As many of you know already, I am doing Christmas Eve dinner at my house.  Now, last time I did this, I catered it.  This year we are making dinner.  I have never ever ever made a turkey in my life.  I have never made real mashed potatoes either (I am great at instant though!  LOL).  Needless to say, I am a tad worried about Christmas Eve dinner especially now that my husband has informed me that he didn’t take off (if looks could kill . . .).  However, in this insanity I call my life, there is one thing I can count on.  Dessert.

I have to thank Pillsbury for making dessert so much easier for me.  I’m all about easy cooking, and once again, they have come through for me.  Did you know that Pillsbury has pie crusts?  All you need to do is roll them out in your pie pans!  How much easier does it get than that?  Now, they also save you when you are looking for an easy pie to make for dessert too.  By checking out Pillsbury’s website, you can find a ton more pie recipes.  How does this one sound?

Candy Bar Pie

Prep Time: 20 Minutes
Start to Finish: 3 Hours 40 Minutes

Crust
1 Pillsbury® refrigerated pie crust (from 15-oz box), softened as directed on box

Filling
5 bars (2.07 oz each) chocolate-covered peanut, caramel and nougat candy
4 packages (3 oz each) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup sour cream
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

Topping
3 tablespoons whipping cream
2/3 cup milk chocolate chips

Heat oven to 450°F. Place pie crust in 9-inch glass pie plate as directed on box for One-Crust Filled Pie. Bake 5 to 7 minutes or until very light golden brown. Cool while preparing filling. Reduce oven temperature to 325°F.

Cut candy bars in half lengthwise; cut into 1/4-inch pieces. Place candy bar pieces over bottom of partially baked crust. In small bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Beat in 1 egg at a time until well blended. Add sour cream and peanut butter, beating until mixture is smooth. Pour over candy bar pieces. Bake at 325°F for 30 to 40 minutes or until center is set. Cool completely on cooling rack, about 2 hours.

In 1-quart saucepan, heat whipping cream until very warm. Remove from heat; stir in chocolate chips until melted and smooth. Spread over top of pie. Refrigerate 2 to 3 hours before serving. Cover and refrigerate any remaining pie.

Do you have any tricks that you use for your pies?  Any time saving tips like using Pillsbury Pie Crusts?

I am all about easy, and I am definitely not talented enough to make and construct my own gingerbread house.  However, I can definitely decorate one.  That is where Hope, Faith, & Gluttony saves me yet again.  You may remember my post about their awesome cookies and brownies I did.  Well, they also do Gingerbread Houses too!  Here is what their kit looks like:

I love that they send you a preconstructed house.  That makes it ten times easier to make a fun project for the kids.  The hardest thing about this gingerbread house was getting the right consistancy for the icing.  Besides that, it was fairly easy.  We let both kids help decorate and this is what we ended up with:

Being that this was our first gingerbread house ever, I think we did pretty good and a good time was had by all.  We will definitely be ordering another one of these from Hope, Faith,  & Gluttony next year!

I luck out, I have children who do love their veggies.  I even have one that actually eats her veggies first before anything else.  Crazy, I know.  However, most moms aren’t as lucky as I am.  Hidden Valley is looking for the best vegetable advocates out there and is holding an awesome contest.  They are picking 10 moms to go to a two-day retreat aimed at learning and sharing tips and tools on planting, harvesting, cooking and eating vegetables with children. These moms will also receive $5,000 to start or maintain a community vegetable garden in their hometown. How awesome is that?

Entering is super easy. Go to Love Your Veggies and fill out the application.  You will have to answer some questions about what your plans are for the $5,000 grant and a few about yourself also.  It is super easy (I promise!), and I have even signed up too!  Good luck and thanks Mom Central for letting me know about this great contest.

When it is just me and the kids, I tend not to take pictures.  I have a hard time getting everyone situated and that is just what happened with this recipe.  Now, this is a recipe you can definitely customize to what you want.  I am going to list this easy to make recipe the way I made it.  However, next time I will be adding some diced tomatoes to this and possibly some ricotta cheese too.

1 lb ground beef
3 garlic cloves
1 jar (26 oz) spaghetti sauce
1 2/3 cups of water
1/4 cup of Italian Dressing
12 lasagna noodles (broken into quarters)
1 cup shredded low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese

Brown ground beef and drain.

Add in garlic, spaghetti sauce, water, and dressing. Bring this to a boil and then stir in the noodles. Reduce the heat to medium low and cover. Cook 10 - 15 minutes or until your noodles are tender. Remove from heat and sprinkle with cheese. Cover again and let stand 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

My family and I got to try some of the best beef we have ever had last night. We cooked up a couple of New York Strip steaks on our Foreman grill, and “awesome” is the only word I can use to describe them.  The directions said that they would cook quicker than a regular steak, and they definitely did.  What surprised me was how tender these steaks were.  Will (my 18 month old) is picky about meat.  If it has a weird texture or if it is too hard to chew, he won’t eat it.  However, he cleaned his plate off last night!

La Cense Beef is 100% grass fed, and I have to believe that is what makes these steaks so good.  Their steaks are  lower in fat and calories than conventional beef too.  It is also high in Omega-3 fatty acids (good for heart health) and low in the Omega-6 fatty acids (which can contribute to heart disease, cancers and depression).  It is also has much higher beta-carotene in it.  Lastly, La Cense Beef contains no pesticides, antibiotics or hormones.

Now, are you hungry yet?  If you are, I am giving away three prize packs of some of this awesome La Cense Beef.  Each prize pack will have 2 lbs ground steak and 2 petite sirloin steaks. Interested? Here’s what you need to do:

Each one of these gives you one entry:

1. Leave a comment on this post.  Check out the La Cense Beef website and tell me what you’d like to try.
2. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify.
3. Stumble this post. If you don’t know what Stumble Upon is, please read Lori’s post at Blogging Cents. She explains it extremely well.
4. Add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc.

Each one of these gives you 5 additional entries:

1.  Join the Grass Fed Party.  Please leave me your username.
2.  Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
3.  Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
4.  Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed
5.  Add my badge to your sidebar:

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Good luck! This contest will end December 31, 2008 at 8:00 PM CST and is for US residents only.