Turkey Caprese Loaf

Gluten/Wheat, Dairy and Egg Free

Feeds 2

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey
1/2 c. dairy-free cream cheese alternative*1/4 c. dairy-free parmesan cheese alternative*
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. onion salt
6 large fresh basil leaves

Kitchen tools:

measuring cups & spoons

rolling pin
parchment paper

baking pan

spatula
spoon

knife

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Layout a piece of parchment paper about 12 inches long.
3. Flip ground turkey out of packaging onto parchment paper.
4. Using rolling pin, flatten ground turke until it is about 3/4 in. thick and in the shape of a rectangle (about 6 in. x 12 in.).
5. With a spoon, spread cream cheese alternative over ground turkey (like you are buttering bread).
6. Sprinkle parmesan cheese alternative, garlic powder and onion salt over the cream cheese alternative.
7. Place basil leaves on top of the sprinkling but only on bottom 2/3 of ground turkey.
8. Using the parchment paper as a tool, begin rolling loaf onto itself. [HINT: Touching the ground turkey with your hands gets sticky and may lead to it falling apart.]
9. Once loaf has been rolled, place in a baking dish.
10. Drizzle 1/4 c. tomato sauce onto the loaf.
11. Bake for 1 1/2 hours.
12. When cooked, remove loaf from the oven and cut. [HINT: Using an electric knife casues less breakage.]
13. Before serving drizzle loaf with remaining tomato sauce or serve sauce for dipping.

*I used GO Veggie! but another brand
as well as dairy can be used, depending on allergy
or need for avoidance.

Book / Bible Party Favors

We have a party coming up and I needed to figure out a personal but inexpensive idea. I went in search on the ever-popular craft site and came upon something cute but couldn't find directions or an indication regarding price...even so, my back was up against the wall because of time and I just decided to take the plunge and documented along the way - figuring someone else might benefit from the experience.

What you'll need: (For 50 Favors)

3 Classic Sized Bags of Hershey's Nuggets (I used the plain milk chocolate.)
3 Avery 8253 Shipping Labels (They are the 2" x 4" ones.)
Standard Tape
Double Sided Tape
Ruler
Scissors
Pencil
1/8" wide ribbon (7 yards; however, I had 1/4" wide and cut it in half down the middle of each strip.)
Cardstock
Hole Punch (optional)

I found that making the parts first was easiest, rather than doing one favor at a time. More like an assembly line...

Create your "pages" using Word and the label function.
As you can see, I got two sets of "pages" per label.
I suggest that the pages (the middle where a normal book would be bound) be separated by at least a 1/4" to afford room for the "book marker."
You’ll need to cut the labels in half so that the finished "pages" are 1" x 4."

Cut your "book marks" into 5" lengths. I had thicker ribbon on hand so just cut it down the middle to create the correct 1/8" thickness. It was an extra step but saved me from spending more.

You’ll need to cut your “cover” out of the cardstock into 2 ¼” x 1 ½” pieces.  I then added the half hole-punch to the bottom and top so when assembled it appears the book has a binding.

Begin assembling the individual favors by taking two nuggets and wrapping them side by side with a label.  Don’t worry that the label (looking from the back) is not evenly wrapped.  

Your main focus of this step is to get the “pages” centered on each nugget.

Take a “book mark” and hold it to the back of the book.

Wrap the “book mark” around the center of the book and ensure that approximately 1/2” hangs from the bottom of the book like a tail.  Secure the “book mark” with standard tape.  [TIP: I did not perfectly overlap the “book mark” with itself, it was slightly askew so that the tape would contact both surfaces and would be less likely to slip later.]

 

Then take a piece of double-sided tape that is about 1 1/2” long and place it on the back of the book and sandwich the cover to the “book.”

Finished product should look like this:

 

All in all, I estimate the final cost of each favor as less than 50¢.  Not too shabby!
Also, the personalization is endless…I’ve even considered this for use at my next hosting of a book club!!!

Rearin' Kids and Otherwise Important Tips for Their/Your Survival

Not sure if this is really a smart idea or that I'm sleep deprived (was up every 2-3 hours with a sick LO last night after a bumpy few nights last week) and any semi-intelligent thought seems like it should be up for an award, so forgive me if its the latter...

 

But, in leaving the house this morning I realized that doing this:

 

would help the nanny remember when to give the next dose of fever reducer.  Who knew that your window and a dry-erase marker would be a good medium?  ...but most of all, this could come in handy when it's my turn to give his meds.

 

[At the start, I've just got one tid bit.  But I figure, it's a good start and one blog is an easy way to keep all this little helpful hints together in a single spot.  You might check back later and find additional information...]

28 Day Cleaning/Organizing Challenge (Day 20 - Under Bathroom Sinks)

One of the many places that accumulates "stuff" in our house better than a lint-trap is under the bathroom sink.  I'm not sure why, but it does.  Almost inevitably, after every grocery shopping trip, additional rolls of toilet paper, stocks of toothpaste, etc. get stashed in there along with the everyday needed stuff.  I believe my home's difficulty lies in the fact that these cabinets have no built in drawers or shelving...just an empty box.

As you can see, I tried remedying part of that problem with removable plastic baskets.  To a degree this works; however, overall it isn't a perfect fix.  Cleaning/organizing these spots pretty much consisted of going through what was in there and purging items that aren't used or needed and then reallocating items to each of the bathrooms.  For example, there really is no good reason to have deodorant down in our powder room other than sheer laziness in not wanting to walk up the steps because we forgot to put it on while dressing - so things like that, went back into the upstairs bathrooms.  From there it really was just a matter or placing things back into the baskets in a more orderly way.

Here are some pictures of my progress:

One thing, I am very thankful for in having done this Day's Challenge is that in cleaning under our communal bathroom's sink a leak was discovered.  Although, I was not happy to find many wet and ruined items, having it go unnoticed for a longer period of time would have created even bigger problems.  At this point, it appears we need a new sink as the current one has a crack in it...who knew???

 

Here is one helpful thing that I did add to our already existing way of trying to keep things tidy.  I installed two Command Strip Hooks to the side wall of the cabinet and hung my blow dryer and flat iron by their cords.  It really does free up some much needed space, I'm thinking of doing the same thing with a few other items (like the heating pad and hand mirror) - just need to make a trip to the store for more first.