Roasted potatoes and sausage.

Hey everyone! It's been to long. I have had a rather busy summer. I had made all these plans to do all these fun DIYs, hair dos, and recipes and to share them with you and then it kind of hit the back burner. Sorry about that. The summer just flew by me, and time just escaped me. One reason for the lack of activity on the Fiery Redhead this summer was that I had an appendicitis. And so I had emergency surgery on a Sunday night and spent the next several weeks recovering at home in bed. I can't tell how much Netflix I watched while stuck in bed. After being released from the doctor a few weeks later, I found that my senior year was fast approaching. And with school comes tennis, which I love, but takes it a lot of my time. So now that my senior year has started and so has my last season of tennis, I find that I am hard pressed on time after practice to make a delicious supper (not only that but I am usually quite tired by the time it is time to make supper). So, I am digging up my favorite type of recipes, the quick and easy ones. And one of the recipes that I happened to dig up and make tonight was roasted sausage and potatoes. The great thing about this recipe is that you can ad lib. You can slice up and add an onion or even peppers, which is what I did tonight. Just add what you think you and your family may like and what you have on hand. Also this recipes can be easily multiplied to make more or even cut in half. It's kind of like a guideline.

To Make This Recipe:

6 potatoes  

Italian sausage or some other similar type of sausage (the sausage in the pictures isa spicy sausage)

Onion, sliced

Pepper(s), sliced

Garlic salt

Oregano

Black Pepper

Olive Oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Chop up the potatoes into 1/2 inch pieces. Place potatoes on a baking sheet sprayed lightly with cooking spray. Cut each link of sausage into small pieces based on your own preference, but I would do about 1/2 inch pieces. Add the sliced vegetables to the potatoes on the baking sheet. Sprinkle seasonings (garlic, oregano, black pepper) on top of the potatoes and vegetables, evenly. Add the sausage to the potatoes and vegetables. Drizzle some olive oil on top the potatoes, vegetables, and sausage. Place in oven and bake about 30 minutes, or until potatoes and sausage are cooked all the way through. Flip the potatoes every so often while baking in the oven. Cooking time varies depending on the size of potatoes and sausage. So just keep an eye on it. 

*fun add in: tomatoes, canned or fresh. 

As you can see this recipes is super easy and quick. And it doesn't have a lot of clean up time. That is a definite bonus. Anyway enough of my rambling. Please enjoy!

Peace, love, bake on.
                              Andrea

Quick and Easy Pizza Crust (Bisquick Pizza Crust)

If you are ever like me, you are sometimes hard on time. And in my family everyone loves pizza and during the summer everyone wants yummy food for lunch. They always ask me for pizza for lunch. And instead going through the trouble of making a complicated time consuming crust for lunch, I usually use this extra easy crust instead for an easy lunch or what ever calls for a crust. It is easy and doesn't require a lot of preparation or time to make. So it fits in perfectly for lunch. 

I have made dessert pizza with this dough and to add a little sweetness to this dough, I just add a tablespoon of sugar to the dough. And when I am in a pinch, I make mini pizzas for the kids to make and decorate on their on for a fun hands on lunch time.

Quick and Easy Crust (Bisquick Pizza Crust)
based on recipe from Tablespoon.com

1 1/2 cups Bisquick
1/3- 2/3 cups hot water

1/4 cup flour to roll dough

Mix Bisquick and hot water together well in a medium sized bowl. Roll dough into desire size and shape. (I can get one 12-inch crust or 3-4 mini crusts)

I know this recipe has helped me in a pinch and I hope it does the same for you. Have an amazing rest of your day and thanks for reading. Enjoy!

 Peace, love, bake on.
                    
                                               Andrea 

Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes

Everyone loves pancakes, right? I do and so does my family. We have them quite regularly because they are a family favorite and also because they are rather simple to make. I had been grasping at straws because while I liked the convenience of a boxed pancake mix there was something missing in flavor. I don't what it was but I found what was missing in this, now loved, pancake recipe. They make perfect fluffy buttermilk pancakes. And of course I want to share this amazing recipe with you. 
This recipe is originally a copycat IHOP pancake recipe. And it comes pretty close. 

Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes
from Mostly Homemade Mom

1 1/4 cup flour 

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

1 egg, beaten

1 1/4 cup buttermilk (I used regular milk with 1 tablespoon + 1/2 teaspoon vinegar as a substitute)

2 tablespoons melted butter

1/4 cup sugar

Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Add egg and buttermilk and mix until well incorporated. Stir in melted butter and sugar. Grease griddle and cook pancakes over medium heat, flipping once bubbles appear on surface of batter. Serve with softened butter and warmed syrup. And enjoy!

