Homemade Pie Crust by Big Sis

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We weren't raised in a home with a mom that cooked a lot... it's okay mom! Funny though that we both enjoy experimenting with new recipes and trying things out. I have really enjoyed, since becoming a stay at home mom, making our foods from scratch. However, in all this time making pie crust from scratch is not something I dared to try. I have had more than one person tell me on more than one occasion that pie crust is very difficult.... I dare to say it is not! 

Google really is my best friend. I have a cabinet full of cookbooks, but I always go to google when wanting a recipe. This time it was not different. For some reason I went with the first recipe that popped up and man.. it was great. It was so easy and yummy. You can find the recipe that I used here. 

So, as the directions stated I had to cut my butter in small cubes and freeze them. I had never new that would make a difference. But it did. It was very interesting to me to find out that one of the secrets to getting flaky pie crust is to have really, really cold butter. So because of this they recommended freezing, which I did! 

Of course I had my very own helper in the kitchen. He loves to cook with his Mommy. I was busy with my food processor when I hear "Mommy, Look at Me"... he is just too precious. 

What you see below is me mixing the flour, butter, and water in my food processor. It was so neat to me how the small amount of water pulled the butter and flour together and created a crust. You have to really watch it because too little water won't give it the consistency it needs and too much water makes it much too tough... and you do not want that. I am so happy to have my food processor. It is so helpful when I need to bake! This was a wonderful gift from my in-laws a few Christmas' ago ... and it attaches to my Bosch... EVEN BETTER 

Then I had to make disks with the dough, after dividing them into two. You can still see the butter pieces and that is OKAY! Remember, the butter is what helps your pie crust to be flakey.. so if you like flakey... this is your pie crust recipe to use. 

A close up of the dough in the shape of a disk showing you that you can see the butter pieces! 

Now you want to wrap your disks and put them in the fridge for at least an hour... 

The picture below is so pretty to me. Once I pulled my disks out I was able to shape it how I needed it and put it in the pie dish. I was SHOCKED at how easy it was to manage the dough. I expected it to be hard and falling apart... not the case. It was the perfect consistency. 

Do you have a great pie crust recipe that is relatively easy that you love? We would love for you to share it with us... and we would love to try it. 

Please share. 

Check out our Linky Parties page to see where all we are linking this up! 

-Big Sis

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Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

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Who doesn't LOVE Chicken Pot Pie? I remember as a kid how we would always have frozen pot pies and how I loved them. I was always SO very sad at how long they took to cook, but man, I loved these things. I never thought to make my own until we lived in Japan. One of our friends there made a killer homemade chicken pot pie... and I loved it. I loved it so much that she brought us one when our son was born to the hospital with his initials. 

Isn't that so creative and precious. Needless to say, the whole thing was eaten. It is just so creamy and sooo yummy. I love to make chicken pot pies and freeze them. Also, when I am going to make a meal for a family at church or something I always go to the pot pie. It is semi-quick and I know how yummy it is. And the fact that it is so different from the normals of lasagna or spaghetti. I love making it. Just recently, when making the ones below, I actually made THREE of them at one time! They were all so yummy. 

Normally I use the deep dish, frozen pie crusts in the dessert section of your local grocery store. I used them for two of the ones that I last made and then I ventured out to make my own pie crust. This is the one that we kept. Making pie crust has always, ALWAYS intimidated me. But it was not bad at all. I was shocked at how well it turned out and how yummy it was. Now I wish that the two pot pies that I gave away had my homemade crust on it too. In a blog post to come, I will tell you all about making my homemade pie crust. 

It may not be the prettiest thing in the world.. but I still made it myself! SO EXCITING!!! I have a lot of practice to do with my pie crust, but man how it added to the flavor of the chicken pot pie. I wish I could take the credit for my chicken pot pie, but I can't. I honestly have not gotten away from this recipe... and I am glad. Because it is just too great for me to mess up. I will share where I get it from at the end. 

But look at that pure delicious-ness. The thing that takes the longest in this whole process is cutting my carrots, celery, and onions. The awesome thing is if you don't like those veggies, you will probably not even know they are there because they are cut so small and cooked with everything else. If you don't like them, I would dare you to go ahead and add them... and see if you taste them!! 

My next goal is to make personal chicken pot pies and to freeze them. Trying to figure out how to exactly do that though... without breaking them coming out of the individual baking dishes.. tips?

You can find the AWESOME Chicken Pot Pie Recipe that I use right HERE! I hope you will try it out and let me know what you think... 

Check out our Linky Parties page to see where all we are linking this up! 

