Hostess Gifts That Don't Give Them a Hangover.

How many parties are you going to this holiday season? Do you take a hostess gift like I always do? 

Chances are you default to flowers ( which they have probably already bought to decorate) or a bottle of booze that just gets added to the bar for that night. 

This year I decided to come up with something beautiful to take my hostesses. Something that I could make myself for a reasonable price, something that I could customize to their tastes, and something that would be special and beautiful without tons of work. 

 https://www.etsy.com/listing/171426618/

I grow my own organic mint and lavender and have always dried big batches to use during the winter as I make my own tea and seasonings. I was reading the Outlander series and Claire had made mint and lavender sachets for someone's bad headaches, and I thought why not? 







I found some beautiful packs of charm squares, bought some pillow batting and some colorful contrasting threads and set out to figure these out. 

I have a sewing machine that is pretty basic, 
but it has about 100 stitches programmed into it including a bunch of the old crazy quilt stitches. I thought those would make the sachets so much more special. I made a batch, and one day when I was working on them and drinking hot tea, the phone rang and I looked around for something to set my tea on and all I saw was one of the sachets that hadn't come out right. I put my cup on it. 




When I got back from my phone call, there was an amazing smell in the air. The hot tea had made the herbs release oil and a wonderful burst of scent came out. Hmmmm. I would have to revise the design a bit, but I ended  up with a beautiful sachet that doubled as a gorgeous holiday coaster set. The PERFECT hostess gift. 

I'm sharing the instructions with you today. 

So, you can buy a wonderful array of charm squares, either at your local quilting store, or on Etsy. There are tons of styles and colors for all season. You can also buy bags of organic lavender and mint there if you don't grow your own. https://www.etsy.com/listing/158919800/

OR you can buy yardage, and some pinking shears and use a template to cut our your own squares. One is more cost effective, the other is faster and easier...it is up to you how ambitious you are. 

Choose 4 sets with two pieces of material each so that both sides of each sachet, AND all 4 sets compliment eachother in theme, color or style. Pin those all together. 

Then take your batting and folding it over from one side to that you have one edge you don't have to seam, cut out squares 1.5-2 inches smaller than your material. That will give you the allowance you need for the filler to fit in your material pocket after the seam allowance. Sew the two sides shut. These won't show, so just use whatever color thread and make it fast. You end up with a pocket with one end open to fill with the herbs. 

Now take your pinned fabric and choosing a contrasting thread and a beautiful stitch, sew three sides of the sachet closed using a 3/8 seam. Make sure your needle is down so the fabric can't move and raise the foot and carefully stuff the batting pocket into your sachet. Turn the last corner, pinning it in the middle, and close up the pouch. 

You will want to play with the stitches on some scrap material as some of them are just too busy, and you will need to figure out how to end some of them so the corners match up. 

Now all you have to do is pick some ribbon and a few Christmas doo-dads from your wrapping bucket, and you have a beautiful, personalized, organic homemade gift that everyone will love! 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/171390108/

Shameless plug warning

And if you don't have that DIY bone in your body...you can just buy some of mine here :) 

Happy Holidays! 

Avoid the holiday weight gain this year with some simple tips

Are you tired of having to make that same New years resolution every year? 

You know...the one where you vow to lose that 10 lbs you gained since Thanksgiving? This year I decided that I was going to take steps to just avoid the weight gain. I found some great tips that I wanted to share.

http://greatist.com/health/ways-to-avoid-holiday-weight-gain

Now if you did your best, but you still packed on a few Lbs. ( like I always do) don't put your body through the stress of supplements and diet pills and crazy starvation fads. Here are some simple all natural ways to take off that weight. 

http://www.ecellulitis.com/natural-health/8-home-remedies-to-help-you-lose-weight/ 

Turkey leftovers

The dreaded leftovers. 

Just the words conjure up memories of lukewarm rubbery food and sends your kids scrambling to make last minute plans with friends. 

Turkey leftovers; maybe not as scary sounding as some things, but lets face it, you are over the sandwiches way before you run out of that 20lb turkey.  

I created a simple recipe that looks so pretty and tastes so good that no one will ever believe it is leftovers.

All you need is about a half an hour of prep time and another 30 minutes to bake, your leftover turkey, two cans of large biscuits and a few pantry staples.

Start by chopping your leftover turkey along with an onion. Put these in a medium saucepan with a bit of olive oil and saute until the onions are translucent. Add about 2 cups of canned chicken stock or (  if your mamma taught you not to waste anything like mine did), your homemade stock from the turkey carcass and dump in a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. 

Let that all come to a boil and then simmer for about 15 minutes until the vegetables are hot and all the flavors are combining. In the meantime, roll your canned biscuits out to double the size, and make a slurry. That is an old fashioned way of saying shake a couple of table spoons with a cup of cream in an old Ball Jar. I'm sure you can do it in any jar, I just won't promise it will taste as good . 

Add your slurry to the pot and stir and reduce heat as it starts to thicken. Add more cream or stock as desired until you have a nice creamy, but not thick and tight consistency. At this time, I added parsley, salt and pepper, some garlic powder and just a touch of concentrated chicken stock to flavor. The last step was adding about a cup of shredded cheddar and just letting that barely melt before I took it off the heat. 

Spray some Pam into either small souffle dishes or your largest muffin tins and place the dough inside, pushing until it sticks to the sides and goes almost to the top. I used a soup ladle to fill the dough cups until just barely full and topped them with additional cheese. 

Now just pop them into a 375 F. oven for 22-25 minutes. When they are done, the biscuits will have expanded over the top of the cup, and the underside of that overlap will be browned. 

Let them cool for about 2 minutes and you can ease them out with just a fork without them falling apart. The muffin size were just perfect for the kids, and dad and I enjoyed the souffle pans. 

Bon Appétit

Bon Appétit  Leftovers never tasted so good!