Creole Seasoning

I use this Creole seasoning for Jambalaya, sprinkled on eggs, roasted vegetables, roasted chickpeas, seafood, potatoes, and meats. It's perfect for stews and soups also. You can rub it onto steaks and chicken before roasting.

I make this salt free so I can control the amount of salt in each dish. If you would like a seasoning salt for the table or cooking, add salt to this to taste.  This Creole Seasoning would also make a great gift for your favorite cook.

Beans and Legumes, Cheap Fall Vase Fillers

Happy Fall Y'all!! I thought I'd share what my vase fillers are. I was trying to figure out something to fill them with that was 

1. Cheap

2. Reusable

3. Something I don't have to change out until Christmas, or ever. So neutral.

SO, candy corn and candies while cute could potentially be expensive and draw ants. That and they are more specific to October I think. Coffee beans were on my list, but they are definitely not for the frugal! I decided on lentils and beans. Cheap, and they last and last. There are SO many varieties and colors. Black beans are pretty,  black eyed peas, orange lentils, so colorful.

Pumpkin Butter and Pumpkin Butta (Instant Pot)

Pumpkin Muffins slathered with Pumpkin Butta? Yes, please.

PUMPKIN SEASON IS UPON US! I love pumpkin. Love seeing those cute little sugar pumpkins pop up in stores and at the Farmer's Market. Not that I go to the Farmer's Market a ton. I love sweet pumpkin treats and like to have them year round. These two recipes can be made during peak pumpkin season and kept in the freezer to be enjoyed later.

Instant Pot Cheesecake

 Topped with Lemon Curd, this Cheesecake is AMAZING.

Cheesecake? In a pressure cooker? No way! I thought the same thing, but it really does make sense. Wet environment so it doesn't crack or get dried out. I recently joined the Instant Pot Community page on Facebook, it's the official Instant Pot page. There are some amazingly talented and helpful people on there. All the pictures of food are very inspiring. However, like I said, I wasn't sure about cheesecake. I like mine dense. With a little browned/dry heat crust on the top. I still wanted to try this method though. For one it takes about 40 minutes to cook instead of an hour+ in the oven. So I gave it a go. If you have ever made a cheesecake off of this blog before, you'll recognize this recipe. With a few changes, but go with what you know right? The biggest change is of course the cooking method. Also how cute a little 7 inch cheesecake looks. I mean really. It's just cute. 

You need to do some planning ahead to make this cheesecake. It doesn't take long to put it together or cook it, but the cooling time is essential to help it set and for the flavors to develop. I won't judge you if you decide to just scoop it out with a spoon but it may be jiggly and runny. But it's cheesecake, all cheesecakes need to cool completely. 

Blind bake for a nice crust that isn't soggy.

Pumpkin Pie Spice

It's almost here! Fall! I'm so excited. I love fall weather, gorgeous fall leaves, boots, and pumpkin, pumpkin, PUMPKIN! I'm finally getting around to sharing how I make my Pumpkin Pie Spice with you! I love mixing my own spice seasonings, I can tweak them to our liking.
This pie spice is fragrant and flavorful. I used some whole spices, but pre ground works great. Sometimes I add powdered vanilla to this mix also.

Under Bed Lego Tray

So, I've been busy trying to get unpacked and set up our new home. One of the projects I really wanted to do was to make a Lego tray, this one is an under bed Lego tray. But it can be used for so many other toys. Because I wanted it to be useable for other toys I did not glue any Lego building plates to the bottom of this. Originally I just wanted to get an aluminum drip pan and put something under it to slide it under the bed. Then there was the problem of sliding stuff across wood floors. How sturdy the tray would be if we just glued felt to the bottom, would it work if it wasn't flat? Stuff like that. My mother in law was here visiting and the more we talked about it the more ideas we had. That tends to happen a lot, we have tons of ideas, and some of them come to fruition. When they do, they are awesome. It also helps that she's really good with stuff like this. I mean, really, I wouldn't even try to attempt something like this without her. Funny thing is, she helped build one  90% of the way and had to go home so I had no choice to finish and do the second one! I couldn't believe I actually built it! I'm so glad it happened that way because now I have a little more confidence, maybe I'll hang some pictures on the wall or something. Who knows.