-Big Sis

*Don't forget to go enter our GIVEAWAY for some AWESOME Coconut Oil*

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Pallet Swing

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So in the second half of 2011....

my husband and I had two big life changes happen. 

We moved into a new home....

AND

We got introduced to the world of Pinterest! 

Or shall I say I got introduced and soon enough began passing ideas off to my husband!

Well with our new house, we had a small back patio/porch that was empty...so after seeing a wonderful little modern swing on Pinterest, and learning how cheap it could be, I talked him into making it. 

I say I can take some credit since I found the idea, 

but really my husband did absolutely all the work...

even tweeking it some to make the project more fun! 

We decided to make a flat pallet swing for our back porch.  

It was really so cheap, here are all the supplies that we needed: 

1 Pallet

1 Large piece of rope (bought the length we needed from Lowes)

2 Eye Hooks (also from Lowes)

Some stain of your choice, and of course hammer and nails

My husband put it together in one day! It turned out awesome, and since our back porch isn't too big, it's nice because it doesn't take up much room, it just sits in the corner.  

The only thing not that great about it, is that it is really just a one person swing, so if you are wanting something for you and your spouse to sit on, you should go a different route.  But if you are looking for a simple, cute, and comfy swing to read on or enjoy the weather on, this is great! 

And to make it personal and fun, my husband decided to make the parts of the swing that hang on the outside of the ropes little flower boxes.  This was his own idea and it turned out really great. At first I wasn't sure about it, but I really love it! (sorry I don't have a photo with the pretty flowers in it for you)

Anyways, let me know if you have tried this, or if you end up trying it! 

Also, don't forget to head over to our Naturally-Nifty Linky Party and link up your great stuff! The party will be open until Friday at midnight. 

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Naturally-Nifty Linky Party #4!

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The sisters here at Natural-Nesters are so excited to get to feature some of our wonderful reader's Niftiest things this week! We even have a Reader's Choice Feature this week which makes us very excited! We want yall to have fun at our party, so check out the features, link up your great stuff, and then check out some other links....then come back here and like your favorite ones.(You can even like your own!)

We hope you have fun at our party, and we can't wait to see what everyone links up !

These easy and cute felt flowers can make some wonderful and cute wreaths, or can be used for any other project you want.  Go over and check our the blog Mrs Priss and let her teach you how to make them.  I made my own in just like 3 minutes.  It is definitely an easy flower to make, and different than most I have seen! I love it! Thanks for teaching me! 

Marilyn from 4 You With Love shares a wonderful family table game with us...something that will make dinner fun for everyone! She even shares a great memory from her own family when they played this game! Part of it allows adults to act as children, and the children to act as adults! It is fun for everyone, go check out all the details and try it with your own family tonight at dinner. 

Lynn over at Scrapity Anne gives us a recipe for an amazing eye makeup remover.  As I woman, I know how hard it is to get that stuff off, and the clothes and stuff you can buy to help add up $$$ so I am excited to try this out and save some money in the process! Head over to her blog to get this great recipe! 

The room makeover at PB&J Stories is one of my favorites this week! Not only because of my love for yellow and gray and me being envious of wanting my room decorated in those colors, but because of all of the great stuff she did here! I love the different patterns together, the way she is able to use space for an office area, and just the entire transformation of the room is huge! Plus have you noticed the hidden organization she has here? Her cute trunk bench at the end of her bed doubles as a filing cabinet, and she uses one of the drawers in her dresser to put her printer! It is great! Head on over and check it out! 

And this week we finally have a feature blog that was chosen by YOU! We give our readers the opportunity to like the links they have visited, and the one with the most likes will be the Reader's Choice Feature! 

This week, that award goes to Bumblebee & Sophie who was also featured here last week for her wonderful sewing skills! Stop by and check out the wonderful Valentines gifts she made! There are multiple different ones, all so unique and fun and so well sewn. Here she has made a cute lunch bag, and another one of my favorites are the mittens she made! Be sure to stop by and check her out! 

Now...for the Naturally-Nifty Linky Party #4! Remember link up all your favorite things! We want to see it all.  

The only things we ask is that you become a follower of Natural-Nesters & that you put our button on you blog so that you can link back to us! (You can find our button on the left side bar)

If you'd like you can also stop by our facebook page and LIKE us there too! 

You can post as many links as you want. And next week we will feature some of our favorite projects/ideas! 

Plus we will have a bloggers choice feature! So take time to visit some other blogs and LIKE your favorites and the blog with the top Likes will be featured next week as well! 

Thanks for linking up with us!

We can't wait to see your nifty ideas and accomplishments! 

