Awesome Quinoa Salad

WARNING!!!!!!!!! This is SO Delicious!

-Quinoa Black Bean Salad-

Ingredients

1 Cup of Pre washed Quinoa
1.5 Cups of Black Beans (about 1 can drained)
1 1/2 T Red Wine Vinegar
1 Cup Corn
1 Red/Green Bell Pepper
4 small Green Onions
1 t Garlic- minced
1/4 t Cayenne
1/4 Cup Fresh Cilantro Chopped
1/3 C Lime juice
1/2 t Salt
1 1/4 t Cumin
2 T Olive Oil
1/2 Cup Craisins

Directions

Cook 1 Cup Quinoa with 2 Cups of water. Simmer for about 20 minutes until Quinoa is done. Fluff, & Cool. Mix beans with vinegar and salt. Add drained beans, corn, bell pepper, onions, garlic, cayenne, craisins and cilantro to quinoa, and toss. Whisk lime juice, a pinch of extra salt, cumin and oil. Drizzle and toss with salad. Make ahead, refridgerate, but serve at room temperature.

Makes: 8
Nutritional Info: Carbohydrates 36.1g Calories 213.5 Protein 7.8g

Chili Lime Butter Chicken Drumsticks

WOW, These are so good!!! I was so excited to make these chicken wings for the Superbowl this year! They turned out great. Not sure how good they are for you, BUT they taste delicious.

                                          Chili Lime Butter Chicken Drumsticks

Ingredients include:

4 lds of chicken wings or drumsticks
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Kosher salt & ground pepper
8 Tablespoon of unsalted Butter, Softened
1 BIG fat rounded Tablespoon of Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste (Found @ Target)
1/4 C Honey
1/4 C Soy Sauce
1 Lime
Chopped Cilantro, for garnish

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Rinse chicken under cool water and pat dry. Put them in a large bowl with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Toss to coat with the seasoning. Spread the wings out on a baking sheet and roast about 25 minutes until the skin gets crisp and brown, and the meat is tender.

While you wait, throw the butter, red curry paste, honey and soy sauce into the blender. Season with salt and puree. Scrape into a big bowl. When the chicken comes out of the oven mix together with the sauce. Squeeze the juice of the lime over the wings. Give it a toss and you're done. Garnish with cilantro.

YUMMY!!!!

Zipper Bracelet Giveaway!

Alright friends....go to this blog http://paula-heartandsewl.blogspot.com/ and see how to win one of these adorable personalized ZIPPER BRACELETS!!!! My cousin Paula who made these is so talented! Check it out! Who knows you may be the next winner!

Organization Finally!

Over the past two+ years I have kept all of our paid bills, important paperwork and whatever else into one of those plastic three drawer stacker things that turned into a huge mess! I had to take action and do something about it! It was driving me nuts.

I ended up shredding SO much paper and recycling it all afterwards.

I didn't take a picture of it before, but this picture below is just some of what I have to shred still. I couldn't believe how thinking keeping things means you are organized....it just means you worry too much and its not necessary!

This is 3 huge drawer fulls of stuff into ONE!!!!! I was so impressed, and Ryan was too.

I found the 2-drawer Steel filing cabinet at Walmart for like $35.

Totally worth all the work and time shredding stuff!

I feel so much more organized!

Things I've made the past couple weeks!

My Three Trees! I purchased these tree wood cut outs at the Wood Connection here in Murray. Sanded, painted and cut the paper out and modged podged it on! I think they turned out cute for the Christmas holiday!  

This is a magnetic board I made up as well for a friend at work for Christmas. You can also find the actual magnetic board and vinyl wording at the Wood Connection ! I love that place. I just found some odds and end scrapbook paper from home and tore the edges and glued them on with modge podge! Found some cute ribbon to hang it up with. Simple and easy! 

 She loved it.

I found this recipe on Glutenfreely.com and made it for Christmas Eve morning for Ryan and I. It was delicious and made a ton for the two of us. We had enough to last us the following week. I used blueberry filling. Delicious!

Our Family Christmas Party we had to make a $5.00 homemade gift for two of our nephews. With the help of my mother we came up with these little car caddy's for Jared and Logan. They took about an hour or two to finish them both. I loved how they turned out and hope they have fun playing with them! I did Logan's in Blue lettering and blue "CARS" material inside.