Masala Spiced Almond Milk

This is such a delicious almond milk. I don't sweeten our almond milk at all. Sometimes I throw a cinnamon stick in the blender and that adds some sweetness already, you can also throw in  pie spices, cardamom, nutmeg, ginger, medjool dates, banana... whatever you like.

Diva picked this as a healthy snack to give to her teacher for Teacher Appreciation week. YUM.

For this milk I used this same method posted here. It's so simple. I do have a nut bag that I use now that makes squeezing and straining so much easier. The children can help with this one, or do it on their own.

I added my own blend of Masala Spices

Ginger (dried or fresh)

Whole Black Peppercorns (6 or so)

Whole Green Cardamom (5 or so)

Cinnamon flakes or a stick is fine (1 stick)

All Spice (4 pieces)

Cloves (3-4 pieces)

Nutmeg (1/4 teaspoon grated, or used the pieces that are too small to grate)

If you wanted a sweetener a few dates or honey would be great in this.

I hope you'll try this Give Peas A Chance favorite!

Cuppow BNTO Gift Jars

I'm always late getting "holiday" posts up. Truth is, I blog as I go and I don't normally plan posts months ahead. If you are looking to be a great blogger, or even a successful blogger do not use my model of blogging :P 

Anyway, I think Cuppow rocks. I'm also a mason jar hoarder, I mean, fan. I think that using them as gift jars not only is eco friendly, but it's so fun! The gift recipient gets fun gifts AND the jar and Cuppow is a gift in itself! So Here's a fun little gift all "wrapped" up for you to see using a Cuppow lid and BNTO

From left to right-

Wonder Woman socks
Mason jar

Heart links
Hello Kitty Necklace

Lip balm

Nail polish

Cuppow lid and BNTO

How cute is that! It all closes up nice and tight. So very fun!

 A little about Cuppow, we've used them since 2012, you can see my review HERE. Since then the company has grown and the product line has expanded. However, what I love about Cuppow remains:

• American Made
• Environmentally Aware
• Family Friendly- we use these lids for smoothies, coffee, water, to pour homemade dressings. They are great for sugar and other spices also. The BNTO are perfect for foods, salad in a jar, parfait, and more.
• Free of BPA, phthalates, and BP
• Charity- We are proud to commit 5% of profits toward supporting other like-minded organizations and domestic charities that focus on engaging people on environmental stewardship, recycling, and social awareness.

Above is a Thai beef salad layered in the jar. The BNTO cup has plain Greek yogurt with local honey. It closes up nice and tight!

Find Cuppow

Website

Flickr

Facebook

Vimeo

This is not a sponsored post. I just love our Cuppow!

Valentine's Day Gifts and Cards

WOW. Talk about waayy behind right? I still wanted to share the Valentine's that the kids gave to their friends this year. 

Pixie handed out these little make your own Snowmen kits. It's funny, because I just happened to have these and the movie Frozen came out so Snowmen were perfect for an Olaf card. I had the pack of the Snowmen from Target's Christmas clearance. The pack of 20 was originally $5, and I got it for $1.25 I made the printable in black and white because I figured the kids could color it in if they wanted to.

Diva gave out these great pencils that have tongue twisters on them from Super Duper Publications. I found the Ventricular, is that the word? Where the image changes when you move the item? These little stars "wink" when moved. Anyway. They were a steal, I found them at Target for 75% off at the Dollar Spot! There was maybe 12 in each bag too! She wrote on the back of each one.

Piglet is BIG into robots and robotics right now, so these sticker packs from Target were PERFECT. She just opened up each one and wrote a message on them for each of her friends.

So those were our Valentine's this year. Simple but still fun, and NO candy!

