Buffalo-ded Chicken!

I'm definitely getting a little more adventurous in the kitchen since the birth of Pinterest and recently I'd tried a recipe that I'd found on there from Kayotic Kitchen.  The link will open in a new window.  :)

http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/kaytucky-chicken

Anyway... My Son is a bit of a fussier eater, but he LOVES hot wings, and pretty much anything that has hot sauce on it, so we keep a lot of it on hand.  I was about to make Kayotics awesome "Kaytucky Chicken" again, when I decided to improvise and this is what happened...


I made a delicious mixture of cream cheese, ranch dressing and Franks Red Hot Sauce.  My friend, Kaylea used to make this fabulous dip that tasted like hot wings, and this is what she made it with.  Recipe, STOLEN!  :D
I used:
1/2 block of cream cheese
1/2 cup Ranch Dressing
1/2 cup Franks Red Hot Sauce (then I added more, for good measure!)

Mix it all up into a deliciously creamy mess...

Then take a good knife and make a slit through the middle of the chicken breast. Note how I forgot to take a picture before I started stuffing the chicken.  *sigh*

After that, stuff 'em!  I used all of the mixture between 4 breasts and it was perfect.  :)
Don't they look lovely?  =D

I didn't want to make any puff pastry and I had some Shake N Bake in the cupboard.  I'm pretty sure it was for pork, but I'm sure it doesn't matter in the long run. I carefully covered the breasts with the Shake N Bake (there was no shaking involved otherwise the stuffing would be... unstuffed.), then threw them in a 350 degree oven.  After about 10 minutes I had a peek. I couldn't help it, and ZOMG!  They smelled delightful. I baked mine for 35 minutes as I have a convection oven, you'd probably wanna do 45 minutes in a conventional oven.

And again, I forgot to take a picture of them as soon as I took them out of the oven because I was soooooooooooo hungry and they smelled DELICIOUS.  Here's a shot after a few bites.  Hehe.

I'll be making these again! And again, and again!!!

Screw you, Lunchables! >:D

I am the Mother of a quirky 13 year old daughter who knows much more than I ever could know, and a lazy 15 year old son whose idea of lunch is an entire box of granola bars "because it's easy".

My daughter adamantly tells me that she has superpowers that allow her to get through an entire school day on a bagel or some oatmeal because it's simply "not cool" to have lunch at school and there's simply no time to eat in the 45 minute lunch break that they're given. 

That's when I decided to up the "cool factor" on school lunches so that I know that they're at least eating somewhat decently.  Neither of them like sandwiches and end up throwing them out regardless of how awesome I make them, so I don't waste my time!  (I personally hate sandwiches too, so I can't really fault them for that.)  The boyfriend likes whatever, so he's not a problem.

I tried a few different things last year and nothing seemed to work.  I guess it's too hard to have to look in the cupboard AND the fridge.  They just went straight for the cupboard snacks, which is all crap (yes, I like to have some junk food laying around the house, but I definitely like my healthier snacks too!)

I bought a bunch of Betty Crocker toss-away containers from the dollar store.  They come 2/pack for $1.25. Not bad, seeing as how my daughters other superpower is that she loses shit.  All.The.Time.  Grrr!  

These are what I made!  *proud smile*

Each one has some good, some bad in it but everyone seems to love them, so I'll keep making them and changing it up a bit each time.  

These ones have a:

Granola bar

Cheese and Pepperoni stick

Grapes

Yoghurt covered raisins

Fruit snacks

Baby carrots

Campari tomato

Sweet mini pepper

Airheads

So like I said in the title... Screw you, Lunchables!  You ain't got nothin' on me, and these probably cost less than $1.50 for each snackbox!  Win-Win! 

DIY Solar Lights

My dog likes to eat my solar lights. What an asshole! I needed to find a way to stop him from doing that, so I made these. adorable, eh?

A few people have asked me how I made them, so here's my tutorial. Enjoy!

I found a ton of cheap LED solar lights on sale for $1 each at Canadian Tire

I only want the top part.  The rest gets recycled. 

These lights have a couple of little screws in the top.  I take those out so that the light can dangle a bit. 

I found these airtight jars at the dollar store.  (I have since found out that they're not quite airtight and moisture can get in there.  It hasn't caused any real problems, but I may just use a sealant around the lids when I have the chance. 

Glue the top of the solar unit to the jars.  I used J-B Weld, but I'm sure crazy glue would be just as effective. 

Let them dry.  Trust me on this one and don't mess with them until they are completely dry.  I lead an impatient life!  *sigh*

Once they're dry, you can spray paint them.  You can see the can of spray in the previous picture.  It's called "frosted glass" by Rust-Oleum.  It works really well.  You just need to lightly spray the jar and wait a few minutes... Then you see it changing .  Awesomeness!
*NOTE*  Do not spray the lid of the jar otherwise the sun won't charge your lights!

