2011 ~ Colie's Kitchen

Dec 29, 2011

Magic Cookie Bars

This is a huge family favorite that we always make a Christmas time and here and there throughout the year. I LOVE them! Have you seen the Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie at Chili’s? Yep that’s magic cookie bars with ice cream on top! Yummo How about making Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie for the fraction of the price? This is a super simple recipe that anyone can make regardless...

Homemade Foaming Hand Soap

I don’t like to refer to myself as cheap so I will say I am frugal. I hate spending big bucks on things we use every day. I love to have foaming hand soap in the bathroom, but I hate to pay refill prices. In the kitchen I have the Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap System which I refill myself also. I decided to find a way to refill my foaming hand soap dispenser...

Buttermilk Pie

I have heard over and over just how great buttermilk is! “OH NICOLE you have to try buttermilk pie.” Finally I made a buttermilk pie and I must say it was pretty good. I will admit I do NOT like anything eggy! For instance I do not like frittata, omelets, bread pudding or eggs in general. To me this was on the border line of almost too eggy! Don’t get me wrong I loved...

Sweet Potato Pie

I love sweet potatoes and I love sweet potato pie, but I had never made a sweet potato pie myself. After Thanksgiving I had a ton of sweet potatoes left over. I kind of went sweet potato crazy at the store the night before Thanksgiving because they had sweet potatoes 6 pounds for $1! I ended up with 12 pounds… my husband looked at me like I was losing my mind when...

Wordless Wednesday -Moving In

We are finally moved in, but that doesn’t mean we are settled in. It is amazing how much stuff you have that you don’t need, and it’s amazing how much stuff I have already donated. Here is a picture of what the entrance of our house looked like a few days after we moved in. Stuff was everywhere! As you can see below we haven’t progressed a lot! We are in the middle...

Commonly Used Measurements & Equivalents

I found this on Allrecipes.com and thought I would share it. I cut recipes in half all the time or can't find a measuring cup or spoon that I need. I never want to take the time to figure out the conversions or what else I can use so I consult this really great chart! Also Allrecipes.com is a great website to find a lot of wonderful recipes. Here is the direct...

The do's and don'ts of loading your dishwasher

I found this article by Emily Hsieh, of Shine staff to be very interesting, and it explains why sometimes I have to re-wash things in my dishwasher. My husband loads the dishwasher just like hers. I guess I never thought about a proper technique for loading my dishwasher. Original article link. My husband and I are divided when it comes to loading the dishwasher....

1001 Uses for White Distilled Vinegar

I am always looking for ways to clean that don't cost too much, and that are better for my family. I love how bleach cleans, but it doesn't seem to like me. I sneeze like crazy using it. Molly passed this website on to me, and I wanted to share it with you. 1001 Uses for White Distilled Vinegar My favorite tips is: Deodorize the garbage disposal by...

STOP! Drop that bread bag!

We are notorious for letting bread get stale. We don’t each a lot of sandwich bread. We always have it, but it doesn’t always get eaten. My husband eats it when he makes a peanut butter sandwich, but that is pretty much it. Typically we eat everything else on other types of bread. I always feel guilty when I have a bag of bread that goes stale. I hate wasting food, and...

How To Fold a T-Shirt in Two Seconds

This is a great video! I would love to be able to fold my laundry this fast, but to be honest I can't even follow this guy because he is moving so fast, but I do love how these t-shirts turn out! Give it a try and see if you can follow this guy! You could end up being a laundry speed demon! Check Out Our Online Recipe Book: www.CafeChatterbox.com...

Magnifique' Chicken Pot Pie

I started with a recipe I found on Food.com. Once the pot pie filling was made I tasted it and I was pretty disappointed in how bland it tasted to me. I decided that this recipe was just not going to cut it. It's nothing personal against it's creator I just needed more pazazz! Or as my Granny always said it really needed “doctoring up”! I looked through a ton of recipes...

Braided Spaghetti Bread

Gorgeous! Through Pinterest I found this recipe, and I am in love with it. It’s not that it’s anything extraordinary, but it’s fun, easy, inexpensive, visually impressive, and a great way to use up leftovers. Saturday night we had spaghetti for dinner. I just used spaghetti sauce out of the jar. I was short on time, and let’s face it… its easy! I had remembered seeing...

Wordless Wednesday: My Mom the Artist

Me when I was a baby My Mom is an amazing commercial artist. In her spare time she is a freelance artist and draws pencil portraits for people. She does amazing work and has been very successful with it. This is just a small collection of her pieces. She has done wedding pictures, babies, military photos, and so on. Many of the pictures end up being heartbreaking because...

Melt-In-Your-Mouth Meatballs with Gravy

I really loved this recipe, my husband on the other hand did not. I couldn’t get out of him what he didn’t like, but I thought it was great. I was more work than I really wanted to do that night, but the end results were worth it. The meatballs were tender, but not mushy, and the gravy was super creamy and simply delicious! Meatball Ingredients: 1 1/2 lbs. ground...

Roasted Cabbage

I love roasted vegetables, and for some reason I have grown to really enjoy cabbage. It’s taken awhile to get there, but here I am. It must be the German blood line in me creeping out. I still can’t stomach sauerkraut… maybe someday. I was looking on Penterest a few days ago and discovered a cabbage recipe I had never thought of and one that was a must try. I wasn’t in...

Garlic and Parmesan Panko Baked Fried Chicken

I was in the mood for fried chicken, but in all honestly I was being too lazy to be bothered with frying it so I decided to make dinner easy and go for oven “fried” chicken. Most recipes I found online required you to use plain bread crumbs, but I only had Italian bread crumbs, and I wasn’t in the mood for those spices. I decided to use up some panko I had...

I think Wordless is being too kind to my office… disaster zone, nightmare, disgusting, embarrassing! My office is a complete mess. As you can see from the table below I have Food in bags ready to go to the food pantry on Friday Towels waiting to be washed that were used to clean up a split drink Jell-O because I was making sure I had what I needed to Thanksgiving and somehow...