Greek Pasta Chicken Salad

This is one of my favorite recipes to make for summer parties. Enjoy!

• 1 pound Bow Tie Pasta
• 1 bunch Cherry Tomatoes
• 1 Cucumber, Peeled And Sliced
• 1 jar Pitted Calmata Olives, Whole Or Cut (a Small Jar)
• 2 Chicken Breasts, Cooked And Cubed. (I Like To Use Store Bought Rotisserie Chicken)
• 2-½ ounces Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing (you May Need More, Depending On Your Taste)
• 1-2 teaspoons Black Pepper To Taste
• 1 pinch Salt, Or To Taste
• 1 container Feta Cheese

Directions

Cook 1 lb. bow tie pasta and run cold water over it to chill. Place in refrigerator for 10-15 minutes while you cook chicken.

Mix in a large bowl:

1. Chilled Pasta
2. Cherry Tomatoes (sliced in half)
3. Sliced Cucumber
4. Pitted Calamata Olives (whole or cut)
5. Cubed Chicken
6. Feta Cheese
7. Toss with Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing
8. Add Salt & Pepper to Taste

Serve cold

Download the printable page to put in a 3 ring binder.

Amy Locurto is a mom of two and graphic designer, Co-Founder of a photography blog iHeartFaces.com and provides free downloads, recipes and creative ideas on her personal blog. She sometimes even gets a little sleep! Visit her site for weekly menu plans with recipes and printable grocery lists!  www.livinglocurto.com

Easy Mexican Chicken Casserole

Here is a yummy recipe for you to try. It’s one of my favorites!

• 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
• 3 Chicken Breasts
• 1/2 Cup Diced Onion
• 10 oz. Can Enchilada Sauce
• 10.5 oz Can 98% Fat Free Cream of Chicken Soup
• 1 Can Diced Tomatoes & Green Chiles (Rotel)
• Corn or Flour Tortillas (I like corn, hubby likes flour. I do half and half)
• 1 Bag of Shredded Cheddar Cheese
• Handful of Crushed Tortilla Chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. Heat 1/2 tablespoon of oil in pan and cook chicken
3. Remove chicken from pan
4. Add the remaining oil to pan and cook onions 1 minute.
5. Stir in enchilada sauce and soup
6. Fill empty soup can half full of water and stir that in too.
7. Add Rotel, stir the mixture and let stand on low heat.
8. Shred the chicken with two forks while the mix is warming up.
9. Add shredded chicken to pan and stir.
10. Coat a 13 x 9 baking dish with cooking spray.
11. Rip up small pieces of tortillas for your bottom layer in the dish.
12. Add a layer of chicken mixture, Repeat this twice.
13. Sprinkle the top with cheese and crushed tortilla chips.
14. Cover with foil and bake for 12-15 minutes.
15. Remove foil and bake another few minutes until cheese is melted and it’s bubbling.

Download and print the recipe to put into a 3 ring binder:

Teaching Kids About Money

My son’s birthday is right after Christmas… so needless to say, he gets a lot of cash and coins from relatives. He had it stashed in various places all over his room, because of course he’d rather play with toys than the ol’ dollar bills. I wanted to teach him about the importance of a dollar so I started the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace Jr.  I’m very passionate about my kids learning good money habits… because that is one of my main weaknesses! Luckily for us, my husband is Dave Ramsey’s twin! ha.

Along with this book, Dave has a great web site for kids. He uses a envelope system for saving, spending and giving. His book comes with a chart to keep track of chores and commission. I love how you get fined for bad behavior!! Basically you pay your child at the end of the week, then they sort the money into the envelopes. 10% goes into savings and giving, the rest in spending. Just like the real world. I also love that part.

Well, we did Dave’s chart for a while and when you have scatterbrained, non-interested 5 year old, you have to mix it up a bit. So I headed to Mardels and found this awesome magnetic chore chart that has pictures of the chores. I decided the smiley face magnets would equal a dime.

This new chart has really worked for my son. I hung it low enough to where he can add the magnets when he does a chore. He now knows that if he wants something, he needs to work for it. Granted there are times that he still whines, begs and throws fits for something, but in general he is becoming a mini money and math mogul. He loves to sort his money into the envelopes and take the give one to the church.

To date, he has given the church nearly $12. Not bad for a few months of making a dime per chore and me forgetting to pay him some weeks! (remember I told you I was bad with money!) What I love is that he is so proud and happy to give it. Our church has this cool coin machine that kids can drop change in and get a receipt. So that part is fun too! I make sure to talk about his giving to our pastors while he is standing close enough to eavesdrop:-)

What do you do to teach your kids about money?

Amy Locurto is a mom of two and graphic designer, Co-Founder of a photography blog iHeartFaces.com and provides free downloads, recipes and creative ideas on her personal blog. She sometimes even gets a little sleep!

David Chicken appearing in Plano

We’re going to see David Chicken in concert on July 1st! My kids are so excited because he filmed The Mama Chicken video for his latest DVD in my kitchen! If you are in the DFW area, be sure to check out David when he performs, he’s won two Emmys now… he’s kinda good!

