The Midwest has enjoyed loose meat sandwiches since the 1920s. Maid-Rite served the first one in Iowa in 1926 and our family favorite diner in Ottumwa, IA, Canteen Lunch In The Alley, is still serving them today. They were made famous the country over by Roseanne Barr. Not only is this not a new concept or recipe, there are so many different recipes for loose meat sandwiches that you could get lost in google links for days! So what I’m highlighting here is that this is a kid-friendly, kid-approved meal. This is one of ChefBoy’s favorite meals!

I laid out a package of hamburger this afternoon but wasn’t sure what I was in the mood to cook with it (this is where menu planning often fails me!) and so ignored it for hours! Suddenly, everyone was hungry. So I asked ChefBoy if he would walk down to the convenience store and pick up a package of hamburger buns while I started some loose meat sandwich meat. He said, and I quote, “If you’ll drive me down there, I’ll cook it.” Ummm… I grabbed the keys quickly… before he could change his mind! Of course we had to pick up some chocolate ice cream to make chocolate shakes with, and barbeque chips!

ChefBoy put the 1.25 pounds of hamburger on to cook…

threw in dried onion and garlic and seasoned with seasoned salt. It took him right at about five minutes. He also drained it (after he found where I moved the colander to). I was first in line (as I only am when I’m not the one cooking) and prepared my plate.

I used barbeque sauce because that’s what I was in the mood for. I think Clint used Miracle Whip and ChefBoy BBQ sauce as well. At Canteen, you can have mustard or ketchup; and then you can have cheese (which is like cheeze whiz), onions, pickles, and extra salt. You can order any combination, but those are your only options. And still, people flock there from all over the world! Now I have no idea what their recipe is, I think it has mustard and vinegar in it, but the point here is that it doesn’t really matter. If you make the meat your way, you’re gonna love it!

We had lettuce, tomato, pickles, fresh onions and other stuff we would normally put on a burger, but none of us chose to. These are just awesome the way they are! Let your kids and/or family and friends decide for themselves what they want to top them with! The loose meat sandwiches you get at the Canteen are also very, very greasy! That’s a lot of the appeal. They wrap the sandwich in wax paper to serve it. We choose to drain our meat, but that’s because we still try to eat 80% healthy so the other 20% can be oh so bad for us!

I scooped my meat on my bun and yes, it looks like a sloppy joe without the sloppy joe sauce!

Then I piled my plate with BBQ flavored chips and made myself a chocolate shake. Eating out at home!!

P.S. In case you’re wondering, I scoop up the fallen meat with my chips!!! I have the cleanest plate in the house LOL

I love the Amish Community! Besides having great respect for their simple and plain lifestyle, they have some of the best and cheapest foods around these parts! I try to get up that way at least two or three times a month in the summer and have yet to visit at all in the winter. But no matter how many times I go, I always have to pick up the blueberry muffin mix for ChefBoy. We’ve tried a few other “name brand” type muffin mixes, but none have the right consistency of blueberry that we get with the Amish bulk mix. Now, I love these muffins too, but they are really sweet and almost too light and moist for me. I know, everyone wants that in a muffin. Well, I like my muffins denser and drier than cupcakes. I can’t help it.

I’ve been trying to doctor these muffins up for a couple of years now, but nothing I’ve tried is as good as just adding water. I’ve used applesauce in place of the water and those were pretty tasty, but still too moist for me. So, this morning I juiced pineapple, orange and grapefruit. It made a lot of juice but not a lot of pulp. After drinking our fill, there was still almost a full cup left. And I thought, hmmmm… I could make those blueberry muffins with my juice… and hey, I could put a little of the pulp in there and surely that would add the density I so desire in a muffin!

So I gathered all my ingredients. Since this was an experiment, I figured I better make them both ways!

Now the package of Amish Blueberry Muffin Mix simply says, “1 cup cold water, 2 cups mix”. That’s it. No other instructions! I had to google how long to bake muffins way back when I first bought this mix! As you can see, I just am not a stickler for those measurements! I stuck my cup into the bag, drug it through the mix to fill, packed it in using the bag as a guide with my other hand and this was a cup of mix.

