

Somehow my camera ate my reindeer pictures! No worries you can follow how to make them HERE.  I made them for the kids to hand out to their class room friends last Christmas time. Everyone loved the few I stuck in the bouquet!  That's it! You have  fun easy and cheap gift.  If you are having a hard time finding a container for valentines day (or Easter, get well, birthday present...)  I made these out of those popular reusable straw cups you can find everywhere too.  These ended up being teacher gifts for the kids to give this past Christmas as well.  They were easy to make as well and I got a good deal on the cups.

I took my foam block and cut it in fourths.  Take one pieces and place it in the middle of a few pieces of tissue paper.  Then push it down into the cup.

 

I tucked the straw and lid on the back side of the cup.  Then I followed the same steps as above with the candy and skewers.  They were a big hit!

So that was my creative Christmas presents!  Oh besides this last guy.  Mr. Bacon needed a gift for his white elephant.  So we made up some Beer Deer.  They are so cute!  And a big hit too. Perfect for that hard to buy for person on your list!  Save the idea for next year!!

Princess party!!

Wow, so much has gone on this month that I can see the dust collecting around here.  With the holidays approaching I have to say that family duties have come first. But I have not forgotten my loyal and new fans!  So as promised I am posting about our Princess birthday party.  It wasn't easy when Little Miss Bacon said she wanted a princess party but not Disney princess party.  How was I going to pull this off without breaking the bank?  Thankfully my craft skills came into play here and another thankful thing, I had most supplies already around the house.  But even if I didn't, I wouldn't have to invest much into it all.  So the planning started, and out came the pen and paper to plan a party for six little princesses! 

First the invites had to go out.  I didn't want to spent a lot of money on them, or an extra trip to town. Thankfully an Internet search solved my problem. I was able to find these super cute invites to print out. I downloaded them to my computer, opened them in the paint program and typed in the party info.  I rolled them up scroll style, secured with ribbon.  I cut out these circles and wrote each girls name on the back.  Invites ready to go!

Now to decide on cake.  Little Miss Bacon wanted a cake with a crown, humm not to hard there.  I dug though the dress up tub and found a sparkling crown.  Perfect for her cake.  I also remembered some cupcake wrapper kit I won this past spring that had princess crowns in it for cupcakes.  Cake done!

 Then we planned a few basic games, you know the good old fashioned birthday kind.  Anyone amazed by some birthday parties out there?  I've heard of bouncy houses, live animals, and much more.  We just went classic here and it paid off both in my pocket book and the kids attention!  Wonder what we all played?  Musical chairs, freeze dance, Princess says (instead of Simon), and pin the crown on the princess.  Yes I hand drew a princess on a large pieces of paper and made a felt crown for them to pin on, total cost = free! Ok so she may not be the prettiest princess out there, but Little Miss Bacon had fun coloring her in!

The final planning was the take home goodies.  I was told you can't have a princess party with out crowns.  I wanted something that wouldn't break easy, and that every girl could wear.  I opted for felt crown headbands.  These were super easy to make too, and they can slide off the headband for the girls to wear after the party as well. 

Here is what you need:
Headband
2 pieces felt (coordinating colors) 
glue gun
jewels optional

 First take one pieces of felt and cut the top part of your crown out of it. Make sure not to cut the whole crown out. 

From your other pieces of felt cut out the small crown.  I free hand drew all of these.  And I have no idea how to link to a pdf to attach my patterns to it.  It's ok to wing things, It adds to the character of it! This smaller crown you can cut out all the way. 

Next take the first crown (this is the bigger one that is not all the way cut out.  And place it around your headband.  I cut two little slits in the fabric to help make it fit better.  Make sure it is angled outward or in the same direction the crown shape is.
                        
Now is the part to work carefully with. Take your hot glue gun and glue the cut out crown to the felt.  Once it's glued down you can cut out the rest of the crown from the felt.  This makes it easy for them to be the same size once you glue them together. 

Tada! A princess crown.  You can re-glue any parts that seem like they are too lose once you get it cut out.  I also glue near the opening for the headband to slide though so it will stand up more on the girls head.  I didn't glue the headband to the crown though, I wanted it to be able to slip off so in the future the girls could remove it and just wear the headband. 

Now glue on your small crown to the big one.

And what is a princess without some gems right!  I had a packet of these stick on scrapbook gems left over from another project I made a long time ago. I used the glue gun to put a few on each crown.  Don't have gems? No problem. Use some of the remaining felt scraps to cut out flowers or hearts to glue on instead.  You know me better than to buy extra things right!

