Favorite Things Party

 

So excited to link up with Erika and Andrea for their Favorite Things Party! My favorite bodycare store is having a majah sale right now so this post couldn't have come at a better time :)

1. This Hand Lotion!

 

 

 

As previously mentioned, my favorite bodycare store The Body Shop is having a 50% off sale! I bought 3 Vineyard Peach Body Lotions and I am in heaven! They are only $6 each and there are multiple flavors to choose from! CLICK HERE to see them all. The Body Shop also makes the most amazing body butters and the travel sizes are only $6!

 

(2) These are a great price and size because maybe you want to try some out before you take the plunge and spend $20 on a full size butter? I have the Raspberry and I love using it, especially on my feet! CLICK HERE to see the travel size $6 body butters.

 

 

3. Partylite Scents Melts

 

I'm a sucker for a lovely scented home and one of the things I have been using in both our bedroom and bathroom is my scent warmers with melts. All of my melts are only $6 a tray or 5 trays for $18. If I didn't sell Partylite, this would be the one thing I would buy even more than candles themselves. I love leaving my warmer on unattended all day with continuous fragrance. Our Electric Warmers don't ever get hot to the touch and can be left on 24 hours a day and only use about 4 cents of electricity a day. Seriously, I own 4 warmers in total and have over 15 trays of scents.

 

 

This is Autumn Glow, each tray has 9 pieces and each piece lasts over 80 hours! CLICK HERE for all my scents melts! And CLICK HERE to see all of my Warmers! There's also a bunch of cute warmers on sale RIGHT HERE.

 

For scent reference, my favorite scents are:

 

Autumn Glow - a very Fall-ish scent

Holiday Spices - Very Christmas-y

Hocus Pocus - a bright green magical scent

Cinnamon Sparkle

Pumpkin Spice - Similar to Autumn Glow but with more pumpkin

Fig Fatale - My favorite, not too fig-y

Spruce in the Snow - This is what you buy when you want your house to smell like a Christmas Tree but better

Strawberry Rhubarb - Strawberry scented but not overwhelming

 

Can't wait to see all the under $10 gems you ladies are posting!

~Mely

 

Mini Baked Ham and Cheeses with Bacon

 

I seriously don't know how I come up with the recipes for food that I make, it just happens. I think I just look to see what I have in my fridge and what sounds good and I get right to it. These were amazing.. so amazing! Make them today.

 

In my fridge I had:

 

Land O Lakes Spreadable Butter

Sliced Muenster Cheese (my favorite)

Applewood Bacon

 

Then, I went to Safeway and I bought some Honey Ham and King's Hawaiian Rolls and I rushed home to create these babies.

 

What you will need:

18 slices Honey Ham

6-8 Slices of Muenster Cheese (you can use Cheddar or American instead)

16 roll pack King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls

Softened Butter for spreading

6 slices of Cooked Bacon

 

 

First I needed to cook my bacon, I hate cooking bacon on the stove so I laid out my pieces on a foiled baking sheet and baked for 20 minutes or so at 400 until my bacon was beautiful and browned.

 

 

MMMM Bacon! Notice the piece missing in the middle, I have no self control

 

Now lay down your bottoms and butter them. Buttered Bottoms: I like the sound of that. Buttered Bottoms: say that 5 times fast!

 

 

Okay, add some folded ham pieces to those buttered bottoms...

 

 

Behold: Buttered Bottoms with Ham

 

Okay this is the best part, lay out some sliced cheese and bacon on those buttered bottoms with ham...

 

And add the tops and bake! Your oven will already be warm from the bacon. Just turn down to 300 and bake for 10-15 minutes until cheese is melted and bread is golden.

 

 This is what they look like before baking. I couldn't be bothered with taking pics of the final product because I was too busy taking in the full cheesy pork goodness.

 

Enjoy!

~Mely

 

Happenings + Weekend Story + 1 more

I have been so busy with work, candles, life and family that I haven't had the oppurtunity to blog! As previously mentioned I became a PartyLite Independent Consultant! I have my own website up! CLICK HERE to access my PartyLite Website. The online outlet has so many great deals available right now!

 

 

Weekend of 10/10/14-10/12/14

 

This weekend was a relaxing one! I definitely needed one of those since the weekend before last I was a hot mess. Saturday I went to my new consultant orientation and learned a lot about being a consultant. I also submitted my first order and made some money! After the orientation I stopped by Ike's to get Tony and I some yummy sandwiches! We relaxed the rest of the day Saturday. Sunday I was home from my Momma's early to watch the Niners beat the Chiefs.. it was glorious!

 

 

Weekend of 10/17/14-10/19/14

 

This past weekend was a super fun one. I can blog more in detail about this awesome weekend because I actually REMEMBER what happened!

