Wednesday, December 31, 2014

ROCKING NEW YEARS COCKTAIL

   Its New Year’s Eve and you have some party or festivities to attend or host, OR you’re at home hanging with your hubby.  Either way you need a rocking drink to ring in the new year! 
   I had this as my first drink to celebrate my 21st birthday. Now if you don’t really like champagne that’s okay because I’m not a huge fan either but the Chambord makes it great. Raspberries add a nice garnish for the drink as well as a tasty treat when you get to the end of your glass.

Champagne with Chambord
1 oz Chambord
Champagne
Frozen Raspberries 

source

Monday, December 29, 2014

Married Monday: 2015 Goals


   Well 2014 is just about over, which seems insane because that means we’ve been married for close to 6 months. I remember last new year being so excited it was finally the year we were going to be married. I graduated college since then and moved 3 hours away from home, life has changed a lot and I would not trade it for the world. 

Friday, December 26, 2014

Tips to Reset Your Body After Holiday Parties

   A great thing about Christmas is all the parties and all the delicious food. It now being the weekend after Christmas you may be feeling a bit sluggish from the overload of sweets and rich foods.  Your body needs a reset button and you can help it along.

There are some foods and ways you can eat to help cleanse your body.

Monday, December 22, 2014

Reason for the Season

   
   Today being just a few days before Christmas I wanted to take some time to talk about why we even have it. It seems like people are focused only on the material things that are involved. Having to have the best gifts, the best decorations to be liked on facebook, or the best looking food is what people worry about but that doesn’t even matter. What matters is that our Savior was born for us and that is why we celebrate.

   I know most people know this and have heard it many times but I want to share it for that person that may be reading and has not yet.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Roasted Chicken and What to do With Leftovers

There are a lot of different things to do with a whole chicken, it can serve as multiple meals for two people.  

I start with roasting the whole bird. There is something so comforting about the smell of it cooking and eating a fresh leg.

Make sure your bird is thawed. Rinse with water and make sure there isn’t anything in the cavity. I like to cut off the fat and skin that cover the cavities so that it doesn’t make a nasty fat layer.  Pat the chicken and make sure it is very dry.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

DIY Ornament Garland

   I had been wanting to make something like this for a while now but hadn’t had the time. Well I made time last week to go to the dollar tree and make it happen.  Yes that’s right this is another Dollar Tree craft (mostly).   Remember I told you our decorations are red and silver this year so this is not any different and is nice and red.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Mistletoe Monday: 10 Gift Ideas for Women

Last week I wrote some ideas for men this week I am sharing my favorite (last minute) gift ideas for women.

Gift card for a spa treatment, nails or hair appointment- we love going and getting pampered but usually won’t spend the money on a regular basis

Handwritten note- a sweet love note is always appreciated

Gourmet Spices- if you are shopping for a girl who loves to cook or likes to experiment with new flavors. A spice set would be great this website has lots of different kinds. I love the gourmet salt set. http://www.spicesinc.com/p-814-gourmet-salt-sampler-spice-set.aspx

Ornament Exchange

   Arkansas Women Bloggers is such a great community of bloggers and as I have started the journey of blogging I am so glad to have them. I have enjoyed meeting them in person and online, and even stalking a few of their blogs. Every year they do a handmade ornament swap, I was so excited to get to be a part of it this year. So excited that when I saw it mentioned back in August I was already trying to think of something fun to do. Fun crafty projects are right up my alley and I loved making mine, and have a few similar ones hanging on my tree now.  You can see my mine and how to make it here.

Friday, December 12, 2014

Pan Seared Steak

Last night was our 5 month anniversary so we decided to celebrate with a steak dinner a Big Bang Theory marathon. We tried a new way to cook, following Alton Brown's method which you can see here.

We love the show!!

Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies


   This year I joined in on the FoodBlogger Cookie Swap, this swap is so neat it connects people from across the country and even other countries joined in, and they swap homemade cookies. The best part you receive 3 different peoples cookies!! All of mine were so delicious! I received a Chocolate Chip Nut and Coconut cookie, Lemon Bars, and Chocolate Chocolate Chip Nut cookies!!! 

