Reynolds Slow Cooker Bags

I have recently been given some slow cooker bags, by Reynolds, through CrowdTap.

Let's just say that I highly recommend these for any busy mom on the go, who loves her slow cooker (or dad for that matter).  Who couldn't use something to make their life easier, right?

I set out to make some yummy chicken tortilla soup.

Ingredients:

32 oz of Chicken Tortilla Broth
1 lb boneless chicken breasts
1 can black beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can mild rotel chilis
1 can tomato paste
1/2 red onion, chopped
1/3 chopped, seeded jalapeno
2 cloves of garlic
cumin
salt
pepper
1 slow cooker liner

Toss everything into the slow cooker, put on low.  Walk away for 8 hours.  Try to shred the chicken WITHOUT tearing the bag.

Ladle into bowls, top with shredded pepper jack cheese, sour cream, a squeeze of lime and cilantro and enjoy.

Divvy up leftovers into freezable containers, throw the bag away.  Rinse the slow cooker and VIOLA! You are done.  Super easy.  Definitely time saving.


Who doesn't love a time saving adventure?

Be careful.  I did tear my bag while shredding the chicken.

Crunchies: Healthy Snacking and Mom Approved

I have recently received a sample of some Crunchies freeze dried fruit in the mail.  I actually had to email the company to request it, because I had seen someone else with them and I was super curious.

As a busy mom, I try to keep healthy snack options in my house.  I've raised my Monster to love and appreciate his fruits and vegetables.  I often times buy fruits in bulk and either freeze or dehydrate what's left of them.

Freeze drying would be PERFECT.  It makes an amazing snack.  But I'll leave that to the makers of the Crunchies.  They seem to have this art perfected.

I had received a package of Strawberry Banana crunchies.  My son and I ate them during our Pinewood Derby Race, for Cub Scouts.  They were gone in a matter of minutes.

These are a tasty snack.  They are literally just freeze dried fruits.  No added ingredients or artificial flavors.  I could come up with a lot of ways to use this stuff.  Once the fruit was all gone, there was some freeze dried powder in the bottom of the bag.  I seriously had to lick my finger and get every last bit of the powder out.  It was THAT tasty. I could see crunching the whole bag up and using it as a dusting powder on some baked goods like cakes and cookies.  I feel that with these crunchies the possibilities are endless for healthy snacking.

Here's the link to their website: https://www.crunchiesfood.com/

I've also posted the Amazon links below.

#Crunchies

This Post is copied from my http://randomlyham.blogspot.com Post.

Reynolds Cookie Baking Sheets

As a single Mom, who doesn't love items that make your life easier?

I've pretty much used parchment paper to bake on, for almost as long as I've been baking. I heard about it pretty early on in my baking career. They eliminate scrubbing cookie sheets and they eliminate having to grease the cookie sheets. Reynolds has taken the parchment paper a step further.



They have pre-cut, cookie baking sheets. Just grab a cookie sheet out of the box, throw it onto the baking sheet, bake your cookies. Throw the sheet away, wash/rinse the baking sheet and you're done. I have been able to get a box of these free for review, through Crowdtap. (The link for Crowdtap is posted in my blog).

I plan on baking more cookies tonight, but here's just a quick view of what went down, so that I could write my initial review.





From the picture, you can see that the cookies on the parchment paper cooked more evenly, whereas the ones not on the parchment paper are darker around the edges and look less cooked in the middle. I've lost a bunch of pictures on my phone. If I can locate them, I'll them to my blog as well.

I copied this from my http://randomlyham.blogspot.com blog.

The Luck of the Unlucky

I'm not sure what it is about me, but typically I can walk outside, look down and spot a four leaf clover.  Without trying.  If you ask me to do it.... I fail.  It's like that whole being put on the spot thing.

In an average year I can find anywhere between 20-56 (that was the most I've ever found in a single year) four leaf clovers.

You'd think that with all this luck, I'd be part Leprechaun and could score a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.  Right?

It isn't necessarily that easy for me. I've noticed that the only type of luck I have is dumb luck and near miss/close calls (like that could have been so much worse) type of luck.  Whatever it is, I'll take my lucky clovers.  I enjoy being able to find them and maybe one day they might prove to be legitimately lucky for me.  I keep a few in my purse. One day, when I have more time, I'll elaborate on my dumb luck and near misses. 

Father's Day Cook-Offs: Chicken Wangs

Back in the day, while I was still married, I wanted to bring some fun to Father's Day.  I got the family together and said we should do a cook-off.  We decide on a food and the men have to cook it up and the ladies are the judges. The best one wins a trophy.

We've been doing this about 8 year now, I believe.

We've had everything from:

• Steak
• Chicken
• Burgers
• Ribs, 2011, Nathan (ex husband)
• Pork
• Fish, 2013, Billy
• Chili, 2014, Derek (The ex-boyfriend.  The waste of 3.5 years)
• Chicken Wings, 2015, Grandpa Jim

The Chicken Wing Entries (2015)

I'll go back through and post pictures as I find them.  I'll even update the list, by year, and tell who the winner was.

It's a fun family tradition now.  

Unfortunately, Grandpa passed away in September; we are all glad he was able to win before he was called away though.

Naptown Oreo Radio

There for a while I was trying to help out my good friend Oreo.  He's wanted to operate a Radio Station for as long as I have known him.  I was the Promotion Team lead there for about 8 months.

