"Magazine Style" Layout

I'm sharing this recent layout for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I am just crazy about it! I haven't actually scrapped most of the photos from our trip out West this past summer, so it was really fun to showcase some of them in this layout. By the way, like other layouts I've been posting lately, this one was done for my Design Your Life class through Big Picture Scrapbooking, taught by the fabulous Cathy Zielske. Cathy provided the sketch that we used for this assignment.

Cathy calls this type of layout a "magazine style" layout, and she's right on with that description. If you look at the magazines in your own house, you'll quickly see that it's pretty common for magazine articles to use a fantastic full page photo in this way, to sort of draw you in to the piece, with the text actually beginning on the facing page. Now, I've certainly enlarged pictures in my scrapbooking career. One of my favorite sizes to do is an 8x12 (most places can make an enlargement this size, you just have to ask), because it makes a fantastic 12x12 scrapbook page when I have a really wonderful photo to showcase. And I've certainly used my share of 5x7 photos, as well. But I'm going to confess that I've never before used a photo that took up the entire page. It was an eye-opening experience.

Cathy is definitely right about how the large picture draws you in, and encourages you, the reader, to look at the other photos and read the story. But it's also the juxtaposition of the super large photo next to the smaller photos that makes the large photo that much more emphatic. And that brings me to another reason that I'm posting this layout. Before taking the DYL class, I rarely fooled around with printing my own photos, or printing them smaller than 4x6. I prefer the ease of taking a CD down to the grocery store, ordering regular old 4x6 prints, and coming back in an hour or so and picking them up. Previously, if I wanted to use smaller photos on a layout (and I use small photos all the time), I'd just crop them down from 4x6 prints. That sometimes presented some problems, though. I tend to take a lot of fairly close-up photos, especially of people. It's a habit I've gotten into ever since I first read anything about photography. You're always told "Fill the frame!" and for good reason -- it generally makes a better picture. But a "filled frame" photo doesn't really lend itself very well to being cropped down, unless the photo contains a detail that I want to emphasize.

So, although I did use smaller photos, I'd say that generally I didn't use photos smaller than 3-1/2 x 3-1/2. After taking this class, however, I feel like a new world has been opened up to me. Because we had so many assignments using small photos (REALLY small, sometimes 2x2), I realized pretty quickly that cropping just wasn't going to cut it. I needed a whole new approach. So I started experimenting with printing two photos, each wallet size, on one 4x6 sheet. All of a sudden, those small photos worked on my layouts! I'm not going to lie -- for me, it took some trial and error and messing around with a couple of different photo manipulating programs. But it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. And, most importantly, I love the effect so much that I know I'm going to be printing photos in different sizes in the future.

Man, writing that, I feel incredibly old fashioned. I know that tons of people print ALL of their own photos at home, and many, many scrapbookers print photos in all kinds of crazy sizes -- whatever suits the layout. And, of course, there are legions of totally digital scrapbookers who can manipulate lots of photo attributes with a few clicks of the mouse. But, even though I've had a digital SLR for quite a few years, my goal has always been to keep the scrapbooking part of it pretty simple. But through this class, I've learned that some simple photo manipulation -- basic re-sizing, either bigger or smaller, in order to make an impact -- doesn't take that long, and the effects are TOTALLY worth it.

Every time I look at the Yellowstone waterfall layout at the top of this post, it takes my breath away, and the feelings and the sounds of actually being there come rushing back. I love it, and I can't stop looking at it. Isn't that exactly how a scrapbook layout, a layout showcasing your own memories, is supposed to make you feel?

Deviled Chex Mix

You know, I just LOVE Chex Mix. But what I've noticed is that since it's become widely available in bags in the grocery store, no one seems to actually make it anymore. And that's a shame, because frankly, in my opinion, the bagged stuff just doesn't compare to the taste of the mix that you make yourself at home. Also, the bagged stuff is expensive! Anyway, one day last fall, I needed something to bring into work for one of our many food celebrations, and I decided to make Chex Mix, which I hadn't made in ages. I couldn't get over how delicious it was! Then, a couple of months later, I was reading something online and there was a link to the Chex cereals website. Apparently General Mills (the maker of Chex cereals), exhibiting its marketing genius, has a contest every year for the best new Chex Mix recipe. This year's winner and runners-up had just been announced and the recipes were on the website.

Now, the contest winner was Buffalo Chex Mix, which I can't comment on because I haven't made it yet. (I'm going to, though, so stay tuned.) But one of the runners-up was the mix pictured above, Deviled Chex Mix. I know, I know, it looks pretty much like regular old Chex Mix, doesn't it? Oh, but it's not! I just love things that are "deviled" -- you know, that great combination of sweet and spicy. So when I read the list of ingredients, I knew this was the mix I had to try first. Did my family like it? Let me just say that I've made this recipe SEVERAL times since I first found it. Yup, it's THAT good.

So, without further ado, here is my slightly altered version of the recipe:

Deviled Chex Mix

3 T. sugar
1 tsp. ground chili powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground black pepper
1 T. paprika
1 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup mixed nuts (I used just peanuts)
3 cups each Rice, Corn and Wheat Chex cereals
1 cup miniature pretzels
1 cup Parmesan flavored fish-shaped crackers

In small bowl, mix sugar with all spices and set aside. In small skillet, heat oil; add spice mixture to oil and heat through for a few minutes. Place remaining ingredients in a large, microwave safe bowl and stir to combine. Pour oil and spice mixture over contents in bowl; stir until mixture is evenly coated with oil and spices. Microwave for 6 minutes, stirring every two minutes. Spread mixture on paper towels to cool; store in airtight container.

