Holidays

Christmas Morning Cheddar Breakfast Sausage Recipe

4 · Dec 3, 2015 · 3 Comments

This Christmas Morning Cheddar Breakfast Sausage Recipe is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Hillshire Brands Company. All opinions are entirely my own.

My sisters and I would stay up all night on Christmas Eve…

Well we would try to anyway. The anticipation for Christmas morning just a few hours away was almost too much to handle. What would Santa bring us? Would he bring us that magical toy that we had been dreaming of for months? How big would the pile of presents be under the tree? What would I be able to show-off when school came back into session in a week or so? What was Mom & Dad going to make for Christmas morning breakfast?

Yep, the 2nd most magical thing about Christmas morning is our Christmas breakfast that has been a tradition for years in our house. It all started with my Dad who is a waffle aficionado. This man can make a mean waffle & his pancakes are pretty amazing as well. One year he decided to come up with the most decadent Christmas breakfast and he hit it out of the park. He would make Belgium waffles topped with strawberries, vanilla ice cream & fresh whipped cream…. Yum!

Now when it comes to breakfast in our house my parents are a matched set. My dad excels in the waffle/pancake arena, while my mother has the savory options locked and loaded. She of course had to come up with a savory companion that could stand-up to this over the top sweet Christmas treat. She discovered a recipe for Cheddar Breakfast Sausages that fit the criteria perfectly!

Together these two savory and sweet treats made Christmas morning for our family almost as exciting as discovering what Santa had brought us for the holiday!

The tradition has followed me as I became a Mother and married a waffle loving man as well. Together we too are a matched set. Mike makes our waffles, the very same ones my Dad used to make when I was young and I handle the savory treat that my Mom used to make, her Cheddar Breakfast Sausages.

To be completely honest, and I mean no disrespect to the waffle loving men in my life… I look forward to the Cheddar Breakfast Sausages more than I look forward to the waffles. I LOVE them!

The other day my little guy and I headed off to Wal-Mart to grab our supplies so that we could make some Cheddar Breakfast Sausages to share with you, maybe this savory treat will make it into your Christmas morning line-up as well.

Of course we had to start with our favorite Jimmy Dean® Premium Pork Sausage!

They are super easy to make, and the really nice thing is… They freeze beautifully! You can make these days or weeks in advance when you have a few extra minutes in the middle of the holiday rush and you’ll be all-set for Christmas morning!

Here is what you’ll need…

2 lbs. Jimmy Dean® Premium Pork Sausage Regular

16 oz. shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 1/2 cups all-purpose baking mix

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

1/2 cup finely chopped celery

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Preheat oven to 375˚

In a large bowl combine sausage, shredded cheese, baking mix, onion, celery and garlic powder. Using clean hands mix ingredients just until fully combined

Shape into 1 oz. balls and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes or until the sausages reach an internal temperature of 160˚

Makes roughly 36 servings.

It really is just that easy and the fact that you can make it ahead of time, it’s a brilliant Christmas morning addition!

Looking for more fantastic Holiday recipes? Visit joytothemeal.com for all kinds of fun new recipes to create or add to your Holiday traditions.

Red and White Christmas Tree

1 · Dec 2, 2015 · Leave a Comment

+ This Red and White Christmas Tree is brought to you by Treetopia +

I’m so excited for Christmas this year!

I love decorating for the holidays and this year has been so fun. I’ve been selected to participate in the 2015 Treetopia Design Council. I’ve totally shaken-up my routine and I’ve played around with new colors, new concepts… AND, I love it!

Our theme this year is more of a European / Old World simplicity. I’ve already shared our first tree for one of our rooms and it has more of the natural, old world feel. This new tree is for our front room and it has more of a Swiss Chalet feel to it with a pinch of whimsy…

I’ve always wanted a white tree and this one is a gem from Treetopia.

In our family we kind of take the less-is-more direction when it comes to decorating our Christmas trees and I found a few simple ornaments that fit perfectly with our theme and gave it a simple but beautiful outcome.

Looking for more tree inspiration? You should come and check-out the other Treetopia Design Council Members.

Disclaimer – I am a member of the Treetopia Design Council and received a tree to participate in this design challenge.

Halloween Tree Decorating

5 · Sep 25, 2015 · Leave a Comment

I’ve tried something new this year for Halloween… Have you ever decorated a Halloween tree before?

I know the trend is picking-up steam and people are doing all kinds of cool things for Halloween. I’ve teamed up with a handful of talented bloggers for a fun Halloween tree blog hop and GIVEAWAY! You need to run over and check-out Jennifer Perkins, Cathie Filian, Tried & True, My Paper Crane! Their trees are also so fun!! Hang tight and I’ll have the giveaway info at the bottom of the post.

