Nifty Thrifty Weekend!

Mom and I were busy busy this past Saturday! We hit up 3 estate sales and our local Waterfront Rescue Mission. We didn't find a ton of things, but we did score a few fun items! :)

At the first estate sale, I scored 2 ceramic owls. They were hidden on the back porch on a wall behind a pile of junk. They were actually attached to some nasty dry rotted macrame, which I quickly cut off with a handy knife I found in the kitchen at that home. haha :) They weren't priced, but they let me have them for $1 each. SOLD! :)

I also got this cute little brass "thing". I'm not really sure what to call it. It's so tiny (about 3 inches tall),  and I don't really know what it would be used for. It looks like it has India on the bottom of it, which is cool. And it was only 25 cents, so I knew I had to have it. :)

We also scored this cute milk glass ashtray for only $2. It would be really cute as a jewelry dish by the sink, or even for pins in a sewing room.

This house was super cute, and fixed up, it would be such a wonderful little home. It just needs a lot of love and clorox!! ;) But honestly, the junkiest/dirtiest houses are the ones I always find the best treasures in!!  I almost bought this piece of furniture for only $45, but ended up changing my mind because I'm not really sure where I would put it.  It would be so cute painted a bright color and then glazed!!

The next sale was in the same neighborhood, and they had basically already sold most everything. So we did a quick scan and moved onto the next place. They had some nice stuff there so that's why most of it sold Friday and then early Saturday morning.

The last sale we hit was in downtown Pensacola in this CUTE little house. The blue retro kitchen looked original to the house, and the vintage double oven in the wall was ADORABLE! I LOVED this house. :) It only had one bathroom though! ha   But it had a great backyard, and was on a corner lot, so for downtown, they had a TON of space. We scored a sewing basket full of various goodies for only $5. Everything was originally marked separately, but I guess they put it all together on the last day, so we snatched that up first thing. The basket had 3 vintage patterns, lace trim, 2 full baggie of buttons, an old measuring tape, lots of crochet hooks, a few thimbles, and lots of other notions.  Plus, the basket itself is cute too!

I also found a little plastic box full of wooden spools that wasn't priced. They let me have it for $1. YAY! :) More to add to my collection!  There were about 22 spools of thread in there!

 And the last thing I found was a cute set of 4 dinner napkins or handkerchiefs for $1. Mom says they are handkerchiefs and I say they are napkins, but I'm not really sure what they are. But they are super soft and so colorful. They were hidden in the bottom of a basket filled with ugly things. haha :) I'm glad I dug them out.

I also loved these 2 pieces of furniture, but by the time we got there the larger chest was already gone, and the smaller chest had a sold sign on it!

Mom laughs about the fact that I dig through houses the way I do.  Some of the houses aren't exactly clean, and she said she's waiting on something to crawl out on me one day.  haha :)  But that's ok, I don't mind creepy crawlies as long as I find a treasure!!

So overall we spent $12.09 and got 2 ceramic owls, 1 brass "thingy", milk glass ash tray, sewing basket full of sewing notions/patterns/buttons, box of wooden spools, and 4 dinner napkins/handkerchiefs.  I think we did pretty good.

Our last stop was to Waterfront Mission (after yummy lunch at Ruby Tuesday).  We didn't find anything there, but honestly they are hit or miss.  You never know what you'll find there.  And you really need to go several times a week, if not everyday, to find something.  We think they were probably low on furniture right now because all the college kids have been scooping up the deals for their apartments and dorms. :) But I'll keep checking back.

Did y'all do anything thrifting this weekend? If so I'd love to see what treasures you found?

This weekend, we're off to Moible for the Olde Mobile Antiques Gallergy August Sale! :) I can't wait to see what treasures we find there!!  I'll post Sunday about our adventures there!

I'm linking up at:

Nutella Cheesecake was a HIT!

Last night we took the Nutella cheesecake over to Adam's parent's house and it was an instant hit!  It only got to cool in the fridge for about 2 hours though, so it was actually better tonight than it was yesterday!

I forgot to get any pictures of it before everyone dug in. haha  But here is all that was left after we ate and Adam's Mom kept a big chunk. (I think they liked it.) :)  Adam did a great job on it, but there are a few things we decided we would do differently the next time we make it.

So here is the recipe again, but this time with our changes noted. :) Enjoy!!