I chose to add some scrapbook sticker letters onto some of my jars before spraying them.  I love how they turned out and they make super-cute personalized gifts for friends and neighbors!

I took some aircraft cable to a few jars and have them hanging in the plum tree in the back yard.  It looks so neat at night time.  They are a lot harder for my dog to get at when they're out of his reach.  ;)

I hope you enjoy making these as much as I did!  Total cost per light (if you get the materials on sale like I did), $3.00

Playoff Canucks Cupcakes

I am not a baker.  I repeat... I am NOT a baker.  I pretty much ruin everything I bake, but after being off of work after a car accident, I got antsy and bored and decided to make something intricate (for me).  I wanted to make some cupcakes for the playoff games, but couldn't find any inspiration... So I decided to just wing it, and here is my "canupcake" journey.  :D

First, I made some green royal icing and did the outline for my Canucks logos

 Then I made some white royal icing and did the insidey part of the logo.  This is where I started to get frustrated because they were already looking like a dog sat on them.  =(

(I'm also quite aware that this picture is upside down!)

 But I kept on truckin' on and whipped up a batch of blue royal icing to fill in the blanks.  Now to impatiently wait (and wait) for them to dry...

 So while we waited, my daughter made a batch of green cupcakes, and I made up some blue icing.  We had to stick with the Canucks colours! 

And finally, after what seemed like FOREVER... The Canucks logos were dry enough (mostly) to peel off the paper and plonk on top of our delicious cuppycakes!  

I'm quite impressed with these as I really haven't made anything creative baking-wise, ever. 

Now here's to hoping that the Canucks make it through the first series this year because so far we're 0 for 2, and I've got about 100 Canucks icing logos made for playoff parties, dammit!

A box of free!

One of Lance's work buddies gave him 2 boxes full of old stuff from his Grandfathers bar.  I was stoked!  I went through the box;  giving everything a good clean.  It's definitely made me want to have original pieces in our bar, rather than cheap knock-offs.  Here are a couple of pictures so far...

 I think this can be restored with a light behind it!

 I love this!  Lance, not so much but that's ok because it's going on the wall anyway!  

I just need a couple of old looking glass hurricane shades!

 Here are two smaller coats of arms and a bunch of vintage ashtrays. 

Not too sure what we'll do with the ashtrays, but I don't have the heart to throw any of it out.

 We were looking to buy some mirrors, but they were all so bloody expensive!  

Now we have five of them!!! =D

We also found a shuffleboard table and an Easton air hockey table on Craigslist.  Score!!!  We just need a floor and the room is pretty much complete!  Hooray!!!

Gigantic Picture = Awesome!

I saw this craft from Sugar Bee Crafts and HAD to try it!  The picture cost me under $7, the foam was $11 and $7 for spray glue.  Mandy from Sugar Bee has the tutorial on her link.

The only thing I can say about this is that our picture didn't come out as clear looking as hers seemed to have, but I took my picture with an iPhone, and I imagine that she probably used a decent camera.  Our picture of Coby (our Lab-Retriever) is grainy, but it actually looks good still.  My boyfriend loves it and can't get over how big it turned out.  Well, it is 4x3ft long!  Hahaha.

(The picture looks grainier in this picture.  It looks pretty decent hanging out here in our living room!)

Ok, so I'm impatient and I haven't actually glued the picture down to the board yet, but I still have to paint the foam.  I just want you to see how flipping big the thing is, and warn you that if you want a clearer picture, use a better camera than just your phones camera.  Hehe!  Also... The foam board... It comes in a 48"x96" piece, and I didn't plan for that so I had to cut it down to size at the store just so that I could fit it in my car.  Thank god I carry a utility knife with me for such emergencies!  Hehe.

Next time, I will make sure to use a proper digital camera and bring the truck to the store because I can definitely see myself making a few more gigantic pictures for different rooms in the house! 

Going crazy with old frames!

I just had to post this one too!  I went to Home Depot this morning and raided the paint chip section.  I totally felt guilty doing it, especially when the paint dept. lady came and asked me if I needed assistance while I had 40 paint chips in my hand.  Lol!  To justify my thievery, I did buy an awful lot of other stuff this morning, we're talking a full cart of things! 

Anyhoo... My daughters room is bright green and purple.  It actually looks really good.  :P 
Ok, so... I made her a dry erase calendar with all of my "borrowed" paint chips and she LOVES it!  Here it is...

And here's a picture of her room just to show you how awesome green and purple look together!