Two cups of mix and one cup of cold water mixed until moistened.

Then I literally use an ice cream scoop to spoon the batter into the muffin tins. It took about one and a half scoops in each muffin cup. I set those aside to make my Orange Blueberry Muffins.

Again, I used two cups of the mix but instead of water, I used the leftover juice from breakfast and added about two tablespoons of the pulp.

The batter was much thicker and drier…

And there seemed to be a little less batter… I used one full ice cream scoop for each muffin cup and then used my rubber scraper to divide what little batter was left in the bowl.

I baked both tins at the same time in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Then I slathered them with butter… ‘cuz that’s just how I am. I don’t care how skinny, fat-free, or healthy a baked good should, would, or could be, I am gonna put butter on it!!!

Contrasting Muffins on the outside…

Contrasting Muffins on the inside

ChefBoy didn’t really like the orange muffins, but I loved them! The citrus juice really cut the sweetness and added another layer of flavor to the muffins. They were still too moist for my muffin preference, but oftentimes the taste is all that matters! I will make these again!

Last night I was craving soup and I am doing a no carb cleanse this week so I decided I would try my hand at throwing something together. I decided to make a No Carb Mexican Style Stew!

It turned out to be amazing and my husband, who is NOT a stew/soup lover, absolutely loved it!

This No Carb Mexican Style Stew was literally a throw together from scratch meal, but I did remember to take photos so I could share it with you all. You could substitute or eliminate any of the vegetables that you want. These were all items I had already. Mixed all together they made this amazing guilt free No Carb Mexican Style Stew.

Ingredients:

8 Frozen Chicken Tenderloins

3 Small Packages Chorizo Sausage

16oz of Chicken Broth

2 Cubes of Knorr Chicken Bullion

1 Zucchini

1 Yellow Squash

1/2 cup of Shredded Carrots

1 Jalapeno

1/2 Head of Cabbage

1 Can of Rotel Original Tomatoes

1 White Onion

Cilantro

2-3 Avocados

2 Tbls Lime Juice

2 Fresh Limes

Salt/Pepper/Lowery Seasoning Salt all to Taste

Directions:

Start a large pot to boil with Chicken Broth, Bouillon and Chicken Tenderloins. Let this come to a rapid boil cooking the chicken.

Get a large bowl and add in your sliced Carrots. Dice the Zucchini and Yellow Squash and add them to your bowl.

Chop your Cilantro, Jalapeno and onion. Add lime juice and add all these ingredients in to the bowl. I use a mini chopper for this. I filled it full of fresh Cilantro and chopped that. Added a cut up de-seeded Jalapeno and lime Juice and chopped that all up finely. I then cut up the onion and added it to the chopper and chopped it finely as well.

Add Rotel tomatoes to the bowl. Cut Cabbage in to small chunks and add to bowl.

Stir all the ingredients in the bowl together well.

Take three small packages of Chorizo Sausage, cut them open and add them to a small pan and cook thoroughly until done.

Keep the broth on a low boil and remove the chicken to shred it. (I use my Kitchen Aid mixer for this and it works amazing!)

Once the Chorizo is fully cooked add it to the shredded chicken and mix well. Set aside.

Dice up a couple of Avocados and set aside in refrigerator.

Cut up the limes and set aside.

Add all the vegetables into the broth and bring to a boil. Let boil at a slow to medium boil for about 45 minutes to an hour. Check regularly and add salt,pepper and Lowery Seasoning to taste.

When you are ready to serve this amazing guilt free No Carb Mexican Style Stew, dish out the mixed meat into each bowl. Add in your vegetables and broth.

Top with Avocado and Fresh Squeezed lime.

And there you have it! A FABULOUS No Carb Mexican Style Stew! Enjoy!

When we bought our home, affectionately called The Hartness Ranch, we bought it knowing we would spend years working on it. Sometimes it seems like once we get one room done another one is right behind it. A couple of weeks ago we decided to do a quick weekend dining room renovation!

