Updated Scrapbook Room

So I got a few new items for my scrapbook room for Christmas. I decided to go through and rearrange and clean my room!! So here are some pictures of my very favorite room to be in!!

The windo in the room! I made the Valence with my Mom :)

The scrapbook/all crafts table! It's set of 4 storage square blocks from Target/Michaels. I also got a long piece of countertop from my parents for my birthday!! I was so excited!

Here is this awesome thread catcher bag my parents got me for my sewing table!!

The new sewing box I also got for Christmas. And underneath it is a rolling cart with fabric, patterns, and supplies!

A shot of my whole sewing table!! I also redid the chair and made the fabric on the seat match the valence.

My Paps made this for me for Christmas! I love it!! It's hanging on a wall in my room!

This is an amazing rolling cart I bought at Michaels! It has been such a great purchase!!

This is a view of my closet! I took the closet doors down to make the room feel bigger!! And my Mom bought me the 5 12 x 12 storage boxes, which are amazing!!

Another shot of the closet!

Another one of the closet!

I love my scrapbook room! Happy I could share!

Chocolate Mousse - YUM!!

Chuck really wanted some Chocolate Mousse for our Christmas Day dessert! So I gave it a shot!!

Here are my ingredients: Vanilla Extract, Eggs, Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips, and Heavy Whipping Cream!!

Some of the ingredients mixed together!!

The egg whites whipped to a "Peak" :-)

Here is the melted chocolate waiting for the eggs!

All whipped together!! Doesn't really look like mousse to me!! I think the chocolate needed to cool longer!

Into the fridge they go! I filled each individual dessert bowl and wrapped them up cling wrap and slid them into the refrigerator!

Right before I served our dessert I had to whip up some whipped cream. Instead of doing regular whipped cream I made Creme Chantilly! You add Vanilla and Powdered Sugar!!

Here it is all whipped up!! Yummy!!

And the finished product!! So the texture was not right! It tasted GREAT!! And we loved it but the texture wasn't quite right! So I am definitely trying it again!!

Another New Recipe!!

One of our New Years Resolution is to not go out to eat! We are going to be so HAPPY if we make it through January LOL, but our goal is to start out at waiting 3 months. If a special occasion like a birthday or our Anniversay we may go out but we are going to plan on doing dinner at home every night. Not only does it mean no more eating out dinner, it includes lunches, breakfast and Starbucks!!! I think we can do it!! So stay tuned...

But in order to try and eat more at home I'm back to trying new recipes!! I think this will keep it spicy and make us want to eat home, we won't get bored!! But in order to make it stick this time (with trying new recipes) I organized my recipes! I went through and cleaned out all of my random scraps of paper with recipes, typed them up and put them in sheet protectors. I then divided them into Recipes We Love and Recipes to Try and then divided them into Breakfast, Appetizer, Dinner and Dessert. It took time and I'm still not completely done with it, I ran out of page protectors, but so far I'm loving it!!

So tonight, despite feeling like shit and preferring take out food, I bucked up and made Fettucine Alfredo! Simple enough and something I never made from scratch! I was super excited to make home made alfredo sauce!
I took 2/3 cup heavy cream and 1/2 stick of butter. Melted the butter into the cream on the stove top.

Then I added 1 cup of parmesan cheese and mixed until it melted. The recipe said the cheese would melt but I found I needed to put it back on the stove for a little while and continue stirring.

Here it is mixed in with the noodles!

We also heated up some carrots! I love CARROTS!

I totally forgot to take a picture of it plated, a little out of practie I guess, but here is my plate afterwards! Can you tell I liked it? haha. I am definitely filing this away in the Recipes We Love binder !!

And we really wanted dessert so Chuck made that!! He took a brownie from New Years Eve and whipped up some creme chantilly and then decorated with a pirouille (not sure if I spelled it right). It was so good!! So much for healthy eating and losing weight tonight HAHA! Once I'm feeling better (hopefully by Monday) I'll be back to my working out schedule!! But how could you pass up a dessert like this one?

The Perfect Brownie Pan & Cutter - AS SEEN ON TV!!

