Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream Frosting

I love cupcakes. They are the perfect size and somehow this makes them taste so much better than regular cake. Today, I made some simple vanilla cupcakes and topped them with a fabulous lemon buttercream frosting. They were super simple to make and are perfect when you are craving that little bit of sweet.

Ingredients (Cupcakes):

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 8 Tbls butter (softened) 
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 tsps pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cups almond milk

Directions (Cupcakes):

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.
3. In a medium bowl, mix together flour and baking soda. Set aside.
4. In another bowl mix together butter and sugar until smooth.
5. Add eggs one at a time. Beat in vanilla.
6. Add flour mixture and milk. Alternate each and add slowly.
7. Fill liners evenly with mixture until they are all about 3/4 full.
8. Bake for 20 minutes rotating half-way through.
9. Let cool thoroughly before frosting.

Ingredients (Frosting):

• 3/4 cup butter (softened)
• 1 tsp grated lemon peel
• 1 1/2 Tbls lemon juice
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 Tbls almond milk
• 1/2 Tbls vanilla

Directions (Frosting):

1. Beat butter, lemon peel, and lemon juice until smooth and creamy. 
2. Add in milk and vanilla.
3. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Frost your cooled cupcakes

These cupcakes were so good! They took almost no time at all and were super easy to make.

Linking Up To:
Time Travel Thursday
What We Eat Wednesday

Simple Banana Bread

Lately, I have been trying to buy more fruits and veggies to incorporate into my diet. I figure if I buy them, I will eat them, and for the most part I have. Unfortunately, I overestimated how many bananas I could eat this week and ended up with some over-ripe fruit. Naturally, the only solution is to make banana bread! Who doesn't love some soft, warm banana bread straight from the oven? Plus, there's no sense letting good bananas go to waist. So here is my simple, go-to recipe when I decide to make some delicious banana bread.

Too ripe to eat but perfect for banana bread!

Ingredients:

• 3 bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup Earth Balance butter, melted
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mash the bananas and mix them with your melted butter.
3. Add sugar, vanilla, baking soda, and cinnamon. Mix well.
4. Add flour slowly. Mix completely.
5. Pour into 5x9 loaf pan.
6. Bake for 1 hour or until inserting toothpick comes out clean and top is brown.

This is one of my favorite breads to make because it is so quick and simple. Hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as I do!

Cheesy Paprika Chicken and Rice

Tonight's dinner was simple and easy to make... two of my essential qualities when it comes to a good meal.

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breast halves
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup shredded Daiya cheddar cheese
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons almond milk
• 1/4 cup dairy-free butter, melted
• 1 box chicken flavored rice
• 2 cups water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
2. Mix water and rice together and pour into bottom of casserole dish. Set aside.
3. Combine flour, paprika, garlic salt, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. In another bowl whisk egg and milk together.
4. Dredge each chicken breast in the egg mixture and then the dry mixture. Make sure the chicken is covered completely. Place in casserole dish on top of rice. 
5. Cover dish with foil and cook for 1 hour. With 15 minutes left, uncover and stir rice mixture. Leave uncovered for rest of cooking time to allow crust to become crispy.
6. Remove from oven and serve with a side of cooked vegetables or a baked potato.

This meal was very good. The chicken was nice and crispy on the outside and had some really good flavor. I could not even tell it was dairy-free.

DIY Knob Coat Hanger

I have been wanting a more defined entryway lately and I finally decided that the perfect way to do this was with a new coat hanger. I did not want a generic one and I felt the only way to get what I truly wanted was to make it myself. I did some searching online and got a lot of inspiration for my own project. It took me very little time and can be customized to fit anyone's style.

