Cooking For 2 | Breakfast French Toast

In our apartment days I was really into making a lot of different things for breakfast. One of those just happened to be French toast. This is a really simple recipe to make for a lazy Saturday morning. Make sure to serve these lovelies while their still warm!

Ingredients

3/4 cup milk

2 eggs

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

4-6 pieces of bread

Toppings

Powdered sugar

Syrup

Directions

1. Mix together the milk, eggs, cinnamon and vanilla in a small container or bowl.

2. Heat up your skillet on medium heat. I don't grease mine with anything because it makes the toast super soggy and then it won't cook.

3. Quickly dip the toast into the mix buy letting it submerge into the liquid mix. DON'T LET IT SOAK!

4. Place the piece of toast with liquid mix into the skillet. Cook one side for about a minute and then flip to let the other side cook. If the toast isn’t golden brown in most areas flip it over and repeat the 1 minute per side of toast process.

5. Serve the toast warm with the toppings of powdered sugar and syrup.

6. Repeat steps 3-5 until all the pieces of bread are cooked. I can usually fit two pieces in my skillet at one time.

Notes

-A non-stick skillet works best for this recipe.

Homemaking 101 | Our Apartment Kitchen

Today I'm going to share with you some photos of our newly reorganized kitchen. This project took three people (myself included) about 8 hours one day and 4 or 5 the next day...and we have a small kitchen! I had stuff EVERYWHERE! Nothing was terribly organized and there was just so much random stuff that I had collected but hadn't brought myself to get rid of. It was crazy! I'm just glad to have my kitchen back in working order and for everything to be organized! I wish I had before photos, but I don't. Sorry!

I'm going to start with the more boring stuff first and end with the cute stuff! :)

This is our main food storage cabinet. At the moment it's a little empty because I need to head to the store and restock it, but you can still see the labels which will help me remember where to put everything.

This is actually a BEFORE photo of what our food cabinet looked like. This is when it's mostly stocked. Of course with the rearranging the baking things no longer go in this cabinet so that gives me a TON more room to stock up on canned items like corn, green beans, pinto beans, diced tomatoes, etc.

This is the 'breakfast' cabinet. On the left you see the hot cereals (like oatmeal) and on the right are the cold cereals. Yes, I like a variety of cereal to choose from! :)

Here's my new baking cabinet. Now as you will see below I have most of my baking stuff in cute glass jars, this is where I keep the extra stuff that doesn't fit in the jars and then of course there's the odd stuff like cooking spray that doesn't go in jars...

This cabinet is where I now keep my dishes. I used to have a bunch of dishes in my cabinet but I was having a difficult time keeping the ones I used washed so we (the organizers) decided to pack half of them up so I'd have a better chance of keeping my kitchen clean.

Here is my freshly cleaned stove. In the corner you see three mason jars with different things in them. One has my whisks for baking, another has my wood spoons and spatulas, and the big jar in the back has cooking utensils like ladles, spatulas and noodle scoopers.

This is the corner cabinet. You can see the shadow of the cabinet in the photo above. This is where I keep my food storage containers and juice containers (for when I make juice or Hand-Squeezed Sweet Lemonade).

This is my pot cabinet. It's pretty empty, but everything doesn't have to be completely maxed out. Keeping the lids with the pots helps the cabinet stay organized.

This is my baking pans cabinet. I keep all the pyrex pans, bread pans, cake pans, cutting boards, and mixing bowls in this cabinet. In the blue container is cake decorating stuff which I haven't used yet, but I want to at some point.

This shelf was rescued from the side of the road. It has a little water damage on the bottom right side, but over all it's pretty good for being free. It has three shelves, a drawer and then a cabinet at the very bottom. The jars I collected over a few months of shopping at thrift stores, yard sales, and antique stores. I don't think I paid more that $3 for any of them except the giant flour jar in the back of the second shelf on the left. That was over $10. The top shelf has the random odds and ins of the cabinets such as raisins, banana chips, spices, almonds, rice, dried beans, etc. The second shelf is all my baking stuff: flour, sugar(s), baking powder & soda, salt, etc. I also have on the right liquid ingredients like vanilla flavor, honey, & molasses.

