holiday

Thanksgiving Turkey Shaped Eggs In A Basket

November 10, 2018 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

Learn how to make a cute Thanksgiving inspired turkey shaped eggs in a basket breakfast for the kids this season.

This turkey shaped eggs in a basket was inspired by a breakfast that my Dad made frequently when I was growing up. People call this concoction of toast with a fried egg in the middle a variety of things.

Eggs in a basket, toad in the hole, eggs in a nest are all common. My Dad always called it a “one eye” so when I see this breakfast, one eye is always my first thought.

And a turkey shaped one eye makes this a perfect breakfast before the big Thanksgiving meal for the kiddos.

(Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

Thanksgiving Turkey Shaped Eggs in a Basket

Making fun food for my kids is one way that we start getting excited about the upcoming holidays. We have already made these easy turkey shaped bagels with apple feathers and since those went over well, I wanted another cute breakfast treat for the kids.

(ignore the Rudolph pajamas, I try to fight only important battles with 4 year olds)

To make these turkey shaped eggs in a basket, start by baking or frying your bacon. I love to bake the bacon because it frees me up to do another task while the bacon is crisping up in the oven.

Eggs in a basket or one eye’s are super easy to make and please even a picky eater. To get the eggs in a basket portion going, start by melting a tablespoon of butter in a skillet over medium heat.

While the butter is melting, take one slice of bread and make a hole in the middle. You can use a cookie cutter, the top of drinking glass or just tear out a hole if that is more your style (that is how my Daddy does it).

Put the slice of bread into your skillet and crack an egg into the hole. Season with salt & pepper. Cook for about two minutes or until the egg is set up enough for you to flip.

Flip the toast/egg combo. Cook until the egg is at your desired method. When I am making this for kids, I cook for another couple of minutes until the egg is over hard (basically boiled in the middle). They don’t like runny eggs.

Once the egg is done, remove it from the skillet. Now you get to turn the eggs in a basket into a turkey. For the eyes, use candy eyeballs or raisins.

For the nose, I used a piece of cheese cut in a small triangle. The gobbler is just a broken piece of bacon.

Arrange the bacon feathers around the top of your turkey shaped eggs in a basket to complete this yummy Thanksgiving breakfast treat. Would your kids love to see a cute little turkey shaped egg in a basket on their breakfast plate?

Keto Instant Pot Orange Brown Sugar Ham (THM S)

November 16, 2020 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

This Keto Instant Pot orange brown sugar ham gives you the taste of those sweet holiday hams that we all love but without the sugar and carbs that we want to avoid!

It is that time of year where big holiday meals are on my mind. So we have been having some random Tuesday holiday meal trial runs.

I’ve got my special pumpkin cheesecake ready for dessert (priorities) so I decided to move on to main courses.

And since this delicious ham is made in the Instant Pot, it is totally doable after work.

We ate this with a side of butter beans and a small sweet potato tonight for a XO meal on Trim Healthy Mama. You could also serve it with Mac N Cheese Zoodles to keep it an S (Keto/Low Carb) meal.

(Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

Keto Instant Pot Orange Brown Sugar Ham (THM S)

Holidays are busy and often times the main entree can take up a lot of your cook and prep time.

In this recipe, we utilize our Instant Pot to warm our ham and free up that valuable oven space. Here are all the details on creating this easy Keto Instant Pot orange brown sugar ham.

Swerve Sugar Free Ham Glaze

All of the holiday hams that come to mind have that amazing sweet brown sugar glaze. But as a Trim Healthy Mama, I wanted a sugar free variety that delivers that same taste without the guilt.

By using Swerve brown sugar, you get that sweet, syrupy glaze for your ham topping but keep it sugar free. My next obstacle was the orange juice that seems to be in every brown sugar ham recipe.

So we sub the Bai Clementine to give us all the sweet orange flavor but none of the insulin spiking results of regular OJ.

And since you will have a part of the Bai leftover – make sure you make this Orange Creamsicle drink while you are waiting on your ham to cook. It is so good & takes less than a minute to make.

Doubling the Glaze For Bigger Hams

The ham I made tonight was just over 9 lbs. If you have a bigger ham like this, definitely consider making a double batch of glaze.

