First+lady+announces+study+of+military+families

First+lady+announces+study+of+military+families

Jessica Percifull

Cowboy Caviar

When I went to Pennsylvania to Visit Neil's Aunt and Uncle, his Aunt Eileen made Cowboy Caviar. I had heard of it before but never tried it. Let me tell you!! It's awesome!! It's super easy to make and healthy!! It's also an easy way to use up canned beans, diced tomatoes and corn. I tweaked the recipe just a bit and your welcome to do the same. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!!

1 can beans drained and rinsed (I like black beans or kidney, pinto would be good as well)
1 can petite diced tomatoes drained
1 can of corn drained (I use frozen about 1-2 cups)
1/2 med onion chopped (Vidalia, yellow, red)
1 Handful of chopped cilantro
1/2 cup Italian dressing
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp onion powder

Mix all ingredients together

Serve with tortilla chips (we like the lime ones)
*put on a southwestern style salad or in a chicken wrap
- For the Salad dressing I mixed Ranch Dressing with some Tastefully Simple Fiesta Party Dip Mix It gave it a little kick and was so YUMMY!! You can also put it in the wrap. See my website to order the Fiesta Party Dip Mix!

Jessica Percifull

Homemade Healthy Granola Bars!!

Cranberry-Almond Granola Bars
PRINT
By Jessica Percifull

Ingredients
• 2 cups rolled oats
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup wheat germ
• ¼ cup milled/ground flax
• 1 tsp teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup Craisins
• ½ cup thinly slice almonds
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt (I just turn a couple grinds of my sea salt grinder)
• ½ cup honey or agave nectar
• 1 egg, beaten
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• ¾ cup applesauce
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Optional zest of one orange (REALLY GOOD!!)

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, Flax, cinnamon, flour, Craisins and salt. Make a well in the center, and pour in the honey, egg, applesauce, oil and vanilla (zest or orange if desired). Mix well, fold in almonds. Pat the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 15-20 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bars begin to turn golden at the edges. Cool for 5 minutes, then cut into bars while still warm.

Banana Peanut Butter Granola Bars with Walnuts
PRINT
By Jessica Percifull

Ingredients
• 2 cups rolled oats
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup wheat germ
• ¼ cup milled/ground flax
• 1 tsp teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup Mashed Bananas (dry measuring cup)
• 1 cup peanut or almond butter (dry measuring cup)
• ½ cup thinly chopped walnuts
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt (I just turn a couple grinds of my sea salt grinder)
• ½ cup honey or agave nectar
• 1 egg, beaten
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, Flax, cinnamon, flour, walnuts and salt. Make a well in the center, and pour in the honey, egg, banana, peanut butter, oil and vanilla. Mix well. Pat the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 15-20 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bars begin to turn golden at the edges. Cool for 5 minutes, then cut into bars while still warm.*These are best eaten when cooled*

I was trying to think of some new flavors to make. A few I'm going to try are: Pumpkin-Walnut, Apple Cinnamon Raisin and Carrot-Walnut. Let me know if you think of any others!!

Jessica Percifull

BBQ Chicken Pizza

My Husband and I LOVE California Pizza Kitchen's BBQ Chicken Pizza!! So I decided to attempt to make it myself! It was AMAZING!! Doesn't it look dee-lish? This a great dinner to have after grilling BBQ Chicken!


Below is the recipe for your Very Own BBQ Chicken Pizza!

Crust:
Mix together:
1 3/4 cups Whole Wheat FLour
2 cups White Flour
1 1/2 tsp salt (I think I forgot this last night but it was still good :))

In a measuring cup whisk together:
1 pk yeast1 tbsp sugar
1 1/3 cup warm water

when foamy add water mixture to dry mixture and mix while adding 3 tbsp EVOO
Kneed til smooth (5 min), of use dough attachment on mixer. Brush with Olive oil and place in a bowl in a warm draft free area (I turn on oven while mixing then turn it off put the dough in a bowl on the oven covered with a dish towel)
Let rise until doubled- about 1.5-2 hrs