This is the drawer from the shelf. Anything related to drinks is now stored here: tea, coffee, dry creamers for coffee, lemonade mix, soda, and then the portable coffee cups & drink bottles.

These are the random pretty jars I picked up while searching for the jars to put on my shelf. I didn't end up using these because they had corks in them, but I didn't want to get rid of them so they are now a fridge top decoration which I really like.

This is our apartment kitchen! It is for sure MUCH better now that it's been organized. I'm really enjoying having less dishes in the cabinets, and I like that my glass jar collection turned out so nicely.

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Homemaking 101 | Apartment Living Collaboration

I thought I might should make one great post to share all the other posts I've written about living in an apartment...PLUS sharing some new tips that I haven't yet blogged about. Until we no longer live in an apartment I'm sure I'll be adding things to this list...

Tips on Surviving Apartment Living

1. Be nice to your neighbors. In our apartment they come four apartments to a section. I've met the neighbors directly across from me, and directly above me. We chat a little most of the times we see each other. The neighbors across and above I've said "hi" to, but I don't really know them...

2. Check your mail often. If you don't get much mail you may forget to check the mailbox...I have no excuse for forgetting to check the mail, it just happens. And if you get mail that's from someone else, make sure to put 'not at this address' and stick it at the back of the box so the mail person will take it back the next time they come.

3. Pay your rent on time! For our apartments we have to pay a 'late fee' of $5 for each day that our rent is turned in late. That can get quite pricey!

4. Let the landlord know as soon as something goes wrong. For example, our counter in the kitchen is coming up (I've told them about this twice and they haven't fixed it yet). Or another example, our garbage disposal quit working. Usually they should be able to come fix those things within a day or so.

Post on Apartment Living

Apartment Decor Ideas (2012)

Homemaking 101 | Add A Little Paint

Homemaking 101 | First Time On Your Own

Homemaking 101 | How To Find An Apartment
Homemaking 101 | Our Apartment Kitchen

Homemaking 101 | Stocking The Kitchen Cabinets
Our Moving In Day

Projects for Apartment Living

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Bucket Listed | An Introduction Post

Last year I put together a LOT of posts on things to do with my bucket list. A few days ago I ran across one of those old posts and thought maybe it was time to start a series to share the accomplishments I've made towards reaching some of my personal goals. I've completed quite a few things over the past year and many of them without even thinking about trying to check off another item on the list. I'll share with you the original post links and then I'll share one thing I've completed. I may make this a regular post for Thursday's since it doesn't have anything assigned to it yet. We'll see how it goes.

Bucket List/Goal Posts from 2012

55 Life Goals Achieved Thus Far

Life Goals-50 Things I'll Probably Never Do

Life Goals-8 Things I'd Like To Happen When I Get Married

Life Goals I No Longer Wish To Complete

Life Goals-79 Things To Do With Autry

Life Goals-I Will Do This!

My Fall Bucket List

My Winter Bucket List

Bucket List/Goal Posts from 2013

My New Years Goals

My Spring 10 List

My Summer 8 Projects List

From 55 Achieved Thus Far

I thought I'd share a few photos from the first post I wrote:  55 Life Goals Achieved Thus Far. Except this time, instead of just sharing the photo and putting a few sentences after it, I thought I would add a few links to the actual completed projects I've posted on BEBBlog or share a photo of my own relating to the goal.

Number One on this list: Bake A Cake.

You all know I've baked a LOT of cakes!!

Here are the links to my favorite cakes on BEBBlog:

Apple Pecan Cake. Heaven in your mouth! I already can't wait for apple season this year so I can make this at least two more times!!

Iced Blueberry Lemon Bundt Cake. A recipe I created earlier this spring when I was craving cake & blueberries. It is quite tasty if I do say so myself!

