Buried Alive Muffins

I love to make fun things for the holidays. I saw these muffins in a Rachael Ray magazine using doll arms, but it was a little too creepy for me. I found a bag of skeleton arms at the Dollar Tree and used the same recipe. You can find Rachael's recipe and photo here.

I can barely wait for everyone to come home and try them! YUMMY!

Spinach-Totellini Soup

An easy soup that can be made in a moment's notice, with ingredients you probably have in your pantry.

Spinach-Tortellini Soup

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. butter
2 cans chicken broth (14 oz each)
8-oz pkg. tortellini (fresh, frozen or dried)
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp. black pepper
10-oz. pkg, frozen chopped spinach, thawed
1 can diced or stewed tomatoes, undrained (14 1/2 oz. size)
Parmesan cheese

In a large saucepan, saute garlic in butter over medium heat for a couple minutes. Add chicken broth and tortellini; heat to boiling. Reduce heat, add cayenne and black pepper and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in spinach and tomatoes; simmer an additional 5 minutes. Top with Parmesan cheese to serve. This is really good with these Garlic breadsticks from a previous post or just some good crusty bread.


Everyone in my house likes this, or at least picks out the tortellini, so I think it is a winner. My sister told me a story of her friend who made this recipe and used 2 heads of garlic instead of cloves. Yuck!

Play Dough

Making play dough is fun and easy. This recipe will keep in the fridge for awhile and smells great!

Sweet-Smelling Play Dough

2 c. water
1 or 2 pkg. unsweetened drink mix
2 T. oil
2 c. flour
1 c. salt
4 tsp. cream of tartar


In a bowl, combine the water, drink mix and oil.

In a saucepan, mix the flour, salt and cream of tartar. Slowly add the liquid to the pan. Stir well.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it looks like mashed potatoes. Remove the dough from the pan onto a cutting board and let cool.

After it cools enough to handle, you can knead it until smooth, adding flour if needed. Store in fridge for best results.

Crustless Pumpkin Pie

Stephanie O'Dea has changed my slow cooking life... Literally. This is a recipe that I wish I had found sooner! SOOOOOOO good and easy to do, and takes care of any pumpkin pie craving you might have.

Here is Stephanie's recipe for CrockPot Pumpkin Pudding. Run to the store and get all the ingredients you need and make it. Tonight. Tomorrow. Soon. My only regret is that I forgot to get whipped cream...

Blueberry Dump Cake

I was seriously thinking about how good this was all night... mostly because of how easy it is! I have tons of frozen blueberries in my freezer, but I'm sure you could use any fruit.

Blueberry Dump Cake

4 c. blueberries
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 stick butter
1 cake mix (yellow or white)

Grease a 9x13 pan. Dump in the blueberries (mine were frozen), cinnamon and sugar. I think that 1/2 c. sugar was way too much, so next time I might just put 1 T. Seriously. The cake mix has enough sugar in it by itself.

In a bowl, melt the stick of butter. Add the cake mix and stir until you get clumps. It will look kind of like playdough. Crumble this on top of the blueberries.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

Serve warm, preferably over ice cream! It tastes good cold too, right out of the pan, the next day... not that I'd do that!

Blueberry Scones

Blueberry Scones

2 1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. white sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. butter
1 c. blueberries
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. half & half (or evaporated milk)
1 egg
additional half & half and coarse sugar for sprinkling (optional)

1. In a bowl, combine flour, sugars, baking powder and salt. Cut butter into mixture.
2. Add blueberries. Stir gently to coat.
3. Beat cream and egg together. Add vanilla. Add this mixture all at once to dry ingredients. Mix together gently and then knead 3-4 times.
4. Divide dough in half. Shape each into a 6-in. round. (May need to chill in freezer for a few minutes as the dough is incredibly sticky). Cut each round into six wedges. *
5. Brush tops of scones with half & half and then sprinkle with coarse sugar, if desired.
6. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

*sometimes I make these into cookies instead, using a cookie scoop

Sprinkle with sugar before baking. Yum.

Knead just a few times to get everything combined.

Puffy, golden scones, probably unlike a traditional scone... but still delicious.

Creamy Rice Pudding

I have found the rice pudding recipe that I will use the rest of my life. *sigh* If you like creamy rice pudding, this is definitely worth trying. I used up all the leftover rice from Chinese takeout the first time I tried it. YUM! Too bad I'm the only one in my house that will eat it...

You can find the recipe HERE from allrecipes. The only thing I added to the pudding was a teaspoon of cinnamon, because that's how I shake.