These are the chocolate covered peppermint crushed oreos I found off of Pinterest! I made them for some neighbor/friend gifts this year! Super easy and cute.

Ryan really liked them a lot.



Christmas 2011

Ryan I and had a great Christmas together! We had a lot of fun with our families and all the festivities that occurred.

Christmas Eve we made a short visit to Ryan's parents house to say hello and afterwards we headed over to my parents home to play our annual Bingo game. We had Dallas' girlfriend Lacie over this year, so that was a lot of fun to get to know our soon to be sister in-law (hopefully). We  enjoyed a delicious ham dinner mom and dad made for us!

Christmas morning we woke up early and gave each other our presents! Ryan bought me an awesome pair of grey boots from DSW! He did a great job picking them out. I've found they look super cute with skinny jeans or leggings!

Ryan's main present I gave him was his new cell phone, the Galaxy SII that he got in November! I got him some more accessories for it and he was super excited. I also got him a few hooded shirts from Pac Sun and a pretty sweet JAZZ hat.

The few other main gifts we gave to each other was a new Dyson vacuum that we desperately needed,The Mentalist Season 1 &2, the Big Bang Theory season 4 and the Hunger Games Series.

We have started reading these books together every night a couple chapters and have seriously enjoyed them so much. We are so excited for the movie to come out the next couple months! Oh, we also got a membership to Planet Fitness to get into shape again! Seriously only $10.00 a month! Totally worth it.

After we finished our little Christmas with ourselves we got ready and headed over to my parents house. We HAD to be there by 9am so mom wouldn't be late to choir practice before church! This is our early morning photo mom wanted to take!

We opened presents and definitely got more than we needed or deserved. Mom always says she isn't doing much, but always goes way beyond like normal! She made us an adorable Owl decoration that we have hanging on our front door and we absolutely love it.

This was probably my favorite gift from my parents.

All of us kids gave mom and dad a carpet cleaner. We hope they have enjoyed it....not that their carpets are nasty or anything, but I'm sure after as many years they have lived there I'm sure they could use a carpet cleaning! haha

We had a great time opening presents and eating the quiche' that dad makes every year.

We headed to church with them to hear mom sing and enjoy the spirit there. It was really nice and relaxing to listen and sing Christmas music about Christ and be with the family. I stepped on a raisin that was on the gymnasium floor and it kinda made me mad, because it made my hills all sticky, but we got to sit behind some family friends and see a little baby girl smile at us that made me not so angry afterall. haha lil' Katie is so adorable! Church finished and I was able to say hello to one of my best friends that I haven't seen in sometime.

We went over to Ryan's parents home afterwards and had Christmas with them! It was so good to see his family and grandparents. Christmas breakfast is always a tradition at their home every year as well so we get double the breakfast on Christmas day, but this year for lunch! haha it is always fun and very good.

I was so excited to give our presents to his family and hope they loved them! We  brought our table ping pong game that I gave Ryan this year and we played it with all of his family for hours! We had a tournament and Ryan won! We finished out visiting with his family and grandparents and decided we had had a day full of fun. We are so fortunate to both have such a great families.

Once we got home we watched the movie 17 Miracles (you can watch the trailer if you haven't seen it). This movie was the best movie I think I have ever watched. It was so nice to watch it on Christmas day with Ryan. I was in tears by the end of it and we both realized how blessed we are to have so much. We sat and talked about the sacrafices so many of them made for their families, friends, neighbors and ones they loved so much while on their journey to Zion just so they could experience something greater. They were so commited to one another and the gospel. They knew and trusted the Lord would provide for them. They saw miracles continuosly from their faith and hope. It just made me realize the things we take for granted every day and the commitment I want to gain towards my husband, family and the gospel.  I seriously loved this movie and think after crying for a good 2 or so hours I think I will purchuse it and watch it time and time again.

Christmas was so great this year. Ryan and I are so grateful for all we've been given and hope to this coming year reconize the blessing we recieve more often. We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year!

Crinkle Cookies thanks to Pinterest!

I made these tonight for the ladies I visit and teach! I am so grateful for Pinterest!

Here is the link for the recipe.

                            http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chocolate_crinkles/

           (I added some Cinnamon to the powder sugar and they smell delicious)
               I just wish I could eat them. I need to make a gluten free version!