Go Ahead and Buy that No Touch Soap Dispenser

Been holding off buying one of these, because the refills are so ridiculously priced?  No problem, refill them!

My 64 oz. soap cost $4.99.  Those refills hold 8.5 oz for $4.99.  One of these big guys will refill 10 of the small ones.  That's a savings of $4.50 each!  And that is if you use the soap at full strength!  I often water it down, because it dispenses too much soap for a single handwashing, especially if most of the handwashing is done by kids.  I use about 1/3 - 1/4 water.  It still feels nice and thick, but its thin enough for the kids.

You will need your empty refill container, soap of your choosing, and one of these cheapo condiment squirt bottles.  Please have a dedicated bottle for this, and don't use ones you've used for food.  Fill up your squirt bottle with soap, and pop it into the top of the refill container.  You will defeat the valve temporarily with the nozzle.

Fill it up to the bottom of the colored cap, and pop it on your dispenser!

Linking up!!

Make Your Own Bisquick One Picture Post

Linking up!

Thanksgiving Treats-- A Pinterest I made it!

Source: ourbestbites.com via Paulette on Pinterest

Inspiration and realization!  These looked pretty easy, and fun for Melissa's class party.  20 turkeys it is!!

I used one regular sized container of regular oreos, and there were just enough for this.  Your results may vary, since they're packaged by weight.

Each Turkey requires:
2 oreo cookies
1 mini peanut butter cup
1 whopper
6 candy corns
Chocolate Icing

You'll want to add the candy corns to the tail first.  I did end up breaking a few of the cookies, and had to "glue" them back together with the chocolate icing.  If you do break them, put that broken part towards the back.  :)

Peel all of your mini peanut butter cups.  The easiest way I found was to remove the foil, and freeze them.  After frozen, remove the paper so the cups stay nice and pretty.

After they have been peeled, remove a small portion so that they will lay flat on the cookie.  Then attach your whopper to the opposite end and the candy corn beak to the whopper.  The original picture shows a shorter beak, but I was being lazy and didn't cut them.  I think they look fine as is.

 You can now attach the body to the cookie!  I added a little turkey waddle with a piece of fruit roll up!  Add your eyes and feet now if you like.  I didn't add them because the 5 year old were just going to eat them as is anyway.  It took me at least an hour to make 20 of these buggers.

Cinnamon Glazed Pretzels -- A Pinterest I made it!

Source: organizeyourstuffnow.com via Paulette on Pinterest

I was inspired by this pin of Cinnamon Pretzels.  I was doing some last minute teacher gifts, and thought that they would be super easy to make.  I had a bag of Dollar Store pretzels in the cabinet, so it was working out to be an easy and fast gift!

The original recipe is:

2/3 Cup Vegetable Oil
1/2 Cup Sugar
2 teaspoons ground Cinnamon
1 16-ounce package Small Pretzels

Combine Oil, Sugar and Cinnamon in a pan and add pretzels to coat.  Bake 30 minutes at 300°F  Cool on waxed paper.

Okay, people, seriously they came out so bad that I threw them away and didn't take a picture!  The sugar did not stick to the pretzels at all.  I started doing some looking online, and found that this was a common problem with this particular recipe.

Back to the drawing table!

I was then thinking about those lovely cinnamon glazed almonds.  Those seemed to have the cinnamon sugar stick to them.  So I found another recipe.

Source: getoffyourbuttandbake.com via Paulette on Pinterest

1/3 cup butter
 2 egg whites, at room temperature
Pinch of salt
 1 cup sugar
 4 cups whole natural almonds
4 teaspoons cinnamon

1 Tablespoon pure vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a large cookie sheet, and set aside. In microwave safe dish, melt butter. Set aside. Meanwhile, beat egg whites with salt until very frothy; gradually (very slowly) add sugar, beating to stiff peaks. Gently fold in almonds and cinnamon. Pour melted butter & 1 Tablespoon Vanilla into almond mixture, and fold in. Pour mixture onto pan, and spread out evenly on greased baking sheet. Bake about 30 minutes, tossing every 10 minutes, until glazing mixture has set up around almonds. Do not wait until the glaze is totally dry. Let cool, then store cooled nuts in sealed container.

*Don't panic if they glaze mixture hasn't stayed in stiff peaks. If will work just fine!

But I am not going to crack open some eggs just for the egg whites.  Sorry, I'm too lazy for that.

My recipe was this:

1/3 Cup Oil

1 Tbsp. Cinnamon

1 Cup Sugar

4 Tbsp. Water **

4 tsp. Meringue Powder **

1 16 oz. Bag of Pretzels

**Meringue Powder and Water are substitutes for 2 egg whites.  Feel free to use egg whites if you like.**

Combine the oil, cinnamon, sugar, water and meringue power.  Toss with pretzels, and bake at 300° for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Since I packed every single one of these up for the class party and teacher gifts, I will have to add the picture later, but I promise they look exactly like those almonds but on pretzels.  They were delicious!  I am definitely going to be making more for my Festivus Party!

*****Edited to add picture*****