Heart-shaped Homemade Hand Warmers

Can’t believe it is that time of year again for mittens, winter coats, scarves and boots! Today I’m sharing a very simple craft project that is functional and super sweet! It is Heart-shaped Homemade Hand Warmers! It takes very few materials to create this cutie patootie. So let’s get started:

Materials:

Scrap Felt Fabric

Scrap Cotton Fabric (any color or pattern will do because you will not see it)

4-5 inch Heart-shaped Cookie Cutter

Pen

Scissors

Sewing Machine

Sewing Needle

Sewing Thread (in matching color with the felt)

Funnel

Rice

Directions:

Fold your cotton fabric in half so that you are cutting through two layers. Trace the cookie cutter with a pen onto your cotton fabric. I am using an old plain white pillowcase.

Cut out the pattern following your traced line through both layers of fabric.

Fold your felt fabric in half so that you are cutting through two layers. Trace the cookie cutter with a pen onto your felt fabric.

Cut out the pattern following your traced line through both layers of the felt.

Layer your fabric in this order: cotton, felt, felt, cotton. Make sure the hearts line up.

Sew around the heart leaving a 1/4 inch seam and leaving about a 1 inch opening (be sure to backsew at both ends).

Trim within 1/8 inch of the sewn heart being sure to not cut through any sewn pieces.

Turn the heart inside out.

Place a funnel into your opening.

Scoop out 1.5-2 tablespoons of dried rice.

Pour the rice into the funnel right into your heart. You don’t want it overstuffed but full enough that you can’t feel fabric to fabric. Slip stitch the opening shut using the color coordinating thread and sewing needle.

Tadah! You just made the cutie patootie hand warmer!

Repeat the steps to make a second matching heart. To use the hand warmers: heat in the microwave between 25-45 seconds on high. Place in your gloves or mittens. My microwave takes 45 seconds but every microwave is different. Test your hand warmers first before giving them to a young child. You don’t want to burn their precious little hands! So please use common sense! This would make an awesome stocking stuffer. Tie a ribbon around your hearts with a label explaining how to use them. I found these cute little red and green bells at the dollar store (18 per package). The bells were strung together and I just cut the string and strung the bells directly onto my ribbon for a finishing touch.

Quick and easy, functional and sweet! Just the way I like my craft projects to be! Enjoy!

NOTE: It is filled with rice so it can’t get wet! Be sure to include that in your homemade tag! Here is a link to a Word document that has the tags I used: Handwarmer Tags. You can certainly change the fonts and font colors to make it your own! I used a tag design paper punch to punch out my homemade tags. That made it super easy!

Stick in the Mud Gourmet Popcorn

Not too long ago I discovered Cookies-N-Creme Popcorn. It was heavenly and I’ve made it way too many times in the past couple of weeks! But I thought, hmmmm….this needs a little more of a salty flavor. After talking this dilemma over with one of my besties, Rhonda, I knew pretzels needed to be added. So came our Stick in the Mud Gourmet Popcorn! It is the perfect mix of salty and sweet! Ridiculously easy to make that it may be inappropriate to call it gourmet until you take a bite of this sweet bliss! You will swear it is gourmet!

Printable Recipe: Stick in the Mud

Ingredients:

• 2 bags of microwave popcorn (extra, extra, extra butter!)

• 12 oz package of light cocoa candy melts (Wilton brand; omitted from photo)

• 2 rows of Oreo cookies (from a normal size package)

• 1 cup of thin pretzel sticks broken into large pieces

Directions:

Cook popcorn following package and your microwave instructions. Remove only the popped kernels and place it in a super large bowl (make sure you don’t get any unpopped kernels in the bowl).

Place two rows of Oreos in a gallon Ziploc bag. Using the flat side of a meat tenderizer, crush the Oreos (be sure to leave some good size chunks in it). Add the crushed Oreos to the bowl of popped popcorn.

