Crockpot Vegetable Beef (Venison) Soup

I love me some crockpot cookin'.  Nothing better than coming home and having zero prep time for a hot meal.  I also love me some good, hearty soup.  This soup is very versatile and you can substitute venison for beef without even noticing since there are so many flavors and spices in it!  I don't love venison alone but doctor it up and it's a great (cheap and available) staple in our house.

The base:

1 jar of spaghetti sauce (ragu or whatever you use)  I like to use plain or marinara but if you like the flavor of the "meat" or "spicy" or whatever, go for it.  It'll be the base flavor for your soup. 

2 cubes of beef bullion dissolved in 2 cups of water.  or you can use canned but the cubes are way cheaper.

Meat- I use a pound of venison steaks cut up into small cubes.  You can also use any cut of beef or even ground meat.  Heck, use whatever meat you want!  About a pound makes for frequent bites of meat.  Use more or less depending on  your circumstances.  Oh, and cook it up in a frying pan before adding it to the crockpot.

Vegetables and add-in's:

You can pretty much throw anything you have into this soup and you won't ruin it.  The only things I've found that make it "bad" are sweet potatoes (makes it sweet, very odd for soup) and zucchini (makes it bitter)  also, I once added too many carrots and wasn't pleased with the results.

Corn (one can or about half a bag of frozen)
Peas (one can or about half a bag of frozen)
Carrots- cut up (about 3 large or a handful of baby....a whole can was too much for me)
Potatoes (one can or about 2-3 regular sized)
Green beans (one can or about half a bag of frozen)
Celery (2-3 stalks, cut up)
Tomatoes ( a can or one or two cut up)
Beans ( a can of whatever you want-kidney, garbanzo, black...doesn't matter)
small pasta (about a half cup...add during the last hour of cooking!)  you can use orzo, pastina, alphabets, etc.
Spices! garlic powder, salt, pepper, oregano- anything you'd like, especially if your sauce is on the bland side.

Pick and choose what you want, what you have and go!  the only things you can't not add are the sauce and the broth....other than that, experiment away!  Throw it all in the crockpot on low for about 8 hours (if it's longer, it won't be ruined...if it's much shorter, the potatoes might not be cooked.)

:)

The recipe above will make about 6 decent sized bowls!

Yard sale dress into two aprons

So I love yard sales.  Sometimes i'll see things I really don't need/ have use for but buy them anyway.  This dress was one of them.  It was nwt and 25 cents....plus it was black and pink and ruffly!!.....but I knew I'd never actually wear it as a dress....but I could turn it into something useful....like an apron!  As I started cutting it apart, I realized I could make it into two.  I can't give you exact instructions but I thought posting this might give others some inspiration to re-make something, other wise headed to the garbage, into something useful!!  Here is the dress:

I then cut down the side seams and ended up sewing the front tow panels together back wards, taking the collar, cutting it off and sewing it around the new collar.  I took the belt off, cut it in half and used it as apron strings.  I used a lot of the original edges so it wasn't too much sewing.  It looks huge but I spread it out to show the detail.  It turned out like this:

I then had the back panel left.  It looked like a small apron, but I had no belt left, so I had to add ribbon for the belt and neck loop but it turned out like this:

It's a lot smaller than the first and definitely for a small person or child but at least I didn't let anything go to waste!  This is all I had left over from the original dress (and I had to add ribbon to finish the second apron)

So.....get creative with something today!!! cut it up, sew it, embellish it, and have fun! :)

Homemade chewy dog treats

I make these from time to time for our dogs and they love them!!  Super easy and they make quite a few.  

You will need:

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (dogs shouldn't really have white flour)
3/4 nonfat dry milk powder
1 egg
1/2 cup oil
2 beef bouillon cubes dissolved in
3/4 cup boiling water
3 tbsp. brown sugar

preheat oven to 300 degrees.
combine all the ingredients and knead until mixed well
roll out on floured surface until 1/4 inch thick
use cookie cutters or just cut into squares with a knife
put on greased cookie sheets and bake for 30 minutes

I used little heart, fire hydrant and gingerbread man cookie cutters.  I also made two larger bones as a treat.

Sliced Baked Potatoes

The inspiration for many of my newly acquired recipes is Pinterest.  I heart pinterest.  Except when I pin something and then when I go back for it, it's a dead end, no link pin.  Ugh.  Anyway, there are sooooo many recipes and fun things to do with food on there it's insane.  I was eying up these potatoes for a while, but since I don't keep russets in the house often I had to wait until I bought some to try it out (actually, I waited until they went on sale since I hate paying full price for anything unless i absolutely have to).

The recipe called for a Paula Dean amount of butter than was repulsive so I cut back on that....basically, you just carefully slice the potatoes without going all the way though (this is tough, especially since the potatoes are so hard).  Then the recipe says to put a thin slice of butter between each slice.  Instead of that heart attack, I sprayed the thing down with some Parkay spray butter and then seasoned it with salt, pepper and some Parmesan cheese.  Bake at 450 for 45-60 minutes (depending on how big they are, idk....mine were in for about 50 and then I got impatient).  The bottoms were still a bit undercooked.  Overall, they were an ok side dish.  Maybe it was the lack of a truckload of butter but they were a tad on the bland side.  Then again, that could have just been because we are used to baby red potatoes that have a ton of flavor.  To each their own.  I wouldn't discourage you from trying it out for yourself!  And I think they look rather lovely!

Scrappy wreath~Cheap and Fun!

For this wreath you'll need:

~A wire clothes hanger
~wire cutter/ pliers (I don't know the proper name for the tool)
~scrap material (I used three old pairs of shorts, only cause I save old clothes for crafts and wanted three colors, you don't need a whole lot of material)
~a rotary cutter (if you try it without one, you'll die a slow death)
~about an hour in front of the tv (i watched Scrubs on Netflix.  Feel free to watch whatever you want!)

Use your rotary cutter to cut strips of fabric 1" x 6".  how many you need depends on how thick your material is.  The thinner the fabric, the better.  i tried using jeans but the knots were too thick and threw the balance off.  But don't use something "floppy" like satin, it'll droop.   I didn't count how many i made, but i definitely used more than 100.  I suppose you could also do this project with ribbon.  Although that would defeat the "cheap"....as ribbon is $$$!

Cut the top off your hanger.  do you best to shape your hanger into a circle with your pliers.  Use duct tape or electical tape to secure it into a circle.  Be careful not to use too much tape, you don't want a bulge on the hanger.  If you are really crafty, i suppose you could weld it or maybe even use hot glue....I don't know....I used tape.  It worked fine.  It's a wreath, not a truck hitch.

Tie all your strips around the circle.  One tight tie will do, no need to double it.  The tighter you get it, the less they will spin and shift.  I tied mine as tight as I could and as close together as possible to make it look full.  This is where the thickness of your fabric comes into play.  When you are done tying, spin and fluff the pieces.  You'll see what I mean when you actually get to this step.

I just hung mine directly on the wreath hanger, but you could put a loop on it to hang from a nail or something.

So far I've only made this one, but I'm thrilled with how it turned out!

Lyme disease

So, we had a lyme disease scare...only we didn't know that's what it was. Thursday, our little pup was limping, Friday she was hobbling on three legs and would scream if you touched her. We thought she had sprained her little leg. Saturday morning she was flat on her belly, unable to move, all her legs lame, she couldn't get up. The Vet said it was classic case of Lyme and some antibiotic would take care of her. Luckily after one dose and a few hours she was walking again. By the next day, she was normal again. What a scare! And how heartbreaking to see her in such pain!