Making coffee mixes

Sometimes, especially in the evening, I like to have a cup of coffee but I don't want to make a whole pot. That's why I love the General Foods International Coffees. (I think they're now Maxwell House coffees.)

Anyway...........

While I was online one day looking for a way to purchase the GFIC for a lower price, I came across this site with recipes to make a few of their flavors myself. So of course I had to give it a try. Since the Cafe Vienna is my favorite, that's the one I tried.

Here's the recipe from Top Secret Recipes

Cafe Vienna

• 1/4 cup instant coffee
• 1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon Coffee-mate creamer
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Grind the instant coffee into powder using a coffee grinder.
2. Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Store in a sealed container.
3. To make the coffee drink, measure 2 tablespoons of the powdered mix into a coffee cup. Add 8 ounces (1 cup) of boiling water and stir.
Makes 9 servings.


Now, with me being me and all, I didn't make it quite like the recipe says. It wasn't on purpose or anything like that. I wasn't paying attention and measured my first two ingredients incorrectly, then tried to figure out what I actually had done, then tried to adjust the remaining ingredients based on zero knowledge of what I did with the first two. Perfectly clear, right?!

Regardless, it still tastes pretty good. The next time I make it, I'll add more cinnamon, though. Oh, and I'll actually follow what the measurements are supposed to be. *sigh* One thing I changed (on purpose) was that I used Splenda instead of sugar. Even if I wasn't using the zero calorie sweetener, I would probably opt for powdered sugar instead of granulated sugar, just to keep my mix more consistent. 

If you try any of the recipes, let me know what you think. And if you change them up, let me know that too.

Pumpkin Spice Granola

I've seen lots of granola recipes that I want to try and recently saw one that sounded delicious, but the only ingredient I had for it was the oats. *sigh*

I finally decided that it was time to just suck it up and make it up as I went along. Here's what I came up with, and it turned out pretty good. My kids even liked it!

Preheat oven to 350F.

I mixed the dry ingredients together.

1 cup old fashioned oats

1 cup pecans

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds 

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Then stir in the wet ingredients.

1/2 cup melted coconut oil

1/2 maple syrup

Once everything is all mixed together, spread evenly on a cookie sheet with sides and bake for about 25 minutes. Be sure to give it a good stir about halfway through.

It will keep for about two weeks if stored in an airtight container.

This recipe had a good flavor with mild hints of spices. If you would like a stronger flavor, increase the cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice accordingly.

This has actually given me the courage to venture into coming up with other combinations too. I'll let you know if any of those turn out as tasty.

Easter baskets

This year I made these cute little Easter baskets.

I just taped four boxes of candy together in a square. I taped cardboard to the bottom and a taffy handle on. Then, just fill them like you would any other basket.

I saw it on Pinterest and had to give it a shot. I thought they turned out pretty cute and the kids liked them.

DIY Face Powder

I've seen that you can make your own face powder all over the net. I've looked at a ton of different sites and found instructions from easy to complicated.

Well, since I'm all about the easy, I decided to try the most basic of powders......two ingredients.

Yep! That's it.

I started with about 2 Tablespoons (heaping) of corn starch and added the cocoa powder in 1/2 teaspoon at a time. I think this is about 1 1/2 teaspoons.

I tried it as a powder foundation, but I prefer a little more coverage. But, I love it as a loose powder over my regular foundation. The corn starch really helps with taming the shine from my summer oily skin.


The actual recipe that I found used arrow root powder, but I had corn starch on hand so that's what I used. So far it has worked for me just fine. I also saw recipes that included nutmeg or cinnamon to adjust the color. I tried with a little nutmeg, but found it to be too grainy. I didn't try the cinnamon because I was happy with what I've got. One word of caution though, always be careful when using cinnamon to be applied to the skin. It can irritate the skin very quickly. It won't take much. That's why I didn't even bother. It wasn't worth risking it. I've made other beauty products (like scrubs) that I use cinnamon in, but not for my face.

So, if you want to try something else to make for yourself (and costs about 25 cents) give this a go. I'm loving it so far!

DIY Coffee Creamer

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it.) We had a great time. The kids turned 14 the day before so we spent that Wednesday celebrating with them. Then everyone was at our house on Thursday and we all ate too much. Mostly on Friday we laid around trying to recover (and eating leftovers.) Then on Saturday Dax and I headed to Las Vegas for several days to attend an accounting continuing education conference......what? if you have to spend your days listening to people talk about accounting, there's got to be something fun to do at night so we don't go completely mad. :0)

We got home late Thursday night and it seems that it's been non-stop business as usual since.

But, some time ago, I found this super simple recipe for homemade coffee creamer at Mrs. Happy Homemaker's blog. Actually, I found it on Pinterest and followed the links to her blog.

It's as simple as these three ingredients.

Milk, sweetened condensed milk, and flavoring.

I used a mason jar and poured in one can of sweetened condensed milk, I refilled the can with regular milk and poured it in the jar, and added some flavoring. I think the original recipe said 2 Tbls. but I'm not really one for exact measurements so I just poured it in until I thought it looked good. Then I put t he lid on and shook it until everything was combined.

You get something that looks like this:

I've made the recipe several times now. I've made the dulce de leche, vanilla, and right now I have a cinnamon vanilla that I just made.

I love how easy it is to make, I usually have all of the ingredients on hand, and I can make the flavors as strong or as weak as I choose. Win, win, win!

Hoping for cooler weather

I saw a recipe forever ago on how to make your own lip gloss. I bought everything I needed and never got it done.

Then, as I often do, I put the stuff away and couldn't find it again to save my life. I was recently complaining about it and Abigail thought she remembered seeing the little containers, and went to find them. She found them in the basket with all the cookie cutters. Why on earth I put them there I'll never no.

So, this time I got it made before I lost the supplies again.

All you need are petroleum jelly and flavoring. The original recipe used Kool-Aid but I wanted something that would have a sweet taste, not a lot of color, but no sugar. So instead I used the generic version of Crystal Light.

I just put some of the petroleum jelly in a microwave safe dish and melted it using 30 second intervals. When it was all melted, I stirred in a package of the drink mix. Then poured it into my clean containers and let it cool and set up again. And that's it!!!

I got these containers at Target. They were in the section with the travel size stuff and were in packages of two for $1. Can't beat that deal!!!

I like the fact that it goes on smooth, only takes a little, and is lightly flavored. Hopefully there will be no chap lips when the weather changes.