It's So Fun To Get Mail

I've signed up for several subscription boxes over the last few years. I love it! I get to try things I never would have thought of myself. Sometimes it's great, and sometimes not, but the fun is in the surprise. Here are a few subscription boxes I've tried:

StitchFix

This is probably my favorite. It's a clothing service. You fill out a (fairly extensive but fun) style survey, and for a $20 styling fee a personal stylist sends you five clothing items or accessories. You can set your preferences to receive a box twice a month, once a month, every other month, or when you request one. Keep what you want and send the rest back. Your $20 styling fee goes toward any purchase you make, and if you keep all five items you receive a 25% discount. Usually I'm pretty impressed with their choices, both in style and size. I almost always keep at least two things from my box. All their pieces are designer brands (so a bit more expensive than I'd spend in a store) but great quality. Often times it's only the cost that keeps me from keeping all of it! I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to step up their fashion game, or round out their wardrobe with fun statement pieces. On a side note, I wish they had a once-a-season shipping option. Once every three months would work better with my budget.

Citrus Lane

This is a box for babies and children. You receive a box monthly of toys, products, or snacks based on your child's age and gender. You can get monthly boxes for $29/month, three months for $27/month, or six months for $24/month. We've gotten two boxes from them so far, and August has found a couple favorite toys from them (although I'll admit at this age he's equally interested in my hairbrush or a Triscuits box). They often include coupons for Mommy, too. They give you a chance to customize each box, but usually that just means choosing a color or type of a pre-chosen toy. It's a nice subscription for trying new brands and getting a good quality set of toys for your little one.

Birchbox

This is a beauty box subscription. For $10 a month, you receive five samples of various beauty, makeup, lotion, or perfume samples. I tried it for six months, and discovered several new interesting products, including Eyeko liquid eyeliner, Chuao chocolate, and Tocca lotion. The best thing for me was their points system. If you do a short review of each product from your box you try, you earn points toward products in their store. For me, the ratio of wins to just "meh" samples was just off enough to not make it worth continuing. Ipsy is a similar service I may consider trying sometime in the future as well.

Golden Tote

This is another clothing subscription box I've tried. Granted, I've only gotten one tote from them, but I'm looking forward to doing it again! Each month you can choose to buy the $49 Tote with 2-3 clothing items (one you choose, the others surprises), or the $149 Tote with 5-7 items (two you choose and the rest surprises). You fill out a very short style and size survey, which they use for curating the tote. Unlike Stitchfix, Golden Tote is an all-or-nothing deal. You can't return single items from your Tote, instead you would have to return the entire Tote. It's probably a better deal than Stitchfix, but the designer styles are different and less personalized.

Barkbox 

I got this one for my mom's dog this Christmas. (Beware! If you don't tell me what you want for a Christmas gift, I may get creative! Lol) You tell them the size of your dog, and they send you toys and treats for your fuzzy friend. All the treats are grain and corn free, which is good for dogs with allergies. My mom received a rope toy which fit her dog's small mouth, a pleasant surprise.

Fabletics

I just signed up for this one, thanks to a 60% off coupon in this month's Citrus Lane box. Kate Hudson is a founder of Fabletics, which offers stylish athletic wear. With the VIP subscription membership, you choose an athletic outfit every month starting at $49.95. You can choose to opt out on a monthly basis, but you'll be charged if you don't reply to the opt in or out email by the 5th of the month. This is a great subscription to expand your workout wardrobe (read: casual Mommy clothes for me). I just got my first outfit, and it's full of nice touches, like a secret pocket in the workout leggings. 

EMeals

This isn't a box subscription, it's an online meal planning subscription, but I love it so I want to mention it. Dave Ramsey approved, Emeals sends you weekly specialized meal plans based on dietary and store preferences. You can choose Paleo, Classic, Clean Eating, Mediterranean or more plans. Some plans offer store specialization so you can shop the sales and BOGO deals. It costs $30 for three months, $48 for six months, and $58 for a full year. (Note: I think these prices are a bit lower than usual because of a two week free trial deal they're running right now). I love it because I get bored of making the same meals all the time. None of the meals require tons of ingredients, and they're conscious of limiting food waste. I'd definitely recommend it. 

*Note* I included my referral link on some of these, so if you sign up via my link, I can get credit towards their service. Yay!

Pumpkin Spice Cereal Treats

Earlier this week I made this recipe for Pumpkin Spice Buddies. Me and my husband have been munching on it all week! But I had some of the ingredients left over.

Then I remembered we were meeting with our church's Life Group this week, and I said "SCORE! I'll make snack!"

Now, I know a Bible study isn't the best place for muddy buddies. The powdered sugar gets on everything, and the layers of white chocolate and powdered sugar give everyone a sugar high late at night. So, I decided to modify.

