Nacho Cheese Sticks

Jordan and I love a new restaurant we found on the Oregon Coast called Roadhouse 101. It is a fun atmosphere with real good food in Lincoln City, OR! Jordan and I love the Oregon Coast and wish we lived closer to make some more frequent trips! The place has money on the ceiling, which totally bugged Jordan that people just put hundreds of dollars on the ceiling rather than doing something else with it! Here it is:

We tried an appetizer at the Roadhouse 101 we have never heard of called Nacho Cheese Sticks. We usually never get appertizers when we eat out because #1 we are cheap, and #2 we get too full and don't want our dinner. Basically, this appetizers was mozzarella sticks, but nacho style. It is cheddar cheese in the middle with a tortilla chip breading. Then you dipped them in salsa. They were good! A few weeks ago we tried to create our own version of the nacho sticks and based them off a basic Mozzarella stick recipe.

Here is our version:

Cheddar Cheese Sticks (instead of mozzarella) cut in half

Wet Mixture: 1 egg and a little bit of milk

Dry Mixture: 1/4 cup saltines and 1/2 cup tortilla chips crumbs (make the crumbs in food processor or blender) and add taco seasoning into the mixture

Note: The dry mixture is an estimate so use about half of the tortilla chips or a little more to the saltines ratio, the tortilla chips make it crispy and add to the "nachoness"

Oil for frying or baking

Dip the sticks of cheese in the wet mixture and then into the dry mixture. Repeat again, dipping again into the wet mixture and then in the dry mixture, for an extra crispy breading. Freeze for about an hour and then fry or bake. Use salsa for dipping! Good luck trying it out on your own!

fridge frames / i love you because - pinterest

FRIDGE FRAMES...my new favorite idea!

This is the original idea from pinterest (below left)....The frames are fancier than the ones I found and used. Also, I used an idea I saw all over pinterest for an "I love you because" framed print to gift Jordan for Valentine's day (below right).
    

I found frames at the dollar store near my house, Honk's in Provo UT. They have an 88 cent Tuesday so I picked up 3 frames for less than 3 dollars! I have made two so far...one 5x7 and one 8x10. Use a really light frame. Mine were foam covered with a light metal so they were not heavy. Also, find magnets that are pretty strong to help hold them to the fridge. I spray painted the frames, super glued magnets to the back (all over!), and then added scrapbook paper to the 5x7 and an 8x10 print I created in Photoshop ("I love you because:"). I combined the idea of the fridge frame and "I love you because" to create a Valentine's gift for Jordan, my husband. It is great on the fridge where we can conveniently leave little notes for each other.

This is the photoshop jpeg I created (and am generously letting you steal.

If you want to create your own use picnik.com or use photoshop. I chose two different fonts, added the font, then added a line. Pretty simple! Even for a beginner in photoshop!

The other frame with the chevron scrapbook paper I made is still a work in progress. Again, I spray painted the frame and added  scrapbook paper for the background. I am going to create vinyl "What's for dinner?" and then use dry erase marker to write what is on the menu for dinner that night. My husband always asks and likes to know so the idea came from him asking each day, "What is for dinner? It better be something good!" I guess now he will know ahead of time if it will be good or not, right!? Note: You could just use dry erase marker to make notes/messages or do something different on your fridge like write something to use up or a grocery list, or so forth. Let me know what ideas you have for your fridge....

Please excuse the horrible pictures, the lighting in our kitchen is bad.

Paper Organization

If you are anything like Jordan and I, you have lots of loose papers that pile up on the counters, floors, or other places. I usually like to hide them places and then Jordan can't find what he needs. So this was an idea I came up with to create a better system for "hiding" or organizing our papers. We picked up a set of 5 magazine holders from IKEA in plain white for about 3 dollars (maybe even less than that). They are just white cardboard and pretty lame so I added some color and interest by cutting scrapbook paper to fit the spine. Use modge podge to apply the paper to the cardboard and then apply a coat on the top to protect the scrapook paper. We used five different colors/styles of paper so that we could identify what papers belong in which holder. We then placed them on a bookcase facing in so that the spine with the different scrapbook paper shows. You could cover the two sides as well, but we decided we just wanted the spines covered.

organizing thanks to pinterest

Here is another idea taken from Pinterest. I saw a pin where shower curtain rings were used to organize women scarves. Well, I took the idea to help my husband organize his ties. I took a heavy duty hanger and used plastic shower rings to organize his ties. It is so much better than the organizer we were using before. It is easier to get them on and off and put them together with colors! Such a great organization idea! Try it out for those guys in your life.

cheap wall art

This is some wall art for Miley's room I made for cheap. The vinyl was from a vinyl boutique I love to stop by, but you could cut it our yourself or get it custom made. I just put the vinyl right on the glass on the frame. The frame is just a dollar wooden frame from the dollar store that I used glossy black spray paint on. Scrapbook paper was cut to the frame size and added to add some color and design. Cheap and easy to make!