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Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

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For those that don't know, we (Big Sis), just moved back the states after living three years in Japan. For the past five years I have taught school. For my son's first year I continued to teach school and took him to an amazing home provider. I was a full time teacher, a full time mommy, and a full time wife. I certainly did not have the time that I have now to experiment with recipes. It is actually rather funny that I enjoy cooking things from scratch and baking like I do now. I knew there was this girl way down there hidden. But for the past three years I just used my best friend in Japan to do that for me while I lived vicariously through her. But now, I get to be that woman I always wanted to be. Though I still work full time, and most days many more hours than I did actually teaching in a public school, I also have the freedom to be home! I can include the kids in many of my adventures! :)

With that said, back in November my little love bug got sick for the first real time since he was born. Then my handsome husband started feeling puny as well. So I thought I would make some homemade chicken noodle soup. When I put the recipe in google (my favorite) I found Pioneer Woman's Recipe. I was so excited. I have always heard such wonderful things about Pioneer Woman. I read through the recipe and I had everything I needed, so I got busy. First and foremost I had to make the noodles. These were so super easy. 

I was so proud of how my noodles turned out and especially how they tasted. I always worry when cooking something new. My husband always eats ANYTHING I cook even if it taste poorly.... but he is also honest with me. Where as some women don't like it when their spouse critiques their dishes, I welcome it. I use to not be that way. But now that I have began growing myself as a better cook, wife, and mom, I like to have his input. Most of the time! :) He comes from a mom who is an amazing cook- so my bar is set high. I don't ever expect to be as good of a cook as Dixie, but I do hope that my little boys standard of cooking is set high too, because of ME! :)

I loved watching this soup cook. Isn't it beautiful? This whole pot was gone that night. I am pretty sure little man didn't eat any, I had one bowl, and then Daddy tore into it! I actually made a lot more the other night. I had to make a meal for a family in my church and also for another friend whose husband just had surgery. When I cook for other people it is especially important to me that I put my all into it and I enjoy doing it from scratch. I was not as pleased with these noodles, but the next day they were great! :) 

To the moms that work and don't have time to cook from scratch or do things you would like to do for your family.... I get it. I do. And I am so sorry. I wish we could all do what our heart desires... now that I can be home and can do this stuff- it is A PRIORITY! :) I love cooking and I love doing it for my family. I love preparing breakfast, lunch, and dinner for my boys. Love it!

I dare you to take on this adventure and make some homemade noodles.. they are so much better than store bought noodles! :)

Don't forget our Linky Party! Link up and you might be featured! 

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CHEAP Homemade Furnisher Polish!

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So....I have been enjoying my homemade household cleaner so much lately.  I made that during the first part of January, and it has been so much help.  It is no doubt a money saver, and with the way I like to clean my counter-tops, it is so helpful.

So....I decided to make something else! Well you see...since my house living room really does have lots of dark wood furniture, it gets fairly dusty pretty quickly. So I use a lot of pledge, to try and keep my house looking nice.  So I decided that instead of spending all that money on furniture polish, I was going to make my own... and that is exactly what I did! 

It is super easy! Plus it is super cheap! Just buy olive oil and lemon juice.  Plus you can use the lemon juice for my household cleaner.  You can find the recipe for that by clicking the link.  Anything you can do to save money and still keep your house clean, why wouldn't you!

I know that when I do things like this, and make homemade things that also benefit my families budget, I really feel good about myself.  I mean not to sound weird, but it makes me feel good to know that I am doing something to help take care of my home and my family.  I cannot wait to be a stay at home mom one day and be able to do more things like this.  With the life I lead now it is hard to find time to spend working on homemade things, but one day, I will be able to really take care of my family and my home in this way.  If you didn't know my hearts desire is to stay at home once I have a family.  I know that desire is straight from the Lord...it is strong, and I am constantly reminded of it.  I pray about it a lot, and my husband and I talk about it a lot.  I know that we are doing what we need to do right now.  We are both working, saving money, and I am finishing my masters degree. Then when the time comes, I continuously pray that we will be financially ready and stable to do this, and I know that the Lord hears the desires of my heart and wants good things for us, so I have faith that this will happen!

Just a couple of pics of me and my husband to show you who we are! I want to be able to get to know my readers, and it helps if you have a visual of who I am! and of course who my sweet husband Meguell is! 

Anyways, that is just a little part of my heart and dreams that I wanted to share with you.  Enjoy the recipe, and let me know if you use it and how you like it! 