I had a ball decorating this beautiful white tree from Treetopia with black, white & gold glam for Halloween. I LOVE how it looks with my Jack O’ Lope display that I created a few weeks ago… The tree adds a beautiful new element to the room that I just adore!

I’ve alway been in love with black & white decor when it comes to decorating for Halloween and knew that I wanted to carry that through with this tree. I found some fun large & small pumpkins at Target that were perfect. I was planning on painting my own, but these were already so cute I caved and bought them instead.

I added some beautiful fox masks from JoAnn that I fell in love with.

I also added more of my favorite black & white dice that I made a few weeks back and some apothecary jars from Target. I was looking for some kind of black filler to add some dimension to the tree and couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for. I wanted something that looked kind of like feathers mixed with spooky foliage. Weird, I know. I looked all over the place for the right look. I finally found a wreath in the Halloween section at Target and it was perfect. I deconstructed the wreath and used it as my tree filler. LOVE IT!

I also absolutely love my white tree from Treetopia, it looks perfect up against my black chalkboard wall for Halloween. It’s the Whisper White Cashmere Tree and it is fabulous. I’ve wanted a white tree for awhile now and I’m just so darn picky I couldn’t find one that I liked. They always looked so cheap. This one is nice and full and looks beautiful. I was so impressed with how easy the tree was to set-up. It has an extra long cord with and on/off foot peddle for ease of use. It also has a plug at the top of the tree to plug-in a tree topper if you have one of that sort, BRILLIANT!

The folks at Treetopia are giving away some fun trees for Halloween, Head over to their Facebook page for all the details!

Details // This post was sponsored by Treetopia however, I had a ball decorating this tree and wouldn’t have shared with you if I didn’t truly love the product!

Pumpkin Halloween Decorations + The Jack O’ Lope

4 · Sep 1, 2015 · 5 Comments

Guys I’m so excited… We are heading into my favorite time of year!

AUTUMN!!

And with Autumn comes all kinds of fun decorating… Back-to-School, Fall, Apples, Pumpkins and Halloween to name a few. I am thrilled to be one of this year’s Michaels Makers and this months challenge is PUMPKINS.

I’ve always loved pumpkin Halloween decorations and I decided to take kind of a silly route with my challenge and make my version of the Jack O’ Lope…

I thought it turned out fun! It was so easy to put together, I just gathered a few supplies at Michaels Craft Stores. Did you know that Michaels is carrying HALF pumpkins?! No more will we need to pull out the heat knife to try and cut our craft pumpkins in half. We can buy them that way now! Well played Michaels, you always know what we need.

I found this great chalk board at Michaels (I couldn’t find it online, but it is in stores) and thought it would be fun to add some antlers to my half pumpkin for a fun wall piece for my Halloween display, to make a Jack O’ Lope of sorts.

First, I seasoned my chalk board to give it that worn in look.

I crushed a little chalk and then rubbed it all over the board with a cloth or paper towel.

That way it looks more like a used chalk board rather than a black sign.

Then I hot glued some antlers that I had hanging around onto the board…

Then, I glued the half pumpkin in place right on top of the antlers.

It fits perfect!

Next, I set-out to create a fun Halloween display to show-off my Jack O’Lope.

I grabbed some of Heidi Swapp Marquee Bats (sorry, they aren’t online but they are in-store) and spray painted them black with Krylon Chalkboard Spray Paint.

Then I added some paper wall bats that are also available in-store.

I added a Halloween printable that I created last year, I still LOVE it!

You can download it HERE.

To fill-out the scene, I added some more pumpkins to the drawer of my buffet…

I wrapped one with a pumpkin sleeve from the Martha Stewart Halloween collection at Michaels. They look really cool and are an easy way to dress-up any pumpkin.

Last but not least and made another set of large dice to use as decor this time. I just love how they fill-in the scene with a little more whimsy. These are super easy to make and are fun to have on hand for all kinds of things. I LOVE my new black set for Halloween!

All together, I think it makes a pretty fun scene for the season. My kiddos think it ‘s pretty cool anyway.

How do you like to decorate with pumpkins? Do you like to decorate for fall, or do you jump right into Halloween like we prefer to do?

Michaels is having a great sale on the crafting pumpkins this week, 40% off… Run and grab some quick before they disappear!

Disclaimer // I am a member of the Michaels Maker crew, this is not a paid position but I do receive store credit in order to create projects for the Michaels Makers program.

Holidays

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