Add the broken thin pretzel sticks and stir it all up. Melt the candy melts any way you normally do: double boiler, microwave or candy melt crockpot. Pour half of the melted chocolate on top of the popcorn mix. Using a spatula, gently stir the popcorn mix and chocolate together for at least two minutes. It is really about pushing the spatula along the bowl’s inner edge to the bottom and lifting straight up and gently turning over your spatula. Keep doing this going around the bowl. It really is the best way to stir it up without breaking the popcorn into tiny pieces impossible to hold with your fingers (but I’ve been known to use a spoon to eat the tiny crumbs at the bottom of my bowl, lol). So I guess it more of a “folding in the chocolate” versus actually stirring the chocolate into the popcorn mix. Once the chocolate has a light coating on most of the popcorn, pour the remainder of the melted chocolate on top of the popcorn mix. Again using a spatula, gently fold the chocolate into the popcorn mix until all the pieces are lightly coated in the sweet chocolate bliss.

Cover your surface with wax paper. Dump the candied popcorn mix onto the wax paper. Spread to allow the candy to set up (approximately 30 minutes). Gently break up any large chunks and transfer your Stick in the Mud Gourmet Popcorn to an airtight container.

Good luck getting it to last any longer than a couple of days! This is seriously flavor packed and you will kick yourself for not making this sooner!

Four Cheese Manicotti

One of my hubby’s favorite meals is manicotti. He orders it every time we are at an Italian restaurant. I never attempted to make it because I was intimidated by the filing. The filling has to be cheesy, flavorful and smooth. After 17 years of marriage, I thought what the heck, may as well try to make it for the hubby. I think he will stick around if I majorly screw it up, lol! I am so glad I tried because my Four Cheese Manicotti turned out fantastic! I am very proud to say it is truly my own concoction and officially a recipe I created all by myself! The filling was creamy, cheesy and packed with flavor! So without further adieu, here’s the recipe!

Printable Recipe: 4 cheese manicotti

Ingredients: 

• Manicotti tubes (*2 boxes, see NOTE)

• 1 can Hunt’s Garlic & Herb Spaghetti Sauce (*2 cans, see NOTE)

• 16 oz tub cottage cheese

• 15 oz tub ricotta cheese

• 2 eggs

• 1 teaspoon minced garlic

• 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning

• 1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes

• 1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

• 4 cups finely shredded mozzarella

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Boil manicotti noodles per package directions. After noodles are fully cooked, drain the water out.

Spray a 9×13 baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Pour a thin layer of spaghetti sauce on the bottom of the baking dish.

Drain and rinse the cottage cheese. Add cottage cheese to a large bowl. In the same bowl, add the ricotta cheese, eggs, minced garlic, Italian seasoning, dried parsley flakes, pepper and salt.

Using a mixer, mix all ingredients in the bowl for approximately two minutes on medium speed. Mix should be well blended and smooth.

Fold in the parmesan cheese and mozzarella cheese with a spatula.

If you are making this for guests, you will want to put the filling into a gallon Ziploc bag. Snip the corner of the Ziploc creating a 1/2 inch opening. In one hand, hold the manicotti tube upright on one of its ends and squeeze the filling with your other hand into the opposite manicotti end. Squeeze until the noodle is filled but not overstuffed. Lay the filled manicotti tube on top of the sauce in your dish. Repeat until all noodles are used up.

Now if you are making it for your family, let’s just get real, right here, right now. Stuffing them manicotti tubes was a pain in the arse! I just ended up purposely ripping the noodle down one of its seams. I then took small handfuls of filling and smashed a thick layer of it onto the inner wall of the noodle. Then I wrapped the shell back together lining the seams up and laid the manicotti noodle with its ripped seam down on top of the sauce. No one was the wiser and no one complained that my shells weren’t intact. This is probably due to the fact the filling was fanfreakingtastic and no one cared after having a bite of it, lol!