Use 1/2 the dough per pizza

PIZZA

Your Fave BBQ sauceLeftover BBQ chicken, or rotisserie chicken about a cup for 1 pizza
1/4 red onion sliced thin
1 cup cheddar cheese
1 cup mozzarella cheese
handful of cilantro (optional)
Preheat oven to 500

Roll dough into ball, then place on a floured surface or parchment paper and roll dough out to desired thickness- I like mine thin with no crust :) **
Spread BBQ sauce on dough, add chicken, then cheese and top with sliced red onions. Place dough on baking stone and cook about 15 min until cheese is bubble and starts to brown. sprinkle cilantro on top and ENJOY!!

**You can cook the dough for about 5 min before adding sauce and toppings if you would like it a little crunchier, be sure to poke all over with a fork so is doesn't bubble up! Brushing with Olive oil is also optional :)



Jessica Percifull

Baby carseat cover & Foot Cover

I made this back in January for our new addition to keep him warm since we've been getting 2 + feet of snow every few weeks!! I used a few different ideas for the cover, from a couple other blogs i'll link to later. I came up with the foot cover pattern myself. We used to have one that came with the carseat but I couldn't find it. Together they keep him nice and snuggly.


I also came up with a recipe for Pasta Fagoli it was SO good, I was wishing I took Pictures but I forgot, I will have to make it again!! Below is the recipe:

2 tbs olive oil
1 onion chopped
2 -3 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 stalk of celery chopped small
1 carrot chopped small... See More
.5 lb-1lb of lean gr beef (depends on how chunky you want it)
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 box + 1 can of low sodium chicken broth
1 can cannelloni beans with liquid
1 can kidney beans drained and rinsed
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp basil dried
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp dried parsley
a pinch of red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste
1.5-2 cups uncooked ditalini pasta (or macaroni)

Cook gr beef in olive oil until cooked. Add onion, celery and carrot. Cook a few min until onions are soft add garlic, stir. Add seasonings broth, beans, tomatoes simmer for 5 -10 min add pasta and simmer until pasta is soft. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. (I used left over Everday Italian Marinara Sauce- tastefully simple- in it instead of the crusted tomatoes and all the seasoning but I think this ratio should be just as good) It's a pretty thick soup so you can add more broth or some water if you want it thinner but it will feed you for a couple days!! LOL I threw half in the freezer!

Jessica Percifull

My Projects from last Year!!

These are just a few of the projects I completed last year! Some have links with tutorials others are my own creations. I'm slowly getting back to sewing it had been since I was itty bitty, when I learned to sew. I'm learning to make new patterns and trying to learn many new stitches and sewing terms. At least I have found something productive to do while waiting for out new little man to arrive. He should be here in a few weeks so I hope I can squeeze a few more projects in! It has been a little difficult moving to a new town and unpacking, I have set up a crafting area but my table keeps getting covered during the unpacking.

Below is Austen's new "big boy" bedroom. All in Spiderman. I made the curtains myself. I did not like any of the curtains available or in stores and they were really expensive to begin with. They came out really good and matched his sheets much better than the others I saw.


These booties are absolutely adorable. This was the second pair I made and they came out pretty well. I hope to be able to come up with my own pattern. I have seen many different styles that people have come up with and they are very cute, I hope I can make some of my own as well!
You can get the pattern here


Above: The tops are Denim and I found some really cute packs of buttons and decided to attach a couple on the tops of these.
Below: The bottoms

A pair of denim and sports fabric booties for my sister to give to a friend.


Below is a crayon roll. They idea is not mine but the pattern is. Austen pushes pretty hard when he colors so he uses those really fat crayons. I had to come up with my own measurements that would fit the fat crayons. The good thing is, when he starts coloring with regular crayons you can fit 2 in each slot! I know your wondering what is under the crayon roll? I haven't really come up with a name yet but it slides onto the tray on the back of the airplane seats. The purpose is to keep your little one's hands germ free! How many times have you flown and gotten sick after your vacation?? Even though I completely disinfect our whole area I still thought this would help even more. I put two pockets on the front for his crayon roll, cars, pictures, headphones or whatever else he brought along. I didn't have measurements for the tray but I googled "air plane tray dimensions" and got some measurements and hoped they were right! Well luckily they were and it fit snuggly on the tray!! Oh and by they way...neither of us ended up sick!!