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Art on the Green and a Giveaway

   Last week myself and three other Arkansas Woman Bloggers had a chance to go check out Art on the Green in Conway and meet a few of their artist. Museums were a big part of my childhood, anytime we went anywhere we would go to museums and art galleries. So naturally I loved the idea to go check out some local art. Now I am not really arty, I do like to think I’m crafty, but arty no I can barely draw a straight line, or have the patience to finish a full painting. These people though, they have so much talent and it was so cool to meet the person behind the painting.

There was of course delicious food. The little petifores are from Julia’s Bake Shop in Conway and they were delicious!!

Monday, December 8, 2014

Mistletoe Monday: Top 10 Gift Ideas for Men



  This month I wanted to do some Christmasy post for my Monday’s. So I am going to start out with Top 10 Gift ideas for men. These are ideas collected from around the internet, and asking my friends on facebook and Hubby. Most of these people are all gamers and techy people. (click pictures to go to link)

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Birchfield's 1st Christmas: Decorations

   Christmas season is here and we are decorated and ready for it. I’ve always enjoyed Christmas time but the last few years have seemed to be more important to me, I’m not sure why maybe it was because I knew they would be the last at home with my parents or maybe it was because I was realizing that family is much more important than anything else. Well this year it is my first not at my parent’s house, first in Conway, and first with Hubby being married. 

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Dinner with the Doc: Dr. Traci Natural State Health Center

   A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of joining a few blogger girls for a dinner that one of them had won at a running event, we called it Dinner with the Doc. We got to eat her recipes, hang out with, and learn from Dr. Traci Bishop of Natural State Health Center in Little Rock. She is a chiropractor and wellness physician that helps people achieve Mazimized Living.  Raw and unprocessed foods, and grains can be very beneficial to your health and can help relieve pains as well has help your body fight disease.


That's Dr. Traci she is awesome, and
her husband is a great cook!!

Monday, December 1, 2014

No Kid Hungry: Giving Tuesday 2014

   Alright guys today I want to talk about a subject that is very near to my heart and is a serious issue in the country and in the world. Everyone knows about all the deals and shopping that is to be had Thanksgiving weekend, well after that is all over there is Giving Tuesday, a day where you can give back to the community and help a charity or organization that matters to you. If you don’t have one in mind then I would like you to consider this great cause.

Thanksgiving Recap

   Hey guys I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are in the holiday spirit. I got to spend a week at home with family and friends so it was great. There was delicious food and great times hanging out with friends who I don’t get to see as regularly any more.

Friday, November 28, 2014

DIY Santa Belt Ornament Tutorial

Today I am sharing how I made my Santa Belt Ornament. It was pretty simple to make, I am excited to share how easy it is to glitter the inside of a clear ornament. If you are even just slightly crafty  I hope you give this a try and make a few custom ornaments for your tree or to give as gifts. 

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Chinese Chicken and Rice

 

  I did a stir fry before that is somewhat similar to this but this time I added hoisin sauce as a main part of the sauce. I love making Chinese food and playing with the flavors we have. My sauces typically come out pretty well but almost never the same.  This time it was a new flavor but very good. I will give amounts but take them lightly and adjust everything to your liking as you go.  This does have a sweeter note to it, if you want to add more crushed pepper that would raise the heat level up and balance out the sweetness, I liked it being sweet.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Married Monday: Thankfulness


Thankful-
1:       conscious of benefit received 
2:  expressive of thanks 
3:  well pleased : glad 

Ornament Round Up: Top 10 DIY


   Hey guys today I thought I would share my Top 10 Favorite DIY Ornaments that I have seen. The Arkansas Woman Bloggers do an ornament exchange every year and this year I am excited to be apart of it for the first time! I spent a lot of time coming up with what kind of ornament I wanted to send my partner, no it's not one of these it will be shared in a detailed tutorial later. As I comb through the results on Pinterest and Google I kept a list of which ones I really liked. Quite a few snowmen appeared on my list, I guess I think they are really cute. These can be done by any level of crafter and most can even be done with kids. I hope you enjoy.