I absolutely love the crew.  They're a fun group to work with.

Naptown Oreo Radio is an internet based radio station. You can stream it a few different ways.

Here's their link:  Naptown Oreo Radio.  It's mostly alternative and rock. If you have some constructive criticism, feel free to post it here and I'll let them know.  They're always looking for ways to improve.  

I do miss them dearly; maybe I'll have time to get back into it soon and beg for my old job back.

#Nor #NaptownOreoRadio

Cupcake Gallery

Being a Baker doesn't mean you buy boxed cake mixes.  It means you get your ass in the kitchen and make your own batter from SCRATCH.   You find a basic recipe you like and adapt it from there.


I'm only a pseudo baker.  Most days I make cupcakes and icings from scratch; occasionally I feel lazy and use a boxed mix and then just tweek it from there.  (Grumbling thoughts about a specific "BAKER" are running through my head.  But I'm keeping my opinions to myself here.)


I'm just going to post all the random cupcake photos I've got on my phone to this blog.  I am in love with baking DRUNCAKES!  Drunken Cupcakes.  Boozy Cupcakes.  Not all of them are boozy; but yes, most of my creations are Booze Filled Goodness.  I even add the booze in so they're still Boozy and not kid friendly.  Mommy needs her own damn treats.

Limoncello

ANGRY ORCHARD FIRE BALL

Orange Blue Moon

Chocolate Whiskey Ganache

Right now my biggest issue in life is that I work too damn much. I don't have time to bake.  I really wish I did.  Maybe one day.  .... hopefully before I forget HOW to bake.

Chocolate Peanut Butter

Find Me this Tent

I used to love camping.  As a single mom I don't have all that expendable income.  That means I don't have money for tent. I don't have money to rent a camp site.

However, it's something I'd like to get back in to.

I saw this on Facebook and now I really want one.  Anyone willing to front the costs?

Star Wars Birthday Party

My baby is turning 8 in 2 days. EIGHT!!

Last year we hosted an Army Themed Birthday Party and he originally requested another Army Themed party THIS year. I said NO. Not doing it again. But secretly I was already planning ways to change up way we did everything last year. 

A few weeks ago, he randomly said "I want a Star Wars Themed Party."... My thoughts? This should be easy because of the new Star Wars Movie that just premiered.

With that, I immediately went into planning mode.

Kroger had plates, cups, and napkins on clearance for $0.20 each. I spent about $2.00 on these I just went ahead and cleared the place out. Later I went back to actually buy groceries and we ran across some cake topper, little candy pieces. Bought those on clearance as well and spent about $1.20. So far, Doing good.

















Food:




Cupcakes. I have the mask candy toppers we bought at Kroger, and I purchased some light sabers from Amazon. The rest will probably just have some bright funky icing colors. Red & Blue perhaps, for Light sabers

Of Course I had to make Red & Blue Cupcakes. There were even convenient little colored cupcake mixes at the store.




Ice Cream. Can't have cake without Ice Cream.

Yoda Soda

Yoda Soda: Green Fruit Punch with Sprite, maybe some Lime Sorbet. It actually ended up being mixed berry kiwi fruit punch, Sprite and Lemon sorbet with berries. Wasn't too bad. But not quite what I was going for. The boys were all like "OH MY GOD! YOU KILLED YODA!" They drank all the Yoda Soda though.




Princess Lays: Lays potato Chips






Edible Ewoks: Gummy Bears




Light Sabers: Pretzel rods coated in candy melts





Thermal Detonators: Cheese Balls




Wookie Cookies: Birthday Cake Oreos


Games/Events:


I've made a death star Pinata out of tissue paper. It was time consuming and gross. We will see how well it actually works. I plan on getting a light saber to use to hit it with. - For the record, don't use tissue paper. They actually had my pinata demolished before it was time for the pinata. I was a little heart broken, but I tried to make it work.






Bingo. A friend volunteered to make me some bingo boards using characters from the movies. -Okay, this is exactly why I don't ever count on others. He never showed up with the bingo boards or anything else he volunteered to assist with. I was SCRAMBLING last minute to get everything printed up in time. Luckily he at least sent me a proof of the boards, so I didn't have to make them from scratch. -I was still quite pissed.

How many star wars micro machines figurines are in the jar? -Yep, didn't even play this game.






Photo Booth- The same person who was supposed to help with the bingo boards volunteered to assist with a back drop for this. Last minute I got a teacher friend to bring me some butcher paper and I made the boyfriend buy some glow in the dark stars. VIOLA! Last minute back drop. It looked cheap but it works.


Masks that I've ordered off of Amazon


Catch Phrases, on a stick!

Princess Leia Buns

Yoda Ears



Light Saber Pool Noodles!

Yes, in case you were wondering 84% of the party was nothing but boys beating each other with light saber pool noodles.

Star Wars Movies

My coworker was so kind enough to lend me these:

Overall, the party was a success. It was very tough having that many little boys at my house and trying to keep them all under control.

I did make prize cups for the boys.  Target and the dollar store had Star Wars cups, for around a dollar each.  I found some glow stick jets, Star Wars Stickers, candy, and star wars fake tatoos to fill the cups with.  I also put things like rubber bouncy balls and balloons in the cups.


I hope my baby had a great birthday party!!