Etched Glass Tutorial- Doctor Who

Okay, ya'll I'm a glass etching fool. I want to etch everything in sight. I know there are tons of tutorials on Glass Etching out there, but this is the method that works best for me, so I thought I would share it with you all. Now, this may not be the method that works for you. you may have a better method (feel free to share it in the comments section) but this is what works for me. A friend of mine sent me the vinyl decals, so I can't tell you how to get or make those. She used a die cutting machine, and if you google "Doctor Who Silhouette Vinyl" some free designs will come up.
I try to choose glass items that have straight sides. Sometimes imperfections in the glass will show through or be highlighted by the etching cream.
Here is another project I did, a Doctor Who vase. I LOVE LOVE how it turned out.
I want to do some casserole dishes and such, but I don't have a die cutting machine yet. I have heard it's harder to etch on Pyrex, some tutorials say you can't do it. I haven't tried so I can't help you there.

Weeping Angel

 TARDIS

 Dalek

 K-9

Adipose

So, here's how I etch glass. You can scroll past all these pictures for an easier to read version.

Items I used (not all are pictured above)

1. Glass Etching Cream
2. Something to etch- I find that items with straight sides works best. Also it should be smooth on the surface where you are etching
3. Vinyl decal - I got these from a friend, just get the removable vinyl if you have a choice. 
4. Contact paper
5. Old hotel key, gift card or credit card
6. Paint brush
7. Alcohol wipe or alcohol and cotton swab
8. Scissors
9. Tweezers
10. Disposable gloves
11. Damp rag

You may want to cover your work surface also, with some paper or work above the a sink, note that the etching cream works on CONTACT. So any drips or drops on glass and it's there for good. Read the bottle. Don't get  it on your skin. Safety first, you know the drill.

1. Take the tweezers and remove any area on your vinyl that you want to be etched. Any vinyl left on there will not come in contact with the cream. In this case, I left the panel's on the Tardis, but took off the window panels. Leave the backing ON the vinyl.
I also accidentally took panel out. On the right side there. Oops. Once you've removed the areas that you want etched just give it a once over to make sure you like where all the white areas are. Because that is is what will show up as etched.
2. Take a piece of contact paper. Remove the backing and place it on top of the vinyl. Careful not to get air bubbles under it.
3. Take the gift card and smooth out the contact paper, rubbing over the small detail areas of your design. I had to do this where the black panels I left were. This is to make sure those details stick to the contact paper.

4. Clean the surface of the glass with the alcohol wipe. Let it dry. After this step be careful where you place your fingers/hands. You don't want the natural oils in your skin to leave prints where you etch your design.
5. Remove the backing from your vinyl. Leaving the design, and outline attached to the contact paper.
6. Place the contact paper with vinyl onto the glass surface. This needs to be a smooth application, any wrinkles or bubbles and etch cream will get under there. I find it easiest to place one side of the vinyl/contact paper down, and smooth the rest down with the gift card.

7. Rub the gift card over the design to make sure that when you lift the contact paper off, the designs will stick to the glass. Make sure the application is smooth.
8. Carefully peel off the contact paper.

9. At this point you can use a damp towel to clean the design area, just do not use alcohol. the vinyl will come up. I don't always do this step, it just depends on my mood.
10. Take contact paper, the same piece you just peeled off if you'd like. Tape all around the outer edges of the vinyl with the contact paper, you can use tape too. I just use the contact paper. Waste not, want not right?.ANY area that you don't want etched on accident, should be taped/covered. You can see that this Tardis has a good perimeter around it, I still put contact paper on the bottom.
11. Put the gloves on. Open the jar of Etching Cream. Stir it with the paint brush.

12. Dab a generous amount of cream over the design.
13. Wait 5 minutes.
14. After five minutes take your brush and move the cream around, making sure the whole surface is covered. Check the underside to see if you have good coverage.
14. Wait another 5 minutes, or ten...
15. Take your paint brush and scrape the excess etching cream off of the glass and put it back into the jar. Close it up for later use.
16. Wash the remaining etching cream off in the sink with cold water. Use the paint brush to loosen the cream if needed.
17. Remove vinyl and any tape and wash your jar well. The design will show up better once the glass is completely dry. Hot water makes removal of vinyl very easy.