Also don't forget, our Naturally-Nifty Linky Party #1 is finishing up tonight at midnight, so head over and link up before it ends.  We have had some great entries for our first ever linky party, and we cannot wait to feature some of those next week! Be sure to like some of your favorites, because that one will be featured too! 

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Homemade Glitter

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We had so much fun at daycare making homemade glitter. Anything we can find to make homemade, we do! It is so much cheaper and so much more fun for the kids. They are so excited when we do things like this. First thing is we gathered all of the supplies. You need:

-Salt

-Food Coloring

-Container for Shaking (or baggie)

-Container for your glitter

All of the kids got their own containers and they were able to pour as much salt into their container as they wanted. Some poured very little, others overflowed it, and there was one that actually stopped at the top! This is so fun for the kids when they are getting to do it themselves. 

The next thing is to put food coloring in their salt. I let each child have their own container of food coloring. I also let each child choose which color they wanted. Luckily I had enough that there were not arguments over who got which color. It worked out because we had several different colored glitters. Only one child as not content with just one color... that would be mine. He mixed in three colors and made a pretty blueish green. 

 My little man was way excited about the food coloring. The other kids enjoyed shaking their containers but not little man. He just wanted to put food coloring, more food coloring, and more food coloring! It was soo fun though. 

 After you have your food coloring in the salt and you have shook it up to make the colors all even- you can put it into a container. The kids were so proud of them. So I gave each child a piece of construction paper, glue stick, and glitter. They went to town, made a mess, and had FUN! :)

We LOOOOVE learning here at daycare! This is the home away from home for many of my kids... and we have so much fun doing different things! :)

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Yummy--Zucchini Bread Recipe

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So I started the contest blog out with a Wheat Bread Recipe , and I am going to end it with another bread recipe! 

Here is a great Zucchini Bread Recipe! I have made it twice so far and it turns out perfect and so yummy! 

Zucchini Bread

3 eggs

1 C vegetable oil

1 ½ C sugar

3 medium zucchini – grated and well drained  (2 C)  (I put the grated zucchini in a strainer, press down with my hands to get out liquid and then put a plate on top to drain out as much liquid as possible.  I’ll leave it for about 10 minutes to let it drain.) 

2 t vanilla

2 C sifted flour (all purpose)

¼ t baking powder

2 t baking soda

3 t ground cinnamon

1 t salt

¼ t nutmeg

1 C raisins (optional)

1 C chopped walnuts

Beat eggs lightly in large bowl.  Stir in oil, sugar, zucchini and vanilla.

Sift flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Cinnamon, nutmeg and salt onto wax paper.  Stir into egg mixture until well blended.  Stir in raisins and nuts.  Spoon batter into two well greased 8 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pans.  Put 3 C batter in each pan.

Bake in a moderate oven (375 degrees) for 1 hour or until center springs back when lightly pressed with fingertip.  Cool in pans on a wire rack 10 minutes.  Remove from pans and cool completely. 

(350 degrees works best for my oven and I still cook it for 1 hour – see which works best for you.)

Thankful for my friend Dani Kizer who shared this wonderful recipe with me! 

In my bread I didn't use raisins, only walnuts, and it was fantastic.  Also, I only used 2 zucchinis instead of 3 and that turned out wonderful! 

Anyways, I would love to hear if any of you try this! Or if you have a different recipe, let  me know what you do different in a comment below so I can try your style! 

I hope you all enjoy this recipe, and can add it to your list of recipes to try! 

REMEMBER....today is your last chance to win the

Lequip Professional Stick Blender with all of the attachments.

This tool is so amazing. I have used it to mince veggies such as onions, cilantro, and even tomotoes. We really enjoy using it to help make our fresh salsa. I have also used it when making baby food. The uses for this tool are unlimited. 

The website describes this tool as:

“An ideal blender for daily use. Slim ergonomic design with soft-touch easy-grip handle. Stainless steel body. Removable, interchangeable blades for mincing, beating, chopping, aerating, and whisking. It also includes a multi- chopper/grinder attachment.”

If you want to enter click on GIVEAWAY and it will take you to the place to enter! Each person has 6 chances to ENTER, and the giveaway ends tonight at 10pm (Central). We will be announcing the winner this weekend, so keep an eye out to see if you are the lucky winner of this awesome kitchen tool! 

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Curtain Makeover....Finally

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I have been dying to put this post up for you all to see! 

This past weekend I planned to spend most of my day Saturday making new curtains for my house, and it did take me practically the entire day! From about 11:30am-5:00pm (with a little lunch break).

I am so happy with them though. 