Mini Cheesecakes. One of the desserts we served at our wedding. A family favorite recipe for many years.

Number Twenty-Three: Have A Black Cat.

I've actually owned two black cats now.

This is Mocha. He was a long-haired, outdoor cat. He was gorgeous when he was clean, but he never kept his fur very clean lol. I miss him. I had to leave him in Oklahoma when I moved.

This is Boots. He was the apartment neighborhood cat. I was VERY allergic to him. He would sneak into the apartment anytime I left the door open long enough for him to get past me. He no longer lives around here. I'm not really sure what happened to him.

Emerald is my second black cat. Autry gave her to me in April. She has been great company ever since. Read her more about her on the label Emerald.

Number Thirty-One: Learn how to play guitar.

This is something that I worked on for about four years. After the car wreck I tried working on learning new songs, but no luck. Now I have two acoustic guitars sitting in their cases in the corner of my spare room. It's probably been about 2 years since I've played anything.

This is one of my High School Graduation photos (2009). That is my second acoustic guitar. It's a Jasmine Talkamine. I love it. It sounds beautiful and plays beautiful.

Another High School Graduation photo (2009). I played a little on the electric guitar too. I think it was a little more fun than plain acoustic, but in the end I now prefer acoustic to electric.

Well, this concludes the first post for the Bucket Listed Series. A lot of things I'll have to go back through REALLY old photos to find so that may take awhile, but there sure are plenty of things to work on until then.

Homemaking 101 | Add A Little Paint

It is amazing how much a little paint can change the appearance of some things! Today I'm going to share with you a project I did awhile back to help spruce up and organize my bathroom. The basket was one that's been around for awhile and I thought it was time for an update. I never used it with the flowers on it before, but since I've painted it the basket has been quite popular.

We only have one bathroom in our apartment. There was a little space right across from where the toilet sits for me to store the old secretary bookshelf that was given to me. At first I wasn't really sure what I was going to put on it, but as you can see it's come together quite nicely.

Now this is the basket that had a little paint added to it. I forgot to take a complete before photo when I started painting the wood piece on the front, but you can still see pretty much what it looked like before I added the paint.

Here is the basket after I painted it. I am using this red color in several rooms throughout the apartment and LOVE it. The painted handwriting isn't my favorite, but it's the best I could do with the brushes I had on hand. I now use this basket to store lotions in and it keeps them nicely organized and in one place.

Here's a close up of the top two shelves. As you can see I like baskets! The one on the bottom (technically the middle shelf) is used to store small hand towels and wash cloths. It does a nice job of keeping them orderly too.

These are the roses from my wedding. I strung them up to dry out and haven't taken them down since because I liked how they look with the rest of the bookshelf. I'm sure they won't stay there forever, but it works for now and I like smelling them when I walk by.

What projects have you 'added a little paint' to?

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Homemaking 101 | DIY Removeable Bookpage Wallpaper

Apartment living doesn't usually give a person a lot of 'fun' decor options. Mostly because you usually can't paint the walls and that means everything is white, white, white! Well I don't like plain white walls...I hate them a lot actually. Which is why I have worked hard to come up with a few creative, but still easily removable ideas to spice things up a bit.

Today I'm going to show you how I created "bookpage wallpaper" for our bedroom wall. I LOVE it. Hubby took a little time to come around to it, but he likes it now. And let me tell you...it takes a bit of work, but it was TOTALLY worth it!

What You Need

1-2 books*

A roll of masking tape

Notes

*the amount of books you need depends on the space you have to cover. I just did the wall with or bed headboard on it. That took me almost two full books.

Directions

One of the two books I used for this project. Emma by Jane Austen.

1. Picking The Book(s). This is slightly important since you're going to be tearing a part a book in order to do this project (at least if you're doing it the way I did!). I have been a long-time fan of Jane Austen so my choices were the books "Emma" and "Pride & Prejudice" which are two of my favorites. Next you need to locate your books. I chose to search at local thrift stores/second hand stores for mine. I found both of the books (on different days) and spent less than $1 on each book.