Once the pan is full of stuffed manicotti tubes, pour the remaining spaghetti sauce over the noodles. I ended up with a total of 12 filled manicotti tubes and seriously could not have packed one more manicotti tube into that 9×13 dish. Bake for 45-50 minutes uncovered. Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for approximately 5 minutes before serving. If you did the “tear the seam” method of stuffing, be sure to use a wide, flat spatula to get up under the ripped seam. This will help the manicotti tube keep its shape as you transfer it onto a plate. Take another utensil to slide it off of the spatula all the while making sure your don’t flip the manicotti over exposing the seam (which will cause all that yummy goodness of a filling to spill out). Even though you cheated while stuffing the tubes, it still can look very pretty on your plate. I hope you enjoy your Four Cheese Manicotti (the Pack Family certainly did)!

*NOTE: I had a good amount of filling and a couple manicotti tubes left over. Those last couple manicotti tubes didn’t survive the boiling and were literally torn to shreds. I do think that there is enough filling to make 1/2 of another box of manicotti noodles. You would then need a little more spaghetti sauce. So if you are like me and don’t like wasting food, buy 2 boxes of manicotti tubes and 2 cans of spaghetti sauce. You could bake the additional manicotti tubes in a separate baking dish. Allow the additional manicotti to cool down and place it in a freezer-safe container. It should keep in the freezer for at least 6 months. Just remove from freezer, place in an oven-safe dish and heat in the oven till warmed all the way through. Bazinga! (yes, we watch Big Bang Theory regularly) You’ve just created two dishes! One for now and one for later! That calls for another Bazinga! So BAZINGA! 

21-Layer Easy Lasagna

Although my husband is part German and I’m part Filipino…somewhere down our ancestry lines someone had to be Italian! Our family loves all things pasta so that has to be the case! We made our 21-Layer Easy Lasagna last night and it was spot-on as always. It is really simple to make. For one, I’m not about re-creating the wheel. If someone perfected a product, then I’m using that product! Like Toll House Cookie Dough…um, break and bake…why fight perfection?! Or Pillsbury Grands Biscuits? Hello, it says GRAND?! Some things are just perfect and there’s no need to fight it. That is how we feel about spaghetti sauce. Our go-to favorite comes out of a can. Yep, I said it…a can. AND, it costs only $1.00 everywhere! There are tons of expensive jar sauces out there and painstaking recipes to make your own sauce from scratch but seriously, the Hunt’s Garlic and Herb sauce is top-notch! It is versatile too! Perfect for spaghetti, lasagna & manicotti! It is really a fantastic sauce full of flavor!

I remember going to Spaghetti Warehouse as a young child and thinking, “Woah, 15 layer lasagna?!” When I was younger, I thought it meant 15 layers of noodles, doh! In actuality, the 15 layers included all the layers between the noodles. Well, now I’m the adult and I make a mean 21 layer lasagna, LOL! So, here is our family favorite 21-Layer Easy Lasagna because easy is how I roll!

Printable Recipe: Easy Yummy Lasagna

Ingredients:

• 1 package of lasagna noodles (with at least 15 sheets of noodle in it)

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil, separated

• 1 small onion (not in photo)

• 1 teaspoon of minced garlic (see photo in directions)

• 1 lb. ground chuck

• 1/2 teaspoon salt (not in photo)

• 1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper (not in photo)

• 1 can Hunts Garlic & Herb spaghetti sauce

• 1 tub of large curd cottage cheese

• 1 egg

• 4 cups finely shredded mozzarella (or shredded Italian cheese blend)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 9×13 glass, metal or foil pan with non-stick cooking spray (spray the sides too).

In a large and deep stockpot, follow package directions and cook the lasagna noodles (be sure to add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the water to help prevent the noodles from sticking). I want to share with you a trick I learned over the years. You know those clawed pasta spoons? Don’t use them when cooking! It tears your noodles to shreds. If you are cooking spaghetti, fine…but you want your lasagna noodles to keep their shape so clawed spoons are a no-no for lasagna noodles. Stir frequently with a large wooden spoon (or in my case, a plastic spoon shaped like a wooden spoon) to prevent the noodles from sticking to each other and to the bottom of the pan. I always set the timer following the directions on the package, I’m pretty sure the noodle manufacturer tested several gazillion batches to come up with the perfect cook time…so again, why fight it? Go with the flow folks! When I set the timer and use a wooden spoon, the noodles cook perfectly every time. Once the noodles are fully cooked, place the pot in your sink and run cold (not ice-cold) water right into the pan. Don’t drain the pan just let the cold water force out the hot water. You don’t want to dump or toss your noodles because they are delicate and you want them to keep their shape. Dump out a little bit of the water. Leave the noodles in the cooled water and remove pot from sink (put it on the counter, you will be rinsing more stuff and need the sink).

