March Inspiration

Hi y'all!!! I have a fabulous "new to me" recipe! I just had to share it with y'all as it was such a hit at my kitchen table...and when you have seven peeps around that kitchen table every night, any hit is worth sharing. My BFF and I sat down a couple three weeks ago to work on organizing our recipe books. While we were at it we did a little recipe sharing and this recipe for Mexican Pizza is the first one of hers that I have tried. I am certainly putting the rest of her recipes on my TO-DO very soon list;).

It is rare {actually, quite possibly, never done before} that I scrap a first time recipe but I just knew as soon as this one hit the table. In fact, I wasn't even fast enough to get a photo before the scoopfest began.

The background paper from Cookbookin' is called Check Me Out and it is layered on a sheet of black cardstock. The line is called Gourmet Holiday and can be found here. Flower & leaves at top are fussy cut from Mia Cucina which is also the paper I used for the pennant flags on the banner. I pop dotted some punched cardstock flowers on top of the flags and added little Jenni Bowlin letters. The cool image in the lower right corner is cut from La Dolce Vita. The banner is strung with some Shabby Green Door floss and the ends are tied with some coordinating beads. 

Just in case your eyes are getting to be like mine, here is the recipe in, ahem, larger print;):

Ingredients:
8 oz. cooked spaghetti
1 lb. shredded cooked chicken
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can Rotel
1T chili powder
1-1/2C shredded cheese (I used a Mexican blend)
1C sour cream


Directions:
Layer cooked spaghetti into bottom of 9x13 dish. Add cooked chicken on top of spaghetti layer. Mix remaining ingredients together and add on top of chicken layer. Sprinkle with additional cheese and bake at 350* for 30 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Serve with a nice green salad and enjoy!


I'd love to hear from you if you try the recipe...and especially if you tweek it!!!

We have a WINNER!

Congratulations BETTY ANNE! You are the randomly chosen winner of the Holiday Sketch Challenge. Thank you all so very much for entering. Betty Anne, email me your address and Cookbookin' will get your Gourmet Holiday kit out to you right away.

Last Day to Enter~

Today is the last day for you to enter the Holiday Sketch Challenge! You have until midnight CST.

I wanted to share a very special layout done by a dear friend of mine, Betty Anne. This is her entry for our Holiday Sketch Challenge:

Betty Anne is truly an inspiration to all of us around her and since I can't say things better than she can I am reposting her very own blog post about this layout here on the Cookbookin' blog. Enjoy and be sure to visit Betty Anne's blog for even more!

Our Most Prized Possessions Are Our Family Memories

If your looking for my Let's Scrap Blog Hop Post you can find it here.

Kristie, a friend I met through Let's Scrap, is on the design team of Cookbookin. I joined their blog quite a while ago but hadn't had a chance to make a layout for them yet.  Then in December, Cheri O'Neill, from Let's Scrap made a fantastic sketch for them.  If you follow my blog you know that I just love Cheri's sketches.  So I decided that I would enter their sketch challenge.  
Here is Cheri's sketch

and here is my layout

     The lady in the picture is my mother.  As far back as I can remember my mother made chocolate candy at Christmas.  It was like a very sugary and sweet fudge.  After all six children grew up and had children of our own my Mother found that she really couldn't afford to buy gifts for everyone.  So each year she would make up batches of her candy and each family would get a little box filled with it.   I can't say it was the best candy/fudge I have ever tasted but biting into that sweet treat always brought back fond memories for me.
     My Mother passed away 8 years ago this month.  Just before Christmas I got thinking about her and her candy.   I thought that the recipe was long gone and I would never get the chance to ever taste it again.  But I started to make some phone calls to my sisters and learned that my youngest sister Cathy actually had my Mothers original recipe. So during our family Christmas get together she brought it down to me.  The paper was well worn with add notes on it in different color pen, but it was my Mother's handwriting.
     My Mother was an old fashioned cook and many of her recipes didn't have measurements.  Often they would say a pinch of this or a dash of that or even at times a handful of this.  In this recipe one of the ingredients was a hunk of butter. How big is a HUNK of butter?? She then had drawn an arrow from the butter down to the bottom of the page and it said - a dessert spoon heaped like an egg. Ohhh so that's a hunk of butter, then in different pen and obviously added later on it said - 2 tablespoons of butter.  Geesh she couldn't have said that in the first place. LOL
     I ended up making a batch of the candy a couple of days before Christmas.  I made some with the cocoa in it and also some without it.  I can't even explain how happy I was when I took that first bite and was whisked back to my childhood and sitting in our old kitchen watching my Mother make it.  It was just pure joy.

