A belated Tasty Tuesday

I've mentioned before that I'm a horrible blogger, right? Okay, just checking. If it's any consolation I assure you that the recipe I'm about to give you was well worth the wait! I've been on an apple kick lately, so let's stick with that wonderful fruit shall we? Today I'm going to show you how to make apple nachos!!! (Insert excitement here)

You'll need:

4 honey crisp apples (cored and sliced thin)

30 large marshmallows

1/3 cup butter (cubed)

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

1/3 cup chopped nut topping of your choice

1/4 cup caramel apple dip

Sprite

While you're preparing the drizzle topping, leave the apple slices soaking in Sprite to prevent browning. In a large saucepan melt butter and marshmallows. Arrange apple slices on a large platter. Pour caramel into a ziploc bag, then snip off one corner with scissors to allow caramel to drizzle over apples. Drizzle marshmallow mixture over apples, then sprinkle with nuts and chocolate chips. Serve immediately.

Tasty Tuesday-Caramel apple dip

This is another delicious recipe brought to you courtesy of Pinterest. I made this recently for a church gathering and it was a hit! Caramel and apples are always good together, but throw in chocolate and you've got yourself a new go-to dip recipe.

You'll need:

1 16oz. container Marzetti caramel

1/2 cup brown sugar

8 oz. cream cheese (softened)

2 Skor bars broken up into small pieces

Beat cream cheese and brown sugar together until smooth, then slowly fold in caramel. Stir in pieces of candy reserving some for the top as a garnish. After well-mixed sprinkle remaining Skor pieces on top. It's that easy!

Cupcake craziness

I know I failed to post a recipe this past Tuesday but it's only because I was busy making other tasty treats. I've gone a little cupcake crazy. This is the week I announced that my kitchen was open for business as I made the decision to begin accepting orders for my cakes. To my surprise I received a large amount of requests for my goods, especially for cupcakes! Here are some pics of what I've been up to.

I'm patiently waiting for my business cards to arrive so I can more successfully get the word out about my new endeavor. As I start getting more busy I'll stop bogging down my blog with pictures of my work so if you'd like to keep up with me or show a girl some love, "like" my page at Facebook.com/forgoodnesscakesbakery!

Laundry/Mud Room Reveal

I am loving my laundry room. LOVING. It's one of the smallest rooms in the house but it's one that I have to spend a lot of time in so I wanted to make it more enjoyable. It seems to have worked because every time I walk by it makes me smile :) Here's all the details on our first room remodel.

The textured rug in the above picture is from Target. I like how it looks in the space but we actually bought it for a more practical reason. The cheapie vinyl floor in our laundry room is horrible! It gets super slick if any water spills onto it so the rug found its way in here for safety reasons to keep me from falling on my butt haha We plan on laying tile sometime in the future but the rug will probably stay now that my feet have become accustomed to its cushiness!

This is the old light fixture. Boring and outdated.

I like this new fixture much better in the room and it only cost me $1.50 at a yard sale!

The honey oak cabinets got a facelift with the help of Rustoleum's Cabinet Transformation kit and some brushed nickel hardware. It's amazing how much that little change brightened the room. We also installed a laundry sink which required new plumbing with the help of my handyman father. I think every laundry room should have a sink!

This shelf was sitting out on a curb in our neighborhood waiting to be picked up by the garbage truck. It was a nasty greenish brown color but I knew a good coat of spray paint would make it perfect for my intended purpose. I guess it's true that one man's trash is another's treasure! The decorative pieces on the shelf were all Marshall's finds.

My favorite part of our makeover has to be the addition of the bench and hook shelf. Since this room is inbetween our garage and carpeted living space we really wanted an area where we could hang coats and take off wet shoes. You can never have too much storage and the cubby cubes have proven to be a perfect spot for our winter gloves and hats. The bonus of having this bench is that I can now be lazy when folding clothes :) The bench and pillow are both from Target.

The bins on the shelf are also from Target. Right now they honestly serve no other purpose but to look nice haha I thought we needed something darker up there to break up all the white and these fit perfectly. With my husband's bad habit of leaving items in his pants pockets I'll probably have these babies filled up with miscellaneous things soon enough!

Here is a closeup of the sink. It's an all-in-one cabinet sink from Lowes meaning the faucet, supply lines, and drain installation kit were all included. I love the detachable sprayer and it is something I'm definitely getting when we move on to our kitchen remodel. I also love that we can now hide our dryer lint trash can behind closed doors.

One final pic of my cheery new laundry/mud room. I've always loved the light that the octagon window lets in but I gotta say it seems even prettier now! Amazing what a few tweaks can do. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully I'll be able to share more room makeovers with you all very soon!

My brand spankin' new laundry room!