Add olive oil to a large frying pan. Sauté onions & garlic over medium heat. Add ground chuck. Cook till brown all the way through the meat (mine still has some pink, so I will keep cooking this meat up for a couple more minutes). Once fully cooked, drain the meat (to get rid of excess grease). Add meat mix back to the frying pan. Pressed for time? I always am and I cook the meat mix up while also cooking the noodles. Yep, I multi-task quite well, lol!

Pour spaghetti sauce over meat mix and warm sauce over medium heat.

Drain and rinse off the cottage cheese. Place in a medium-sized bowl.

Add the egg, salt and pepper to the cottage cheese and stir well with a fork.

Layer 1: Spoon a light layer of sauce onto bottom of prepared glass or metal pan.

Layer 2: Place 3 noodles in an even layer in the pan.

Layer 3: Add 3 large spoonfuls of meat sauce on top of the noodles. Using the back of your spoon, spread out sauce into a thin layer (I put one large spoonful on top of each noodle and spread it across that noodle).

Layer 4: Sparingly spoon the cottage cheese mix over the sauce.

Layer 5: Generously sprinkle shredded cheese on top of the cottage cheese.

Layer 6-17: repeat steps 7-10. Layer 18: place 3 noodles in an even layer on top of the shredded cheese. If this is your first time ever making lasagna, be sure that your noodles are going in the same direction on top of each other (do not criss-cross the noodles). When it is all cooked up, you should have 3 rows of lasagna that you can cut into 4 sections making 12 large portions of lasagna. Layer 19: Spoon all of the remaining meat sauce on top of the noodles and spread it out evenly over the noodles. Layer 20: Spoon all of the remaining cottage cheese mix evenly over the meat sauce. Layer 21: Sprinkle the remainder of the shredded cheese evenly over the cottage cheese.

Bake for 40-45 minutes until hot all the way through every layer.

 Remove from oven and let lasagna rest for approximately 5-10 minutes before cutting. Otherwise, your layers will be one sloppy mess. I personally don’t care, whether it is perfectly layered or slopped onto my plate…either way it is FANTASTIC! Yep, we were using the fine china again for this meal, lol! Enjoy!

Cookies-N-Creme Popcorn

Before I go into the Cookies-N-Creme Popcorn, you must watch the following oldie but goodie video in order to understand how I feel about this recipe:

Hello? Is it me your looking for? Yes, I believe this recipe has been searching for me all my life! It is that fanfreakingtastic! Holy Mother Mary of God! This will knock your socks off, possibly blow off your toes as well!

I found the recipe on my favorite internet hangout, Pinterest! Let me back this up for a second. There is a gourmet popcorn store off of Bethel Rd. It’s a little hole in the wall kinda joint in a strip mall. When you walk in there are tins and tins and tins galore! I love tins because they become instant storage or re-gifted when I make cookies at Christmas time. After you get past the tins, there is an area with what looks like 55 gallon drums of every flavor combination of popcorn you can imagine! Amazing flavors and colors of popcorn! Our favorite is the cookies-n-cream popcorn they have made with Oreos. It is to die for. All my friends who always wonder what to get me for special holidays and occasions, this popcorn is what will ensure I leave you something in my will, I promise, LOL! The problem is that it is expensive and I seriously won’t have anything to leave in a will. Don’t get me wrong about the popcorn, it is worth the money, seriously worth the money. I think a three foot bag of popcorn costs like $30.00. Crazy I know but once you’ve had it you will understand why it is worth every penny (and more). I don’t even know the exact name of the place but it is a slice of heaven here in Columbus.

