The BEST bacon EVER!

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/265360603020217640/

Let's face it. Bacon is done best when it is baked in the oven. I have always cooked bacon in the oven. I love how crispy it gets and it's perfect when the fat just melts in your mouth (gross I know, but oh so delicious!).

When I cook bacon, I line a tray with tin foil, lay my bacon on it, and put it in the oven. The only thing I didn't like was how greasy the bacon was since it just lays there in a puddle of it's own grease.

 I stumbled upon this video showing a different way to cook your bacon in the oven and decided to give it a try.

I folded some tinfoil and laid a few pieces of bacon out on it. Then I popped it in the oven at 350. I didn't time it, just watched it until it looked like perfection.

Cooking it this way I feel like it cooked faster than laying flat on the tray and most of the grease was down in the grooves of the tinfoil, not on my piece of bacon.

I will forever cook bacon this way. It was so crispy, melt in your mouth delicious!

Nutella Buddies

http://www.aroundmyfamilytable.com/2011/11/nutella-buddies/

Today was my turn for 3 o'clock treat at work and I decided to try my hand at making Nutella Buddies. I LOVE Nutella and have been known to eat it by the spoonful straight from the jar! 

The recipe was simple. The only problem I had was that I didn't have a bowl large enough to mix it all together so I had to work in batches. It uses almost a whole large jar of Nutella!

It was a hit at work! I will definitely keep this recipe on hand for the days when I'm craving that delicious chocolate hazelnut spread and won't feel so guilty because I'm not just licking it off a spoon! ;)

Corn and cheese chowder

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/10/corn-cheese-chowder/

I have decided that any recipe I try from the pioneer woman is going to be delicious. This is just proof! I think Shaun ate one bowl of this for dinner and I hate the rest for dinner, lunch, dinner, lunch.... until it was all gone!

The recipe does not say to cook your bacon ahead of time so I went ahead and added it raw to the onion. I cooked it quite a bit and it gave the soup a great flavor but unless you like fatty bacon, I would suggest cooking it before hand. The picture on pioneer woman's blog shows her bacon was precooked. 

I also only had two bell peppers. 1 red and 1 green. I found it to be enough pepper in the soup but if you really like the bell pepper flavor go ahead and add all 3. Instead of buying corn on the cob and cutting it off, I used the frozen corn that my family does every year from their garden. I'm sure canned corn would work too but it won't be as delicious as fresh corn.

Like I said, this soup was super easy and super DELICIOUS. It's not for dieters so if you are on a diet, make sure you close your eyes while you eat it ;).  So next time its a cold day out and you are craving soup, make this one for sure!

Tile coasters

http://lightrefreshmentsserved.com/?s=coasters

(The original link to this pin is not currently working)

These turned out so cute that I made a few sets and gave them to the ladies in my family for Christmas!

Cut out scrap book paper into 4x4 squares. Using modpodge, glue them to tiles. (you can get 4x4 tiles at lowes for 16 cents)

When dry, spray them with clear spray paint. I do 2 coats to make sure they are good and sealed.

I've tried two different kinds of spray paint but they both seemed to work the same.

 Once dry, attach felt feet to the bottoms. Even though the feet are self sticky, I still used a small dot of E6000 to make sure they were secure.

 That is all it takes and these little babies are ready to go! Super cute and super easy!

Egg cups

http://thesimpledelights.com/?p=246

These are great for my diet. The first 17 days is mostly lean protein and a few fruits and veggies. I made these using turkey instead of ham.

At first I cooked them the recommended 12 minutes but decided they were still kind of runny so I added another 2 minutes. After these 2 minutes I thought the white part was still a little runny so I decided on adding another 2 minutes.

As you can see, the middles were still soft but not runny. These were really tasty. Next time I think I'll cook them 14-15 minutes and they should be perfect!

Homemade Carpet Stain Remover

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2011/12/homemade-carpet-stain-removerno.html

I have alot of carpet stains around my house. Some were there when we moved in, some are from spills or dirty shoes but most are from my pets. This stain remover works great! I was a bit hesitant at first because I didn't want it to ruin my carpet so the first time I tried it, I used it on the ugly pink carpet that we have in two of our bedrooms that have had stains on them since we moved in. It took the stain out, and didn't effect the color of the carpet. 

The second stain I used it on was in my living room on the good carpet. This stain, I believe, is a combination of a scentsy spill and a pet accident (please ignore the scentsy mess on the tile). I followed the directions on the stain remover and liberally sprayed the stain with 1 part water and 1 part ammonia. I then laid a rag over top and started to iron over the stain.

You can see after just a few seconds of ironing the stain is starting to show through the rag.

After a few minutes and a few more sprays of the solution the stain is mostly gone. There is still a small light pink spot where there was scentsy wax but the rest of the stain is gone! The only addition I made to the process is to use my bissel spot bot to wash the area. I'm not sure if the smell of amonia will attract my pets to that area so I wanted to make sure I got it rinsed out good.

These are the towels I used to get the stain up.

Healthy Turkey Meatballs

 

http://honeywerehome.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-eat-clean-meals.html. 

Since I'm trying to eat healthy I've been eating alot of turkey. These meatballs sounded perfect.

I decided to mix it up in my kitchenAid because lets face it, it's my new toy and I have to use it whenever I can!

I didn't have any quick cook oats so I went ahead and used regular oats. It seemed to work just fine. This is also only a half batch. 2lbs of turkey sounded like alot and it's just me and Shaun at home to eat them.

The original recipe says to put them in muffin pans however the website I got the recipe from shows them formed as little meatballs which I like better. As you can see, 1lb of turkey made about 23 meat balls. I used my small cookie scoop to make sure they were all the same size. I cooked them for 25 minutes then pulled them out, turned them over, and baked for another 10 minutes.

Don't they look good?!?

I added a baked potato and cauliflower cheese and dinner is served! These were really yummy! I will definitely be putting this recipe in my box for another day.