kat's stuffed shells

This is my husbands all time favorite! he likes to call them "mini lasagnas" 

Instead of going out to a fancy Italian restaurant tonight with that special person, why not just stay in and have fun making your own dishes together and enjoy some wine while your at it. 

okay, once you have your wine glass filled, we will be ready to start!

What your gonna need:

• box of big pasta shells
• 1/2 lb ground beef (you could use turkey or veal just make sure its ground..use what you have on hand)
• pasta sauce- however much you like, i used about a cup and half because we don't like them really saucey (i used homemade sauce but use whatever you like! you could even use just canned tomatoes and add seasonings if that's what you have. Ill share my pasta sauce recipe soon) 
• 8 oz shredded mozzarella
• Italian seasoning
• parsley
• 1 cup Parmesan (i spend the extra money and grate my own but use the can if that's what you like!)
•  2 lbs ricotta cheese
• 2 eggs
• salt and pepper to taste

1. get your shells cooking according to the instructions on the package and preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. brown your meet in a pan until it is cooked thoroughly, then add in your Italian seasoning as you like. once combined add in your pasta sauce and stir to combine well.
3. in a bowl combine the ricotta, eggs, parsley, Parmesan, mozzarella and salt and pepper. 
4. put a ladle full of the sauce in the bottom of a lightly greased baking dish. 
5. spoon some of the cheese mixture into the cooled shells and place in the bottom of the baking dish on top of the sauce you placed in there earlier. 
6. pours the rest of your sauce mixture over the shells, cover and bake for around 30 minutes. 
7. take out of the oven and sprinkle more mozzarella, Parmesan, and a lot of parsley (if you like it) on top.
8. bake uncovered for another 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and gooey!

serve this with some garlic bread, and a fresh tossed salad of your choice with a glass of wine and you have yourself a wonderful at home romantic Italian dinner that your partner is sure to love! 

now you can argue over what movie your gonna rent on TV...i cant help you much there..

hope you guys enjoyed! please keep following and sharing these posts, i really appreciate it and it means a lot to me.

<3Kat

white bread

Who doesn't love bread? who wouldn't love their home smelling like a bakery? 

exactly! 

this is why you should make your own bread and wow your spouse, friends, or loved ones as they walk in through the door and smell this wonderful recipe being pulled fresh out of the oven.

Here is the ingredients:

• 1 3/4 Cups water
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/3 c agave nectar or honey
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 tsp yeast 
• 4 1/2 flour

1. in a small pot, combine water, butter, honey and salt. Warm until its warm to touch but not hot. ( I usually heat it up until i start to see a little steam then i remove it from the heat and cool down a little)
2. in your mixing bowl to your stand mixer, add 2 cups of flour and yeast and combine slightly. 
3. add your warm liquid mixture in and beat until moistened.
4. continue to add flour half a cup at a time until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the bowl.then switch to your dough hook.
5. keep adding flour until sticky ball of dough has formed.
6. place your dough ball into a greased bowl and lightly spray the top of the bread to keep from forming a hard crust. cover with a lint free dish towel and let rise for 90 min. TIP: to keep your dough away from any drafts or cool temperatures, turn your oven light on and put it in the oven to rise, make sure it is OFF.
7. remove from bowl onto a lightly floured surface, press out air and forms into a loaf. 
8. Place into greased loaf pan, cover, and let rise for 30 min or until it has puffed out of the loaf pan a bit.
9. (make sure it is out of the oven now) preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake for 30 minutes.
10. cover with foil and bake additional 5 minutes.
11. you can spread melted butter over the top if you would like after it comes out of the oven. I dont like to do this personally because i like it to keep that slight crust on the exterior and it holds it shape a little better. sometimes loaves that have melted butter all over them can almost seem a bit soggy after it sits a while but its all a personal preference! thats the great thing about cooking and baking, its what YOU like and your opinion and you get to make it how you like....if everything in life was like that it would be a great world right?! 