Finished entryway

Supplies:

• board
• paint color of choice
• 5 knobs - I got mine from hobby lobby
• hack saw
• 3 small D-ring hangers
• 3 small screws - smaller than width of your board (if the screws that come with D-ring hangers are too long)
• 3 drywall anchors with screws
• Drill
• Drill bits

Directions:

1. First step is to take the board you chose for the base of your coat hanger and paint it. You only need to paint the front and sides.
2. Next, turn the board over, mark where you want the knobs to go, and pre-drill the holes. I started by marking the middle one first and then the others. That way everything would look symmetrical.
3. Once the holes are drilled, screw in each knob.
4. Since I used knobs from hobby lobby, the screws attached to the knobs were too long and stuck out in the back. To fix this, I took a hack saw and cut off the extra part of the screw. I did this while they were screwed into the board. Be careful though because the hack saw makes the ends of the screws a bit jagged and hot. Make sure not to cut or burn yourself.
5. Next, attach three small D-ring hangers onto the back of your coat hanger. You can use more or less, depending on how long your coat hanger is. I had to buy extra screws to do this because the screws that came with the D-ring package were too long for the board. If your board is thicker you won't need to do this.
6. If you are drilling into studs you will not need the drywall anchors. If you are drilling right into drywall use the anchors to hold the screws in the wall. Hang your beautiful, brand-new coat hanger on the screws!

The hardest part of this project was hanging it on the wall. There are many different options on how you can do this but I decided on the D-rings because I thought they would be able to hold more weight. To make more of a statement I put a floating shelf above it and added some decorations. I used things I found around the apartment to put on the shelf, making that part almost free. I hope you all find some creative ways to make your own unique knob coat hanger!

Closeup of the finished project.

Wooden letters to represent me and my boyfriend's initials.

Some decorations for the shelf.

Linking Up To:

Cast Party Wednesday

Mod Podge Flats

One trend I have seen in various places is using mod podge on shoes. A project that really caught my eye was comic book shoes. I have seen several people's take on that idea and I decided to try it out myself. I originally wanted to do it on a pair of high heels but the shoes I ended up finding for cheap were some flats from Walmart. Lately, I have really gotten into comic books (a habit I picked up from my boyfriend) and I tend to frequent the dollar comic book bins. I picked up some Avengers comics for a dollar a piece intending to decorate a comic book bin for my boyfriend about a month ago. I had not gotten around to it yet and decided to use them on my new pair of bargain shoes instead. After getting halfway through the project, I decided to not put any of the obvious comic book cutouts on the shoes (ex: word bubbles, characters, etc.). The colors I chose to do the background of the shoes in would have clashed too much with the character cutouts and I was way too happy with how they looked without the extra pieces! So instead of being comic book shoes, they turned into some fun mod podge shoes.

 Supplies:

• Comic books or other colorful paper items (you could use scrapbook paper or magazines) - $5.00
• Mod Podge - Free
• Shoes - $6.00
• Foam brush - Free
• Black, skinny duct tape - $3.00

All the supplies before I began the project.

Directions:

1. First, cut out various geometrical shapes out of your paper item. Cut out some thin rectangles for the edges and some other random shapes for the middle. The thin pieces will help get a cleaner line along the edges.
2. Next, put mod podge on the shoe and place the paper shapes in a random pattern on the shoe. It is easiest if you do the edges first and then fill in the middle. I learned this after I had already started. I will make sure to do this with the next pair I make. 
3. As you lay the pieces down, mod podge over them to make them smooth and stick on better. The glue over top the image looks milky. Don't worry, this will dry clear and your image will look great. 
4. Let the shoes dry overnight. 
5. Next, take your duct tape and put it along the edge of your shoes.Make sure it folds over into the inside of the shoe. This will help line the top of the shoe to give it a clean line.
6. Press down on the tape to make sure it sticks well and they are ready to wear! If you are worried about the image getting worn off, put some extra coats of mod podge on the shoes. Make sure to let each coat dry completely before adding the next.

Total Cost:  $14.00

Even though I did not use the comic book characters on these shoes I made sure to keep them because I had already cut them all out. Those parts were what took the longest so I definitely did not want to waste them. These shoes took a very long time to make but it was worth it. I really love how these shoes turned out and I cannot wait for the weather to warm up so I can wear them out!

