An Old-Fashioned Valentines!

            I love the season of LOVE! But when you're on a tight budget like me and you're putting your husband through that last semester of College and having that extra mouth to feed, you need to be a little creative. This year for valentines we were going to stay home maybe have a few friends over and have a great relaxing night. I wanted to do something a little different that we don't normally do on a normal day. I thought it would be fun to have some fun old fashion drinks that would be great for our whole family to enjoy.

                     Old-Fashioned Italian Creme Soda

                 I'm really  loving that there's so much you can do with the syrup flavors and the different concoctions  you can make with them. Here is how I made these:

 Ingredients:

(this is for one glass maybe 2 with small glasses like mine)

1/2 cup carbonated water ( I have a soda stream so I just make my own but you can also buy club soda)
2 or 3 ice cubes
2 tablespoons of Vanilla Torani syrup (you can buy this at Walmart for about $3.50)
You can also get the syrups at any restaurant supply kind of store (like Orson Gygi in the Salt Lake City area) 
1 tablespoon of Raspberry Torani syrup ( I bought sugar free from Walmart but it's much better not sugar free, if you don't mind  the extra calories.  You can buy this here) 
1 tablespoon half and half
whip cream till your heart desires. 

Directions:

     The first thing I did was combine all the syrup and carbonated water together in a separate measuring pouring cup and stirred it together with a metal spoon. * Also you can decide if you want more raspberry or vanilla flavoring, I did a lot of experimenting and this one was my favorite, but have fun and make it your own.
I then poured that into my fancy cup with the two ice cubes and measured out a tablespoon of half and half and poured it over the top.  Next is the topping of the whip cream and I was very generous with that! When you're ready to drink it, give it a little swirl with your straw to mix it up a bit and it seriously is so yummy.  The best part is you can get a lot of bang from your buck with each cup costing around $0.20.  ENJOY!!

We love you "Berry" Much

Yesterday was my Father in laws birthday so I just had the inlaws over for dinner.  We had chicken pot pie and it was SO good! I would give you the recipe but I got it at.....Costco.  Seriously, I love that place! Anyway, I wanted to do a little birthday / valentine gift for my in laws so I decided to do chocolate covered strawberries and say "We love you BERRY much". It was SO cute and so easy!! 

I saw the easiest way to make chocolate covered strawberries on facebook one day.  I tried it and after making a few changes I love it.  It is so quick and easy I make it all the time.  (I will say, they arent the prettiest strawberries.  I actually tried a couple different ways to apply the chocolate to make them prettier, but I wasnt successful.  I was in a hurry though because I was making these and trying to get them done before my inlaws got here.  If you try them yourself and find a way to make them "pretty" let us know!!)  I had my little helper today and Im lucky I had any chocolate left!

All you need is chocolate and strawberries.  I use four chocolate bars for one ice cube tray of strawberries.  (Florida strawberries are in season right now and they are so sweet and delicious!) First you need to cut up your strawberries and put the pieces in an ice cube tray. I find it easiest to just cut the top off and cut them in half.  Lay them flat side down in the ice cube tray.  

Next, you need to melt your chocolate. I know there are different ways to melt chocolate so do whatever works best for you.  I melt mine in the microwave.

To melt chocolate in the microwave cut your chocolate into small, equal size pieces.  Make sure they are equal size so they melt evenly.  Put your chocolate pieces in a microwave safe bowl.

I use my pyrex glass bowl.  You need a bowl that will stay cool enough that you can pick it up with your hands during the heating process.  If the bowl gets too hot for you to touch, it is too hot and will burn your chocolate (if you burn your chocolate just add a few pieces of unheated chocolate bar and it should be ok).  You are going to heat your chocolate for anywhere between 1 - 2 minutes (depending on your microwave and the chocolate), a few seconds at a time stirring in between. I do 45 seconds to start and then take it out and stir.

Use a rubber spatula and stir the chocolate.  This is what mine looked like the first time I took it out.  After stirring, put it back in for 15 more seconds, take it out and stir again.  Do this as many times as you need to before the chocolate is completely melted but not burnt.  I only had to do it twice.

This is how mine looked the last time I took it out.  Now its time to cover the strawberries. This is where I tried to get creative.  I tried dipping a whole strawberry in the chocolate and also dipping it and covering it with a spoon.  Neither worked very well for me.

So, my suggestion is just covering the strawberry halves you put in the ice cube trays with chocolate using a spoon.  As I said, they aren't the prettiest strawberries (also, I had taken so long trying to find other ways to do the chocolate that my chocolate had started to set by the time I just covered the berries.  I had to hurry and just glop the chocolate on, so they are even more sloppy looking then usual...sorry!)

Once you have covered all of the berries put the tray in the refrigerator (the original recipe I saw said to put them in the freezer.  This works faster but, not only does it freeze the chocolate but it also freezes the strawberries.  Once the strawberries thaw they seemed to be runny and didnt taste so good.  When you put them in the fridge it still solidifies the chocolate but the strawberries maintain their natural taste and texture). It takes about an hour for the chocolate to solidify enough to work with.  The longer you leave it in there the harder the chocolate will get.  Once you take them out, the easiest way to get the berries out of the tray is with a knife:

Now, in my hurry to finish I didnt get a picture of just the berries out of the tray. But I did get some pictures of them in the bags.  I bought clear cellophane bags from the dollar store that came with silver ties.  I made tags out of my scrapbook paper that said "We love you Berry much" and I had my little girl "decorate" them. I thought about making them all cute with valentine stuff, but my family would rather see my little girl's drawing than my hearts.  So, it may not look all professional, but to me it is perfect!

Happy Valentines Day!

 




 

14 DaYs OF VaLeNtiNeS!!

    I decided that this year for valentines I wanted to do something different. We are going through that tight wallet time in our life while we are putting him through school and I wanted to do something special and over the top, so I decided to do the "14 days of valentines". I have been seeing this all over pinterest, and after searching for what best fit my husband I had a problem, he isn't sort of the candy or chocholate kind of guy. (crazy I know) After looking at so many sites it was so hard to find what I thought would fit my man the most so I then had to come up with my own. I did find some that worked on some sites and some I kind just went with his favorite and threw it in the bunch. I think over all it was a success! I spent around $25 and was so happy I hope you like them. I also found out about a website called picmonkey from Cami and I have been hooked to it. That is where I made all the cute tags to go along with it, or you can also download my pdf if you like, but have fun and make it your own!

Day 1:

   

 Click here to download "Macho Man"

Day 2:

         Click here for "apple juice"

 Day 3&4:

Click here for "Squeeze it"

 Click here for "Chex mix" 

 Day 5:

Click here for "Oreo"

Day 6&7:

Click here for "Mountain Dew"

 Click here for "Gold Fish"

Day 8:

Click here for "Nuts"

 Day 9:

  

I followed this tutorial to make this yummy popcorn (picture from her site) follow her recipe here. 

Click here for "popcorn"

Day 10 &11:

Click here for "Exta gum"

Click here for "Reese's Pieces"

Day 12:

Click here for "Zebra Cakes"

Day13:

Click here for "Crush Soda"

Day 14:

  This day I got a jar and just filled it up with little papers with things I love about him written on them, and also I have a gift card to put with it.

Click here for "I love you jar"

I hope you like how it turned out, I'm so excited for February to start! I just really hope he doesn't look at my blog post, or he will be in trouble.