 

Friday I went to the mall after work to pick up a few things. The Body Shop was having a sale and I picked up some lotions and a couple of hand creams. I also hit up Forever 21 for a couple of cute finds. While I was in Forever 21 I got a text from my Husband "Hey my beautiful wife, I'm taking you out to dinner today, anywhere of your choice." I mean how you have a bad weekend after getting THAT text from your man?! We went to Hikuni's for a Hibachi grill dinner and it was just okay. Afterwards, we went back to Windsor to get ice cream and my Cappuccino blast... Yum. The rest of the night was spent watching Netflix.

 

Saturday

Saturday Tony drove me to hang out with my best friend who would turn 21 at midnight. After dropping me off he left to pick up Anthony for his little league game. I had my bestie drop me off at my Mom's house and I waited for Tony and Anthony to come home. They arrived with ice cream and I told Anthony that my husband's babysitting skills don't come free and he owed his Tia Melissa lots of kissies.

 

My bro had a birthday celebration at my Mom's house and it was fun! His friend catered it and there was a ton of yummy food along with lots of friends and family.

 

 

Birthday Boy and I, circa 1995

 

Later on in the night we ended up going to the casino with my bestie at midnight and having a couple drinks... Tony and I didn't get home until 3AM! I can't hang like I used to because I couldn't fully recover until Monday night!

 

Sunday

 

Sunday I flew solo and went to a candle hall show with a coworker, candles are truly a ton of fun and I love all the Partylite product I receive. After the show I went to my Momma's house to hang out and watch the game. I left home a little early because I hadn't seen Tony since the morning. We went to sleep early.

 

Today is barely Wednesday and I feel like this week has been crazy, stressful, on the go and busy busy busy! I still have to go home and organize my candles as well as finish laundry. I also want to make something different for dinner... Recipe will be up tomorrow!

 

Baked Breakfast Hawaiian Sandwiches

 

See you soon!

~Mely

Customizable Cookie Dough Recipe

 

I recently made Heath Bar Cookies, Reese's Pieces Cookies and my regular old Chocolate Chip Cookies. This recipe makes a lot of cookies, it makes about 6-7 dozen cookies. You can freeze some cookie dough for later use or refrigerate it and make cookies through out the week for family, friends, coworkers or your spouse :) Or you can half the recipe but that's not how I roll right now.

 

 

 

 

4 Sticks butter - softened

2 Cups of brown sugar

1 Cup granulated sugar

2 Eggs

2 Teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract

4 1/4 Cups of Flour

2 Teaspoons Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon of Salt

2-3 12-OZ bags of any candy/chocolate/nuts combination your heart desires!

 

Examples:

White Chocolate

Chocolate Chips

Heath Bar Baking Chips

Reese's Pieces

Reese's Peanut Butter Chips

Walnuts

Pecans

Toffee Chips

M&Ms

Raisins - eww

 

Preheat your oven to 375

 

Beat the sugars, butter, vanilla and eggs until creamy (use a stand mixer or a handheld mixer).

 

 In a seperate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda. Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix to form a dough. Sorry, the only way I found that works for this is using your hands.

 

Seperate your dough into thirds for different types of cookies unless you only want one kind of cookie. Add your Candy/Chocolate/Nuts. Add as little or as much as you would like.

 

Roll your dough into rounded tablespoons and bake 12 on an ungreased cookie sheet for 10 - 15 minutes at 375. Remove when the cookies are golden and only the centers look a little soft, do not overbake!

 

To store dough place in a ziplock freezer bag removing all the air and store in the freezer or fridge. If cooking from the fridge let your dough sit out for 20 minutes to soften. If baking from the freezer thaw your dough in the fridge the night before baking then let your dough sit out on a counter for 20 minutes before baking.

 

Enjoy!

 

Weekend Story

 

This past weekend was a rollercoaster of emotions. I was battling a nasty cold and my hormone levels seemed way out of whack but somehow, even with being sick, I still managed to get a boatload of things done.

 

Friday

Friday Tony and his Dad had to fix his car. We ended up spending a lot of money but we saved the $1200 we would have paid at Les Schuab Tire or the $3000 we would have spent at BMW. I am super grateful for my awesome brother who works in the imported auto part industry and my awesome father in law who is a mechanic for helping us get Tony's car fixed. After work I went to Walmart and picked up a few necessaties along with an amazing pair of leggings that were only $15!!! They are super comfy and versatile enough for work and a casual weekend.

 

When I got home I ordered a couple pizzas for dinner and after inhaling some NyQuil I passed right out.

 

Saturday

Saturday I woke up still feeling crummy! Tony and I had to leave home early to go pick up Anthony who had a little league game. We ended up babysitting both Anthony and my sister so we definitely got to practice our children wrangling skills.

 

 

Anthony running to homebase!