After we painted the hardwood floors in the laundry room and kitchen the next logical room was the dining room since it is adjacent to the kitchen.  Our dining room is also the center room to the entire house with the living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom coming directly off of it. There are five doorways in our dining room. Yes, five! That makes it an odd room to put it mildly.

The inspiration for doing a quick weekend dining room renovation on this room was of course to paint the floors, but also because this room was in desperate need of a make over. Being the center room in the house it gets walked through and banged up more than most. It had not been painted in nine years so it was time for a weekend dining room renovation!

We have also been slowly over the years trying to remove the popcorn-ish ceilings in our house. I think they were intended to be popcorn ceilings, but whoever did it was not great at it and so it looked horrible. To remove it entails renting this big sander machine and sanding it down to a reasonable texture. We have done this is several rooms already and it has made a huge improvement. Thankfully we only have a couple more rooms to go to be completed with sanding the ceilings.

Thanks to my amazing husband the ceilings were sanded in no time and we began painting the ceilings and the walls. We have chosen a color called Canyon Cloud from Home Depot to paint most of the rooms in the house. Since we were doing a quick weekend dining room renovation we decided to leave the wallpaper on the one wall that it was already on. We both still like it and it was still in good condition. We taped around it before painting.

We decided to paint the trim and doors black. The trim in the kitchen is black as well and I wanted to carry it into the dining room. It was easier since we had to paint the trim and the floors to remove the baseboard trim. I had that up in about five minutes and I am glad I decided to take it up because I am awful at painting trim when it is on the wall. I painted all the base board trim outside and we nailed it back on when we were done. The doors took me close to forever to finish. It took something like four coats to cover them, but when they were done they look Oh So Good!

Once the walls and trim were painted it was on to the floors. Brandon had sanded the floors with the big sander when he was doing the ceilings so that made my job a whole lot easier. I got the floors all cleaned up and began applying the paint.

If you have not read my blog yet about Painted Hardwood Floors go and take a look at that for the info on what paint we used and see the beginning of the floor project.

I put four coats of paint on this floor since it is the most heavily traveled room in our house. Since we were doing this as a weekend dining room renovation I was up very late !

I had a few pieces of furniture for this room that I needed to do some refinishing/distressing on before we put them back in. So I got to work on those.

The table has six chairs two of one kind and four of another. I was able to get two of them done, but I still have to complete the other four.

I had an old dresser that a friend of mine gave me about a year ago. I was using it as a buffet, but I had always planned on painting it. Another friend of mine recently gave me an extremely nice upper cabinet and so I painted these two pieces to match. I was in a hurry so I did not get as many photos as I should have, but this should give you an idea.

I used sample paints from Lowes and applied them with a brush on all these pieces. I taped off what I did not want to paint and I just brushed several coats of several colors on these pieces. Once dry, I then sanded them down to my desired distressed look and the applied distressing glaze all over the pieces. The dresser had a drawer that was very broken. Instead of fixing the drawer I removed two drawers from the middle of the piece and will put baskets there. I was also able to take the hardware off the two unused drawers and use them on the upper cabinet to make it look like these pieces went together. Not only did the piece come out great, especially for a rush job, but now I have a fabulous piece that holds great sentiment to me since two of my dearest friends contributed to it.

Once I had these pieces finished we were able to start putting things back into the room.

I have always had a lot of sentimental items in this room. Some of my very favorite things. The Norman Rockwell Paintings were my Grandfathers that hung in his room for many years. The painting over the fireplace was one that hung in my other Grandparents house for several decades. My mother made the curtains for me when we first moved into the house. A dear friend of ours made the wine holder for me out of a pallet. The document hanging on the wall under the scripture is our sons adoption certificate. There are also countless serving dishes, glasses, and dinnerware in the two cabinets passed down from both sides of my family. The new cabinet made from the two pieces my friends gave me fit right in.  The black china cabinet was a thrift I found many years ago for $40.00. The table I also found at a thrift and Brandon and I painted it. The four black chairs are from the table my parents had at our breakfast table while I was growing up.

The dining room came out great and we are very pleased with it. It was a quick 3 day weekend dining room renovation and we still have a few things to do still yet, but all in all it came out really well!