I really hope you guys enjoy this wonderful bread recipe=]

thanks as always and keep following, sharing, and pinning;)

<3Kat

chicken biscuit dog treats

           

This is for all your animal lovers out there who have some fur babies of your own! I do think that i am the only person in the world who has two dogs that are allergic to peanut butter and a list of other things that normal dogs love. I have to be pretty careful with what i give to my dogs so i have perfected this recipe to suit their needs and benefit them in certain areas as well. and in case your wondering, I have a female black lab named Dixie Mae and a male chocolate lab named Bo Duke=]

                                                                Lets get started!

Here is what you will need:

• 5 cups whole wheat flour 
• 1 cup corn meal
• 2 tsp chicken bouillon (i use the better than bouillon flavoring)
•  1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp parsley (help with bad dog breath so i add more sometimes)
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 canola oil (this helps prevent urinary track infections in dogs)
• 1 c milk ( i use skim milk)

1. mix ingredients together using a mixer, start slowly then speed up. mix until it forms a ball of dough.
2. if your using a stand mixer like me then just let the dough knead for about 5 minutes. if your using your hand then knead until everything is pretty silky and blended together. 
3. form into ball on your counter and roll out with a rolling pin to about 1/4 inch thick
4. cut out cookies with a cookie cutter or a biscuit cutter like i used. 
5. bake at 350 for about 15 minutes on each side or until they are golden on each side. 

you could also use your finger to form paw prints before you bake!

and thats it! this does make a lot of dough so i usually cut it in half and freeze one half at a time. 

I hope you make this for you four legged friends=]

thanks and keep following!

<3Kat

honey mustard chicken thighs

We absolutely LOVE chicken thighs in this house! its so tender and flavorful, its also pretty cheap. in my opinion there is nothing better than some drumsticks tossed in a baking dish with some butternut squash, garlic, olive oil, herbs and roasted up till crispy and heavenly...but that's another post. 

This is my honey mustard chicken thighs..once again i don't have specific measurements but i am sure i can walk you through this because its so simple! I promise to start taking measurements...i just like to pretend i am some sort of scientist in the kitchen and throw things together and pray to sweet baby jesus it comes out ok. and in this case it was incredible and full of amazing flavors. 

go ahead and get your oven preheated to 350. then lay a package of thawed chicken thighs in the bottom of a baking dish ( i always trim extra fat off of mine so go ahead and do that now if you would like to as well)

then I mixed together with a whisk in a small bowl some regular local honey, regular mustard, and Dijon mustard until i got a consistency of a glaze. pour over chicken and use a basting brush to smother it all over the thighs. you can then salt and pepper to taste if you would like. then cover the dish with some aluminum foil and bake for about 25-30 minutes or until cooked thoroughly depending on your oven. I would pull the chicken out about half way through to flip the chicken and baste it one more then recover it and finish baking. I did this the second time i made them and it was so delish!

Bon Appetit! 

I hope you guys enjoy!

thanks for the continued support, keep following for more recipes.

<3Kat

Easy/Fast muffin tin pancake bites

Is your mouth watering yet? well if its not, I promise you that it will as soon as you smell this wonderful concoction baking in your oven in the morning!

First off, go ahead and get your warm cup of coffee brewing or your glass of orange juice if that's what your into.. and then get these ingredients together!

What you will need: 

• pancake mix (any kind will work, but i like bisquick. or you could even make your own)
• syrup 
• toppings ( I used some cinnamon sugar on a couple and then some cooked bacon on the rest) 
• whatever your pancake mix calls for  

how easy does it get? you most likely have all of these things on hand anyway and its a lot easier than standing over the stove flipping flap jacks!

I will apologize in advance for not having specific measurements, but i don't typically measure ingredients out. I just add what i like and how much i like and hope for the best.  here is what i did. 

I used the amount of the pancake mixture for the least amount of pancakes and whipped that up as directed on the box. I then added in the syrup until it was a bit runny. poured it into my greased muffin tin. then topped with my toppings, i highly recommend the bacon. then i baked at 350 degrees until the top was golden brown and they looked pretty solid. I tested mine the same as i would a cake, with a toothpick, just to make sure they were cooked thoroughly. This wont take long to cook so i would keep checking depending on how hot your oven runs.

