Toffee Giveaway!

I know, I know, Munchies on Monday? We'll I'm participating in a giveaway over at Fahrenheit 350 , it is her blogoversary and I had to help celebrate!! Stop by Kitty's blog, she has some amazing items up for grabs and goodies galore. You might even win some of my famous Toffee!

My famous Toffee

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of butter (or 2 cubes)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar ~ using brown sugar gives it an even better flavor.
• 1/2 cup of white sugar

Preparation: On the bottom of a 9x13-glass pan, spread a light coat of butter and ¼ of your favorite nuts. Also, have a small bowl of ice water ready to test your toffee. The toffee recipe needs constant attention and stirring for about 10 minutes, so once you begin you won't be able to stop and do either of these things.

Making Toffee: In a heavy saucepan, add butter and sugars and melt on high heat. Once the butter and sugars have melted and started to boil, the toffee will go through 4 stages. Keep temperature as hot as you can with out burning. Medium high to high heat.

• Stage 1: butter and sugars are melted, but not mixed. Keep stirring.
• Stage 2: Butter and sugars are mixed and start to cook. Keep stirring.
• Stage 3: Butter and sugars are bubbling. Keep stirring.
• Stage 4: Butter and sugars change color, slightly (from light tan to dark tan) toffee looks almost like taffy, it becomes smooth not bubbly. Keep stirring and start to test for hard crack.

Hard Crack: Hard crack is when you place a small piece of toffee in ice-cold water and it sizzles. This is when the toffee is done. Pour toffee evenly into buttered 9x13 pan, do not spread or stir, just pour directly on to buttered pan and do not spread after ~ no touchy!

Sprinkle toffee with your favorite chocolate chips (about 1/4 of a cup), the hot toffee will melt the chips completely on its own within a few minutes. With a spatula, spread the melted chips over the toffee and sprinkle with another 1/4 of your favorite nuts. Allow toffee to completely cool (even place outside if it is cold), break apart with a kitchen knife and Enjoy! Keep remaining toffee in a air-tight container for 2 weeks or longer.

Dream Dinners

Today for my Mid Week Munchies post I want to talk about a company I have gotten to know over the last couple weeks: Dream Dinners.

In a nut shell: Dream Dinners is a easy convenient place that helps you prepare your families meals. When I was invited to attend an evening of cooking with Dream Dinners I jumped at the chance. This business idea has always intrigued me and I wanted to find out for myself what it was all about.

They started out by providing us dinner: Toasted Pecan Chicken with 2 side dishes: broccoli and candied yams. It was a delicious meal!! After dinner, I started making my 3 family style meals. I choose: Lemon Chicken Piccata, Cheese Lover's Manicotti, and Kentucky Pork Chops. Here I am with Emily of Freshly Baked making our Manicotti Meal. Including myself there was about 15 of us making meals together, including my little sis Kitty!

The ladies behind Dream Dinners in Orem, Utah are Danielle and Jean. They were wonderful hostess and really helped me in my meal making process. They were fun, friendly and I wish the night had lasted longer. Each meal had its own work station and all the ingredients were easy and handy in the preparation process. In all, minus that chatting and fun, it took me about 40 minutes to make my 3 meals!!

The following week my family and I ate our meals. It was really nice to know I had three meals all ready to go before the week even started. I knew they would be yummy, hearty and all prepared by me. I absolutely loved the Lemon Chicken Picatta!! It was amazing! The chicken was juicy and tender and the lemon sauce hit the spot. It was my favorite meal of the week. The Manicotti was very good and the Kentucky Pork Chops...I honestly think I made it wrong. Kitty made the same meal and she really liked it. I think I did something wrong in the preparation process.

Over all I loved the experience I had at Dream Dinners. They have locations across the country if they are as nice as Danielle and Jean you're gonna love it too.

Tom and Lucy's Art Shoppe

I own a boutique called Tom and Lucy's Art Shoppe, I started it with my friend Marie ~ she has the Lucy and I have the Tom. It is a three day event where local handmade vendors come and sell their designs. I love it! The whole process is extremely rewarding and in the end I get to sell my designs (more on that later) too!

Each Art Shoppe I make a quilt. It is a way for me to have a crafty remembrance of the event. But it didn't start out that way: the first quilt I made for the Art Shoppe I raffled off. I made it pink and black with a simple square design (picture below). Although people oohed and ahhed I didn't sell many tickets. My Mom won the quilt (she bought alot of tickets!) and I am soooo glad she did, because I love to visit her and still get to see it!! After that I decided to not sell or raffle the quilt(s) away, but keep them and hopefully in 20 years I have 20 quilts to show for it.

Every time the Art Shoppe rolls around I have an internal debate on the design of the Art Shoppe quilt. I already know my colors, I am just looking for a great design. Last week I found it, while visiting one of my favorite quilt blogs: Red Pepper Quilts I flipped over her Piece Scrap Border Quilt. I knew it was the perfect quilt when I saw it.

So presently I am working on the quilt. Updates very soon on progress. Below are the two previous Art Shoppe Quilts.

Spring 09 Quilt

Fall 08 Quilt

Family Flu

My family is out with the FLU....I am going to spend the week focusing on getting my family healthy and on track for a Happy Halloween. Wishing you all a Happy Halloween too!

See you all in November.

Field Trip Fridays

I have lived a few places in the 30 years I've been alive.


Oregon: 18 years
Tennessee: 1 1/2 years
Utah: 9 years and still going strong!


I have criss crossed our nation visiting several states (visiting = staying at least 3 days) since I boarded my first plane at 12:

California, Nevada, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, Wyoming, Georgia, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and Florida.


I have also traveled out of the US twice:
The first time on my honeymoon to Italy.
The second time to Japan.

Wasatch Mountain Range

Call me bias... I have never seen a more beautiful area in Autumn then right here.

American Fork Canyon ~ about 10 minutes from my house.

Mid Week Munchies

My oldest son goes to school at 8:00 am and although I love being up early, my warm bed is always hard to get out of. Now that fall is really here and daylight saving time is upon us I always start to crave pumpkin pie. Why should I wait for Thanksgiving? Here are a few recipes I found on Food Gawker that I want to try this fall, before Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Pie from Dirty Kitchen Secrets

Pumpkin Pie from Acquired Taste

Pumpkin Pie from Spatulas, Corkscrews and Suitcases

Halloween Quilt Part 2

After I finished my first Halloween Diamond quilt and I had a few diamonds left over, so I immediately started in on a second smaller quilt. Mind you this was all last fall, I really wanted to use fabric from my stash, and not purchase anything new, but I was struggling with the border. Ultimately I decided on this tartan check pattern. After sewing it on I was not in love, but like I said, it sat for a whole year.

I have learned that sometimes I just need to let a quilt sit, tucked away for a season to let the fabric settle.

Bringing it out this fall I had a change of heart: I loved how the fabric makes the quilt pop and I love how it is true Halloween orange. Yes there is such a thing as Halloween Orange! (just like Christmas red) even if it is only in my mind. The lines are off and skiwampus which is annoying and I (probably) should have done it on the bias, but taking a risk has it's rewards: I learned that each time I create a quilt it doesn't have to be perfect!

Any Halloween quilts out there? I would love to see them!! Please share.