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Thanks Betty Anne for sharing all of this with us here at Cookbookin'!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a fantastic Holiday season and that you took LOTS of great pictures. I sure did and I am ready to hit the ground scrapping now that vacations are ending and life is returning to normal. I thought I start the year off featuring those layouts that have been submitted thus far for the Holiday Sketch Challenge. Entries are not due until January 31st and the draw is random for a GREAT prize kit so I'd love to see lots more entries. Just click on the sketch that is on the sidebar to get the details.

From Karien, we have THREE gorgeous layouts. Karien is a super talented scrapper that I "met" over at Let's Scrap. Her layouts always have pizazz and flair!

From Mary, we have a beautiful representation of Thanksgiving Traditions. Mary is a fellow design team member with me over at Kitchen Keepsake. Her talent just AMAZES me! We have a crop coming up over there and I can tell you that Mary has some incredible tutorials to share.

 From Sandy, we have this amazing bunch of cuteness. Sandy won a  recent drawing here at Cookbookin' and has used some of her prize to create her entry this month. That gives Sandy TWO extra chances in the drawing THIS month. Go Sandy!

Thanks girls for entering, I am just amazed at what you all can do!!!

Candy Anyone?

This is an actual chicken feeder turned candy dish {never used for chickens;)} that I decorated for Christmas this year. I used Cookbookin's line called Sugar and Spice along with a bright gingham ribbon and a couple glittery snowflakes. 

I also decorated the "back" so that if the whim hits, I can turn this around and have a bit of a different look.

And just in case you were wondering what my little chicken feeder was wearing last season...here is a shot of that. These papers are from Cookbookin's Cookin' up Memories collection.

Hope this season of joy is truly joyful for you all and that you are ALL working on the Holiday Sketch Challenge...okay, so you don't have to worry about THAT quite yet, remember it is not due until January 31, 2011. NEXT year!!!

November Winner~~~

The randomly chosen winner for November's Sketch Challenge is KATHY!!! Congrats to you Kathy, email me your address and I'll get your prize right out to you. Thanks again to all who entered!!!

Holiday Sketch Challenge~~~

Maybe you have noticed, I am posting the sketch challenge this month on the second instead of on the first...there is a reason for this! This month we have a very special sketch from Cheri O'Neill over at Let's Scrap and it is a TWO page sketch! Isn't it FANtastic!?!?!

I loved working with this sketch for my Thanksgiving Menu layout.

Every year I waste time hunting around through my computer looking for my Holiday menus...so I decided to go ahead and make layouts this year for my scrappy cookbook so I could find them more easily. Each year we have a special dish or two but this layout lists all the "Must Haves" for each Thanksgiving at our home.

I used several different Cookbookin' papers for this layout as well as their stickers, some cardstock, and some random trim that I picked up at Michaels for the twig sprigs;).

I just ADORE this little oven sticker from Cookbookin's Harvest Kitchen collection. All the goodies baking away inside it that sweet little oven...

I find it so very important to keep perspective and appreciate what I have at this time of year. That thought was the inspiration for including Cookbookin's beautiful "Count Your Blessings" sticker. I hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving and if the busy-busy craziness of the Holiday season starts to get to you, just take a deep breath and count your blessings. It can't hurt...;)

Your challenge this month is to use Cheri's two-page sketch to create a cooking/eating/ food themed layout. This time, just so no one feels any pressure, you have TWO months to complete your project and link it back here in the comment section. {Are you seeing a pattern?} Yes, you may choose to do only one side or the other of the sketch in case you are not a two-page layout person. HOWever, if you do complete a two-page layout, you get two entries into the drawing AND if you use any Cookbookin' product on your layout you get an extra entry that way as well. So, if you do a two-page layout using Cookbookin' product anywhere on your layout you get THREE entries into the random drawing. Good luck and happy scrapping.
And up for grabs is this incredible Gourmet Holiday kit!

Check back tomorrow to see who wins the November prize!!!