I made it as written with the larger ham & it works but I think it would have been even better with more glaze. If your ham is 4-6 lbs, the amount of glaze listed in the recipe should be perfect.

Also, my 9+ lb ham fit but just barely! I stuffed it in but I wouldn’t go any bigger than 9lbs because I don’t think it would go.

No Pressure Cooker – Can I Bake the Ham Instead?

Of course! Place the ham in a 9×13 roasting pan and cover it with the water and 2-3 tablespoons of the glaze.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 Degrees for 10-15 minutes per lb. If you go with this method, you will want to boil the glaze ahead of time and get it nice and syrupy.

Baste your ham every 20 minutes or so throughout the cooking process.

Making the Low Carb Instant Pot Holiday Ham

Creating this ham for the holidays (or any day of the week) is easy and worthy of your Thanksgiving or Christmas platter!

What You Need:

4-6 Lb Spiral Cut Ham
Nature’s Hollow Honey Substitute
Bai Orange
Dijon Mustard
Cinnamon
Ground Cloves
Ground Nutmeg

Prepping the Instant Pot

This Keto Instant Pot orange brown sugar ham is a dump and go kind of recipe.

Place the metal trivet into your Instant Pot and insert the ham. I had a ham that was a little over 9 lbs so I really had to stuff it in but it worked.

Add in the cup of water.

Prepare the Sugar Free Ham Glaze

Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl. This is the start of your glaze. Add 2-3 tablespoons on top of your ham and secure the Instant pot cover.

Seal the pot & set a manual pressure for the amount of time that your ham needs to cook. The formula is 2 minutes per lb of ham so if you have a 6 lb ham, set the timer for 12 minutes.

While the ham is cooking, prepare the reserved glaze. Place the glaze mixture into a small saucepan and bring it to a boil on the stove.

Reduce the heat to medium and cook for 3-5 minutes until the mixture is a thicker consistency. Be careful not to let it boil over! Thankfully my hubby caught mine before it made a big mess!

Natural Release/Quick Release

Allow your Instant Pot to naturally release pressure for 5 minutes & then quick release. Remove the ham from the pot & place it on a platter.

Carefully pour the warm glaze in between the slices and any extra over the top of the ham.

Serve immediately (but of course it is also great cold for sandwiches)!

More THM S – Keto Holiday Recipes

Double Layered Pumpkin Cheesecake
Pumpkin Spice Crockpot Almonds
Crockpot Sugar Free Cranberry Sauce

THM Instant Pot Orange Brown Sugar Ham

Servings

Ingredients

4-6 lb Spiral Cut Ham
1 cup water
1/4 cup Nature's Hollow Honey Substitute
2 tbsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 cup Swerve Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Bai Costa Rica Clementine
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Servings

Ingredients

4-6 lb Spiral Cut Ham
1 cup water
1/4 cup Nature's Hollow Honey Substitute
2 tbsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 cup Swerve Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Bai Costa Rica Clementine
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Instructions

Place the unwrapped ham in your Instant pot on top of the trivet & add 1 cup water to the bottom.
In a medium bowl, mix the honey substitute, mustard, brown sugar, Bai, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.
Spoon 2-3 tablespoons of the mixture over your ham & reserve the remaining sauce.
Set the Instant Pot using the manual pressure cook setting & cook the ham for 2 minutes per lb. So a 6 lb ham would cook for 12 minutes.
Allow the pressure to naturally release for 5 minutes and then quick release.
Once the ham is done (while the pressure is naturally releasing), pour the remaining sauce that you reserved into a small saucepan.
Bring the sauce to a boil and then reduce heat to medium. Cook for about 3-5 minutes. The sauce will thicken up.
Remove the ham from the Instant pot & pour the thickened sauce between the slices of the ham.
Serve the ham with your favorite sides.

Unique Father’s Day Gift Featuring A Custom Fragrance

June 9, 2018 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

A unique Father’s Day Gift Featuring A Custom Fragrance

Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.

I just ordered a unique Father’s Day gift for my husband that I wanted to share with you all. We all know that it is tough year after year finding something fun and interesting for the Daddy of your babies! Sometimes it feels like I buy the same grill set or polo shirt year after year. But not this time!