Nutella Cheesecake Layer Bars
Modified receipe from The Moonlight Baker

Ingredients:

- 8 Chocolate Graham Crackers
- ½ Stick Unsalted Butter, melted
- 16 oz. Cream Cheese, at room temperature
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- ½ C. Granulated Sugar
- ¼ + 1 Tbsp. Heavy Cream
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- ¼ C. Nutella (next time we'll use at least 1 cup)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Butter an 8 x 8 baking pan and line with parchment paper, making sure that the parchment is well pressed in the corners. Set aside. (We won't butter the pan the next time, it made the parchment paper nasty and greasy underneath everything.)

In a food processor, pulse chocolate graham crackers until they become crumbs (like bread crumbs). Add in melted butter and pulse until moistened. Press graham cracker mixture evenly into the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Bake crust in the center of the oven until set, about 12 minutes. Set aside and cool.

Clean out the food processor. Add cream cheese, eggs, sugar, ¼ C. heavy cream, and vanilla extract. Pulse until smooth. Put 2/3 (Next time we will half it) of the cream cheese mixture in a bowl and set aside. Add Nutella and 1 Tbsp. of heavy cream to remaining 1/3 (Next time we will half it) of the cream cheese mixture in the processor. Pulse until smooth. (We didn't use a food processor for this.  Adam used our hand mixer and it mixed up just fine.  Also, we will use WAY MORE Nutella next time.  The regular cheesecake layer was kind of strong and overpowered the chocolate portion.  So we'll probably use a cup of Nutella next time, maybe more! And we'll split the cream cheese mixture evenly too!)

To assemble, spread the vanilla cheesecake mixture over the cooled graham cracker base, being careful not to disturb the crust. Pour Nutella cheesecake layer on top of vanilla layer and spread evenly. Bake on the center rack of the oven for about 35 minutes (Adam baked the one we made maybe 5-10 minutes longer, not sure if this made any difference or not), or until the center jiggles slightly. Remove from the oven and cool completely on a cooling rack. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours. (It needs to sit longer than 3 hours for the flavors to come out. It was SO MUCH better tonight!)

When ready to serve, lift bars out of the pan by lifting up the parchment paper (it should release easily). Slice into 16 squares and serve. (It really did make 16 cute little squares, which was nice so that everyone had several pieces to enjoy.)

I actually don't care for cheesecake, but I liked the crust and the Nutella portion of it.  Everyone else (who enjoys cheesecake) liked all of it.  But we all agreed more Nutella wouldn't hurt. :) You can see in the picture below that the regular cheesecake layer was bigger than the Nutella layer, so next time we'll make sure it's even, and adding more Nutella should give it a more chocolately flavor. :)

What's for dinner this week? 8/1/2011

Since we didn't get to go over to Adam's parent's house last week to celebrate his Dad's birthday, we're going over tonight!!  Adam is off today, so he volunteered to make the Nutella cheesecake!  I can't wait to see how it turns out.  I'll make sure to post tomorrow with the results!! :)

Anyways, so this week we're eating lots of veggies and lean proteins to get back into cooking every night again. The easiest meals for me are ones that include some kind of chicken, turkey or pork and then veggies. When we're in a rush we use Birds Eye SteamFresh Veggies. (They even have plain brown rice that can be steamed!) Publix has them 50% off quite often, and they don't have hardly any sodium in them, if any, so these are our go to quick meal items. Our favorites are the Asparagus, Gold & White Corn, Baby Carrots Mix, the Whole Grain Brown Rice, and Broccoli Florets and the Brown and Wild Rice with Broccoli and Carrots. The photo below will take you right to their site so you can see all the great products!!

Photo from Birds Eye Foods website.

Ok, onto the food for this week! :)

Monday: Leftovers from the weekend (Since we're going to Adam's parent's house we ate quick!) :)

Tuesday:  Oven Baked Salmon, Asparagus, and Brown Rice

Wednesday:  BBQ Chicken, Corn on the Cob, and Salad

Thursday:  Extra lean Ground Turkey Tacos with black beans for me and homemade salsa for us both

Friday:  Steaks on the grill, Baked Sweet Potato Fries, and Grilled Asparagus wrapped in Prosciutto

Source: thatkindofwoman.tumblr.com via Beth on Pinterest