Best and Easiest Chocolate Cake EVER!

Chocolate Dump Cake!

This has got to be the easiest and best chocolate cake I have EVER made.  Plus for my son it is free of his food allergens :)

I found the recipe on this website http://www.bunsinmyoven.com

When I say it is easy I do not lie, here are the ingredients:
- one box of chocolate cake mix (I used Pillsbury)
- one box of instant chocolate pudding mix (I used Jello)
- 1.5 cups of milk
- 1.5 cups of chocolate chips (I used less than this and the brand was Hershey mini semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Mix the first three ingredients together in a bowl (don't walk away from it, I did and it started to get really hard to mix), 

spread into a greased 9x13 pan and sprinkle with chocolate chips. 

 Bake for about 30 minutes at 350. Done!

DELICIOUS!!!!

Thank God For Pinterest

Thank God for Pinterest.  Where would I be without it?  
This past week I finally decided to get organized with meals around my house and I found a post on Facebook that originated from Pinterest.  It was 8 freezer crockpot meals and it has saved my life!

The blog is http://www.mommysfabulousfinds.com
This lady is a genius!  Why have I never thought of doing this before.

The recipes are easy and putting the meals together was, well, not that easy, it took a little bit of time, but not as much as you would think.

I took time on a Sunday and had 7 (I didn't make all 8 because I forgot to buy the pork shoulder at the market) meals in freezer bags ready for the week.

I already made, cooked, and have eaten the beef stroganoff recipe and it was delicious.  My kids wouldn't eat it, but since my son has egg allergies and I was serving it over egg noodles I didn't push making them try it.  Tonight we are eating the Honey Garlic chicken and I'll make some ore ida fries to go with it and maybe both the kiddies will eat some.  I didn't put too much garlic in it so that way it would be sweeter for the kids, here's to hoping they like it.

I also recently found a recipe for making chick-fil-a nuggets at home and if I make it at home I won't have to use peanut oil (food allergy again for my son).  I will post some more recipes and links to where I found them in another day or so.  For now, enjoy the genius blog of Mommy's Fabulous Finds.  She has so inspired me that maybe you'll see some crockpot recipes from me.

P.S.  I did see a great tip after I had made all of my freezer bags.  Put the food into the crockpot liners first and then into freezer bags, that way you just pull out the liner from the freezer bag and place the whole thing directly into your slow cooker.  Enjoy!

My son's Minecraft 8th birthday

It was recently my son's 8th birthday and I attempted to make him some Minecraft treats to eat.  Since he has food allergies I always make his birthday cake and this year I found this awesome blog http://www.cupcake-stand.com/minecraft-birthday-party
for a bunch of great ideas for a Minecraft birthday party.

First I went to this site to find Minecraft cupcake wrappers and cupcake toppers.
http://www.thepartyanimal-blog.org/Downloads/Minecraft_Cupcake_Toppers.pdf

I printed off the above referenced wrappers and toppers on just regular printer paper and then cut them out.  The toppers I glued together and inserted a toothpick to stick on top of the cupcakes.

Then I made a Pillsbury vanilla box cake mix and instead of eggs I substituted a container of Gerber baby food (apricot with mixed fruit, thanks to a tip from another food allergy Mama) frosted them with green frosting (found on sale and with a coupon from Giant, thanks to my coupon sites I follow, but I'll post those on another day). I also made chocolate rice krispie treats which look like the Minecraft bricks.  The "green grass" was made with a tip from Wilton, its tip #233

In the background in the above picture you can also see the Rolos, which represent gold.  And then we made TNT from red and chocolate licorice.  So much fun!!

I think it all turned out rather well.  I may not be able to come up with these crafty ideas, but I sure can implement them well. Thanks again to www.cupcakestand.com for the awesome ideas you helped make my boy very, very, happy :)