Easy Yummy Crock pot candy (pssst....this is an awesome Hack!!)

 This recipe is inspired by OMG Candy...So Delish! I love that it is made in my crock pot and that I was able to go about my other kitchen duties while it melted away for me.  It is very good!! It would make a wonderful addition to your treat trays for the holidays! Come check it out! Give it a try! Youll be glad you did!!

OMG inspired Crock Pot Candy

1 bag of semi sweet chocolate chips

1 bag of milk chocolate chips

1 bag of white chocolate chips

1 bag of heath chips

1 1/2 C of your favorite nut (we used cashews this time)

2 Cups of teddy grahams ( golden grahams cereal would work well too)

Place all of the ingredients in your crock pot. 

Mix together

Set your crock pot to warm and let it go for about 3 hours or until melted.  If you do not have a warm setting set to low and keep an eye on it, watching for it to melt. When it is melted stir and place spoon fulls on a lightly sprayed sheet of aluminum or parchment paper. Once the chocolate is set you can break into smaller pieces or not depending on how you enjoy your candy.  

LOVES!!

EMILY 

Pumpkin Butterscotch Cookies

It is November 7th and I am finally making my first pumpkin recipe of the year. Which is coo coo go nuts cause I am a girl who loves pumpkin. This is an easy and fast cookie recipe. They go together wicked fast. They only have three ingredients for cripes sake! I love the texture and consistency of these cookies. Instead of chocolate chips we used butterscotch chip this time which is a nice twist. It seems to make them extra sweet. I hope you try this recipe and love it!

1 spice cake mix

1 15 oz can of pureed pumpkin

1-2 cups butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 375. Mix the pumpkin and cake mix until thoroughly combined. Throw in the chips and stir up. Drop on to a parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until they no longer look wet. Immediately transfer to cooling rack. Enjoy!

A note! I baked mine at 375 but I think that our oven bakes at a lower temp than it says it is cooking at. Does that make sense? So I think that our oven is about 25 degrees cooler than what the gauge says. So if your first batch come out over cooked then turn your oven down. 

Thankful Turkey

Every year for the whole month of November we have a "Thankful Turkey" hanging up in our house. It's tradition. Basically we hang a turkey up and add feathers to it that say what we are thankful for. It is a simple thing to do but it has a big impact. I don't even make it cutesy. I just use a coloring page template and cut feathers out of paper. That is it!   

This is the turkey we use every year. But there are tons of free templates out there. Or you could draw your own if you are so inclined!

Hang that bad boy up with scotch tape- or something cuter. HA!

The feathers and a marker. That is about it! I cut the feathers out free hand but there are lots of templates too. They can be printed on colored paper and cut out and bingo bango they are done.

We always end up with some of the most ridiculous things on there. The kids put up farts, candy and minecraft. Mostly we end up with really sweet things though. I need to figure out a way to keep this feeling all year long. The feelings of gratitude are awesome!  

How to Brine and Roast a Turkey ONLY READ IF YOU LIKE MOIST AND JUICY TURKEY!!

My sweet husband roasts the best turkey in the universe...Seriously. It is always moist and tender. SO scrumptious and tastes of that traditional thanksgiving turkey we dream about the night before the big T-Day. This is how he does it.  Its a big secret so don't tell anyone. ;) 

Brined Roasted Turkey

14-16 pound thawed turkey

1 gallon of chicken broth

1 Cup of salt

1/2 C brown sugar

1 TBS whole pepper corns

1/2 TBS allspice berries

1/2 TBS candied ginger

1 gallon of heavily iced water

1 cinnamon stick

1 red apple sliced

1/2 and onion quartered

1-2 sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme

canola oil

brining bag or 5 gal bucket

Place the broth salt brown sugar, pepper corns allspice berries and ginger in a pot and bring to a boil stir to dissolve solids remove from heat and cool and refrigerate. About 8 hours before cooking put the turkey neck side down in a brining bag or 5 gal bucket. Pour in the chicken broth mixture then add the gallon of heavily iced water. At approx 4 hours rotate the bird so that the legs are down and the neck is up. When you are ready to roast remove the bird from the brine, rinse well and pat dry.  Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Place on a roasting pan or a baking sheet with a cooling rack. Tuck the wing tips under the body. Put your cinnamon stick, apple slices and onion and 1-2 Cups of water and microwave for 4-5 minutes. Let steep for 1 minute. Drain the liquid and insert them into the cavity of the bird and add the rosemary and thyme into the cavity of the bird. Take a piece of aluminum foil appox the length of the bird and fold into a triangle. Mold around the breast and wing section of the bird. Remove mold and set aside keeping the shape intact. Liberally coat the outside of the bird with canola oil and place in a 500 degree oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes add the foil tent to the turkey. insert a thermometer in the thickest part of the breast meat and set temp to 161 degrees. When the internal temp reaches 161 degrees remove the bird from the oven and let rest for atleast 15 minutes. Carve and Serve!

Enjoy!

 The turkey in the brining bag inside the 5 gal bucket. You only really need one or the other but he likes both.

The foil triangle used to shield the breast meat from over cooking after the first half an hour at 500 degrees. 

Yes this is a necessary step.

PS the 500 degree oven lends to the gold brown wonderfully appetizing color.

Molding the turkey foil triangle

The foil triangle after is has been removed but is still keeping it shape so it can be slipped back on quick and easy after the first half and hour.

oiling up the bird

After the first half and hour

Placing the foil back on the bird

Placing the thermometer 

SO JUICY AND MOIST!!!

MY

Thanksgiving Round Up

Now that Halloween is over I want to skip straight to Christmas! I am trying to keep a focus on Thanksgiving though. Poor Thanksgiving kind of gets skipped every year, right? It should be a way bigger deal! A whole holiday based on being thankful for you blessings? That sounds like a good time to me! I blame retail stores. They want you in a Christmas frame of mind so you buy more stuff. True story. Anywho..... I did a little Thanksgiving free printable round-up. There are tons more out there too. Lets all decorate for Thanksgiving and give it its proper due! And do it for FREE!!

My niece created this one. She is a babe!

This is a cool thanksgiving subway Art printable

Another cool subway art printable! There is also a cute bunting printable through that link.

Both of these come from here. I love those round ones! You could make cupcake toppers, cut them out and tie them around napkins as napkin rings or make them stickers to put on leftovers! The maze printable is genius! Kids and adults alike would enjoy those while they wait for dinner.

You can get a whole kit of thanksgiving stuff here!

Another bunch of cute kids activities! Learn to draw thanksgiving!

This planner is pretty genius!

This is a free printable of JUST the labels but I have seen plenty of tutorials for folding the pie boxes of you can't find any around your town. Bust seriously how cute are these?

Check out these cute invitations!