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DIY Groceries-Homemade Boursin Cheese

Good Monday.  Welcome to my new followers.  Thank you for following and thanks to all who take the time out of their busy lives to read my posts.  I hope that what you find here is useful.

Later this week I will be posting a recipe which uses Boursin Cheese.  So today I thought I would post a recipe for homemade Boursin Cheese.  You can, of course, purchase this at the grocery store; but homemade is fresher and is less expensive.

If you grow your own herbs, I would highly recommend using them in this recipe.  Just double the amounts given.  I, myself, can barely grow my perpetual onions.

This is a compilation of several recipes, and I have adjusted the seasonings to fit my tastes.

I don’t make this often since having it around causes fights between my mouth and hand.  You know the one, I am walking by the fridge, and mouth says, “Let’s have some of that cheese.” Hand says “No, we don’t need it.”  Mouth say, “Yes, we do.”  Hand says, “No, we don’t.”  On it goes until one or the other wins.  Most of the time that is the mouth, and the cheese is soon gone.

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Boursin Cheese
1 (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened (may use low fat)
2 oz. (1.2 stick) butter, softened
2 T. grated parmesan cheese (the real stuff)
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 t. dried dill weed, crushed
1/4 t. dried marjoram
1/4 t. dried basil
1/4 t. dried chives
1/4 t. freshly ground black pepper
1/8 t. dried thyme, crushed
1 T. dried parsley

Place cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl.  Add minced garlic and parmesan cheese.  Mix well.  Add remaining ingredients and mix until well blended.  Pack into an airtight container and refrigerate several hours before using.  Makes 1 1/2 cups.  Keeps about a week.  This is good with crackers and also apple  slices.

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Shindig Saturday Weekly Linky Party #47


The Drama Queen turned 16 last November.

It was probably not the most exciting birthday for her since we were living in a hotel at the time and didn't know anyone in town yet.  We actually celebrated her birthday with a bunch of strangers in the lobby with an ice cream cake and family game night.  Probably not the way most teenagers dream of spending their big birthday.

And it was a bigger birthday for her than normal.  At 16, she has permission to start dating, and she didn't know anyone to date.  A mothers dream...a teenage girls nightmare.

Well, fast forward a few months...tonight is her first date.
She's been asked to the winter dance at school by not just one boy, but two.
It wasn't a pretty week for the boy who asked too late, but she did promise him a date later.
(She assures me she's not "dating" the boy, only going on a "date" with him.)

Can you hear me freaking out?
I'm so not ready for this.  I always told Dear Hubby that we were in trouble once she figured "it all out" and would break a few hearts.  And now it's officially beginning...

How do you mom's handle it?
 I am terrified for her.  I am thrilled for her.  I am worried for her.  I am excited for her.
I'm hoping I survive.


I repinned this quote a few months ago from ShopQuickQuotes.com.  It's a vellum sticker that you can use in your scrapbooking and you can find it for sale HERE.  I just had to share it.

I hope you'll share with me any advice on how to survive the dating years with it's joys and trials, heartaches and loves.

And also that you'll share some fun things you've been doing this week!

Show us your newest party or fun creations by sharing your favorite party themed craft, table scape, photo, favor, or whatever! I'm pretty flexible since just about everything can be used at a party...that's the great thing about us moms! We can see the potential in ANYTHING!

Linky Party Guidelines:
* Link up to your OWN project post, not just your blog, but your actual post. (We want to see it!)
*Grab a Shindig Saturday button for your post or blog page. (Hey, it benefits us all!)
*Stay and enjoy the party by visiting and commenting on other's projects. (It's fun to mix and mingle!)
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Friday Finds

Both ground beef and ground turkey are on sale here this week.  Lately I have been mixing an equal amount of ground beef and ground turkey when I make ground beef dishes.  So far I haven't been able to tell the difference.  I have many "tried and true" ground beef recipes that I have collected over the years, but I am always looking for more.

Here are some I found on the web this week:

Life with Lissy

Making individual servings of a dish is always fun.  These look so cute and the recipe sounds delicious.

Shine Your Light

This recipe has mozzarella and Parmesan cheese as part of the ingredients.  I do not care for hamburgers unless they have cheese on them.  I bet I will love this one.

Good Life Eats

Meatballs with an Asian influence.  This looks like a great one-dish meal, and a very tasty and healthy one.  She gives tips on making meatballs in her post.

South Your Mouth

There is both a "regular" meatball and an Italian meatball recipe in this post.  She shares her secret for making meatballs easy and baking them in the oven.

Lynn's Kitchen Adventures

This is one of the first blogs I ran across when I started following food blogs.  I am a regular reader.  Lynn is doing a series called "Ground Beef Thursdays" so she has a number of ground beef recipes on her blog.  I love the flavor of taco seasoning so this quick and easy dish will become a favorite I am sure.


Just in case you have been living under a rock this week or been to busy to check it out, the Crazy Cooking Challenge posted this week and the ingredients were spaghetti and red sauce.  The photo above is my post for Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti.  If you click on the link and scroll to the bottom of the post you will find links to 84 wonderful recipe using spaghetti; and many of them also use ground beef.

That is my roundup for this week  I have resisted the urge to include some sweets recipes in the post, but let me warn you, I feel a sweets Friday Finds coming on soon.  

I am linking up to Favorite Friday Finds at Finding Joy in My Kitchen.  As always I am most anxious to see what other bloggers have found in their travels around the web this week.

All photos were taken by and are the property of the owners of the respective blogs represented.
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St Patricks Day Custom Plates

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I wanted to find some cute plates to go on my St Patricks day dinner table, but (if you haven't heard yet) Small Town, USA doesn't have much in the way of offering cute home products.  My Walmart is pretty lacking and there aren't many other shopping venues in town.