I was actually scrolling through Facebook last weekend and an ad popped up from Hawthorne. Maybe I am living under a rock but I had never heard of that company. The ad intrigued me so I clicked and I am so glad that I did. In just a couple of minutes, a custom fragrance set was on its way just in time for Father’s Day.

How Does It Work?

Head to their website. You will complete a quick profile of your guy. They ask questions about his diet, cocktail of choice, and his work environment. It takes about 5 minutes to fill out the questions, maybe less.

Then Hawthorne presents a set of fragrance options customized to your man for you to choose. There is a “Work” cologne and a “Play” cologne option. You can choose to purchase one or you get a discount if you buy both. I went ahead and tried the combo set that included the Work & Play fragrance set.

Unique Father’s Day Gift – Custom Cologne Set

What’s Inside?

The packaging really added to the product itself. When I opened the brown shipping box, inside was a nice black and white graphic with my husband’s name handwritten inside.

The cologne comes in a black box with a simple white “Hawthorne” logo in the bottom right corner. Once you open that, a note shows that this is a gift from me to him. It also gives a short detail about the makers of his custom scent.

If you turn this card over, the scent profile (from the answers that I provided online) are hand circled.

The sleek black box that holds the cologne bottles opens to reveal both bottles. The bottles are nestled in the box lined in velvet.

The scent is of course the most important part when selecting a fragrance. Buying a fragrance online that I had no experience with was a little scary, but I am so glad I took the plunge. The scents for both are much more than I expected and I think my husband will love it.

The Play is probably my favorite but I like both. The play that we received is a warm scent with just a tiny hint of spicy sweet. The Work is a light and fresh smelling cologne. Both scents are appealing and I think they make a unique and interesting Father’s Day gift.

Do you have a unique Father’s Day gift idea for this year?

Educational Baby Shower Gift With A Unique Twist

April 13, 2018 by Stacy Craft 3 Comments

Giving holiday books is a great baby shower gift that is fun all year round and encourages the many benefits of reading to young kids.

I am in that season of my life where it seems like everyone is having a baby.

With babies come showers and finding the perfect gift. After your 8th baby shower in 2 months, you might be struggling with ideas on what to buy.

With this educational gender neutral baby shower gift, you will be giving a way for Mom to celebrate the baby all year long. The best part is that you can get it delivered right to your door (and not have to pack up your own kids and head to the store – win!).

If you are like me, the love that you have for Pinterest is indescribable. But with that, comes a certain acceptance. I just don’t have time to create some of the elaborate masterpieces on Pinterest – despite how much fun I have pinning them to my boards for one day.

I have come to terms with it (mostly). However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t like giving thoughtful and creative gifts. And if you want to see how to create another holiday inspired baby shower gift, click here.

Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.

Educational Gender Neutral Baby Shower Gift

Here I am going to show you one of my favorite ways to give an educational gender neutral baby shower gift that is also unique, creative and fun. I actually developed this idea from a gift that my friend’s mother in law likes to do with baby clothes. Since I’m a holiday lover and a book lover, this seemed like a great way to extend both of those to a friend expecting a new baby.

Holiday Board Book Set

Gifting books is a great way to give an educational item that provides quality bonding time between baby and the parent. I love to do a holiday set so that the gift is something that can be anticipated all year long creating fun memories. It is such a simple idea that is still creative and easy to purchase. In fact, I do it from my couch!

I like to do the following holidays but you can add more or subtract any that you don’t like or can’t find easily:

Valentine’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day

Easter

4th of July

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Christmas

Baby’s First Birthday

Links by Holiday

The absolute best part of this is that you can create this gift from the comfort of your own home! Amazon makes it so easy to find the holiday books all year long. Here are easy to use links for your educational gender neutral baby shower gift of board books by holiday.