                            Peace, love, and cook on.

                                                     Andrea 

Caramel Frappuccino.

           Before the summer was here at my doorstep, I had school. And usually after school, I either hit up the happy hour at Sonic or popped by Starbucks. Usually, though, it was Sonic that I frequented. Starbucks was a special treat that I limited to a once a week thing. When it was quite warm, I would get either get the caramel frappuccino or the Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino, which is a rather new drink available for the summer at Starbucks. The Caramel Ribbon Crunch is most definitely my favorite. After the first sip I took, I was hooked. 

       

 The only thing that I wasn't hooked on was the price. To get a Tall Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino was $4.25 with tax. That's only 12 ounces. To me that is a little pricey. After shelling out the almost $5, I finally had a light bulb shine bright above my head. Why not try to make frappuccino at home? Why I had never even thought of this before is beyond me. But after that light bulb lit up, it was like a whole new world was opened up to me. 

     

        Let's first talk about the basics of frappuccinos. Basically, a frappuccino is ice and milk blended together with syrups and other delicious flavorings. This I knew.  What I didn't know, though, was the ratio of ice to milk. That was my most basic question. 

        The recipe I found was very basic, which was what I liked. It didn't give embellishments so that a reader could be creative on their own. The best ratio of ice to milk I have found is 1 cup of ice to 1/2 cup of milk. This may depend on your taste but this will at least give a place to start.

      Now the next part was the amount of coffee or expresso to add. This I found varied in each recipe I found. So I came up with a happy medium, which I will mention below later. The fun part was finding the syrups to add and the amounts. Of course with a Caramel Frappuccino, you need caramel (duhhh). And with a Chocolate Chip Mocha Frapp.  you need Chocolate chips (duhhh) and coffee. So a lot of the ingredients were self explanatory, but what wasn't was the amount to add. 

    The syrups Starbucks uses are a bit pricey, but you can always use caramel sauce from the grocery store. For the caramel, I make my own and I will be putting the recipe up later. For chocolate syrup, I use the chocolate syrup from Hershey's. For a vanilla syrup, I make my own (which I will be putting up at a later time, too). But you can also just use vanilla extract and a little sugar. For the moment, though, I am just going to put up the recipe up for a Caramel Frappuccino.

   

        Ingredients for a Caramel Frappuccino:

1 cup ice

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup strongly brewed coffee or expresso

3 tablespoons caramel syrup or 2 pumps of Starbucks Caramel Syrup

whip cream (optional)

    Add ice, milk, coffee, and caramel to the blender. Blend together until all the ice completely chopped finely. Put in your favorite cup, add whip cream on top, and drizzle a  little caramel and voila!

As you can see this is so simple to make and so much cheaper. I hope this recipe is as great for you as it is for me! Now sit back and enjoy a cool slurp of your handiwork. 

                                                                       
                                                                                                                          Andrea

A curly do.

Hello everyone! It's been much to long since I have updated anything. I have been super busy with so many wonderful things. One of these wonderful things was prom, I recently had prom, and for my prom I did my hair and three of my friends' hair (which was a lot). And then I styled four more people's hair for a different prom which was 2 weeks after mine. With that alone I have kept busy. But on top of that the school year is starting to wind down (thank goodness!), and with that happening teachers are piling the homework on to us and I am having difficulties with trigonometry which does not help the situation. And about 3 weeks ago, the play which I had been working on for 2 or 3 months was finally over with which was bitter sweet (mostly sweet, though). To make things even better I have this cold or something which is just peachy. And with this cold, I have a solo in my choir concert this week, hopefully I will be better by then (fingers crossed!).

But since the prom season for me is finally over with, I wanted to make a new post. And this new post is about a curly hair style  I did on my sister's hair. She has amazing long soft hair and is just so much fun to play with but she doesn't let me do so very often. But when she does it is like opening presents on Christmas morning (slightly exaggerated). This hairstyle that you will see was for a formal 8th grader thing at her grade school. It was so pretty!