You see when we moved into our new house in August, the previous owners left all the curtain rods and curtains for every room.  Which is actually an amazing budget saver...because purchasing rods and curtains for four bedrooms, a living room, and dining room would cost A LOT OF MONEY! So we were actually pretty thankful for them, except they didn't all totally match our stuff.  The boys rooms don't really matter, and the dining room is okay, but my bedroom ones don't match our stuff at all (another project later I hope), and as for the living room, they match our stuff, but weren't exactly what I wanted...so that's where I started! Since the summer I have loved the horizantal striped curtains I have seen on Pinterest and Blogland! And I knew I just had to have those in my house somewhere.  So recently I found the most brilliant way to do this project, using freezer paper...so I decided I was finally going to do it! 

So check out what I did: 

Supplies: 

-Curtains

-Latex Paint

-Paint Trey

-Textile Medium (to soften the paint on the fabric)

-Roller Brush

-Drop Cloth

-Roll of Freezer Paper

-Scissors

-Measuring Tape

-Iron

First thing I did was spend time laying out and ironing my curtain to make it straighter, this will make the lines more accurate and straight. 

 The next thing I did was get all of the freezer paper ready.  You measure it out over the width of your curtain and cut strips...how many you need will be different for different sizes of curtains.  Then you take the freezer paper, fold it in half, and cut the half mark all the way down.  This makes the stripes a nice width.  Do your best to cut as straight as possible. 

Then you iron on the freezer paper...YES FREEZER PAPER WILL STICK TO YOUR CURTAIN when it is ironed on! I loved this and would love to learn other crafts you can do using freezer paper! 

You measure 9 inches between each freezer paper (because that is how wide the freezer paper is, so you are making all the stripes the same size)

Then pour your paint into the paint trey. I then added a good amount of the textile medium, (which I purchased at Hobby Lobby). This will make the Latex paint softer once it dries on the fabric. 

Then you just take the roller brush and paint down the sides that are not covered by freezer paper. 

Once you have painted a whole curtain, you want to take the freezer paper off before the paint dries. 

See how clean and crisp it turns out. 

My final two curtains once they were in the drying stage. 

I would recommend using a lighter fabric, I used a thick 100% polyester and the only thing I have a problem with is how they lay on the window, they are very stiff all together.  If I did it over I would honestly just use white sheets as curtains. 

BEFORE: 

Here's the before--the curtains that were in the house when we moved in and have been in our living room the past 4 months. 

And here was the outcome of my 5+ hours of work! 

AFTER: 

 I just love them! 

Anyways, I hope you enjoy my hard work as much as I do! Check out my right-lower bar for all the parties I am linking up to! 

Also don't forget that our GIVEAWAY closes this Friday night at 10pm! You still have a chance to get your name in the drawing for the awesome kitchen mixer/blender/chopper from Nutrition Lifestyles! 

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Guest Post & GIVEAWAY

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Bread + 6 kids??

WHO DOES THAT!?

I have been wanting to make some more homemade bread for a few weeks.. but life and all these munchkins have just held me back. I have wondered... how am I going to make all of this bread with 6+ kids at my house? I am suppose to be teaching them new things everyday, not making bread for my own pleasure! By the time the kids leave and we have had dinner... and Noah has gone to bed.. well quite frankly, I don't want to mess my kitchen up again! 

Today it hit me!! I'll turn our baking bread experience into a lesson that we all do together! Dare I say.. it was fun? We had such a blast! The kids listened to me and actively participated as we went through each step. We felt each texture and I told them everything we were doing.. They had so much fun. 



We began by grinding our whole wheat in our wheat grinder, courtesy of Nutrition Lifestyles. The kids LOVED this. The loud noise, plus being outside, being able to put the wheat in the grinder themselves, watching it grind, and seeing the end product was TOO MUCH fun! After we did that, I moved my Bosch, also courtesy of Nutrition Lifestyles, to the kids table and we used it to mix and knead our bread. Then we used oil and made our loaves.. then baked them!! YUMMY! If you want my recipe, just ask.. it is also courtesy of Nutrition Lifestyles. It is a great website with great kitchen tools. A lot of my kitchen is from there.... and yes, it is my mother and father in laws business! Check them out. 



In the end we had 6 beautiful loaves of bread + four small loaves that the kids got to do for themselves! It was so fun. Oh and SOO yummy! Of course AFTER we make these six loaves of bread- I REMEMBER!! I still have some frozen waiting for me! :) At least we had fun. 



Next time you feel too busy to do that project that you want to do... remember you can engage your child(ren) with you... because they can HELP! You will three birds at once..keeping the kids busy, TEACHING the kids, and getting your project completed! 

Hooray for Fresh Bread & Happy Children! 

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