The BEST Spanish Rice

I found this recipe a couple years back on a blog. I had looked for years and years for a great Spanish Rice recipe that was restaurant quality and was so excited when I found this, this is it! This is the ONLY Spanish Rice I make now and last night while making it I had to look up the blog for the recipe and my husband was surprised that I didn't have it written down somewhere (ha). I was a little worried though because this time it did take a couple of searches to find it and so I must put it here where it's easier for me to get to, and what if the author of the recipe deletes her blog the next time I want to make it? OH NO!

And here is the recipe for this yummo rice.....

Restaurant Spanish Rice
ingredients


3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup uncooked long-grain rice
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup tomato sauce
2 cups chicken broth  (I use 2 chicken bouillon cubes with 2 cups of water) 


Directions:


Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and add rice. Cook, stirring constantly, until puffed and golden. While rice is cooking, sprinkle with salt and cumin.
Stir in onions and cook until tender. Stir in tomato sauce and chicken broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. Fluff with a fork.


and you can click the link below to go to the home of this great recipe!
Restaurant Style Spanish Rice  




And in other news....I just picked up my mother's old 1970's maple china hutch. I remember when we got  this as a kid and it  was in our house forever. My mom passed away earlier this month and my brother gave me her hutch. I want to re-do it, I've seen some great looking hutch makeovers. My husband doesn't think that is right, I guess he sees it as disrespectful. I don't. I just want to give it a little update.  I promised him I'd wait a couple of weeks before just diving into it.......but really my mind is made up and I can't wait to transform it into a piece I will just love....I mean it's still the same hutch on the inside right?

Apple Pie Crescents

This is the easiest little dessert and my kids love them, even my "non-liking pie" daughter!

 Pre-heat oven according to package
 2 packages of crescent rolls (I used 2 for my family of 6)
 1 large apple, sliced...you can peel it if you want, I just keep the peel on
 cinnamon/sugar
 melted butter

 roll out the crescent rolls onto a cookie sheet and spread with melted butter place a couple of apple slices along the wide end of the triangle. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and then roll it up. spread a little more melted butter over the top and sprinkle with a little more cinnamon and sugar and then bake for about 10 minutes!

Dry Erase Frame

I was downstairs cleaning up the basement when I came across some frames I hadn't used yet so I was able to quickly complete this idea I saw on Pinterest (of course!). I took the frame, tore out a piece of notebook paper and I antiqued my paper up by blotting with my used coffee filter and let it dry. After it was dry, I put it in the frame and there you go, a dry erase marker board! Now that the holidays are over I am looking forward to completing more projects :)

2 Easy Things

I saw both of these on Pinterest and I had supplies and they were both things we could finish in no time at all: Twig Star Yeah, this IS as easy as it looks. I have a yard full of sticks, just went out and filled a box full. Laid them out into a star and hot glued the tips together. My 9 year old twin boys even made a few of these. I need to pick up some twine to hang them around the house/tree. I might even make a big one to hang on the wall. I really like the way they look! Next was this. I had seen this really simple way to add a pop of color into your kitchen by spray painting the old boring butcher block. The one I saw on Pinterest was a bright looking lime green. I didn't have lime green spray paint but I did have red so I sprayed it then stenciled the fleur de lis. Took about 5 minutes total, not counting the dry time!

Christmas Decoration Tradition

I wish I had seen this a long time ago! This is a sweet little tradition you can do by cutting off about a half inch or so from the bottom of your Christmas tree. I asked the nice people at Lowes (where we purchased our tree) if they wouldn't mind doing it for me, which they did in a jiffy. Then you just have the kids decorate it along with the year! This is the first year we've done this. Braden and Dalton did finger paint snowmen (painted their index finger white and they did the rest with a sharpie). I still need Ashlyn and Christian to do their snowmen on the back.

The EASIEST Christmas decoration EVER

I saw this on Pinterest and it took me all of 5 minutes to do! Get out a big glass jar or glass bowl and fill with a string of Christmas lights! (Make sure they have plenty of room in there as they will get warm if you have them too crammed in).

Christmas Tree Skirt

I actually didn't see this on Pinterest and I can't remember where I got the idea..probably Family Fun mag or something like that. Anyways, we started this tradition back in 2003. I bought a plain Christmas Tree skirt and each year I paint the kids hands and they leave their handprints on it. I then write their names with the year and now that I am thinking about it, it would have been even a neater idea to have them write their own names to see the changes in their penmanship over the years as well as hand size...dang! The kids love this tradition and so do I. We finally filled up one whole side of the skirt so we had to flip it over this year. A big change this year was that my 14 year old son's handprints are now bigger than my 17 year old daughters'!