 

After the game the kiddos were hungry and so were the babysitters so we went to my favorite Chinese place in Rohnert Park and indulged in their amazing lunch specials. You really can't go wrong with cheap $7 lunch specials. Yum!

 

Then we checked out the new "Walmart Neighborhood Market" in my Mom's neighborhood and it is amazing! Their baking section has everything I could possibly ever need and at amazing low prices. I could not get enough! From there we spent a few hours at my Mom's house until about 6PM, my Mom forced me to go through my old closet and purge things I didn't need anymore. I was super cranky at the end of it and just wanted to go lay down. PK wanted to spend the night at our place and we took her home with us but not before stopping by Baskin Robbins and picking up some mini Cappuccino Blasts! I knew PK would love them because she is basically an 11 year old version of myself and likes everything I like, except for Sushi, we're working on Sushi.

 

I got home and inhaled some DayQuil and was determined to make all my Snickerdoodle cookie baking dreams come true. While Tony was at the gym PK and I made these Snickerdoodles. The results? They were okay... I expected them to be a little better so I still haven't found the Snickerdoodle recipe for me.

 

 

Baking did make me feel a little better emotionally (if you know me, you know that baking is my therapy) but I was still feeling sick! I had Tony bring me some Tacos from a Taco truck and I had a major diva moment when he forgot my grilled onions. Then I pouted because I had him go to a different Taco truck than the one I like (because his Mom insisted it was way better) and the tacos tasted really off. I was being a huge Cranky McCranky Pants that night. I ended up apologizing for being so mean and I thanked him for going out of his way to deliver Tacos for me.

 

Sunday

Sunday PK and I woke up pretty early because we thought she had a soccer game at 8:30. I took her to my Mom's house only to find out there was some confusion about the game and she actually only had a game in the afternoon. PK wanted to come back home with me so I brought her and we stayed at home for a while before coming back to Rohnert Park. My brother and I watched the Niners win and I stayed at my Mom's house until the early evening and and headed home to Tony. I made a batch of the best chili ever! 

 

 

Yum

 

I continued my routine of downing some NyQuil before falling asleep in Tony's arms. Overrall this weekend felt super long because I was so sick and irritable! What I should have done was stayed at home all weekend and just relax and do some chores. Hopefully next weekend will be a soothing one.

 

 ~Mely 

 

Friday Favorites

I'm happy to be back at blogging about my Friday Favorites with Andrea and Erica!

 

 

1. This beauty

 

 

 

Riding around this week in my new 4-door mid-sized sedan in comparison to my old 2-door Honda Civic has been heaven. It's so pretty too!

 

 

2. This Recipe

 

 

 

I am so happy I came up with this recipe which was the highlight of my cooking this week. It was such a hit and next time I'm excited to tweak this recipe and play around with my veggie choices.

 

3. PartyLite Candles!

 

 

My PartyLite Candle show is getting closer and I am so excited to have girls over for a small get together of candle smelling, wine drinking and snack eating!

 

4. Taco Truck Thursdays

 

I decided to start something at work on Thursdays called Taco Truck Thursdays! Our office is in a well populated hispanic area with tons of Mexican stores, restaurants and taco trucks! I love me a good taco :) Yum!

 

Looking forward to seeing what you all have to share!

~Mely



Alambres

Over the weekend I bought a package of bacon from Safeway but then I got too lazy to fry up bacon along with the fluffy buttermilk pancakes I made Tony on Sunday. Tuesday I was contemplating what to do with said bacon that was out of the ordinary (I think about food way too much) and  a lightbulb went off in my brain... Alambres!

Alambres are one of those dishes that my Mom never cooked for us and I have only had once or twice my whole life from a mexican restaurant. The name "Alambres" literally means "wires" and this dish is like a stir fry with steak or chicken sauteed with bacon, onions, tomatoes, jalapeno (or if you are like me mushrooms because I have some in my fridge calling my name) and then topped with cheese and served on tortillas. Sounds heavenly right?

 

Make this today, you will thank me.

 

Serves 4

 

What you will need:

7-10 green onions

2 Bell pepper (any color)

1 Jalapeno
5 Mushrooms, optional

1 Roma tomato

1 Chicken Breast

12 OZ Bacon
1-2 Cloves of Garlic, pressed

1 cup shredded Jack cheese

2 TBSP oil

Salt to taste

Tortillas (flour or corn) for serving

 

 

Optional: Sour Cream 

 

1. Start by slicing all your veggies into thin long slices (everything is supposed to resemble "wires"). You may keep the seeds in the jalapenos if you want this spicy, if not remove the seeds. For the green onions, I removed part of the green ends and sliced the green onions lenthwise in half.

I made you this nifty collage... look at me being crafty

 

Mushrooms are everything

 

 

2. Season with salt and slice your chicken into lengthwise 1 inch slices and cut your bacon strips in quarters. Cut your bacon into thinner long slices, keep thinking wires!