Simple Dairy Free Mashed Potatoes with Gravy

So last night I decided to surprise my boyfriend with a nice home cooked meal. One of my favorite comfort foods is mashed potatoes with gravy. Most mashed potato recipes contain a lot of milk and other dairy products but luckily it is very easy to convert to dairy-free!

Fried pork chops with mashed potatoes and gravy.

All of the ingredients used to make the potatoes.

Ingredients (Mashed Potatoes):

• 6 potatoes
• 4 Tbls butter - Earth Balance is a good dairy-free option
• 1cup almond milk
• salt
• pepper
• garlic salt

Directions (Mashed Potatoes):

Potatoes washed and ready to peel.

1. Wash and peel your potatoes. Make sure to cut off any dark spots you see.
2. Cut potatoes into equal pieces and boil over medium-high heat for about 15 minutes or until they are soft.
3. Drain potatoes in a strainer and place them in a bowl with the softened butter.
4. Mash potatoes and butter together. Slowly add almond milk. You may add more milk if mixture seems too dry. Mash until you get the consistency you want.
5. Season with salt, pepper and/or garlic salt. I waited to do this until after they were served. My boyfriend likes his potatoes plain and I like them garlicky.

Ingredients (Gravy):

• 2-4 Tbls pan drippings
• 2 Tbls flour
• 1 cup Almond milk

Directions (Gravy):

1. Remove 2-4 Tbls pan drippings and place in saucepan.
2. Add flour and whisk continuously until mixture thickens.
3. Stir in almond milk. May add more if mixture too thick.

This meal was very delicious and the potatoes were so easy to make. Usually, I think of mashed potatoes as very time-consuming but this took almost no time at all. My main dish was fried pork-chops so I used the pan drippings from that. If you do not have pan drippings to use, broth can be substituted. 

One thing that some people do not know is that while butter is dairy, it has very little lactose due to how it is made. Many people who are lactose intolerant can tolerate regular butter. Some people will use margarine instead but many times it too will have lactose in it. If you want to be strictly dairy-free, Earth Balance has some good vegan products. Butter was one of the last diary items for me to cut out and after going completely dairy free I feel amazing!

Stenciled Strength Pillow

After completing my other two pillows Drop Cloth Flower Pillow and Painted Love Pillow, I began work on a project inspired by Wit and Whistle. Her pillow with a quote stenciled on it was a brilliant idea. I decided that I did not want a quote but rather a word. I chose "strength" because it was a word you don't normally see on things and since I was moving to a new city and starting a new job, I thought it was fitting. I had already done a "Love" pillow so I thought a way to make it more unique would be to add more words. I did this by looking up strength in many different languages. I decided the translations would be the background and the English version would be the focal point.

Materials: 

• 1/2 yard of drop cloth: Free
• Paint: Free
• Thread: Free
• Paint brush: Free
• Martha Stewart trace your own tracing paper: Free
• Craft knife: Free

Directions: 

1. Cut out three pieces from the drop cloth. One 19" x 21", one 19" x 17", and one 19" x 14".
2. Make a word document with the image/words you want on your pillow. 
3. Print it out. You may need to print it onto several pieces and then tape them together in order to be big enough for the pillow.
4. Tape the pages onto the tracing paper and cut out the letters/image with the craft knife. 
5. Once it is all cut out, take the backing off and place firmly onto the largest piece of drop cloth.
6. Paint the pillow. I used leftover black house paint Peal off the stencil once dry.
7. Assemble pillow based on picture bellow:

Total Cost: Free

Cost for all three pillows: $30.00

The pillow turned out very nice. All three pillows that I made from the drop cloth are now being displayed in the guest bedroom. They fit perfectly with the decor and really finish off the room. They aren't the most comfortable pillows to lay on but they work perfectly for decoration.