What's Up Wednesday - May Edition

 Hi Foxy Friends! Today I'm linking up with Shay and Sheaffer for What's Up Wednesday, where we share what's going on with us. I haven't done one of these in a while, so let's get to it:

*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will  either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. Click here for my disclosure page.

1. What We're Eating This Week

I made this a couple of weeks ago and had to repeat it again. It's the best and so easy Tikki Masala, garlic butter rice and homemade Naan. The cauliflower was made by a friend, and he doesn't follow recipes, but he air fried the cauliflower and then cut up some herbs he grew in his garden and then sprinkled on the same spices we used for the Tikki Masala. 

If you make this, I used 2% Plain Greek Yogurt. I bought this Garam Masala spice and this Kashmiri Chili Powder.

2. What I'm Reminiscing About

The last time we went to Disneyland was January 2019. We had bought tickets to go again because capacity is low, but with the new rules and stuff, it looks like the day before we go they might go full capacity, so I think we're going to wait a bit longer, until Disneyland figures out the crowds, because I've heard they are pretty knurly right now, even with 35% capacity.

3. What I'm Loving

The the kids are back doing what they love.

After falling off her horse 2 months ago, Mini Fox has gotten her confidence back, and is doing so well. We figured out what horse is the best fit for her, of course it's the biggest one our horse school has, but Mini Fox is loving it.

4. What We've Been Up To

All the sports! Baseball, Football and Horseback riding. Along with karate and piano for Baby Fox. 

5. What I'm Dreading

Nothing really

6.  What I'm Working On

Need to make some coaches cup for our team party week after next, need to get on that soon. This is one that I made last week for a friend for their daughter's soccer coach.

7. What I'm Excited About

Summer! The kids have a few exciting camps they are going to go to and mostly I'm excited for our vacation in July!

8. What I'm Watching/Reading

Currently watching Wu Assassins, so far it's pretty good, not the best acting, but the plot is interesting.

We just finished watching Snowpiecer on HBO Max, highly recommend this one. Basic plot is scientist try to fix global warming and accidentally make the climate go to -127°, not livable by humans, so they create a 1001 car train that the world now lives in, there is a first murder and they have to solve it.

9. What I'm Listening To

Hmmm...random Youtube things, nothing to report home about.

10. What I'm Wearing

The weather is starting to warm up so I'm wearing dresses and skirts. Get this dress from a cute local mama owned online boutique here. Unfortunately it's out of stock, but this dress is pretty close.

Love this skirt and it comes in so many colors and patterns. And the shirt is so cute too, here is one that is similar. And and everyone needs these sandals, they are so comfy. Unfortunately they are not available any more, but keep checking back to see if they do go back in stock.

These shorts are hands down the best purchase of the year...okay maybe no year, but best shorts ever!

11. What I'm Doing This Weekend

Memorial Day weekend, Baby and Mini Fox are going with my dad to put flags on Veterns graves. Baby Fox did this a couple of years ago, and now Mini Fox is old enough to go with. Usually Memorial day is when we heat our pool, as if to say hey Summer is starting.

12.  What I'm Looking Forward To Next Month

Looking forward to Summer, swimming in the pool and hanging out with friends and going out to eat at actual restaurants, which we haven't done much.

13. What Else Is New

Finally caught a butterfly just hatching out of their Chrysalis. The other 2 we missed by a couple of hours, darn!

Alright that's all we've been up to late. See you on Friday for Friday Favorites!

Easy Minecraft Cake

Hi Foxy Friends! It's Thursday, my "Friday" and I'm so happy about it. I swear Tuesday was Thursday...this week has been DRAGGING! I thought today I would share with you how I made Baby Fox's Birthday cake. I was originally going to make him a rainbow birthday cake, but then realized I could just as easily turn it into a Minecraft cake so that's exactly what I did!

*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will  either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. Click here for my disclosure page.

It's fairly simple, you get a big bang for you buck and most people think you spent WAY more time on it than you really did! Win for you. Okay let's get started:

What You'll Need:

5-6 cake pans (I use these, will make a small tall cake, if using the ones I use, then you'll have to cook 5 and then cook the last one after the others cook, as it only comes with 5 pans)

Homemade Cake Recipe (the boxed is too soft, don't use it, you won't be able to make the layers)

Food Coloring (I use these)

Circle Cookie Cutters in various sizes (I use these)

Frosting (I use a homemade one from Wilton)

Directions:

Step 1 - Make batter according to recipe (I use the something similar to this cake recipe, ignore the filling and frosting part of the recipe)

Step 2 - Divide batter into bowls, use one bowl for each color you are going to use, I did 5 colors. I would have done 6 but we started making this cake at 10pm, no one's got time to wait for cake to cook twice, else I would have done 6)

Step 3 - Add food coloring. For the Minecraft part, I knew I wanted variations of green and brown. The brown was a little harder, so for the darker one, I added a LOT of the brown color, and for the other one I added a little bit of the brown color, and realized that it was too similar to the dark brown, so I added a little yellow to change the tone, worked perfectly.