I think they turned out awesome! The 'princesses' liked them as well, and that really

is all that counts right?!

 
So crowns are finished, what else does a princess need?  How about a magic wand!  I saw this idea on pinterest when I was searching ideas for the princess party. OH how I love that website. If you are looking for anything you can find it there!  I just happened to have a large bag of korked ribbon in my craft box from when I used to make Little Miss Bacon's hair bows.  I knew I was saving it for something.  If you don't already have korked ribbon (you know that cute spiral stuff) no worries. It's super easy to make!  And it will save you a ton of money on hair bows to make it yourself too.  First you need some dowels.  Any size you want your curls to be.  I bought a bunch at our local hardware store and used one of Mr. Bacon's saws to cut each in half. 

Then take a ribbon, any kind of ribbon I found will curl, grosgrain ribbon tends to keep it's hold a little better but if you find something else cute in the craft department, give it a try! Start your ribbon at about a 45* angle on your dowel.  Secure it to the dowel with a WOODEN clothes pin. This is important that it's wooden because plastic will melt in the oven.  Continue to wrap the ribbon until you get your desired lenght or the end of the dowel and secure it with another clothespin.  Keep going until all your dowels are wrapped or you have enough ribbon for your project. 

Now that you have them all secure to the dowel, preheat your oven to 225*.  Yes you read that right, you need to bake your ribbon!  Pile all the ribbon wrapped dowels on a baking sheet adn pop them in the oven for 25 minutes. Not hard to remember right, 225* for 25 min.  Easy! When they are done, let them cool and unwrap them.  You'll have curly ribbon!  So now that I have my ribbon all curled it's time to work on those wands.

Take some ribbon and cut it to your desired lenght. I think I cut these between 3.5-4 inches. Really I just guessed at lenghts and didn't measure. Mr. Bacon would say that it is quite normal for me to not measure much!  He hates watching me bake becuase I rarely use measure spoons!  Not only did I cut curly ribbon, I also cut straight ribbon for these wands too. 

Once you haev all your ribbon lenghts cut, it's time to assemble them.  I took a thin ribbon and cut it about 6 inches. (yes it's a lot, but it makes tying much easier)  Lay your thin ribbon vertically on your work surface.  Start to lay your cut ribbon horizontally on the ribbon.  How many you lay on there is your preference, the more you lay the fluffier the wand. I'd say I places between 15-20 ribbons per wand.

Once you have your nice little pile, you have to do the tricky part.  Pinch all the ribbons together.  With your other hand take the thin ribbon and tie a knot around the others.  If you happen to have a second set of hands, this will go a lot smoother!  Once you have a good tight knot you can take a look at your work. If some of the ribbons are not even just give them a gentle pull to straighen them out. 

Next its time to attach it to your dowel. For this project I did have it invest in a package of dowels for the wands. I paid a whole .96 for a pack of 16 of them from walmart.  Not too bad for the budget!
Take out one dowel and tie the thin ribbon around the end of it.  Secure it as tight as you can with a knot. 

Next take the thin ribbon and twist it down the dowel and secure with a dab of hot glue. 

Now that the ribbon is secre it's time to wrap the dowel.  Take a long length of ribbon and secure it to the top of the dowel with a dab of hot glue.

Continue to wrap the whole dowel with the ribbon, wrapping it at a 45* angle to avoid overlapping too much.  Then secure the bottom with another dab of glue.  It can be a bit tricky to wrap over the thin ribbon that is glued to the dowel, just do your best. 

Stand back and admire your princess wand!  Beautiful right! The girls loved these.

 

But if you're like me it's not over until you have a jewel. I had a few of the stick on gems leftover from the crowns so I added one to the middle of each ribbon bouquet on the wand.  Nothing says princess better than some bling right!

Each girl picked out a wand and crown as they arrived to the party.  It was a blast.  Lots of giggles and smiles, games, cake and presents.  Mr. Bacon and I were exhaused by the time it was over.  We also sent the girls home with a thank you baggie of goodies.  I wasn't going to at first, I thought the wands and crowns were enough, but I happened to hit target's dollar spot on the right day. They marked all their princess stuff down 75% off! I picked up princess note pads, purses, bracelets and added a chapstick to each baggie.  Total cost was under $2 each.  I placed them in brown paper lunch bags I had in the pantry, punched holes in it and secured it with a ribbon and another princess circle from the above website.  They were a hit as well! 

Whew! Tired and exhaused.  Sorry for all the pictures but I hope you enjoyed Little Miss's Princess party as much as we did.  So what little princess are you going to spoil!