So I went to Dollar Tree and bought some glass plates.
I also picked up some cute fabric from Walmart. 
I already had the Mod Podge, scissors, pencil, and foam brush.

I started by using the backside of the fabric and using the plate as a template.

I cut out the circle about a 1/4 of an inch from the line I drew to allow for the curve of the plate.

I generously painted Mod Podge onto the back side of the plate.

Carefully, I laid the fabric circle onto the center of the plate.  I could rearrange and replace the fabric as long as I didn't push it down onto the fabric to hard.

When I was sure of the fabric placement, I started smoothing it out towards the edges.  For the most part, the crinkles on the edge smoothed out pretty easy.

To make sure the fabric was sealed in there, I painted another coat of Mod Podge on top.  Then, when that was dry (about a half hour or so), I painted another coat.

Now I have this cute set of plates for my St Patricks Day table for about 2.00 each!
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Leprechaun Hat Cupcake Wrap

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Are you looking for some MORE fun St Patrick's Day ideas?

If so, I hope you've checked out my St Patricks Day pinterest board.  I've collected some fun ideas that are a pretty easy way to spice up the holiday for your kids.

Probably the most repinned idea (197 repins!) on my board is this Leprechaun Hat Cupcake Wrap by Linette of Kids Fun Reviewed.  She posted the easy cupcake wrapper direction HERE over on Amazing Moms.

What a quick, easy, and spectacular cupcake idea.  Be sure to go check out the template and instructions for these St Patricks Day cupcakes. 

And don't forget to pin it!
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Crazy Cooking Challenge-Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti

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This month's assignment for the Crazy Cooking Challenge was to find  and make a dish that contained spaghetti and a red sauce.  We prefer baked spaghetti, and I found Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti at  Plain Chicken.  She has another one called Baked Spasagna (love the name) that I considered also, but I had all the ingredients to make the first one so decided that it would be a good one to go with.  Update:  Just yesterday she posted a recipe for Easy Spasgna which is a simplified version of the Baked Spasagna.  Since they all sound delicious, I will be making all three of them at some point.

Of course, I can never leave well enough alone so I did make some changes.  I like to add additional vegetables to dishes like this so I added chopped onion, celery, carrots, red and yellow peppers.  I am also a cheese head so had to add some additional cheese.   I would love sliced black olives added to this, but hubby doesn’t like them, so I will have to save that for when I make this for a church potluck.

I broke the spaghetti in half before I cooked it, but had some trouble when mixing in the cream cheese.  I may not have let the cream cheese soften enough.  Next time I will break the spaghetti into thirds.

I used Ragu Sauce 4 Cheese flavor.  I use 1/3 c. water to rinse out the sauce jar.  This little bit of water, put in the empty sauce jar and shaken, gets all the sauce out of the jar and doesn't affect the flavor of the sauce.  I have included that 1/3 c. water in the recipe.

I liked this dish a lot and will be making it again.


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Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti
adapted from Plain Chicken
12 oz. spaghetti
1 lb. lean ground beef
1/3 c. chopped onion
1 stalk celery, chopped
1/3 c. chopped carrot
1/3 c. chopped yellow pepper
1/3 c. chopped red pepper
1 (28 oz.) jar prepared spaghetti sauce
1/3 c. water
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese (low-fat is OK)
1 t. Italian seasoning
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (8 oz.) pkg. shredded Italian cheese or mozzarella, divided
1/2 c. parmesan cheese, grated (the refrigerated kind)

Cook spaghetti according to package directions.  While water is heating and spaghetti is cooking, brown ground beef, onion, celery, carrots, red and yellow peppers until brown.  Add spaghetti sauce.  Rinse out sauce jar with measured out water and add to skillet.  Drain cooked spaghetti.  Put spaghetti back in pan and mix in cream cheese, Italian seasoning and garlic.  Mix until spaghetti is thoroughly coated.  Place a layer of sauce/ground beef mixture in bottom of a greased 9x13-inch baking pan.  Cover with spaghetti mixture.  Sprinkle 1 c. of cheese over the spaghetti.  Spread remaining sauce mixture over spaghetti.  Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Remove cover and sprinkle remaining cup of cheese and parmesan cheese over the top.  Return to oven for 10 minutes until cheese is melted.  Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before serving.  Makes at least 8 servings. 

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Participating in this challenge is great fun.  One can easily sit out any month if one is too busy or not interested in the subject.  For information about participating in the challenge just click on over to Tina's blog.


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Leprechaun Poop Free Printable

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I'm still high on my Candy Topper printable kick.  I just love these little treats because they can be used for so many things.  They make a yummy little treat, a fun pick-me up, a sweet gift, or a holiday laugh depending upon the treat and the topper.

Today, I made a few new ones just in time for St. Patrick's Day.

I know there are a lot of Leprechaun poop sayings out there, but inspiration hit this weekend and I had to write a new one.


"You keep chasing the rainbow,
To steal our pot of Gold
But we can be tricky,
so we left you some Leprechaun Poop to hold."

To make these, go HERE to download the Candy Topper printable.
It comes in 4 different formats, so hopefully you will be able to find a way to use these.

You can get it in 3x5 inch bag topper for a border less printer, a 3x5 inch bag topper for a bordered printer, a sandwich sized bag topper, and a tag topper for you to tie to any size bag.

Print, cut, and add to a bag of your favorite candy.
For the Leprechaun poop, I used green Watermelon Jelly Bellies.

While I was brainstorming, I also made a Leprechaun Kisses candy topper printable which would be a sweet gift for kids or neighbors.  You can find the Kisses topper HERE.

I also made a Smiles of Gold candy topper printable for a happy treat to give your Girlfriends or Friends and you can find it HERE.

Hope this gives you some fun, and yummy, treats for St. Patrick's Day!
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