For the greens, I did the dark one, then added less green for the middle green, and for the other green I used a neon green.

Step 4 - Prep your pan how you normally would and pour batter into pans.

Step 5 - Cook, you will need less cooking time than what the recipe calls for because they are so thing and small, I start with 15 minutes, and then go from there.

Colors turned out perfect, exactly what I wanted them to look like!

Completely cool cakes before going onto the next step.

Step 6 - While cakes are cooling, make your frosting (don't really matter what kind, just not the store bought, as I think that will be too soft)
 
Step 7 - I do this part on my counter, as I don't have a cutting board, don't worry the counter was clean before starting. Lay all of the cakes out, this is somewhat tricky but not really. You're going to take 2 of your round cookie cutters, and make three concentric circles.

Helpful Tip: If your cakes didn't bake evenly, before you cut the circles, make sure to level them out at this step, also cut the edges so all cake layers are the same size. I forgot to do this, and had to use a lot of frosting to make up for the unevenness of each layer, oops!

Step 8 - I usually line each of the same size circles up and then start mixing and matching before I do the frosting and putting them back together. This way you can be sure that each of the layers will have different colors in them.

Start with the largest circle, and apply frosting on the inside ring, place next size ring cake layer in it.

 Then frost the middle circle inner ring and put the smallest cake layer in. When you're done it should look like something like this:

When they're all done, you'll have this.

You can see the white circles above from where I was applying the frosting to the inner circle.

Step 9 - Now frost your cake like normal, putting frosting between each layer, and then frosting the whole thing. With these cakes, I like to buy the small ice cream cones from Trader Joes and use that as decorations. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, oops! But here it is when it's been cut into, the perfect Minecraft cake of the little human in your life that is obsessed.

See easier than you think right? Making fun cakes doesn't have to be hard, time consuming yes, but not hard. You got this, if you do make it, tag me in the photo or leave a picture in the comments! Good luck, you can do this!

Linking up here

5 Camping Foods To Make

Hi Foxy Friends! Happy Monday! Hope you are all having a great start to your week. This is another short week for me, so I'm happy about that (off Friday for me this week). Anyway, today on The Blended Blog, we are talking more summer things, but this time camping food. So Mr. and I have been camping a few times...the first few times we did the same things, and then this last time in Yosemite, we really stepped up our game. I'll break it down for you, before 2017 and after...

| ONE | Frozen Steak

This is also a good tip. I freeze a steak before we leave, so it acts like both a block of ice and then while we were driving and eating other stuff it would thaw out (we usually eat this on the second or third day). Add some

| TWO | Potato, Onion and Steak and/or Bean Burritos

Cook some potatoes in the microwave before you leave, and put in foil to bring with you. Then you can make a yummy potato breakfast (since you are just cutting and heating the potatoes, you don't have to wait for them to cook). We usually add in some onions and either do a bean/cheese and potato burrito or add some eggs and have a breakfast burrito. Sorry the picture quality is so poor, had to screen shoot from Costco website, I seem to have misplaced these photos...oops!

I can't remember what was mixed with this, bean or steak...but I can tell you it was delicious taco. we added some pico de gallo.

| THREE | Dutch Oven BBQ Chicken, Bacon and Potatoes

*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will  either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. Click here for my disclosure page. 

Dutch oven cooking for camping...have you heard of it? When we went to Sequoia last year, we were on a bus with this other family that introduced us to dutch oven cooking in the fire pit...life changing I tell ya!

So here is what we bought, a large dutch oven I duh, I bought this one. And then I also realized, how are we going to get this hot thing out of the fire pit...so then I bought this. And for easy clean up, because you're camping, and doing dishes while camping sucks...so I bought these liners to go into our dutch oven, heck ya, they did tear a little bit, but that little bit of mess was WAY easier to clean up than if we didn't use them at all!

We followed this recipe...she has better pictures.

Dutch Oven / Dutch Oven Foil Liner / Dutch Oven Lid Lifter / Gloves

Bonus, you cook the hot dogs for the kids while you are making your fancy Dutch Oven recipes.

Hot off/in the fire pit.

And the finished product, it looks burnt, but tastes delicious!

There was none left over.

Some tips if you make this: rotate the pot in the fire pit, as one side is going to be closer to the fire than the rest...so you'll want to rotate it so that one side isn't burnt.

| FOUR | Dutch Oven Lasanga

I know sounds crazy right?! But it was so dang good! We followed this recipe. Of course she has better pictures then I took. But here is what it looks like in the fire, see how  one side is close to the fire? Don't forget to rotate.

This is what the large lid lifter looks like, makes it super easy to get out of the fire.