Pages lined up ready to be taped together on my living room floor.

2. Select project space. Pick a day to do this project when you won't have a lot of traffic running through whatever room has the most floor space. I chose the living room since that's our biggest open floor space.

Left: pages in the book. Right: pages out of the book.

3. Start ripping pages! This part will actually take longer than you'd think because if you try to rip too many at a time they just won't budge, and then if you're not careful you could rip a page completely in half...take your time and it'll eventually get done. I ripped two books of pages (I didn't use pages with images on them though).

4. Line the pages up. Okay this part can be done pretty much however you want to. I rotated having the 'raw' edge (where the page was torn from the book) back and forth every other page in the line. You will need to measure from the ceiling to floor to figure out how many pages you'll need per row. My walls used about 13 pages per row...BUT the pages on the bottom were different lengths so I would just tear or cut off the excess with scissors and the tape down the end.

Double 'tape rolls' at the top of each row of book page's to keep them on the wall.

5. Start taping pages together. I just put a piece of tape at the top of each book page so that it overlapped onto the page ahead of it. Then you'll need to do some 'tape rolls' about every other page and double at the top and bottom to keep your new wallpaper up on the wall.

The book pages taped to the wall.

6. Placing on the wall. I started on the outside edges and worked my way in. You can do it however you want.

You can tell the difference in pages if you look closely. From the right: three darker, two lighter, two darker, one lighter, one darker...and the patter was the same on the other side of the wall.

7. Using different color pages. If you used two different books you may notice that there's a difference in the color of the paper so you may choose to do a pattern on the wall. That's what I did and it turned out really cool.

8. Finishing touches. Once you finish the main part of the wall you might have something crazy to work around, such as a window. In several places I individually taped up pages so that I could make sure they covered everything the way I wanted.

There you have it! Of course you may have to use a little creative juice to make your bookpage wallpaper work the way you want it to (I know I did), but it's totally worth the end result. I love my new wallpaper!

Here are some 'after' photos of the finished project:

The view into the bedroom from the doorway.

One nightstand with the 'wallpaper' behind it.

And a close up of a few of the many pages used!

I love how this project turned out!

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Homemaking 101 | Stocking The Kitchen Cabinets

I realize that it's been a few weeks since I updated on this series, but I have been having Laptop Issues. :( I do have the next part of the Moving Out On Your Own series here though and it is Stocking The Kitchen Cabinets, and fridge, and anything else! Read on and leave your tips in the comments please!

There are some things that you DO think about when you get your first place on your own...and one of those are food! Seriously, who doesn't think about food? Especially when you move out and realize it's a lot more expensive than you ever realized! I'm just going to share with you a list of basic foods which give you a lot of different meal options. Of course you know what foods you like and dislike so edit the list as needed for your own personal tastes!

Fridge

Stick Butter/Tub of Butter

Gallon of Milk

Mayo/Miracle Whip

Sandwich meat(s) & Sliced Cheese

Shredded Cheese/Block Cheese

Eggs

Yogurt

Ketchup

Mustard

Juice

Jelly/Jam

Onions

Ground Beef

Chicken Breast

Ranch Dressing (or another dressing)

Baking Items

Flour (white/wheat)

Baking Soda

Baking Powder

Vanilla

Salt

White Sugar

Brown Sugar

Powdered Sugar

Spices

Crisco

Cabinet Items

Loaves of Bread

Oatmeal

Apple Cider Vinegar

White Vinegar

Canned Vegetables: corn, green beans, peas, spinach, etc.

Canned Tomatoes: paste, sauce, diced, etc.

Pastas: spaghetti, elbow, etc.

Peanut butter/Almond butter

Dried Rice

Dried Beans: black, red, kidney, lentils, etc.

Potatoes

Canola Oil

What are your top food must haves?

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