So the other day I found this recipe on Pinterest. I almost fell off my computer chair and needed a bib for all my drooling just looking at the pictures of it! I knew I would be making this and today was the day! So my dear friends, Horny, Cindy-rella, Rockin’ Rhonda and Angie Apple Bottoms are going to love me just a little bit more because they are getting this sweet treat from me! I altered the recipe just a little, for one I doubled it and secondly, I used two full sleeves of the Oreos (out of the 3 in a normal package) because is there such a thing as too many Oreos? I didn’t think so.

Without further adieu, here is my altered version of the Cookies-N-Creme Popcorn recipe along with a great idea for packaging it as a gift!

Printable Recipe: Cookies-n-Creme Popcorn

Ingredients:

2 packages of normal size microwave popcorn (I suggest extra buttery type!)

12 oz of white candy melts

2 rows of Oreos in a normal size package (don’t skimp, get the good stuff!)

Directions:

Microwave the popcorn per the package directions and your specific microwave. You know what I mean…I have the “popcorn” button on my microwave which really equates to 3/4 of a bag popped so I know exactly how long on high to nuke my popcorn to get the best results. It took years of burnt popcorn but I finally figured it out, lol.

This is the hardest part, separate the kernels from the popped kernels. Place the popped kernels in a large bowl.

Put your Oreos in a gallon-size Ziploc bag. Using the side of your meat tenderizer, smash them cookies to smithereens! You want to use the side to prevent puncturing huge holes into your ziploc.

Stir the crushed Oreos into the popcorn.

Melt your candy melts any way you normally do either by double boiler, microwave or candy melting crockpot. Yes, Wilton came out with a small crockpot for candy melts. It holds exactly one 12 oz bag of candy melts. You have 3 settings: off, warm or melt. Next to my wedding rings set, this is the best thing my husband has ever given me for Christmas, hands down! The hubby got it at Walmart, here’s a link so you know what to look for because trust me, you have needed this all your life: Wilton Deluxe Chocolate Melting Pot. I drop the bag of candy melts in, set it to “melt” and in less than 5 minutes I have perfectly smooth melted chocolate. When I make cake pops I would then turn it down to warm and the crockpot keeps the candy at the right temperature to stay melted. It is absolutely amazing! It can also be used for caramel but I haven’t gotten past the candy melt recipes to try it, lol! I keep saying I’m going to make caramel apples, maybe I will get to it in the next couple of weeks? It really is the perfect size. It is wide enough and deep enough for all your candy/caramel desires! In this recipe I don’t need to keep the candy melts “warm”, I just needed those suckers to be fully melted!

Once fully melted, pour half of the white candy over your popcorn and Oreos. With a spatula, give it a good but gentle stir to coat all of the popcorn and Oreo crumbs. Once thoroughly stirred, pour the remaining half of the melted candy over the popcorn. Again, gently stir until all the popcorn and Oreos are thoroughly coated.

Pour out the Cookies-N-Creme Popcorn onto waxed paper. Spread it out and let the candy set up. This took about half an hour.

Store your sweet bliss of a snack in an airtight container and good luck getting it to last any longer than a couple of days! I of course had to share these with my besties! I took out some Ball canning jars. Gave them a good cleaning. I dug deep in my pantry to find my cupcake liners. I’ve collected them for years. I would use some for a special occasion and end up having leftovers. I just put them all in a Ziploc for future use. I found some Halloween cupcake liners and dug them out.

Fill your jars (mine were 8 oz jam jars) close to the top with the Cookies-N-Creme Popcorn. Put on the lid. Place your cupcake liner on top upside down. Screw on the ring and tadah! You have the cutest little container to give away goodies in!

No fussing with pinking sheers trying to cut up some cute fabric into a perfect circle or square. The cupcake liners worked perfectly on my wide mouth jars.

Wondering how much this will make? Well, I filled up 9 eight ounce canning jars and had an overstuffed gallon Ziploc left over for little ol’ me to eat ALL by myself! LOL

I am not lying, this Cookies-N-Creme Popcorn recipe is the BOMB! Hmmmm…I don’t think it’s cool to say “the bomb” anymore, but I don’t care because they were the BOMB!