Tutorial for the crayon roll here and here.


This is a picture of the tray cover in use! Fits perfectly!!


My little man LOVED it!! Used it to color on, watch his DVD's and play with his cars!


There are MANY tutorials for this next project here, here, and here ! I'm not sure which one I used I think it was a combination of a few and some of my own ideas (I made quite a bit of them, kind of found a way I liked the best, I also didn't use the batting). The one below is for my husbands diaper bag, also with matching baby booties and I'm going to make a few burp clothes if i have enough of this fabric left.



I love this set!! Made the wipes container and thought it would be cute with some stylish burp cloths. I have no idea how I came up with this idea but I love it!! I just cut the fabric a little bit bigger than the middle section of a fabric diaper folded the sides in and sewed. They came out really cute!!


Here I got creative with some ribbon and put an R on the diaper case for Riley :)



Leftovers!! I used the scraps from the burp clothes to make a neck heating pad filled with rice. I have used this thing SO many times!! I've seen them sell something similar to this in malls but why buy it for $20+ when I can make my own and it's cuter!! The only thing I would like to try to figure out is if i can make it smell prettier instead of like rice? I've sprayed some lavender infused room spray on it but that doesn't last very long...



I thought TAG blankets were a super cute idea. I attempted my own with no pattern and it came out pretty well. This was actually my first sewing project since I was a little kiddo. I grabbed a 4 pack of precut fat quarters, some ribbon on sale and a bit of minky and put it together with the help of my big helper :) He did great. Below is the front and back. i think Mr. Riley Roo will love it.


These weren't all the projects I completed at the end of the year (Started in Oct ended in mid Nov, not back) but these are just my favorites. I'm sure I will keep up with my new addiction. Please let me know if you have any great ideas!!

Jessica Percifull

Tortellini Soup!!

This is by far one of my favorite soups. It's very easy, filling and good for you! I took pictures throughout the process just so I could practice making my first tutorial but this soup is very easy to make, even if your not so big on cooking. I got this recipe from my mom, not sure where she found it but I have also changed a few things.

What you need:

2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1/4 lb Pancetta (chopped) (or bacon)
1 Medium onion (chopped)
2 cloved of garlic (chopped)
6-8 cups of Chicken Broth (heated)
1 large (28 oz)can of Crushed tomatoes
1 can Kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can Great Northern Beans (drained and rinsed)
1/2 tsp Black Pepper
1/2 tsp Dried Basil
1/2 tsp Dried Oregano
2 pks of refrigerated cheese tortellini
handful of shredded carrots (optional)
1 small bag of Fresh Spinach
grated Parmesan cheese

Saute Pancetta (I used bacon) in Olive oil until almost cooked, add chopped onion and cook until soft add garlic and saute, do not burn.



While Sauteing heat broth in the microwave or separate pan. once Pancetta, onions and garlic are cooked slowly add broth, crushed tomatoes, pepper, basil, oregano and beans. Bring soup to boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 20 min.


Add 2 pks of refrigerated cheese tortellini (I had one pack of tortellini and one pack of ravioli, still tasted great). You may also add a handful of shredded carrots here or at the end it they are not the thick cut shredded. I like to get my veggies in, great to sneak them to the kiddos too!! Continue to simmer until the raviolies are cooked usually 8 min or so.


Once the raviolies are cooked you can add as much of the fresh spinach as you like. It is ready to serve right away. I like to put the spinach in the bowl and pour the soup over it. I add a little less spinach for my son, he likes it just not as much as Momma. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top and enjoy!! It's great with some nice crusty bread or Some Tastefully Simple Beer Bread!!



Jessica Percifull