I was so FREAKIN excited!! Awhile ago I had seen this on TV and told Chuck that it would be so neat! I am a horrible brownie cutter! Mine end up in all different sizes! When they come out with a cake cutter similar to this I will be buying it ASAP! I just can't seem to cut anything straight!

But even after teasing me for wanting this cute little contraption....HE BOUGHT IT FOR ME FOR CHRISTMAS!!! I was so EXCITED!!

You just take a boxed cake mix and then pour it into the pan they provide and then put the cutter into the mix and pop it into the oven!

And voila out they come baked as normal and already sliced!!

And the cutter comes out super easy and didn't mess up any of the brownies!!

The set also comes with some stencils so of course I had to try them out! I just used powdered sugar and made a star and a heart! I actually made these brownies for New Years Eve! They turned out so good! and they looked AMAZING!

I highly recommened buying this, even if you are okay at cutting brownies this makes it super easy! No cuttng involved! and they look bakery worthy!!

Christmas Eve 2009

Christmas Eve is always spent at my parents house and it's always a FUN time!! I was so excited that Chuck got off work early this year and we got to go down around 6!!

Here isme and My Sister!!

Me and my Paps!!

Chuck and I!

No pictures of me and my Mom cause she was busy cooking up our yummy Christmas Dinner!!

Here is the table settings! My mom uses super pretty gold chargers with her china! I loved it!

The super delish ham!! It was really good!

Here is part of the table: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, and jello salad! I love my Mom's Jell-O Salad!

And here is the other half: Ham, Green beans, and gravy!! Dinner was SO GOOD!! I love love love Christmas Dinner, because I love Ham! And I am so excited that my parents gave me some leftover ham and the ham bone so I can make split pea soup! I am actually making it tomorrow and if I'm starting to get over my cold I am going to bring some down to my Paps!!! We love Split Pea Soup!

And Santa and Mrs Claus treated us all VERY VERY good this year! We all got spoiled!!!
I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Let's Hope 2010 is a WAY BETTER year than 2009!!

Christmas Day Dinner 2009

So Christmas Day Chuck and I make it our little Christmas and I make a big dinner :-)

Here we are right before eating dinner! What can I say, we are a fan of these types of pictures for every single occasion!

Our BEAUTIFUL Turkey! We went with just the Turkey Breast turkey because after doing a full turkey for thanksgiving we ended up throwing a lot out because neither of us like dark meat! So we went back to our trusty Turkey breast!

It was so moist as Chuck was carving it!

Proud chef with her successful turkey!! I never get pictures of me since I'm the picture taker, but since I slaved in the kitchen I deserved a picture with my food!!

Here is our table: We have mashed potatoes, green beans, turkey, crescent rolls, jell-o salad, and stuffing!! It was so great!

And we just now realized that in the before and after pictures there isn't much of a difference :-) Too much food to two people but it was great to have a few leftover platefuls of christmas dinner!!

And I am posting some what backwards because for our Christmas Day dessert I made a new recipe! I made Chocolate Mousse with Creme Chantilly!!! And it was so GREAT! I'll post the way I made it after this one!

But here is a picture of our dessert! It was delish!

Rasperry Linzer Cookies & Cookie Boxes

This year Chuck and I decided to do little cookie/treat boxes for his Aunt and Uncle's as Christmas gifts. I also wanted to try a new recipe, so I chose to do Raspberry Linzer Cookies!!!

Here are the ingredients:


Mixing away in our KitchenAid.

I had to roll out the dough and then used one of my cookie cutters to cut out the bottom part of the cookie. After cutting out these I had to cut the whole batch in half and cut out the center of the cookie.

Then baked them all in the over!! Laid them out on a plate, waiting for the raspberry preserves.

With the Raspberry filling.

All put together:

And the final dusting of powdered sugar!!!
They turned out pretty good!

So we made the cookie boxes and they turned out amazing!!! I made Raspberry Linzer Cookies, Chocolate Mint Cookies, Party Peppermint Patties, and Peanut Butter Blossoms!! We didn't end up seeing his Aunt and Uncles on Christmas this year so we made 6 of these little boxes and gave them to his Sister, 2 Cousins, Mom, and Uncle, and then one for his coworker that we love!!

Apparently the cookie boxes were a big hit!!