I promised I would post about my laundry room makeover, so this is me delivering! We started out with a very bare, very boring room. This area had nothing going for it at all folks. I do a lot of laundry, and I can tell you I am not happy having to spend a big chunk of my time in a sterile-looking room. Here is the before pic:

We've done so much work and I gotta tell ya it feels great to finally have a room in our house completely finished! Yes, this is the first room in which we've accomplished everything we set out to do. We painted, put up crown moulding, installed beadboard, installed a laundry sink cabinet, replaced the light fixture, painted the cabinets, and added a bench and hook shelf to the space since this is the area between our garage and living room and I felt we needed some type of mud room for hanging jackets and taking off shoes. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and we definitely learned a lot about home improvement along the way! Here is an after shot:

For tonight I'm going to be a tease and just leave you with one picture ;) I'll post more along with details about our project later in the week so be sure to check back!

A Bambi update and an apology

For those of you who remember, Bambi is the brindle dog we took in as a foster back in August. For those of you who are new to the blog, here is a picture of the little cutie:

Well, Bambi found a home. She found an amazingly awesome family in fact who shows her love everyday and she even has a furry brother and sister to play with. Who is this great family? It's us. We tried to be good foster parents, working with her diligently on her behavior issues and advertising that she was available for adoption on local rescue websites and at adoption events. But then we failed. Bad. Bambi was making great progress with her training and the foster director asked us to bring her to one of their fundraiser events where potential adopters could marvel at her newly learned tricks and personality. Like good foster parents we complied and dropped her off with her little 'pick me' bandana on and filled out the form on how she was progressing so any interested families would know what to expect if they took her home. We didn't even get out of the parking lot before running back to permanently claim her when we saw a couple pausing at her kennel. We're pathetic, I know. I can't even describe the look of sheer panic that came over my hubby's face when he realized she might not be there when we came back to pick her up! I had really bonded with her while trying to make her feel comfortable in our home, but I had tried to hide that fact from the Mr. not knowing that he was having the same feelings. We just recently lost our pet rabbit and we were both absolute wrecks after that so you could say it was our vulnerable emotional state that helped contribute to our decision. But any way you look at it we now officially have three dogs under one roof and at times it's crazy, but I am always thrilled when I come home from work to see three adorable furbabies wagging their tails waiting to greet me :) We did change her name which she is learning to respond to surprisingly quick. Her new name is Tora which means tiger in Japanese since that's what she looks like. We didn't like Bambi. I mean really who has the name Bambi besides woodland creatures or callgirls?

I also wanted to use this post to apologize for not having pictures posted yet of my newly revamped laundry room. I had talked about it a while ago but between going on vacation and experiencing issues with Rustoleum's cabinet transformations product (which I will chronicle in a separate post) finishing the room took a little longer than expected. I promise I will have a full reveal up tomorrow. Hold me to that! And if you're not satisfied with my formal apology, how about another puppy pic to calm you down?

Oh hai, mom. I'm not trying to crawl over the seat to sit in your lap. I promise.

Tasty Tuesday-Fried Mac & Cheese Balls

If you've ever been to a little restaurant called The Cheesecake Factory you may have marveled over a plethora of tasty foods, namely the cheesecake. After all it is what they're famous for! Believe it or not though there are other delicious things to eat there as well, my personal favorite being the fried macaroni and cheese balls. Well friends...I have the recipe!! Get ready to have your world rocked.

You'll need:

1 pound elbow macaroni

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 cups warmed milk (plus 2 tablespoons for egg wash)

2 large eggs

1 pound grated smoked gouda

1 pound grated cheddar

3 cups seasoned bread crumbs

vegetable oil for frying

marinara or vodka sauce for serving

salt and pepper to taste

Cook the macaroni according to instructions on the package. Drain, rinse with cold water, then drain again and set aside. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Sprinkle the flour into the butter and stir it with a whisk. Cook for two minutes. Whisk warmed milk into flour mixture being sure to work out any lumps. Cook until sauce thickens. Remove from heat, add cheeses and then stir until melted and smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the cheese sauce into macaroni. Pour the macaroni and cheese into a shallow pan and refrigerate until completely cold (approximately 2 hours). Shape the cold mac and cheese into meatball-sized balls and place them onto a wax paper-lined tray. Freeze the balls overnight. Beat the eggs and 2 tablespoons milk together to form an egg wash and pour it into a shallow bowl. Put the bread crumbs into another shallow bowl. Remove mac and cheese balls from the freezer . Dip them into egg wash and then into bread crumbs. Put the balls back into the freezer until ready to fry. Heat oil in a fryer at 350 degrees. Fry the balls until they are golden brown and center is hot (approximately 5 minutes). Serve hot with marinara or vodka sauce.