Pancake Sausage Bites, YUM!

Good morning beautiful people!  A few days ago I came across a great recipe for homemade corn dogs and absolutely had to share my spin off I made this morning for breakfast!

Breakfast happens to be my favorite meal of the day (when I'm awake early enough for it)!  I've been known to whip up eggs and pancake for dinner too though!  Surely I'm not alone!

I'm all about easy peasy recipes that don't involve a lot of effort.  Sue me.  I have my hands full and the less ingredients, the fewer dishes, the happier I am!

So for my Pancake Sausage Bites I used these store bought ready-made items!

It's completely your preference what brand you use.

Who doesn't love Mrs. Butterworth's?!  

I used a mini 24 cup muffin pan sprayed with non-stick spray.

I had a ketchup bottle that was empty and prepared the pancake batter in it for easy pouring into the tins.  

Although my sausage links were fully cooked I like a crunch to them so I browned them in a skillet with a small amount of water and then removed them from the stove.  I used 8 sausage links cut into thirds to fill my 24 muffin tins.

Sorry, I thought I had a photo of my sausage links but you get the idea of cutting them up from the pic below.

See??  Effortless and mess-free!

I filled each tin with about a 1 TBSP of pancake batter.  Don't worry.  It doesn't look like much, but will rise when you place the sausage pieces in the center.  

See how the batter rose with the sausage in the center?

Ready for the oven!  See the brown dots in the bottom row?  I drizzled syrup on a few :)

The syrup drizzle was an awesome idea!  When you bite into them it's a sweet surprise!  I baked them in the oven for 12 minutes on 325 degrees.  

YUMMO!!!!

Here's another close-up shot of this gooey goodness!  Way tastier than the store bought kind!

These were a hit with Sweet Pea and Boss!  I will definitely be making these again in the future when I have family over!  It's a great finger food for breakfast mornings and even better on the go!

Enjoy!

xoxo,

Zelina Bambina

Making my visual tea tray a reality <('.'<)

Good afternoon my fellow readers!

These past few weeks have been a whirlwind! With time to craft, ok...I've been borderline obsessed with recreating crafts I've seen, I decided one of my first projects would be a picture frame I came across that had been repurposed into a tray! Incredible, I tell you!

I originally saw the project here....


So I set out on the hunt for the perfect frame to transform. My immediate thought was the $ store but the styles were pretty limited. Yes, I know. It's a dollar store and my options are slim. But a girl can dream right??

After buying out just about every organizational container at the $ store (more on that later) I headed to the Goodwill. It was here that I met my frame soon-to-be tea tray. I'm all about savings and considering I was changing up everything about the frame, I needed a pretty inexpensive one! Here's what I landed:

This beaut cost me $10 :/ but considering the details, I love it!

After a couple of coats in Antique White, my tray was beginning to resemble my vision.

I am not at all savvy when it comes to crafts, brushes vs. sponges, matte or gloss, etc. I just go with what I think works. Very much trial and error style!

Halfway through my painting Boss comes in and bursts my bubble! "Well! Isn't it looking great?!"
Boss: "Eh. I think it needs a lot more paint. There's too many streaks. Why is all the brown still showing?"

Ok. Just go away. You don't understand shabby chic!

I had some drawer lining that I bought at Michael's about a year ago and just never got around to installing...but it came in handy for this craft! I covered the cardboard with it, placed it in the frame like a photo and was much more impressed with the look!

The last step was attaching the handles to it. I found a some hardware in a oil rubbed bronze and cringed at the $5 price tag, but thought they were the best choice. This is the point where I start regretting all the mismatched hardware and knobs I've thrown away over the years...if only I had kept them...

I simply hot glued the handles on and let the glue set.

Needless to say, my finished tray was magnifique!

Now it adorns my dining table! What do y'all think?

Afternoon Bargain Hunting

Yesterday was a scorcher for us! We hit the 100 degree temps for a 4th day in a row. Needless to say I wasn't in the mood for cooking and decided we'd brave the heat to have lunch at Taqueria Acapulco. Contrary to its name, we're no where near Acapulco! Anyhow, after lunch I convinced the Boss man a good walk (around the Goodwill) would help our food settle ;). I had a head full of crafting ideas and what better place to hunt than Goodwill?!

I scored some gorgeous brass candlesticks in two different heights. Thanks to the Boss for helping scour the shelves!

I also found some silver serving platters which were $0.69!!! I thought they'd make great chalkboard projects! More on that later!

Brass Candlesticks in two different heights (I got a pair of each height)

One large and one small silver serving tray 0.69 cents each!!

I also landed one oddball candlestick that after intently looking for its pair, was a no-go. 

I think it's got great patina to it so I think I'll leave it as is for now. 

On the other hand, I really wanted to bring the shine back to the other brass candlesticks I bought (see pic above). I found this great eco-friendly alternative to bringing back the luster of my candlesticks! 

*Please be certain if you try this at home that your brass item is in fact brass. You can check by putting a magnetic to the object. If it sticks then your item is NOT brass, but rather brass-plated. I'd stop and not move forward as doing this could cause more damage to the plating*

Moving along...now for the fun, science project part!

You'll need:

salt

vinegar

flour

That's it!

Mix 1 tsp of salt in a half cup of vinegar and stir until salt dissolves. Then add flour to it until it becomes a paste. I used about a 1/3 of flour but whatever consistency you'd like will depend on how much flour you want to add. 

Once you achieve this consistency or something similar apply it onto the item. 

Pasty consistency like so!

I got a lil carried away :D notice I got some on my table  and it didn't
damage it but next time I'd put something under it ( I got a lil too excited!)

Leave it on the item for 10 minutes.  Wipe clean and be amazed!!!

See the luster come back?

Hard to get a good pic but you can definitely see the difference!

This a great alternative to caustic, harmful cleaners that are costly and dangerous to be around.  Hope you find this solution to be helpful with your projects!

Have a great day fellow readers!  Share your projects with me!!

xoxo,

Zelina Bambina

Move over Luigi! The Wrizzight&apos;s have Pizza skills!

So last week I took a trip to Alice and dropped my daughter, Illiana, off to visit Gamma's for the weekend.  I finished up some work I had to do in Alice and wrapped up early to head back home.  I had made some dough the night before and was really looking forward to taking a whack at some homemade pizzas!!  


Illiana and Teddy B did help the night before kneading the dough!

I got home early, jumped into some comfy clothes, and started to prep the kitchen counter!  Aaron and I were kid-free so thought we'd be a lil adventurous and bake pizza and drink wine!  LOL!  We were each rolling out our own pizzas and winging the toppings.  Since it was Ash Wednesday I chose something meat free and topped my pizza with apricot preserves as the "sauce" had spinach, pineapple, and purple onions as my toppings!  With mozzarella of course!!!  

Spinach & Pineapple Pizza with Apricot Preserves

And here's Aaron's start of his masterpiece!!

All in all, it was a quiet, fun night experimenting with toppings! So exciting we forgot the wine!!

Until next time my fellow readers!