Easy Chicken and Dumplings Casserole

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like chicken and dumplings. I prefer making the dumplings from scratch in a rolled out noodle recipe however some days I’m pressed for time. This Easy Chicken & Dumplings Casserole recipe is great for days when you don’t have a lot of time to get dinner done! I adapted this recipe to create our own version. With very little prep work, this recipe is easy and turns out super tasty!

Printable Recipe: Easy Chicken & Dumplings Casserole

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter or margarine (omitted from ingredients photo)

2 large cans of chicken (found near canned tuna)

2 cups baking mix (like Bisquick)

2 cups milk (omitted from ingredients photo)

1 can cream of chicken soup

14oz can chicken broth

3 teaspoons of chicken flavored granules (found near bouillon cubes)

pepper & salt to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When building the layered casserole, do not mix the layers. Place stick of butter or margarine in a 9×13 casserole dish and stick the dish in the oven while it is heating up.

Layer 1 – Drain cans of chicken. Place chicken in a small bowl. Using a fork, shred the chicken pieces. Once butter is melted in the casserole pan, remove from oven and tilt the dish until the bottom of the dish is covered in butter (be careful, dish will be hot). Spread the shredded chicken over butter. Sprinkle black pepper and salt to taste.

Layer 2 – In small bowl, mix baking mix and milk together. Slowly pour over chicken.

Layer 3 – In medium bowl, whisk together chicken broth, chicken granules and soup. Once blended, slowly pour over the baking mix/milk layer. The layers will get mixed up a little but not too much if you pour slowly. Do not stir in the layers!

Bake casserole for 25-30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. The doughy part (dumpling) rises to the top leaving creamy chicken goodness underneath!

This dish has a lot of broth and would go great over mashed potatoes!

Quick Cinnamon Sugar Bread

Before I get into the bread, I have to tell you why I was baking bread at 5 in the morning. It was actually a little therapy for me, lol. I spent the evening (and early morning hours) finishing up a crocheted afghan. It was a fillet pattern of a horse. My intent was to sew it to red fleece (it was black). I seemed to have forgotten that I SUCK at sewing and my sewing machine SUCKS even more.

All those hours I put into making this horse pattern was wasted within minutes. Turns out the combination of crochet and fleece was too demanding on my crappy sewing machine. I actually ended up breaking 4 needles, yes…I said 4. I’ve tried and the hubby has tried to fix the tension for my thread but it never fails (or I guess I should say, “It always fails”). After a few inches of sewing, the tension gets so tight the thread just snaps. My tension is actually set to zero but that didn’t seem to matter. I had to re-thread the needles (because remember I went through 4 of them) at least 200 times.

My zig zag stitch should really be called “zig-skip a few-zag” stitch. I know it’s hard to see the awful stitching in this picture but trust me, it ruined the afghan. And I can’t just rip the seam because I sewn through several layers of yarn. I hate my stupid sewing machine! I wasted all that time pinning the fleece & then pinning the fleece to the afghan. It was a perfect square pattern but after all the horrible sewing, it was more of an abstract pattern, lol. It was ruined and quite frankly, I was annoyed beyond annoyed. This afghan was part of a collection of afghans I had made for the GMHS Football Moms Club to be raffled at home games. We have another home game this Friday so now I have to crochet another afghan and do it fast!

I needed something to go right so I thought I’d give this recipe a try. I altered the recipe just a little. I changed some of the ingredients’ amounts and just tweaked the directions. So glad I tried it because this Quick Cinnamon Sugar Bread recipe was seriously quick and fool-proof. The best part is that the ingredients are ingredients everyone has in their kitchen! No fancy smancy stuff, just simple and real. Just the way I like it. And oh did I need that, I needed something to be perfect after my sewing disaster and this bread certainly was that!