Give Peas A Chance Glass Etching Tutorial

Materials-

1. Glass Etching Cream
2. Something to etch- I find that items with straight sides works best. Also it should be smooth on the surface where you are etching
3. Vinyl decal - I got these from a friend, just get the removable vinyl if you have a choice. 
4. Contact paper
5. Old hotel key, gift card or credit card
6. Paint brush
7. Alcohol wipe or alcohol and cotton swab
8. Scissors
9. Tweezers
10. Disposable gloves
11. Damp rag

*You may want to cover your work surface also, with some paper or work above the a sink, note that the etching cream works on CONTACT. So any drips or drops on glass and it's there for good. Read the bottle. Don't get  it on your skin. Safety first, you know the drill.

To etch your glass surface-

1. Take the tweezers and remove any area on your vinyl that you want to be etched. Any vinyl left on there will not come in contact with the cream. In this case, I left the panel's on the Tardis, but took off the window panels. Leave the backing ON the vinyl.

 Once you've removed the areas that you want etched just give it a once over to make sure you like where all the white areas are. Because that is is what will show up as etched. 

2. Take a piece of contact paper. Remove the backing and place it on top of the vinyl. Careful not to get air bubbles under it.

3. Take the gift card and smooth out the contact paper, rubbing over the small detail areas of your design. I had to do this where the black panels I left were. This is to make sure those details stick to the contact paper.

4. Clean the surface of the glass with the alcohol wipe. Let it dry. After this step be careful where you place your fingers/hands. You don't want the natural oils in your skin to leave prints where you etch your design.

5. Remove the backing from your vinyl. Leaving the design, and outline attached to the contact paper.

6. Place the contact paper with vinyl onto the glass surface. This needs to be a smooth application, any wrinkles or bubbles and etch cream will get under there. I find it easiest to place one side of the vinyl/contact paper down, and smooth the rest down with the gift card. 

7. Rub the gift card over the design to make sure that when you lift the contact paper off, the designs will stick to the glass. Make sure the application is smooth.

8. Carefully peel off the contact paper.

9. At this point you can use a damp towel to clean the design area, just do not use alcohol. the vinyl will come up. I don't always do this step, it just depends on my mood. 

10. Take contact paper, the same piece you just peeled off if you'd like. Tape all around the outer edges of the vinyl with the contact paper, you can use tape too. I just use the contact paper. Waste not, want not right?.ANY area that you don't want etched on accident, should be taped/covered. You can see that this Tardis has a good perimeter around it, I still put contact paper on the bottom.

11. Put the gloves on. Open the jar of Etching Cream. Stir it with the paint brush.

12. Dab a generous amount of cream over the design. 

13. Wait 5 minutes.

14. After five minutes take your brush and move the cream around, making sure the whole surface is covered. Check the underside to see if you have good coverage.

14. Wait another 5 minutes, or ten...

15. Take your paint brush and scrape the excess etching cream off of the glass and put it back into the jar. Close it up for later use.

16. Wash the remaining etching cream off in the sink with cold water. Use the paint brush to loosen the cream if needed.

17. Remove vinyl and any tape and wash your jar well. The design will show up better once the glass is completely dry. Hot water makes removal of vinyl very easy.

Happy Birthday 'Arry... yer a wizard. Wand Tutorial.

For the complete tutorial (more detailed) see the original post on Give Peas A Chance HERE. These are so easy to make you can get them done in time for Harry's birthday on the 31st.

It's funny that I have a post for this, because while I am a nerd, we won't really be doing anything HP related. Maybe I'll have a Butterbeer Frappuccino? If I have one I'll post the picture below. Want one too? Head on over to your nearest Starbucks, ask for a

Breve coffee frapp with a shot of toffee nut and a shot of caramel syrup.

OK, you don't have to ask for it breve, but it's good.  Be sure to give them a good wizard name while you're at it.

These are Instagram photos.

Then you can come back here and thank me. 

Free Friday- Best Mother's Day Gift Ever

The new "Little Black Book".