David and I are both graphic designers and have worked together for many years. He designed a great web site to keep your kids entertained for a little while… check out his video page to see some fun videos. I also love Super Joanie’s Amazing Tricks.

The Shops at Willow Bend 6121 West Park Blvd. Suite 1000, Plano, TX Thursday, July 1, 2010 Show time: 2 pm

Easy Cheesy Chicken Muffins

These are so yummy and even great eaten cold!

Ingredients:

• 1 can Pillsbury dough (I used the kind that you have to cut- you can use Crescent Rolls or Puff Pastry as well)
• 1-2 cups Shredded Chicken (I used an already cooked rotisserie chicken)
• 3/4 cup Cream Cheese
• 1 tablespoon Dried or Fresh Chopped Onion (optional)
• 1/2 Finely Diced Red Pepper
• 2 Tablespoons Milk
• 1/4 tsp Dried Thyme
• Salt & Pepper to Taste
• 1 Tablespoon Parmesan Cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl.
3. Cut dough into squares and place in muffin tin that has been covered with cooking spray.
4. Put a large spoonful of mixture inside and seal by twisting the top shut.
5. Spray or brush with butter sprinkle parmesan cheese and thyme on top.
6. Bake for 20 minutes.

Free Printable Valentines

Who says you need to buy the usual grocery store valentines when you can find so many cute ones online? Here are a few I designed that you can print for free!

Mini Owl Cards

Valentine Bookmarks

Candy Kiss Sandwich Bag Goody Label & Valentine Tags

You can find a ton more of my favorites from around the blog sphere here. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Free Online Photo Editing Tool

On my photography blog, we have Fix-it Friday where we take an okay photo and make it fabulous. I recently played around with Picnik, a FREE online photo editing application. It’s SUPER easy to use and has a lot of really fun borders, fonts and scrapbook items. I could spend a lot of time playing there!

Here is a sample of what you can do with Picnik:

This is the before photo. Which was taken by one of my favorite photographers, Susan Keller. She’s awesome, so the before shot was still really good. Just needed a few adjustments.

This is my favorite edited version. Using the free online tool Picnik.

Head over to I ♥ Faces to see my other versions with directions on how to do this yourself. There are eight other AWESOME photographers who contributed their photos with directions.

Amy’s Grandma Chunkie’s Chocolate Pie

My favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner is homemade pies. YUM! My all time favorite is my Great-Grandma Chunkie’s Chocolate Pie. Grandma Chunkie (real name Lilly Maybell) was a little spitfire. She had purplish pink (sometimes blue!) hair and always made you laugh. She also made THE best pies! Usually for our Thanksgiving dinners, we would have about 3 pumpkin pies along with banana, lemon and chocolate. She made me my own mini chocolate pie. A tradition, I have started with my kids, because we all know pumpkin pie is totally gross when you’re a kid!

For all you chocoholics, this pie is a must! Here’s the recipe that she wrote on a small piece of paper:

Grandma Chunkie’s Easy to Make Rich & Creamy Chocolate Pie

• One large Hershey Candy Bar (milk chocolate) 8 oz (now I get 2 large chocolate bars)

• 18 large marshmallows cut up

• 1/2 cup sweet milk (I just use regular milk)

• 18 oz. Cool Whip

• Melt Candy bar and marshmallows in milk over low fire until smooth. Cool.

• Add 1-9 oz Cool Whip into chocolate mixture

• Pour into baked pie shell and keep cool until ready to serve.

Don’t forget to spoon a large helping of Cool Whip on your slice of pie! (I like to add chocolate sprinkles too)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Do It Yourself Christmas Gift Ideas

It’s never too early to get started on Christmas gifts. I’ve found some great ideas for homemade gifts. Enjoy!

Blonde Designs have some easy holiday gift ideas with printable labels.

Make a Christmas Song CD and print a label for your cover.

Executive Homemaker (aka Laurie-Tip Junkie) has a list of 24 quick, easy, cheap gifts. Download a free printable with all the labels and poems. How about these fun gifts… Cheese and a cheese grater: “Cheesen’s Greetings To A Really “GRATE” Neighbor!” or a Wire Wisk with Hershey kisses wrapped in cellophane: “We Whisk You A Merry Kissmas!”

Make LollyChop’s Hot Cocoa Mix. She has a great recipe and the cutest packaging you can print.

Want more ideas? Check out my complete list here.

Thanks! Amy

Cute Turkey Cookies

Baking with my kids is a fun tradition we have started.

I found these adorable Thanksgiving Cookies and thought I would share them with you. I modified the ingredients a little; my kids didn’t seem to mind that I forgot the malt balls. They gobbled them up!

What you need:

7 Candy Corn
2 Double Stuffed Oreo Cookies
1 Whopper
1 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
1 Tube of black piping gel (for the pupils of the turkey’s eyes)
1 tube of white icing (to spread in the edge of Oreo so the Candy Corns will stay in place and for the whites of the turkey’s eyes)

Assemble the cookies to recreate the look in the photo.

What Thanksgiving activities do you like to do with your children?

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