I think we had too many coals on the lid and it got too hot...next time  I would use less on the lid. All of our wonderful cheese on the top burnt...darn! Or maybe put a layer of foil in the top? Not sure how that would work.

But here's what it looked like under the layer of burnt stuff.

There was none of this left over either...

Tip 1: This take a while to cook, like 2 hours...about 45 minutes to get the coals hot enough another another 45 minutes or so cooking...so be prepared for that.

Tip 2: After you get your coals nice and hot, don't add more firewood to the fire pit...I know you'll want to, but I think it makes the fire way too hot, unless you have a big fire pit.

Tip 3: Don't be afraid to do this! Seriously, we were super nervous, but in the end it was so dang good, and I think worth the effort.  The people we went with said they usually do super easy dinners, but having a nice dinner like these, makes camping way more fun, and it's in one pot over the fire.

| FIVE | S'mores

Obviously, you have to make tons and tons of S'mores. We like to give the kids hersey's chocolate and then the adults step it up a notch with the fancy chocolate...

| Bonus |

I know our friends buy the kabobs from the meat section of the super market, and cook those up, that's always easy and delicious. What are some of your go to camping foods?

Head on over to The Blended Blog to link up your camping foods.

Linking up here

I Can't Live Without...Trader Joe's

Katie and Lindsay are hosting the first every I Can't Live Without... Fun topic right? So let's get started.

I can't live without...Trader Joe's. Do you have one near you? It's the best thing ever! If you haven't gone, you're going to LOVE it!

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Some of my favorite/staples at my house:

Sun Flower Seed Butter

If you have not had this, you have no lived. Do not try any other brands, this is the best one by far. It's so good! Since I can't have peanuts this is a very nice alternative. Actually some of my friends who can eat peanuts like this better too. I do have to say that you have to give it a more then once try. Your brain plays tricks on you because it will think it should taste like peanutbutter, but it doesn't, so that's a bit weird. But once you get past that, the 3rd or 4th time eating it, it's all good, and you just taste sweetness and the overwhelming taste of sunflower seeds is barely there.

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 Ketchup

Did you know most ketchup has corn syrup...what doesn't now and days? Anyway, this one is SOO good. It has hardly any sugar so you're really just getting that tomato taste, so delicious. If you've tried any other brand and didn't like it and have sworn off organic ketchup, just try this one, it will change your mind.

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Pasta...

It's simple, it's easy and good. What more can you ask for.The pasta is so good, and only has 1 ingredient.

 

We've tried all of the TJ pasta sauces and this is the best one, best bang for your buck. I think it's $1.99 and it's SOO good, plus you can add veggies to it and it tastes even better. But it's pretty darn good on it's own. No sugar added, just tomatoes and a few spices.

 

Another favorite their pizza dough and sauce:

Easy, everyone gets to pick their toppings and everyone is happy. Win-win. And so affordable, I think the pizza dough and sauce is about $2 each.

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So easy, and what is more fun then making your own pizza? So I can't have cheese on it, it still tastes delicious! We usually cut the dough in half, makes it easier to deal with and if Mr. wants cheese on his, he can add it and not affect mine.

Hands down my favorite tuna, random I know. But since we're in the middle of Lent, I tend to eat more tuna, and this one is the best.

I used to be obsessed with these things, like I would take out an entire bag in one sitting, so bad right?

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I could eat these by the bagful. But I try not too buy them, because most likely I'll eat them in a day or two and just don't want the calories...but when we're on vacation, all bets are off and I always get these.

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This so really good too, good for a quick meal, it's a little on the expensive side, but it's nice to have this stashed in the freezer for a rainy day. I will cook the meat and then in the same pan cook up some onions (I would do bell peppers but Mr. doesn't care for them) for a quick fajita dinner.

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Love these bran Muffins too. They are actually made by this company, but they are WAY cheaper here :) I personally like the raspberry/blueberry combo. Always store in the fridge as they will go bad within a couple of days just left out.

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We like getting eggs here too, they are cheaper than the regular store.

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Other things that we might not get but is pretty awesome here is all the ready to make food. They have a whole bunch of awesome stuff, if I could eat it, I totally would. TJ's is known for their awesome ready to make food. And that's not even all of it

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There is also a whole isle devoted to different kinds of nuts and snack foods, all totally affordable in my opinion.

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I hope by now you're ready to jump in your car and see what kind of goodies TJ's has to offer you. I wouldn't suggest buying all your groceries here, as the produce and meat is on the expensive side, but the things I pointed out, good value. OH and I forgot to mention the beer, wine and Spirits, super good choices and at very reasonable prices. You've heard of two buck chuck? Yep $2 wine, although I heard it went up to $2.50...it's pretty good, and I use it for cooking all the time.

Linking up with Amanda, for Thinking Out Loud  Katie and Lindsay for I Can't Live without...and Vanessa and Penny for Thinking out loud