 

3. Heat up a large nonstick skillet with 2 TBSP of oil and add your garlic and bacon followed by your chicken. Stir and cook your meat for about 15 minutes until your chicken is no longer pink, your bacon is partially cooked and there's lot's of natural fat and juices sweated out of the meats. Add all your veggies minus the tomatoes, constantly stirring and cook until most of the juices have evaporated and your meat and veggies are soft and slightly browned.

 

This looks about ready to add the veggies...

 

 

Add those veggies...

4. Towards the end of cooking, add your tomatoes. I like to add them at the end so they don't turn into mush and give the Alambres a nice pop of red.

With the tomatoes looking good, I think it's time for cheese...
 

5. Once your Alambres are done top with shredded Jack cheese and allow to melt before serving with warm tortillas and a dollop of sour cream.

 

Close up of the final product!

 

 

Yum.. This came out really yummy especially when you add a dollop of sour cream to your tacos, it sort of balances out the saltiness of the bacon. I made the mistake of not cutting the bacon and the chicken into super long strips to make this look more like wires.
 

This dish can be customized to your liking, you essentially want bacon, meat and veggies sauteed and topped with cheese. Feel like adding more mushrooms, subbing some zucchini or adding some sweet corn? Go for it. The possibilities are endless.

Enjoy!
~Mely
 

 

Rich Brownies

After making Red Velvet Cake last week, I had leftover cocoa powder and what better way to use cocoa power than to make Brownies from scratch?! So I called in the help of my best friend Google to help me find the perfect Brownie recipe and I found this one.

 

It knocked my socks off. It was really really chocolatey! I brought some to work and they were a hit with my coworkers. The only thing I did different than the original recipe was I microwaved the Butter, Cocoa and Sugar instead of using a double broiler on the stove. I also used Salted Butter and reduced the amount of Salt I added. Try these when you're up for some rich chocolatey deliciousness.

 

Brownies!

Yields 20 small or 12 large brownies

 

1 1/4 sticks salted butter

1 1/4 cups sugar

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process)

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cold large eggs

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

optional: 2/3 cups of chopped Walnuts

 

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

 

Place the butter, sugar, and cocoa powder in a microwave safe bowl and place in the microwave for 2 minutes. Take out and mix with a whisk then place in the microwave another minute or two to finish melting the butter. Take out of the microwave and whisk together making sure the butter is melted and all the ingredients are mixed into a beautiful fudgey looking concoction. Let the batter cool for a couple minutes.

 

Using a wooden spoon mix in the Vanilla. Then add the eggs, one at a time mixing really well. When the batter is mixed and shiny add the Flour and vigourously beat with the spoon until you can no longer so any white spots from the flour.

 

Grease an 8x8 baking pan and add the batter. Bake at 325 for 20-25 minutes until toothpick inserted comes out a tad moist. Remove from oven and allow to cool before cutting.

 

Yum!

~Mely

 

Weekend Story

I'm late to posting my weekend story... this was such a wild weekend and my Monday was so crazy busy followed with a busy Tuesday at work that I haven't had time to blog! Wah!

Friday

Friday I baked some goodies to satisfy my soul. I made Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Cake and the Best Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.

 

 

Saturday

Saturday we left the house fairly early to go catch Anthony's little league game. He made some great hits and I even caught video of him scoring a homerun. My little sugarplum is growing up! Right after Anthony's game we headed straight to Karina's soccer tournament in Santa Rosa. Her team didn't do too well :( Tony ended up going home early so he and his Dad could replace the e-brake on his car and I stayed back with my Mom so we could go to a birthday party. Saturday felt so go-go-go that I was ready for it to be over!

 

 

Sunday

Sunday we woke up and I organized and vacuumed a bit before we left to my Momma's house. I picked up some chicken wings and with a little guidance from my brother I was able to make my own buffalo wings since buffalo wings are essentially my most favorite food to eat in the world. They were sooo good! I tossed them in flour with salt and pepper and then deep fried them to a nice crisp before bathing some in BBQ sauce and others in Buffalo sauce, then baked them to lock in that flavor! Now that I know how to make Buffalo wings, I will make them more often ;) What else made my Sunday great?

 

 

My Niners won!

 

 

And my Fantasy Football team won for the first time!

 

And then Monday I called in sick and later on in the day Tony and I stopped by Manly Honda just to "look at our options" because a 2 door Civic for a 5'9'' wife and 6'4'' husband is actually not very comfortable believe it or not! A few hours later after lots of paperwork, handshaking and negotiating we drove away with this beauty...

 

 

... a 2014 Honda Accord. Great for a family or in this case 2 tall Mexicans.

 

That's all!

~Mely