I’m a lover of strawberry shortcake!! It is my favorite dessert. I love cheesecake, but I love strawberry shortcake more! I’m always looking for different ways to make it, like Amanda’s Strawberry Shortcake Dessert Recipe… yum!!

So I’ve seen recipes for homemade shortcake, but I love the packaged cakes from the store because they soak up the juice from the strawberries and just melt in my mouth! But then I saw a recipe on Six Sister’s Stuff for a Luscious Lemon Cake and it took two ingredients and they paired it with strawberries… SOLD!!

Then I looked for different ideas for the strawberries. I’ve always just added sugar and let them sit. I found a site that said use balsamic vinegar and fresh basil. I’d heard of the vinegar in strawberries and there a ton of recipes out there that use them, but the fresh basil was new, so I thought, why not?

So my cast of characters for this went from a 2-ingredient lemon cake to a 7-ingredient experiment! I am also including my cooking spray in the picture but not in the ingredient count… hmmm… why am I even counting? I don’t know!!

While this is a picture of me dumping the cake into the bowl, it’s really just included to show off that bowl. I am a lover and collector of pyrex and these cinderella bowls just tickle me pink… and aqua!!

Yup, I’m dumping the lemon pie filling in… but showing off the bowl!

This was my first time ever using an angel food cake mix for anything! I was quite surprised by the powdered sugar like consistency! As I started stirring, I was beginning to wonder if the two would ever become some sort of batter!

I was actually being very gentle with this and sort of folding the pie filling into the cake mix. It did start to combine, so I just kept patiently folding…

This is a lemon cake, but I gotta tell ya, the batter was really like a bread dough. It was very airy. I’m glad I was gentle with the mixing and would recommend you to be also!

I was even gentle while getting it into the cake pan!

I had to spread it into the pan like frosting and it was difficult to keep it level! I put it into a preheated 350 degree oven and set the timer for 20 minutes.

Then I began preparing my strawberries. I rinsed them for a while under cold water and then sliced the greens off the top…

I cut away any bruising or mushy parts and then cut the remainder into bit sized pieces.

Two pints ended up being almost 8 cups of strawberries.

I was going to use 1/3 cups of sugar, but couldn’t find that measuring cup. When it came time to put the sugar in, I grabbed the 2/3 cup and filled it… then I dumped it in without thinking. (I won’t use that much sugar ever again, but I wasn’t going to let my berries go to waste!!)

And then I added 1 teaspoon of vanilla. I will put 1 tablespoon in the recipe because the teaspoon was not enough!

While stirring in the sugar and vanilla, I apply a bit of pressure to the berries to get the juices flowing…

and it doesn’t take long before the berries look glazed and there’s an awesome sugary, strawberry flavored juice in the bowl!

I believe the shortcake came out of the oven right about the time I was finished cutting up the berries. It looked perfect and had a little spring in it when I tested it with my finger!

Here’s where the experiment came in. I love strawberry shortcake! I didn’t know if I’d like balsamic vinegar and basil strawberries, so I decided to just add a little fresh basil that I cut with my kitchen shears and about 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar into a small bowl of the glazed strawberries. Regretfully, I didn’t let it sit very long… I just had to know what it would tast like. Ummm… I didn’t like it. The basil was too much.

It sure was pretty though!

The green was awesome and I couldn’t wait to take a bite! But, again… not my cup of tea! I probably should have let Clint try it, but I didn’t.

Instead I plated the plain strawberries and lemon shortcake…

and ate the whole thing!! Then I plated another to take to Clint who ate the whole thing! Yes, the whipped topping was missing! I didn’t buy any Cool Whip because I was going to get raw milk from the Amish and make my own… that didn’t work. But I don’t care! I love strawberry shortcake, it’s my favorite dessert (did I say that already??).

I made these Chocolate Ricotta Muffins before Christmas last year and have been meaning to make them again ever since. I finally bought the ricotta cheese and decided it was now or never!

The recipe says it makes 16 regular sized muffins. Well, I have no idea what a regular size muffin is, but I have these muffin tins (2 of them) and I knew I only wanted the batter to make twelve muffins because I don’t want to have to wash a pan to restart more muffins. That’s called lazy, and that’s just how I am!!!

