Skinny Apple Salad—Not Your Grandma's Waldorf!

I love the crisp apples we pick in the fall. My favorites are Honey Crisp or Gala (such beautiful color), I'm not one to like a more sour apple, it causes too much pucker and they make my jaw cramp! But that is just me, so if you are a Granny Smith type, go for it! I do crave the sweet crispness with creamy decadence that used to be the Waldorf Salad that my grandma would make. Mayo and sugar...at least she didn't add marshmallows! Now this recipe gives me that same feeling, with the creamy dressing, sweet chewy raisins, crunchy pecans along with crisp celery and apples. Much healthier and also with added protein from the yogurt. I've tried to make it with just yogurt, and it separates and gets watery. Just a little mayonnaise seems to keep it creamier and delightful. Do you put other ingredients in your apple salads? Cut up Snicker Bars? Marshmallows? I've had these and really like them, I do try to only have them for real holidays, not just to celebrate Wednesday!

Dragonfly & Bumblebee Boxes...DIY Fun!

Our Bug Box Files are updated for 2013, with Print and Cut files compatible with a Silhouette Cameo.If you have a Silhouette Cameo, these files are just the thing to print and more easily cut these little boxes. If not, these files can be printed just as before, using scissors to trim the files. See the updated files here, at Shop Maddalee and a tutorial here for using the files with the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition software and your Silhouette Cameo.

We will soon be getting more of our previous Maddalee project files ready for Print and Cut with Silhouette Cameo, as well as so many new ideas we have in mind!
you for understanding.

Have a great day!

Skinny Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

This is a favorite mid-week recipe for us when the weather is cool. Then, just like my Turkey Chili recipe, we have a week worth of lunches or quick dinners for busy days and we go for less fast food. This very easy recipe is even easier for me when I have a big week, as I will be lazy and use canned white meat chicken, usually from Trader Joe's, as I believe this canned chicken has less additives than some others. The other thing I love to do, that is not on the original ingredient list is add frozen peas just when I warm a bowl of soup up, then they stay sparkly green, don't turn gray and mushy and keep their sweet crispness. Petite frozen peas are what I look for, yum yum yum!

Ingredients

1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
12 oz. fresh mushrooms, sauteed
2 boxes chicken broth
1 cup cooked chicken
1 1/2 cups wild rice/brown rice medley
2 cups water
1 tsp. salt
Pepper to taste

Directions

Add chopped vegetables to Dutch oven with two boxes of chicken broth, water and wild rice medley. Simmer 30 to 40 minutes, until rice is tender. While rice mixture cooks, saute fresh mushrooms. When rice is tender, add mushrooms and cooked chicken. Add salt and pepper to taste and heat through.

1 cup serving: 150 calories.

This soup has great flavor, fills me up and has very low calories, I hope you try it!

Have a warm day!

DIY Thank You Favor Gift Box and Tag

Hi Maddalee friends! I hope everyone had a good weekend, I was able to pull this post together last week, I had my sweet baby grandson overnight Saturday and our family was together for Sunday, it was very nice to play and relax knowing I had some fun planned for Monday here at Maddalee. I thought a fun project for us grown up girls would be a nice change from "Maddalee Monday". I love Maddalee Mondays, and have offered quite a few fun Maddalee Paper Doll downloads these past few weeks, I don't want Maddalee and Jessa to become too boring, and will probably slow down to maybe one Maddalee Monday a month. I am glad I did them more often initially, as it's fun to have several editions out to get our little ones enough to have a lot of fun playing. But now it's time for us, do you like these "Thank You Boxes?" They are really fun to put together, just print out on bright white cardstock, cut out, fold on lines, glue the sides, add tags with buttons, ribbons, mini clothespins or what-not and wallah! Cutest little boxes ever!

Please be sweet, leave me a comment and friend, follow or subscribe below to support this fun little blog and keep it going for all to enjoy:

Maddalee's Thank You Favor Gift Box and Tag Download

Feel free to use this PDF printable file for your personal use, but not commercial use or resale (©Maddalee™). Do not share this file. If you have a friend that is also interested, will you please send them here for the download? Thank you for understanding. Please leave a comment for me if you download, I love to hear how much fun these files are.

FRIEND US, FOLLOW US & SUBSCRIBE HERE, WE OFTEN HAVE SPECIAL FUN FOR OUR SWEET FOLLOWERS!