Printable Recipe: Quick Cinnamon Sugar Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 cup white sugar

• 1 egg, beaten

• 1 cup milk

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil

• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

• 3 tablespoons sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Generously grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan (don’t forget to do all the sides all the way to the top).

In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt and 1 cup sugar.

Using a 2 cup liquid measuring cup, measure out the milk. Add 1/3 cup of oil to the measuring cup. Add the egg to the measuring cup. Whisk milk, oil and egg together until well blended. Pour over flour mixture.

Stir until just moistened.

Pour half of the batter into prepared pan.

Combine the tablespoon of cinnamon and 3 tablespoons of sugar in a small bowl. I have cinnamon and sugar already mixed together in a container that you can see in the ingredients photo. Ok, you probably noticed that it is empty, lol. I need to mix more and fill it back up. We like to have cinnamon and sugar already mixed together for quick cinnamon toast. Because my cinnamon/sugar mix was already pre-made, I’m guessing I used twice the amount listed above. You can’t ever have too much cinnamon/sugar, lol! Sprinkle 1/2 of the cinnamon/sugar mix on top of the batter in the pan.

Cover cinnamon/sugar mix with remaining batter. Top with remaining cinnamon/sugar mix. Bake in preheated oven for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes on a cooling rack before attempting to invert out of the pan. I wasn’t very successful with the bread flipping out of the pan. Only 1/2 wanted to come out so I put it back in the pan and will just keep it in there. The original directions said to grease the pan lightly. I am guessing I greased it too lightly, lol!

Serve warm with a thick slab of butter. Ok, you can omit the butter but I needed the butter this morning and lots of it, lol! Wrap the bread loaf in wax paper and then foil. I guess you could also omit the wax paper but I always think that bread wrapped in foil gets a metal taste to it? It probably is all made up in my head but I don’t chance it, lol! How long will it last on the counter? I have no clue because it will be gone before this day is over!

Update: I guess I should clarify the “Quick” part, lol. It was super easy and fast to put together. For me, it did take every bit of 50 minutes for it to fully bake. But I called it “Quick” because the batter came together and fully in the pan in less than 5 minutes. I had one bowl, one liquid measuring cup, one whisk and measuring spoons to wash. When baking from scratch, this to me is “Quick” 🙂

Update 2: Since I have made this bread seriously 3 times in the past couple of days, I can safely tell you to grease the pan “generously” and it will flip right out. My husband of 17 years demanded this be made everyday when he comes home from work…I just laughed my ass off at him, like I take demands! LOL LOL LOL This is the 1st demand he has ever made of me and unshockingly, his last since it was a huge epic fail on his part, LOL! Good thing he was joking or I would have to kick him in the shins! LOL

Candygrams

I feel very privileged to be part of the GMHS Football Moms Club. Together with a fine bunch of ladies, we take care of the behind the scene tasks that make the football program run smoothly. This includes serving (sometimes fixing) team meals, taking pictures, planning the end of season banquet and many other things. This week is Seniors’ Week at the high school. All the senior football players received a little goodie at the beginning of everyday. It was a lot of fun putting together these candygrams! We took the names of the candy and incorporated it into a short, positive note for the seniors. I thought I’d share some pictures of the daily senior spoilings!

Senior Spoiling # 1 ~ “All the EXTRA effort by the

Seniors did not go unnoticed!“

Senior Spoiling # 2 ~ “Seniors, TAKE 5 to reflect on what all

YOU have accomplished at GMHS!“

Senior Spoiling # 3 ~ “We hope the Seniors have a

WHOPPER of a game Friday night!“

Senior Spoiling # 4 ~ “Go, Fight, Win BIG RED and Black!

Cruiser Seniors are the leaders!“

Senior Spoiling # 5 (the GRAND DADDY spoiler) ~ “The Senior SMARTIES know that only DUM DUMS don’t work as a team! We MINT to tell you thanks for being ROLL-O models for the underclassmen!“

With candy, cardstock, scrapbook paper, curling ribbons, scissors and double-sided tape, you too can make Candygrams! Have fun creating little sayings that incorporate the name of the candy into it! The possibilities are endless!