Valentine’s Day:

llama llama I love You

Happy Valentine’s Day Mouse

St. Patrick’s Day:

The Itsy Bitsy Leprechaun

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Curious George

Easter:

Easter Touch & Feel Book

Happy Easter, Mouse

4th of July:

Corduroy’s Fourth of July

Happy Halloween:

Spooky Pookie

Biscuit Visits the Pumpkin Patch

llama llama Trick or Treat

Happy Thanksgiving:

llama llama Gives Thanks

Bright Baby Happy Thanksgiving

Merry Christmas:

Christmas in the Manger

Merry Christmas Touch and Feel Book

Duck & Goose It’s Time for Christmas

First Birthday:

Birthday Monsters

Happy Birthday to You

Baby Touch & Feel Happy Birthday

Inexpensive & Unique Gift – Great for 2nd time Moms

You can easily keep this gift under $30 depending on how many books you include or even less if you do just a couple holidays. This is also a great choice for baby sprinkles (second, third or fourth time moms). You still want to get them a sweet present but they have every baby onesie, receiving blanket and bib known to man. I know in my house, books are always a welcome gift.

Free Printable Gift Tag

I have created a free simple gift tag that you can print for your board book gift. You can punch a hole at the top and simply attach it to a gift bag. For a fun no wrap option, just stack your books together, wrap some cute twine or ribbon around them to secure & attach the gift tag. Your educational gender neutral baby shower gift is now ready to gift to the proud parents and new baby.

What is your favorite holiday board book for baby?

Easy Spring Tray Vignette For the Home with Buying Guide

May 9, 2018 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

Easy Spring Tray Vignette with Online Buying Guide

Decorating is not necessarily my thing. I like doing it but I feel like an amateur at best. But when it comes to decorating for holidays or seasons, I am a pro. Well, a pro in the sense of adding lots of gaudy, bright colored trinkets and holiday signs around the house that my daughter absolutely loves.

I love celebrating with her so I don’t mind too much that we might not make the cover of Southern Living magazine. Lately I have been trying to create one pretty thing for each holiday and season that can bring me joy like the bright orange plastic pumpkins that delight my daughter at Halloween. This month I created an easy spring tray vignette that I have on a counter in my kitchen.

Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.

Simple Spring Tray Vignette Assembly

For this spring tray vignette, I wanted to bring in a fresh green color as my focal point. I did that for two reasons. 1. It reminds me of fresh cut grass and new leaves on the trees that come with springtime. 2. I created a St. Patrick’s Day Vignette a few weeks back and I wanted to reuse some of the items – and you guessed it, there was a lot of green. I like being able to create a fresh decorative area while saving money by re-purposing some on hand items.

Free Buying Guide

Pinterest is awesome until you see something you want to recreated and can’t figure out where to buy the stuff at. I bought everything shown on this spring tray vignette at Hobby Lobby or Amazon. The only exception is the fresh flowers. I got those at our local grocery store, just the cheap $5 bouquet.

Tray – I bought mine at Hobby Lobby and used it in this spring tray vignette and in my St. Patrick’s Day Vignette. However, since they can’t seem to find a cart that will hold a car seat carrier, I totally understand if you prefer Amazon! Here is a tray that is similar in size to mine on Amazon Prime.

Green Vase – Reused this item from the St. Pat’s Vignette. Here is the bottle.

Green Moss Ball – I bought this ball on Amazon & it is was only $5! Prices are always subject to change on Amazon

White Cake Stand with Cloche – what I used to hold the little bird.

Bird – I found one at Hobby Lobby, it fits in the palm of your hand.

Moss in Bird Cloche – I put this moss in the white cake stand so that the bird was sitting on a little nest of moss. You will have a good bit left over since the stand isn’t very big.

Farmhouse Pitcher – I couldn’t find the exact pitcher that I bought but this is an Amazon option – Farmhouse distressed metal pitcher

Flowers – I bought at a grocery store for $5

Books – These were all reused from the St. Patrick’s day Vignette. Sheet Music Book, Antique Book, Small Fancy Green Book.

Total Money Spent

By reusing some things that I saved from the St. Patrick’s Day Vignette and by purchasing the other items on sale, I spent just under $40 to create this spring tray vignette. I am sure I will reuse some of these pieces again for my summer tray that I am planning.

One of the reasons that I like saving money is so that I can afford to play a little more. I love the satisfaction of creating something that I like and finding happiness in looking at it. With delicate fresh daisies in a farmhouse white pitcher – what’s not to like? It just screams happy spring to me.

I even tried it with a Fresh pineapple just for fun but we ended up eating the pineapple so the tall green bottle made its way back on the tray.

What is your guilty decorating pleasure?