To do this curly do you will need:

• 1/2 inch- 3/4 inch curling iron. Or if you have a curling wand that will work to. (I didn't use a curling wand because mine was broken, so instead just wrap the hair around the barrel of a normal curling iron and don't use the clip)
• bobby pins
• flower or some other cute hair accessory 
• hair spray and a heat protectant (to keep from getting damaged from heat)
• comb to tease hair
• clips to section hair

To do this hairstyle:

1. First start by sectioning the hair to curl. I just did a standard section by doing the bottom section first and then a middle section and so on.
2. Next get a piece of hair 1/2 to 1 inch thick. It depends on how big and thick you want the curls to be. I did most of mine about 1/2 inch thick. 
3. After getting a piece of hair wrap the hair around the barrel. Leave it on the barrel for 10- 30 seconds and this to depends on how hot your curling iron is. Make sure not to leave it on there for to long. 
4. Continue doing this until you have done this to all the hair. Make sure to hair spray your hair after each section or spray after curling it all.
5. After curling all the hair, comb back from the top your head to the crown. Then tease the hair near the crown to give the hair some volume. 
6. The hair that you just combed back and teased at the crown pin back with bobby pins at the back of the head in the middle. Make sure that on each side you take about the same amount so it looks even. Also make sure hair in front of the ears is pinned back with it. 
7. After sufficiently bobby pinning, put the flower or other hair accessory in the middle where the bobby pins are. I placed mine right over the bobby pins so that the pins could not be seen. 
8. Spray hair once more with hair spray with good measure.

And voila you are done!

... It's that easy. And rather adorable. Hope my instruction weren't unbearable and weren't to confusing. Remember have fun!

                                                                          Andrea 

Quick and easy brownies.

Ever in a hurry and craving something chocolaty? Well, I do on occasion. On such occasions, I may have made these quick and easy brownies. These brownies always hit the spot. The great things about brownies are that they are chocolaty, gooey, and most usually everybody loves them. In my family, they never last more than a day. The other day I made these to go with some homemade chocolate ice cream that I made. 

To make these brownies you will need:

• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup walnut halves (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9 x 13 pan.
2. Melt butter. Then mix all ingredients in the order given.
3. Pour into greased 9 x 13 baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes.

Optional: sprinkle a little powder sugar on top for an extra touch.

** I sometimes use a sheet cake pan, instead of a  9 x 13, though you must adjust the time.

As always enjoy.

Peace, love, bake on.

                                   Andrea

 I found the original recipes here, but I made a few changes to make it my own.

Hairs ideas for PROM-- Part II

Hey everyone! So I promised another post devoted to Prom hairstyles, and I intend to follow through. I have  just been so busy. Among fighting sickness, getting lines memorized, and getting songs down and memorized, I almost forgot about it. To say the least I keep busy, usually. 

So if your prom isn't already here or isn't around the corner, it will be soon. It comes faster than you think. Time really flies by. 

So I have a friend that asked me to help her find a hairstyle for prom for her hair. She has short brown gorgeous hair. She has a strapless gown, so she wants her to be down. And so I had a mission, and on my mission I found that a lot of hair style were similar, especially when  they were hairstyles that were down loose instead of up in an up-do or something. But I learned after realizing that it all depends on the technique in which you style and prep your hair.

So I wanted to give some ideas and pictures to show you some different ideas for short curly hairstyles.

This hair style is super cute and fun. To do this hairstyle, you could either use a 1/2 curling iron or 3/4 inch curling iron. Depends on how short you hair. I can't guarantee the same results, but it should be the type of curl. Here is a good hair tutorial for this type of hairstyle. Looking on YouTube for tutorial is a good source to help you curl your hair.  This would be great if you want something care free and bouncy. 

This hairstyle is very vintage but screams classy! Personally, if I had short hair this is how I would always wear my hair. I feel like it is a timeless hair style. I found a couple great tutorials that I have to share with you because they each go at it with a different technique but they are each so pretty. Here is the first one, my favorite, I think. Another one you find HERE, is also really good. And the last two that I also love are HERE and HERE. I am sure there are even more great ones that are on YouTube, but these are the ones that stood out to me the most. 

There are two other prom hairstyles I found but couldn't find good pictures to depict them. So I am just going to direct you to tutorials. The first is curling you hair with a flat iron. It would give you a unique curl, and you can find a good YouTube tutorial here. It even shows you how to add volume. BONUS! Last but certainly now least, I found this super chic hairstyle tutorial that I just have to share, and you can find it right here. I love it.

All these hairstyles would be great for prom, you just have to dress them up, add volume and a flower or a different accessory. You could even try to incorporate braids. I love braids. And they always look cute. For example you could curl your hair and then do a water fall braid. Just in case you don't know what or how to do a waterfall braid, so here is one that'll teach the basics.  

Those are some ideas, and now just run with it. Be creative. Thanks!

                                                                   Andrea