**Another update!! I won the NerdWallet Contest for Best Overall entry! I was so surprised! Go check out the other amazing entries. Check out the write up Nerd Wallet.
**It's not Friday, but I just didn't want to wait to post this, just in case you want to run out and get a book of your own ;) **
It's almost Mother's day. I wanted to share with you all the best gift ever. See that black book up there? It's a little worn looking. But, that's it. The best gift ever I mean. I know it doesn't look like much, but didn't your mother teach you not to judge a book by it's cover? ;)

Let me tell you about this book. About how a black,  9x13 inch (ish), less than $15, blank book could be the best gift ever. I haven't had this book for long, since about 2011. But every holiday, birthday, or anytime my girls want to get me a gift they use this book. They draw pictures, write letters or poetry for me. They fill the blank pages with their artwork and thoughts. I get to see their writing improve, their pictures get more detail.  I get to look back and see what they are "into" at the moment. Princess flying unicorns, snakes, peacocks, and more. On some pages the girls have just traced their hands. At the beginning  my oldest girl had to help my youngest by writing her name and date for her. Now my youngest can write her own name. *sniff*

I love my book. It's very special to me. When it's full, I'll add another. It's perfect, there's no wondering what to get mom, there's no need to spend money on trinkets. There's no cards and papers scattered all over the place.

Cascadian Farm and friends surprise

So, we've had the sickies around here. We're just passing it around (or the kids are) like a pro basketball team, back and forth. So it's just been a season in our lives where I feel we're just not doing a ton, it gets ... monotonous and feels unending. Thankfully the girls seem to be feeling much better and I'm just praying it stays that way. In the midst of all the crazy sickies I got a package on my doorstep. I wasn't expecting one at all. It turns out it was from the WONDERFUL people at Cascadian Farm. I wasn't sure what could be in it at all. When I opened it, I may or may not have squealed like a school girl out of excitement. I mean, check out this awesome box!? I was so surprised, it was and is such a great pick me up. What a blessing!
There are some AMAZING products that were featured in this box. I wish I could run a giveaway from these companies. Here's what's in the box.

Manic Monday- GPAC Curry Powder

I love toasting and grinding my own spices. I love that they are more fragrant, and are made the way I like them! This is curry powder. I love playing with spices, adding more of what I like, less of something I don't like or omitting it all together. I love putting together seasonings.
This is what I put in my curry powder, I toast and cool the whole spices first.

Give Peas A Chance Curry Powder
coriander seeds

cumin seeds

cardamom seeds (the green ones)

white and black peppercorns

fenugreek seeds

red pepper flakes

cinnamon

 turmeric

ginger

Wordless/Repeat Wednesday's are now posting on Monday's under the tag Manic Monday*
Find more "ManIc MoNdaY" posts here.

I hope you'll try this recipe, and let me know how it goes!

Thanks for reading Give Peas A Chance!

Find me on

 Facebook, Twitter (@peasblog), Instagram (@peasknees), Google +

Shaped Crayon Up-cycle

Up-cycled crayons, nothing new of course. I used to sell these on Love Abounds. I have molds coming out my ears! Okay, maybe not that many. But I do have quite a few, and we always have crayons laying around. Broken ones. This year for Valentine's day Piglet,  I posted pictures HERE,  will be giving these to her classmates. I have an extra dozen or so for Pixie to pass out to friends. Which to her is any random little person we see while out and about. So cute.

Picture taken by Petruzzo Photography

These crayons are great as a gift for classmates, party favors. They are awesome for younger kids since they are so big and chunky they don't break easily. Plus you use old crayons, can't beat that right? Don't have molds? No worries, you can bake these in those nut cups/ cupcake lines. The ones that hold their shape without a tin. Once baked and cooled you can just peel off the paper. Though they release fairly easy in those cups. You can also have you children make a little mold from aluminum foil to bake in. Just make sure it's thick enough and has a flat surface so that it doesn't rock. If you bake these in a muffin tin, just know that you will not be cooking with that tin again.
You can also clean out empty food cans, and heat the crayons over a burner. With this method you can make stacked rainbow crayons, I'm going to fill old glue sticks this way, if I can ever collect enough empty containers. *I tried a chap-stick container- hot mess. It wouldn't twist up, I'll try again but not anytime soon. Still haven't tried the glue sticks though!