This muffin is basically made in two parts; dry and wet; and then combined. The directions start with the wet ingredients, but I started with the dry. Why? I’m not really sure, but I think it’s because I didn’t want the milk sitting out. That’s my story…

The original recipe calls for “Dutch Cocoa” because of the flavor and texture, but I don’t have any, so I used regular cocoa. I used regular cocoa last time too and they were awesome. It does say “sifted” so I tried my best to knock out the chunks.

That didn’t work real well, so I just added the flour and sifted with my fork again… a little better! I was getting some air in there.

Then I added the sugar and baking powder.

A whisk would have done a better job, and I’m going to quit complaining and go buy one very soon! However, the dry ingredients look very light and fluffy for dry ingredients!

Then I gathered my wet ingredients. I used half and half because I was out of milk and I’ve been on an iced coffee binge. Everything else was just as the recipe called for.

I started by creaming the ricotta cheese and then adding each egg separately. While the mixer was creaming, I added the vanilla and half-and-half and then the melted butter.

It was a bit wetter than I remember…

and looked a little like chocolate milk as it flowed through the hills and valleys of the flour mixture!

Now the directions clearly say to be careful mixing the batter because if you mess with it too much, the muffins will be tough and dry. I would love to say I stirred until just moistened, but I got carried away and forgot to stop at just moistened.

I proceeded anyway… I’m cheap as well as lazy, so I wasn’t starting over!! I slather EVERYTHING in butter anyway, so I knew they would get eaten!

I used two ice cream scoops of batter per muffin…

But there was still enough left in the bowl to make another muffin, so I used my rubber spatula to pour the remainder as evenly as possible between the twelve muffins. I did pretty well considering I eye-balled it!

I’d like to say that 20 minutes later these emerged from the oven, but in reality, I got side-tracked and the buzzer was going when I finally remembered I was baking!!

I just slathered them with butter and let it melt…

And these were just as moist and delicious as I remember! Clint and I both ate one while they were still very warm. Then I went back for another… they are very filling, so eating two is not a good idea! My tummy hurt! I couldn’t resist though and then I was afraid I might be tempted to eat a third, so I threw the rest in the freezer! Now, when I want one, I just nuke it for about 90 seconds in a wet paper towel.

Now, before you think these aren’t very healthy for muffins, please consider that they are homemade and there is absolutely NO high fructose corn syrup in any of the ingredients I used. That’s pretty healthy in this day and age!!

I am sure there are many different versions of Goulash Recipes. This is the one I use most often.

This Goulash Recipe is extremely easy. It is also low cost, tastes amazing and is very filling. I usually make extra and we eat it for several days.

I am going to share with you the ingredients of what I put in my Goulash this last time I made it. Please know that you can throw just about any vegetables/beans you like when making this. You can also make less or more of it as you need. This is one of those dishes that tastes better the next day or so. Additionally, this time I put everything in the slow cooker. Many times, after mixing, I put this in a large glass pan and bake it in the oven. Both ways work great.

Ingredients:

1 Tbls Butter or Oil

1 Pkg Ground Beef (One pretty good sized package)

1 Diced Onion

1 Can of Red Kidney Beans

1 Can of Navy or White Kidney Beans (Any kind will do)

1 Can of Yellow Corn

1 Can of White Corn

1 Can of Green Beans

1 Can of Rotel Tomatoes (I use Hot)

1 Small Can of Tomato Sauce

1 Small/Med Box of Elbow Pasta

Shredded Cheese (If desired)

Directions:

1. Place your diced onion in the pan with your butter or oil and cook until translucent.

2. Add in your ground beef with the onions and cook until done while breaking it up.

3. Boil your elbow macaroni per the directions on the box.

4. While your ground beef and noodles are cooking open and drain all your vegetables. Do not drain the Rotel Tomatoes. Add all of the canned vegetables to your slow cooker and mix up well.