I hope you guy enjoy this recipe because my hubby and I sure do!=]

thanks as always!

<3Kat

DIY mouthwash bottle (liquor bottle)

Here is my new mouthwash bottle that I made from a Crown Royal bottle! =]

First, I sanded down the bottle after taking the labels off just to rid of the shininess. 

 Then, I painted both the bottle and the cap this bronze paint i purchased from hobby lobby. 

Once that was dry I then painted it with a blue shade a made from mixing this turquoise paint with the white to make it more of a baby blue shade. 

after everything was dry i gently sanded the raised portions of the bottle to give it this shabby chic vibe. 

This looks great on our bathroom vanity! you should try this with any of your favorite shaped bottles=]

thanks for following!

<3 Kat

craft room progress

Hi guys! I am sorry for being MIA for the past month..life just got in the way. I wont bore you with all of my excuses but I will tell you some amazing news! My husband and I purchased a home!!=] we are so happy and excited and cannot wait to get out of base housing. Of course you know what this means, a ton of posts about all of my projects in the new house are on the way! I cannot believe i will have a house that is mine and i have the freedom to do what i want, SO EXCITING!

But enough about that, lets get into today's blog post. I wanted to go ahead and post what i have done to this house and some before and after posts before we move to show how i have transformed certain rooms. Please keep in mind that i was nowhere finished and had a lot of lined up projects and ideas, but now that energy can be put into my own home. I will start with my new craft room, I actually painted this pretty recently...before we found a house we wanted. So, naturally, now i have to paint it back white before we move out..don't you just love how things happen. Anyway, the room before was pretty useless. It had a desk, a cheetah rug and a bookshelf, needless to say I didnt go in there too often.

Here is the before picture, used some hand-me-down items and stuff i had from high school to put this room together. 

I decided i needed a space where i could devote my creativity to and have room to work on my projects (and eliminate paint and burlap from being on my kitchen counters)

And here is how far i got! the paint color is "Tree Bark Grey" from Walmart. The picture doesn't do it justice, it does have some grey undertones. the new rug was purchased from Kmart, on sale! I was aiming for the taupe and black color scheme and accent with cream. I was going to make ruffle cream curtains but didn't get that far.  

My craft table is two square storage cubicles from Target in the color "black ash" and a piece of wood i had cut at home depot and painted black to match. I just used Liquid Nails to secure the table top to the cubes. I then purchased storage baskets, my bar stool from Walmart, my Martha Stewart craft mat and other crafting tools, and my spinning storage carousel from Hobby Lobby.   

I will eventually have a sewing station in my craft room as well so i started making some decor to play with the crafting and sewing theme. I made these large all "buttons" from two extra chargers and the small one is a plastic plate. I did two coats on the two black ones and then hot glued the twine in an X pattern in the middle to resemble buttons. 

I love the way this "button" turned out. I painted it the tan color first and then went in with the cream color and light handedly made it look distressed, i then went in with a dry paint brushed and lightly wiped off some of the paint. hen glued the twine on the same as the black ones.  

Aren't the scissors just adorable! I got them from hobby lobby and painted them then stamped them on one side. I also added a little brad for some glam!

The bookshelf is pretty much the same as before but now it houses my new wireless printer. 

This is a wall shelf unit i purchased at a yard sale for $10 and spray painted it black. I just have some cards i have made recently on it along with some wooden stamps from Stampin Up!

and from the other side of the room. I took off the ugly wood bifold closet doors with the intention of putting up matching curtains here as well. I also wanted decorative picture and storage boxes on the shelf above my laptop area. 

I hop you guys enjoyed this post of my craft room so far. I will kepp you updated on the changes that are made in the new house. I will most likely combine this decor with my foyers decor for the new home. 

Thank you so much! keep on following=]

<3 Kat