I have been dealing with thyroid problems since I was 18 and when I was 28 half of my thyroid was removed. Last summer my doctors began to worry about a goiter that was rapidly increasing in size and they recommended a complete removal of the other half of my thyroid. The surgery was successful. However one of the temporary side effects of such surgery is drop of calcium levels. To remedy that, I was put on the maximum doze of calcium supplement, while my endocrinologist suggested to drink Kefir as well.

Our Homemade Strawberry Flavored Kefir

Beside the economic factors spelled out above, the home made Kefir has a greater number of probiotics. It sure tastes much better!

So what is kefir you might ask? To put it simply it is a fermented milk drink with tons of probiotics and other goodness your body will appreciate.

How do you make your own Kefir? To make your own Kefir you need to get your own Kefir grains from some or to purchase them on the internet as we did. When conditions are right, Kefir tends to multiply and people generally do not mind sharing their grains.

While there are many places you can purchase Kefir grains from, we bought our from Cultures For Health. But no matter where you get your Kefir grains from, more than likely your grains will come in a dehydrated form. In the video bellow Julie Feickert from Culturse for Health shows you how to activate your grains.

I would also encourage you to try kefir first before getting your own grains. Buy a quart from your store and see if you like it first. There are a few things you need to do to keep your grain healthy. But the best way to take a good care of your kefir grains is to keep making kefir.

It was fun and they turned out so much better than I expected!

If you decide to make them this way, make sure to not overfill the ice cream cones with the batter. Fill the out no more than 2/3 of the way:

You can see in the picture bellow when they bake they will rise considerably:

You can use the icing to finish them. Don’t they look just like ice cream???

The thing that surprised me the most was the fact that the ice cream cones held up their color. I thought for sure they will come out much darker, and was afraid they might actually burn.

Next time you are tying to do something new or different with your cupcakes, try baking them in ice cream cones. They’ve got approval from my little nephew!

To make the pine apple upside down cake you will need:

• a box of your favorite yellow cake mix along with all the ingredients needed to make the batter, you can find those on the box
• 1 can of pine apple rings
• 4 oz of butter
• 2/3 cup of brown sugar (light or dark, depends on your preference). You might need more (or less) brown sugar- depending on the size of your pan
• About a dozen+1 of maraschino cherries (if you use the same cake pan as I do)
• a 13 inch in diameter cake board or serving plate

About the cake pan.
To make my apple upside down cake I use Wilton’s Viennese Swirl Pan. Unfortunately they no longer make this pan. I bought mine from my good friends at Chocolate Belles long time ago. I just saw there are two Viennese Swirl Pans available, I think they might have very limited stock of these pans. To make your cake you can use any round cake pan, or even your cast iron skillet. Make sure your pan is about 12 inches in diameter to be able to arrange your pine apple as shown in the pictures bellow.

Steps

1. Cut 6 pineapple rings in halves, reserve one ring for the center of your cake.
2. Make your yellow cake batter. Just follow the recipe on the box.
3. Meanwhile melt your butter. Spray the wall of your cake pan with a cooking spray, pour and spread the melted butter evenly in the bottom of your cake pan. Sprinkle evenly the bottom of your cake pan with brown sugar. Make sure that the entire bottom of the pan is covered with brown sugar, it will help to release the cake from the pan.
4. Arrange you pineapple pieces and cherries on the bottom of your cake pan by placing a whole ring in the center, and the halves around – see the picture bellow.
5. Pour your batter gently over the pineapples, making sure to cover all pineapples. Tap the cake pan gently to release any air bubbles.
6. Bake in the preheated oven to 325℉ for about 35 to 40 minutes. At 35 minutes insert a wooden toothpick in the middle, if it comes out clean your cake is done.
7. Let it cool for about 20 minutes before flipping it over on a round cake board or plate (about 13 inch in diameter).

You can split your cake in half (horizontally) to fill it with a freshly whipped cream. Otherwise cut into portions and serve with a generous spoonful of freshly whipped cream. Enjoy!

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I love the idea behind the contest, but as you can probably tell from the video bellow I was petrified to be in it. That’s before I knew it was a “casting call” contest. I can’t imagine how scared would I be now! So I decided that the bellow recipe will be my only submission to RWOP contest.

However the entire experience inspired me to do more videos and recipes for this website- so please, join my mailing list if you don’t want to miss any recipes. Due to the warm feedback I received on Facebook, I am very encouraged to more videos and share with you my recipes. Some of you I know, some of you know my husband and I thank you all very much. It turns out that some of you are great cooks as well. Every one of you deserves to be mentioned by name.

Christine, thank you for encouraging me.

Rexanne, thank you for being the first to notice my recipe on Facebook! I love your Cooking With Rexanne website – and greatly appreciate your recent mention of my recipe!

Sabrina, as a working mom, you have to juggle lots of things! Thank you for the “like” over at Facebook!

Thank you Chuck, I will be visiting your website to see what’s “cookin” in your part of the country.

Last by not least a huge thank you to Lynne, Diane, Doris (please stay cool down in FL), Mary Lou and Lonnie.

So without any further ado here is my….

Philadelphia Cheese And Chicken Quesadilla

If you ever end up with left over chicken (rotisserie, roasted or just about any chicken) this is a quick and easy recipe to make delicious appetizer or a snack.