Friday, November 21, 2014

Ornament Wreath DIY Tutorial

 

  Yes yes I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet and I am doing my first Christmasy post. Well typically I am a big supporter of no Christmas until Black Friday, but this year it has been so cold and I have seen snow I am way past fall and ready to get decorating! And for some reason this whole town starts very very early getting ready for Christmas, like I think we had fall stuff for about 3 weeks and it was gone most places.

   A good reason to have this one now before Black Friday is that you may find some great deals on ornaments and be able to make this for even less. Plus who doesn't want to be thinking of Christmas crafts they want while cooking food for Thanksgiving.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Mussel and Clams in Tomato Broth

   Hey guys I hope your week is going well. I am excited to share with you a recipe that was given to me and made for me by Chef and Owner of Cajun's Warf Little Rock!
   

Monday, November 17, 2014

Weekend Recap- RELAX

   Hey guys I hope you stayed warm this weekend!! I think I’ve been living in my Cuddleduds and yoga pants for the most part haha. I know up at home they got snow, lucky ducks I would appreciate a bit of snow with all these freezing temps!

   Friday Hubs got off the whole day and I only had to sub a half day! Which if you’ve been following you know I just recently started subbing, I totally love it! So we got to spend the afternoon together just hanging out. We didn’t do too much other than lounge around and watch tv. I tried out a new recipe for Apple Cinnamon pork chops and completely re did it my own way. It turned out pretty tasty but is missing something so I am going to work with it some more before I share it with all of you wonderful readers.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Taco Loaf

   Hubby saw a similar recipe to this on reddit and decided to make it his own. We call it Taco Loaf and it turned out pretty darn good. Here it is for you to play with. You could add anything you want into it it, salsa, guacamole, onions cooked or raw, peppers anything really. 

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Crock Pot Cheeseburger Soup

   
   This is a recipe I found in one of the pins that had a bunch of crock pot recipes to make in one day and freeze. It looked really good and simple to make and best of all in a crock pot so easy clean up. It turned out really well. 

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Cajuns Christmas Camp 2014!!

   This weekend I got to spend an afternoon at Cajun’s Warf in Little Rock at their Christmas Camp for the Arkansas Woman Bloggers. I met some awesome bloggers that are the faces behind the blogs that I read throughout my week. It was an awesome time with lots of delicious food and lots of drinks.

   I arrived about 20 minutes late because we were buying a new truck and paperwork takes forever, but when I arrived they gave me two things, a bag full of free swag and a glass of wine.. let’s just say I like these people a lot ;).

They are located right on the Arkansas River
and has spectacular views!

Monday, November 10, 2014

Married Monday: Communication

 
   Communication is probably the most important thing in a marriage, without it there really is no marriage.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

French Onion Soup

   This is a pretty basic recipe and not complicated at all. It just takes time and patience and cutting a lot of onions. Hubby discovered that he really enjoyed this while we were on the cruise. My dad has always loved the one he can get at Outback and the best ever at Mermaids in Fayetteville. During my Stocks and Soups class in Culinary School we made this and I knew he would love it. I made it that year for his birthday and it was great. This time was my second time outside of class to make it and it turned out just as great as before. 

Monday, November 3, 2014

Weekend Recap Atlanta Trip

   Hey guys!! I hope you had a wonderful Halloween weekend and stayed warm. We took or first weekend vacation on our own, and went to Atlanta! The weekend was full of laughs, driving, fun, fish, Coke, food, freezing, and enjoying each other.

Hello Atlanta


As we left, sunrise 

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Road Trip Snacks


  This weekend we will be going on an about 8 hour road trip to Atlanta, Georgia. We don't want to make many stops especially for food. I went to the ever helpful Pinterest and searched "road trip snacks" and there are a lot of different pins with ideas.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Married Monday- Communication?