5. When your ground beef and noodles are done cooking drain them both and add them to the slow cooker. Mix up well with the vegetables. NOTE: Wait to cook and add the noodles if you are planning on cooking this in the slow cooker all day. I added my noodles about two hours prior to serving. You can add the noodles just before serving if you want, but do not leave them in the slow cooker all day.

You can cook this on high for 4 hours or you can put it on low and let it cook all day. Make sure you stir is occasionally.

Serve warm with Texas Toast or Rolls.

I also put shredded cheese on mine before serving.

My future sister-in-law has a lot of slow cookers. I don’t know why exactly, people tend to give them to her, but I was fortunate a while back to be the recipient of one of her slow cookers that the latch had broken on. Yup, that’s the only thing wrong with it! A few days later, Crystal Ponti shared her recipe for an apple pie cake in the crock pot. I’m pretty sure it was divine intervention and I was meant to adapt her recipe and post how I made this fabulous cake myself!!

You all should know by now that a recipe is just a guideline to me and I tend to rarely have the exact ingredients on hand to make a recipe from start to finish, so I used what I had and doubled the original recipe and set out to make my first slow cooker dessert!

I would say I carefully measured, but you would know I was fibbing because I’m just not programmed to follow directions EXACTLY as given no matter what the task is! But I did manage to have flour, sugar (white because I haven’t been grocery shopping yet), and baking powder. I sifted them together with my fork (still need a whisk, too!) and set it aside.

I didn’t have egg beaters so I just decided three eggs would be the same as 2/3 cups. I have no idea if that’s right, but it was perfect for my purposes! I added the vanilla and beat them together.

After peeling all my apples and preparing to slice and dice them, I had an epiphany about this being an apple pie cake… there should be some kind of spice… so I took another look at the recipe and realized I had forgotten the cinnamon. I added and re-sifted!!

I diced my apple slices straight into the flour mixture…

And then stirred them around after every two apples. To truly double this recipe, I would have used eight apples, but after six, it looked good enough to me!

Then I added the egg/vanilla mixture…

Stirred until just moistened…

And then poured the batter into the greased slow cooker. It was very dry so it didn’t really pour, it plopped! But I remembered that slow cookers maintain the moisture! Then I added four pats of butter on top anyway. I can’t help it. I love butter. Apple pie has butter.

I put the lid on, turned it on high and prepared to wait for three hours.

I just happened to be in the kitchen about an hour later and snapped a picture through the slow cooker lid. Looked perfect!

Then ChefBoy got home from track practice and immediately lifted the lid. I slapped his hand and then felt the top of the cake and it was springy. Then I used a butter knife in the center and it came out clean. It had cooked for two and a half hours.

I turned the slow cooker off and let it sit for about 15 minutes. Then I couldn’t stand it any more and I turned it out upside down on a platter. I learned at that point that my slow cooker is like my oven and does not cook evenly. I personally love slightly overcooked, caramelized sugar so it looked fantastic to me!!

And it was fantastic! The side that got overcooked just had a crispy crust. The other side was perfectly moist and oh so apple-y good! I will make this Slow Cooker Apple Pie Cake again and again!!

Nine years ago when we bought our house, “The Hartness Ranch”, we went into it knowing we had a project on our hands. The house was not in horrible shape, but there were things here and there that needed to be done. Over the years we have tackled one project after another. In the back of my mind I have always wondered what we could do about the hardwood floors that would not cost us a fortune. The house is a ranch style with yellow pine hardwood floors throughout. I disliked these floors from day one. They have never been “pretty”. They have a sort of orangish stain on them and they are just beat up. They are also impossible to “get clean” in my opinion.

For the past several years I have seen many pictures here and there of painted hardwood floors. I have often times wondered about painting the hardwood floors in our house. It has been an up and down conversation in our household for quite some time. Brandon has disagreed with me about this option for the past several years and so I had put the thought on the back burner.

Several weeks ago we decided to re-do our laundry room that also serves as our pantry. In doing so Brandon conceded to let me try the painted hardwood floors in this small room to see what we thought of it. The floor in this room was exceptionally bad. The previous owners had a washer that leaked and it had ruined a portion of the floor. No matter what I did over the years I could not get it cleaned. So, our thoughts were that the floor in this room really could not get much worse than it already was!