Prep time: 15 minutes |Cook time: 30 minutes |Total time: 45 minutes |Servings: 12

• 8 ounce(s) of PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese
• 2 cup(s) of Shredded Chicken
• 1/2 cup(s) of Salsa
• 1/4 cup(s) of Crumbled Goat Cheese
• 2 cup(s) of Kraft Shredded Cheddar Or Mixed Cheese
• 3 tbsp. of Chopped Jalapeno Pepper
• 1/2 cup(s) of Cherry Tomatoes (Cut into quarters)
• 6 10 inch Flour Tortillas

Steps

1. In a large mixing bowl mix the chicken, PHILADELPHIA cream cheese, 1 cup of kraft shredded cheddar, salsa, goat cheese and about half of Jalapeno peppers.
2. Spray a 10 inch (or bigger) skillet with a cooking spray and cook your tortilla in the skillet until lightly golden brown on one side, for about 3 minutes on medium high heat. Set the tortilla aside.
3. Take another tortilla and spread evenly about 1/3 of the mix you made.
4. Spray your preheated skillet with cooking spray, place the filled tortilla inside the skillet.
5. Cover the filled tortilla in the skillet with the one you cooked earlier (brown side up) and cook it for about 3 minutes.
6. To finish it, sprinkle the top of your casadia with 1/3 of the shredded cheddar, some jalapenos (adjust to taste) and 1/3 of cherry tomatoes. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about 4-6 minutes.
7. Repeat steps 2 through 6 to make additional (two) quesadilla.

To be completely honest, I have never thought of a cornucopia as a table centerpiece. I always associate it it with a barn, but I might compromise by placing it by my door (inside or outside of the house). A table center piece? Never! Never until now that is.

If you are looking to be creative for this Thanksgiving, you can probably still get your cornucopia mold on time for Thanksgiving.

For the sake of disclosure you should know that my husband advises Ann about Internet Marketing, however the above post is only influence by Ann’s creativity. I have been Ann’s customer and attended her cake decorating classes long before my husband and I met.

Autumn Pumpkin Pie Recipe
I got this recipe a long time ago from a friend of mine. You can make your own pie crust for this recipe or a store-bought crust will do just fine.

For this recipe you will need:

• 2 egg yolk slightly beaten
• 3 cups of Pumpkin (you can use canned pumpkin or fresh pumpkin)
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of cinnamon (you can put more or less depending how much you like the taste of cinnamon)
• 1/2 teaspoon of ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon of allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon of powdered cloves (optional, pie still taste great without it)
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup of evaporated milk

Mix ingredients in order given above. Pour it an unbaked pie shell. Bake at 400 °F for 45-50 minutes. You will know that your pie is done when the clean knife will comes out clean when inserted in the middle of the pie. Halfway through the baking time I use the aluminum foil to cover the edges of the pie to prevent them from burning. But a crust shield for pies seems like a very practical tool to have.

Your pie should look and taste just like the pie you see bellow which I made not so long ago:

Autunm Pumpkin Pie

We got our ZeroWater at our local Target, just to realize later there are much better deals (including Target) when you shop online…

In the past we have used very similar product from Brita. On of the things we did not like about Brita is that whenever you needed to change filter, you had to discard the first pitcher or two of water because it would come out black. The worst of all, the purified water that Brite would produced would still have the heavy chlorine taste of the tap water unless you let the water sit for at least 24 hours.

So is it any different with ZeroWater, you will ask? The difference is huge! To begin with the filter of ZeroWater is much bigger. But bigger is not always better, right? Wong. In the case of ZeroWater, bigger is better. ZeroWater filter has four different layers the water needs to go through- each playing an important role.

The end result is fantastic! Water tastes crispy fresh and has that unique softness of the bolted Fiji water- while costing you a fraction of what you would have to pay for bottled Fiji water.

ZeroWater does something else, that no other purifying system offers. Along with their purifying system they include a TDS digital tester. It measures the amount of dissolved solids in the water, TDS simply stands for “Total Dissolved Solids”. The highest the number the “dirtier” is the water. Our tap water measured at 070-075, which is still pretty decent. The bottled water measured at 030-035. Finally the ZeroWater filtered water measured at, you guessed it – 000!!! (By the way the in the Fuji botteled water the number of TDS is about 200- but at least they disclose so in right on the bottle).

So what is the big deal about this TDS thing? Well it is made by a third company. ZeroWater however is so confidence about the final result that they send you this digital tester so you too can see the results. It also serves another purpose, once the filtered water begins to measure 006 it is time for the new filter. The filter however should help us to filter about 40 gallons of water.

So how cost effective ZeroWater is?

If you were to by bottled water in your local supermarket or a grocery store you will probably spend $52 to buy 40 gallons of water. My husband and I usually bought 24 Pack of 1/2 Liter Bottles at a time at about $4.99 each. For nearly the same price you can purchase 4 filters for ZeroWater pitcher. Because our tap water is not as bad as it can be we are looking to changing the filter after 40 gallons of filtrated water. So what you spend on 40 gallons of bottled water, will buy us 160 gallons of water! Your savings may not be the same unless your tap water contains the same amount of total dissolved solids. The instruction on how to change the filter say that on average one filter will produce about 30 gallons of water before you need to change it.

Since we the TDS (total dissolved solids) electronic tester was included we have given a try. Bellow are the pictures of our tests:

Our tap water showed 75 TDS

The bottled we used to by from our supermarket showed 31 TDS

Finally, and as promised, the water that was filtered by ZeroWater showed 000 TDS

If you are using ZeroWater I would love to hear what you have to say about it. Please leave a comment bellow.