This week was going to be about communication. I'll be honest though I have no right to write about it to try and give advice or tips on it, I think I suck at it. Nothing comes out right, the way it was meant in my head.

Update and Weekend Recap

   Hey guys I wanted to write today a little about what has been up the last couple weeks around here. Not a ton but some fun things to share.

   The biggest new thing is I have started subbing. I had been waiting since July for all of my background checks to clear, well really in August all but one was done and it took this long to get it figured out thanks to the school district. Anyways I got to start last Friday.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Fall Swap

   To celebrate fall I decided to sign up for my very first blog swap. This could mean a few different things depending on the hosts, this one involved getting a partner, sending a few emails to get to know them, and stalking their blogs for things they like, and was centered around fall.                        


Fall Swap
   

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Stuffed Shells

If you haven’t noticed I love pasta. I mean it’s not like oh yes I like to eat pasta from time to time, NO I would eat it every day if carbs weren’t so bad for you. I LOVE PASTA! Ok now that that’s cleared up, I also enjoy quick easy clean dinners. Well pair these two up and you get these stuffed shells.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Married Monday: Pinterest Finds and a Challenge


Weekend Recap Dog Park

   Hey everyone hope you had a great weekend! We did, and so did the fur baby.  We took her to a dog park, pets smart, and we looked at a new fish store. 

If you've been with me since we got her
here is an update of how big she's gotten

Friday, October 17, 2014

Chicken Marsala

   Hey all this is my favorite meal, I have a few favorites really but this would probably be at the top. Now before very recently I had to go to Olive Garden to satisfy my need for it but now, now I can make it on my own and it’s almost just as good. Only almost because I don’t have the minestrone and bread sticks to go with it. 

   The first time I had this outside of a restaurant was when Hubby and I were dating and he made it for my birthday. It was delicious! We’ve only had it a few times and usually I have him make it but this time I gave it a try and realized it’s a very simple recipe.  So let’s get to it.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Char Siu (Red Pork)

   At our house we love Chinese food, and as good as it is at a restaurant we love to make it ourselves. Now I probably should say I include any type of Asian, Thai, Japanese, and Chinese foods when I say Chinese. Whatever you want to call it we love eating and cooking it.  A couple weeks ago I found this giant cookbook, Gourmet, which was on sale for only $10, so of course I got it. I have found some really great recipes to try including this one for Char Siu. I have made it before but have misplaced the recipe and this one was a little different then I remembered so I gave it a try.



Char Siu Pork (Red Pork)

1 pound of pork butt or shoulder or tenderloin
¼ cup hoisin
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp honey
1 ½ tsp ginger
1 tsp garlic
½ tsp salt
1 tsp red food coloring ( optional, I just like the color it gives)

Cut a pork tenderloin into strips, about an inch wide. Mine looked like this.



Take the pork slices, soy sauce, hoisin, ginger, garlic, rice wine, honey, and food coloring (optional) together in a bag and marinate for at least 4 hours. The recipe calls for hoisin sauce I only had a hoisin garlic marinade that worked just as well and it was nice to have because I was a little low on garlic clove.

Put a rack in the lower third of the oven. Fill a cake pan or roasting pan if you have it with about an inch of water, place a wire rack across the top of the pan. I used a cooling rack. 
Take the pork from the marinade and place the strips on to the rack as close to an inch apart as you can fit them.  KEEP the marinade. Roast at 375°F for 15 minutes.



In the mean time bring the marinade to a boiling a sauce pan, remove from heat.



Brush the marinade onto over the pork flip and brush the other side and roast 10 more minutes. 

Basting once

When it’s done baste again the same way as before, and cook again for 20 minutes  basting 2 or 3 more times. Increase temp to 400 and roast until caramelized on edges.


After they came out, see how they
got darker on the sides 

I cut my meat smaller  and thought that was too much cooking time I did about 30 minutes total. Just check  the temp of the meat, it needs to be about 155 -160.

Let the meat sit for 10 minutes after you take them out to rest.