We purchased the paint from Home Depot. It is a paint specifically designed for wood decks and outdoor weather. After some searching we decided that this would be the easiest, most cost effective and most durable way to go to get the look we wanted for the painted hardwood floors. You can choose between a low-luster or a high shine. I chose the low-luster.

The paint was not even dry in the laundry room before we both fell in love with the look of the painted hardwood floors. Brandon kept commenting on how much he liked the look of it. Taking advantage of his satisfaction with the laundry room floor, I decided the following week  to tackle the floors of the adjoining room which is our kitchen.

I started by touching up the cabinets just to give them a fresh coat of paint as well. I then sanded the floors all over with an electric sander. When I did the laundry room I sanded the floor by hand. I highly suggest the electric sander instead. It took me all of about 20 minutes to sand the whole kitchen. I went over the entire floor twice to make sure I did not miss any spots.

Tip: Clean after you sand. I cleaned the entire kitchen before I sanded and had to come back and do it all again. I did not think that through very well.

After the sanding, I went over all the edges with a brush to cut in all the edges and corners. I used the same basic technique as if I was painting a wall. I then rolled the paint on to the rest of the floor. I allowed that to dry and applied two additional coats. It dried fairly quickly in a bout 20-30 minutes per coat.

We allowed this color to sit and cure for the weekend and then we decided to start on a design for the painted hardwood floor in the kitchen. We bought the same type of paint in a different color.

Brandon did a bit of internet research and decided on the best way to set out the design. I saw this design called several different things, but finally decided that the most popular name for it was harlequin pattern. Brandon was awesome at laying out all the lines for the harlequin pattern on our painted hardwood floors. After he got them all measured and drawn out with pencil he marked which squares were to be painted with the darker tan color. He started the painting of the squares in the darker color. His plan was to tape, paint and un-tape each one individually. He got as far as he could with that method and the next day I took over.

I taped up all the ones I could without overlapping any and painted them all at once. I let the paint dry and then came over it with an additional coat. I repeated and completed this step the following day.

In the span of about a week we completed this project of painted hardwood floors in our kitchen. We are both ecstatic with the result. It made an enormous difference in the look of the kitchen and it gave it a real farm house look, which I love!

I have no illusions that the finish we have now on these painted hardwood floors will last forever and I am completely aware that we will have to touch up over the years. So far, it has turned out to be very durable. We moved in a new washer and dryer and have had all kinds of traffic in and out with no causalities to the floor yet! It is also surprisingly easy to clean. I used a mix of baking soda, apple cider vinegar, Dawn dish soap and water and it came clean with just a wipe down.

When Brandon laid out the pattern on the floor he planned for it to end up in such a way that we would continue the darker tan color into our next adjoining room which is our dining room. We will be working on that soon and I will update the results when we get it finished. All in all we are very pleased with the outcome of these painted wood floors.

This Strawberry Shortcake Recipe is VERY easy to make and it tastes phenomenal! I highly recommend this!

Strawberry Shortcake Dessert Recipe

Strawberry Shortcake Dessert Recipe

Ingredients

1 Angel Food Cake (I used a Sugar Free One)
1 24 oz. container frozen strawberries, sliced with sugar added, thawed (I would have preferred to use Sugar Free, but could not find any!)
3 cups sugar free vanilla pudding
16 oz. container of whipped cream, slightly less than the whole container
Fresh strawberries, blackberries, bananas, blueberries or any fruit you like for garnish

Directions

1. Thaw frozen strawberries and cool whip.
2. Make the pudding and let it sit in the fridge to set.
3. Tear angel food cake into medium pieces.
4. Begin layering cake, strawberries, pudding and whip cream in a large clear glass bowl.
5. Continue irregular layers, filling the bowl.
6. Top entire dessert with a solid layer of whip cream.
7. Slice a few fresh strawberries and add any fruit you would like for garnish.
8. Refrigerate overnight or at least 4 hours before serving.

Enjoy this Strawberry Shortcake Recipe any time of year with your family and friends!