As I've had to remind my friends before, Rice Krispie Treats can be made with other cereals too. My husband likes when I make them out of leftover corn flakes. So for this snack I took the main ingredients from the Pumpkin Spice Buddies (the Cinnamon Chex, roasted pumpkin seeds, and dried cranberries), combined them with melted marshmallows, and turned it into a finger-friendly Life Group snack! My friends said it tasted like fall.

Ingredients:
1 box Cinnamon Chex
1 (generous) cup dried cranberries
1 (generous) cup roasted and salted pumpkin seeds
1 10.5 oz bag of marshmallows
2-4 TBS butter
1 (generous) TBS pumpkin pie spice

1. Combine Chex, cranberries, and pumpkin seeds in a large bowl.
2. Melt 2 TBS butter in a saucepan on medium heat. Add marshmallows to saucepan and stir until melted and smooth. If needed, add 1 or 2 more tablespoons of butter. Do not let the marshmallows burn.
3. Remove saucepan from heat. Add the Chex mixture to the melted marshmallows and stir until well coated.
4. Press the Chex and marshmallow mixture into a greased 9x13 pan.
5. Sprinkle with pumpkin spice.
6. Serve and enjoy!

Recipe Notes:
1. Experiment with the amount of cranberries and pumpkin seeds you want to use. I think I actually doubled the amount of pumpkin seeds I used. This is not a science! Do what tastes good to you.
2. Instead of sprinkling the pumpkin spice on top in step 5, you could combine it with the whole mixture in step 3.
3. Another choice of topping is to melt 1 cup of white chocolate chips and stir in 1 teaspoon pumpkin spice. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the top.

Let me know if you make your own!

Doughnuts

For my birthday, my parents-in-law got me The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier. We've done a few recipes, and last Sunday we made her glazed doughnuts.

Let me begin by saying how delicious they were!

Then let me add that they needed a lot of preparation for a morning meal. We actually began the night before. Talk about planning ahead! This couldn't be a last minute treat... The dough had to rise overnight. Then, since we were making it for Sunday morning and we had church, one of us had to wake up early early in the morning after the dough had risen and cut the doughnut shapes.

No doughnut cutter... I used a cup and an olive oil cap.

And then they had to rise for another two hours!

Oooh, but don't they look delicious!

 Finally we were ready to fry them.

Each one was only in the oil for a minute or so, including the flip, so this is by far the easiest step.

Mmmm, unglazed goodness!

More mmm, glazed goodness!

They were good news for my mouth, if not for my waistline. Good thing they take so much effort or we'd be in trouble!

Homemade Salsa

We started a garden a few months ago. We're so excited about it! This is a project we had wanted to start for about two years now, since we moved into our house. We've been composting and waiting for the right planting season, and now we're getting some fruits from the labor.

Well, veggies from the labor.

I'm not a fan of spicy food. At all. But my husband loves a good salsa so we got two jalapeno plants.  We were both impressed that they have been the most prolific thing in our garden by far. We've seen several dozen jalapenos, each as big or bigger than the ones we get in the store!

For our salsa, we've been using this Pioneer Woman recipe, slightly modified. We use fresh tomatoes and tomatillos instead of canned, and we exclude the lime. With a few other additions to taste, we have a side that is a crowd pleaser!

Boiling jalapenos

Chop chop chop...

Add everything to the food processor

It's easy to make, too. Boil, chop, and throw in the food processor. Anyone can do it!

Yum!

Pizza

We love our pizza in this house. That is one of the things we figured we'd miss the most now that we've moved to gluten-free dining.

We did try Mellow Mushroom's gluten-free crust when we were travelling a few weeks ago. However, compared to Mellow's regular crusts, we were disappointed. Oh, it was edible enough. It was good, but it honestly only made us miss our lovely wheat crusts.

More than the pizza we get in restaurants, we were crestfallen that we would no longer be able to make our own favorite homemade crust. Not only did this recipe call for flour, but also Landshark beer. Neither of those are gluten free!

Today we discovered that Red Mill makes a gluten-free pizza mix. Wary though we still are about gluten-free products, we were pleasantly surprised with the outcome. We even substituted the warm water with warm gluten-free beer.

It might not be up to our usual pizza standards yet, but I think with a few adjustments, we'll get it. In the meantime, it's nice to know we don't have to give up all our favorite foods.

Gluten-Free Noodle Soup

In our journey into a gluten-free diet, I have discovered how much I love pho noodles. Especially in chicken noodle soup. While a lot of gluten-free noodles try and fail to have the texture and taste of wheat noodles, these wide rice noodles are not ashamed of what they are and are more delicious for it.

Our recipe is simple. In a saucepan, heat up a small splash of oil and chopped ginger and garlic. Then in the same saucepan, we boiled chopped carrots, mushrooms, and celery in gluten-free chicken broth. Some shredded boiled chicken would also be a great addition.

We cooked the noodles in water (not the chicken broth) according to the package instructions. When the noodles are drained and done, and the veggies are softening, that is when we add the noodles to the chicken broth along with some chopped fresh green onions.

It smells wonderful, tastes even better, and is healthy. Hello, veggies!