Sleepovers at Grammie's

Now, I have just a bit of news for all of the young and hard working families that might read here at Maddalee. The years of jobs and little children and bills and chores and task lists that never end but are taken care of to the best of your abilities while still having fun and sharing family time are why your parents are so very proud of you. We love our adult children and their families more everyday, if this is even possible.

We enjoy every minute, looking in at our children's families, even with the bumps and warts that all families face and hopefully come out stronger from. And then there are the sleepovers at Grammie and Grandpa's home, or at whoever's home fills that role in your family. IT'S. OUR. BEST. THING. EVER! I am again the luckiest Grammie in the world to welcome my little grandson Sage to my home this weekend for a sleepover, and then to have the rest of my family join us here for food, football, fun and love on Sunday. Thank you to my children for all the heavenly joy you bring to your mama!

Isn't this the sweetest photo of our little angel? Morgan from Figment Photography is the talent behind the camera here.

I hope your weekend brings you joy!

xoxo

Spooky Night Kids Printable DIY Project

Another Maddie's Buddies Halloween fun project for kids from Maddalee! We have combined our favorite Maddalee Paper Dolls in their Halloween costumes with our fun Monsters and a "Spooky Night" DIY fun folder to keep the cute little friends in! Fun for free, what could be better? We recommend that you print on bright white heavy weight card stock for best results. Enjoy!

Please be sweet, leave me a comment and do the following to support this fun little blog and keep it going for all to enjoy:

Please follow Maddalee here and friend us on Facebook (links below) for more fun!

Maddie's Buddies Spooky Night Download Link

I'd love to see photos of your ideas and how my friends use these printables, please email me anything fun and I will feature the ideas here at Maddalee, if possible.

Feel free to use these items for your personal use, in the classroom or party favors, but not for resale (©Maddalee™). If you have a friend that is also interested, will you please send them here for the download? Thank you for understanding. Please leave a comment for me if you download, I love to hear how much fun these files are.

FRIEND US, FOLLOW US & SUBSCRIBE HERE, WE OFTEN HAVE SPECIAL FUN FOR OUR SWEET FOLLOWERS!

Let's Make a Better Granola Bar

We love these granola bars! They are very easy to make, I think of all the cash I have dropped on granola bars over the years and I wish I had tried to make these sooner! They may not be totally healthy, but at least I know what goes into them and I can spell all the ingredient names, and I can choose organic products if I wish and still make them for a reasonable price. I admit that I don't have a lot of patience to bake cookies, if they are a "drop one cookie at a time" on a baking sheet kind of thing. I look at all the beautiful cookie recipes on blogs and don't like my impatience very much, but that being said I can make these granola bars and feel good about myself, one bar really fills me up and I don't get a sugar crash later, like I do with cookies. A double batch is just as easy as a single batch to bake up, and that makes 24 bars, enough to last a family at least a week! The most fun is adding different ingredients, coconut, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pecans, craisins, chocolate chips (white or dark!) and they are still easy and taste great. I made them today just with the basic recipe, as just like this they are still a favorite of ours.

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup wheat germ
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup sliced almonds
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup melted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°. Generously grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon, flour, raisins, almonds and salt. Make a well in the center, and pour in the maple syrup, egg, butter and vanilla. Mix well using your hands. Pat the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bars begin to turn golden at the edges. Cool for 5 minutes, then cut into bars while still warm. Do not allow the bars to cool completely before cutting, or they will be too hard to cut.

Makes 24 bars. 161 calories per bar.

I hope you try these and enjoy them as much as we do!

Maddalee and Jessa's Halloween Costumes!

These files will be available again in the fall of 2013.

Have a good week,

Maddie's Buddies™ Monster Fairy Wands DIY Project

These monsters are too cute to scare any little thing! This is my "Fairy Wand" version project for girls that aren't so into fairies and boys that aren't, either. The little Monster Fairy Wands are also much easier to put together as a project than the Maddalee Fairy Wands posted this past Monday. I designed them to be cut out only as rectangles and folded once, with no extra wings or parts or complicated cutting. Simply print on bright white heavy cardstock, cut each monster rectangle out, fold in half and hot glue on to the 12" wooden dowel. (I found a whole pack of these dowels at Micheal's) I hope you have fun with these cuties!

If you are interested in this PDF download, please show your Maddalee love and follow the Maddalee blog over in the sidebar, leave a fun comment here, and send me an email from the "contact" page up in the top navigation links. Feel free to use these items for your personal use, in the classroom or party favors, but not for resale, please (©Maddalee™). If you have a friend that is also interested, will you please send them here for the download? Thank you for understanding.

Have a great weekend,