Happy Valentine's Day 2013

Don't worry, you haven't missed it yet! I'm a bit early- ok late as far as bloggers go but come on. In my defense I wanted to post ideas last month. But as I am a procrastinator I didn't think about Valentines until 2/5... so here's your post. Maybe you can bookmark it for next year? Or Pin it to a Pinterest board (I would be honored if you did).
I also listed a few ideas for handmade gifts below, feel free to leave a comment with more ideas!
Now, on to these Valentine's day cards for the girls. I have had a stockpile of crayons leftover in a box since my Love Abounds days when I sold molded crayons. So I knew I would make crayons, for at least some of our little friends. Another thing about Valentine's day cards/treats is that pictures are SO easy to just print out. Fairly cheap also. I printed them out last year, you can see pictures below, and HERE. It was so easy. 

That and I love the pictures that  Felipe of Petruzzo Photography did for us this year and I wanted to use them. Their Facebook page is HERE.
Here are some contenders for Valentines in our home.

Pixie- 

These Valentine cards do have names on them also. Just not these one's I'm posting.

Anatomy of a Blessing Bag

Have you made blessing bags? I've seen them on Pinterest. They are great to keep in the car for people you see asking for help/handouts on the street. Putting them together is easy, and it's a great activity for children. Kids can help you fill each bag, just like Operation Christmas Child Shoe boxes. Keep them in your car, and hand them out when you see someone holding up a sign and asking for some help. (Public Service Announcment- The paranoid mom in me wants to remind you to use common sense and not drive up and down dark alleys at night, rolling down your windows and such. PSA over.)

What can you put in these bags? So many things! (You can see what I had this go around in the pictures.)

I have a list below of some ideas that can be put into gallon sized bags for giving out, if you have other ideas share them in the comments section!

GPAC Smokey Ancho Chile Seasoning

This seasoning can be used for so many things.

Soups

Stews

Grilling shrimp, fish, chicken, pork, beef, vegetables

Roasting meats, vegetables

With meats in the crock pot- sprinkle it on pork or chicken. Once cooked shred it and serve as pictured above, over a salad, in lettuce wraps and more.

Use it to season tortilla, sweet potato, plantain chips, or potato chips

It has a smokey flavor, a little sweet. The Ancho Chilie powder is where the smokey flavor comes from, if you want less smokey use 1 tablespoon of the Ancho and 3 tablespoons of the chili powder. When used as a rub it caramelizes beautifully! Use as little or as much as you'd like. If you've never used coriander seed it is fragrant and so good. I use my spice grinder to grind it up. It is cilantro seed but does not taste the same.

Crayon Art, Heartschooling

Crayon Art. All. Over. Pinterest. Nothing new... but I'm having so much fun with it! I don't have a heat gun. If you have one, you should use it. It would help minimize splatters. I use a hair dryer on high heat setting. 

I just use a hot glue gun and line the crayons up on a canvas. You can do letters for monograms, circles, rainbows, monochromatic themes. Small circles for flowers and draw in stems. Grey and white circles for dandelions.

The picture above I used Modge Podge to adhere the Totoro picture. It was my first time using Modge Podge. I'm glad it was simple. I used blues and purples for that one. 

Below is just a rainbow one. You can see some splatters, but my kids pretty much don't care. These are both hanging up in our school room. Which is a homework room.

Basically all you do is-

1. Glue crayons onto a canvas.

2. Slowly heat them to melt. 

3. Tilt the canvas to move the streams of color where you want them. If you want it to have pools of color, put the canvas on a flat surface.

So easy and so cheap, the canvases were 50% I paid $3 bucks for them. The crayons I got during back to school shopping for 50 cents a box. I had the glue gun, but I remember it being $5 a long time ago.

The girl's school room/homework stations.

 They each have their names over their desks. MIL cut them out and put them up for them. She also put up the shelves. The orange strips to the right of the desk up top are magnetic. So they can put up pictures.

I'm loving having this room. No more mad rush to clear off the dining room table. When their desks were downstairs in the play room they weren't being used. I love that all of their supplies and such are accessible.