While they rested, we made the
potstickers



Served over rice and with potstickers from the freezer aisle they are the best. I would suggest not using all your sauce to coat the meat that way you have some to put over the rice. 

Yummy Yummy 

This turned out surprisingly well for my first time with the recipe it was so good. I wished I had made more to eat the rest of the week.  Do you usually go out for Chinese or do you make your own? Whats your favorite kind?

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Weekend Recap

This is a tad late sorry! I have been busy dealing the dog, writing, house work and working on other stuff. Last weekend was great we realxed hung out and had a weekend full of great food!

Friday was the night I baked my first chicken. Now this is a surprising realization to me because I have cooked and baked and done very many surprising things with a lot of different foods, including de boning and skinning a chicken , grinding it up and then mashing it together and boiling it, but never baked a whole chicken.  My mom always did that and she is great at it so I asked her what I needed to do, its surprisingly easy and it turned out great! We hung out watched some TV and just enjoyed each other.

Saturday we went to Little Rock to get some shopping done, really I just wanted to try and spend my gift cards. We ended up just getting a dish drying rack that we really needed, so it satisfied my need to buy something...for now ;). That evening I made Char Sui pork with rice and dumplings. Recipe on Wednesday! It was soooooo stinking good I was impressed.

Sunday it was a cold rainy day and a perfect day to make Chicken and Dumplings made with left over chicken and the bones from the chicken I baked Friday, you can make a ton of stuff from one chicken! As I was making the stock I was just about ready for a nap and my calendar alarm went off saying I had CPR training in 30 minutes. Its a good thing it did that because I had completely forgotten about it. I spent 4 hours learning how to save adults and children if their heart stops or they are choking. Now technically I can do it I know the steps, would you want me to be the one to save you well if I'm the only one around that has training yes other wise I'd be glad to assist whoever else could do it, cuz I would be freaking out.

And that about sums up our weekend we don't do a ton and we get to enjoy eachother, and we get to eat lots of yummy yummy foods.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Married Monday: Fall Bucket List

  


   I’ve talked about how dating your husband is important in your marriage in this post. Well, since it is fall I have decided to make our dates more fall focused.  It is a little bit into fall, but it just now has started to cool down here and stay that way. I made a list of things that we as a couple could do together to enjoy the season and get out of the house with each other.  Some of these would be based on the area you live if it’s possible to do.  I am saying that Thanksgiving is the end of fall and when I aim to have these all done.  I will do a post at the end with a recap from each one and share the fun we have.



Let’s make a commitment to spend this fall loving on our spouse and hanging out doing fun things.
Share your plans or commitment in the comments and lets do this together. 

Friday, October 10, 2014

Tutorial: How to Dry Acorns

   I was on Pinterest looking at fall decorations and found many pins that used acorns. I tried to figure out where to get acorns, yes outside did not occur to me at first. I looked online and at craft stores and they cost quite a bit for how few you get. Then I realized you can get them on the ground for free. My mother in law was great enough to share some of the ones she had gotten for me to work with.
Now that I had my acorns I had to figure out how to make them last forever, well longer than one season. There were only a couple tutorials out here on the blog world and they said different things. So I did what I do best and combined them with what I thought made sense.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Crock Pot Pork Carnitas

   Last night I made carnitas, and they turned out fantastic. I didn’t have an exact recipe, but my great father in law told me what he remembered from when he made them and I went from there. This is an easy crock pot recipe that doesn’t take much effort.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Being a Proverbs 31 Wife Part 2



Welcome back to the Being a Proverbs 31 Wife series part 2. This week I am doing the same as last week and breaking down the Proverbs by section and explaining it.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Fall Decorating

   Happy Friday its fall! I have been waiting and waiting to get my decorations up until it cooled down a little bit. Finally this week I couldn’t hold it in any more. I got my kitchen table done and after tomorrow I will have my front porch done.

   I went to Walmart and got a small pack of leaves, a little bag of pine cones and pumpkins, and another bag of pine cones with little gourds.  I also found this adorable glass pumpkin that was only $3! I also grabbed a couple electric votives to add a little ambiance to the table.