Now, I must tell you that my 10-year-old liked this, but he thought it was just a little too spicy. So if you have young kids, take note. When I make this for the family again, I might cut the black pepper to 1/2 teaspoon. But, if I'm making this to take into work or to bring to a party, I might actually ADD a bit of cayenne pepper, maybe 1/4 teaspoon or so. It's wonderfully spicy but I just can't help thinking that a little bit of cayenne would be a yummy addition. It's seriously addicting just as it is, though, so don't say that I didn't warn you.

Well, now I've gone and gotten myself all focused on Chex Mix and how yummy it is. Sunday is my usual grocery day, and I'm thinking I might have to pick up some Chex cereals at the store today, and make a batch of Deviled Chex Mix tonight!

Quick, Inexpensive Mini Album

Last week, I posted some Valentines I'd made using mostly items from the dollar bins at Target. Well, I'm kind of continuing that theme in my post for today, which is of course Valentine's Day.

I happen to have a friend whose birthday is on Valentine's Day, and I wanted to do a little something for her this year. She is one of those people who tends to get a little bit "blue" in the winter, waiting for the snow and the cold to go away. So I thought maybe a mini-album with a few photos of her family might be just the thing to keep her spirits warm.

I used one of the chipboard mini-albums that you can find all the time at Michael's these days for one measly dollar -- the book I chose is shaped like big tags. Since I didn't have die cut paper to go along with the book, I figured the tag shape would be relatively easy to trace and cut out. I started with a package of 12x12 Valentine-themed scrapbook papers and a package of matching chipboard embellishments from, once again, the Target dollar spot. There were, I think, twelve sheets of paper in that package -- for ONE DOLLAR! And, the patterns were actually pretty cute and useable. I simply traced the tag shape on the back of various papers, and then traced a bunch of additional half tag shapes, so that I could feature two papers on each layout of the album.

When I make quickie gift albums like this, I like to follow a simple format. Here, I combined two patterned papers on each layout, then put a family related quote on the left side, and a picture or two (cropped, of course) on the right. I added some simple rub ons to some of the little chipboard tags that were in the embellishment package (some were printed, but others were blank), and stuck everything down with glue dots. Here is an example of one of the layouts inside the mini album:


And another inner layout:


If you aren't familiar with how to cover chipboard with patterned paper, it's easy. I applied my hand-cut papers to each chipboard "page," and then sanded the edges to take off any excess and to make the paper kind of blend right into the page base. After sanding, I brushed all the paper bits off and then inked all of the edges with a dark brown chalk ink pad. For the "border" or shorter papers, make sure to ink the cut edge that will be on the inner part of the page before you stick the piece down. Oh, I had originally planned to use one of my cute edge punches on the edges of the "border" papers, but I tried it and it just looked too busy with the already-busy paper, so I simply cut the "border" papers straight instead. It still gave a nice contrast.

For the cover, I simply printed out a title block, inked everything, added a small photo, one of the chipboard hearts, and part of a circle rub on, and I was done. I liked the way this heart looked hanging off of the cover page:

I finished off the album by tying some cute ribbons onto the album's binder ring.


And that's it! A cute gift album that took me maybe a couple of hours from start to finish, and cost $3 plus a trip into my scrap ribbon bag and my rub on drawer. Besides the fact that I know my friend will love this little keepsake, I'm pretty proud of myself for using one of those chipboard albums from Michael's! I've got ones in every single shape and just don't use them as often as I'd like. But, as you can see, they really do make fun, inexpensive gift albums.

8 Valentines, 2 Bucks

My mom always sent all three of us kids Valentines, even after we were grown up and married and had long ago left home. Sometimes she slipped $5 in there, too, just for fun. It was just one of those sweet, loving things she did. She sent us little Easter baskets filled with goodies each year, too. Anyway, partly, no doubt, due to my mom, I have always had an especially warm spot in my heart for Valentine's Day. Not so much as a day to be all romantic with my hubby (although that's fun, too), but more as an opportunity to tell those I'm close to that I love them. So, I usually make some sort of little Valentine cards or notes each year, and then on the big day, I slip them in my kids' lunchboxes, leave them in sneaky places for co-worker friends (uh, female co-worker friends only, I don't need any rumours floating around the office that I've got an unrequited love for one of my male co-workers), and leave one where my hubby will be sure to see it in the morning.

So, I went down to my craft room a few nights ago and started digging out Valentine's stuff. I found a package of eight generic note cards with hearts on them (and red envelopes!) that I'd found at the Target dollar section, and I also pulled out a set of cheapie chipboard embellishments that I'd also found there. I grabbed my envelope of scraps in the pink and red color category, and I was ready to go. I just starting playing around with the the stuff and making some very simple, but cute, cards. Four of those are pictured above. Ok, I just noticed that on the card on the top left, the little line of chipboard hearts managed to detach itself during the scanning process. I'm too lazy to rescan, so please just picture that line of hearts right underneath the "so sweet" sentiment, where it's supposed to be, okay? The other four Valentines are below:


As you can see, in addition to scraps, I used some rub-ons from my large rub-on collection, along with a few mini-brads. The pen-stitching on some of the cards was done with my white Signo Uni-ball pen, the BEST white pen in the world. At the moment, the cards are blank inside, but I may stamp a simple sentiment in some of them before giving them away. Others, I'll leave blank so that I can add a newsy note to a friend inside.

As I finished up this little project (which took me maybe a couple of hours, start to finish), it hit me. I now had eight cute Valentines, at a total cost of ... 2 bucks! Well, 2 bucks plus odds and ends from my scrap drawer and a few rub-ons. How's that for cost efficiency?

Anyway, the point of this post isn't necessarily for you to copy my designs for Valentine cards, although you're certainly welcome to do that if you want to. The point is to keep your eye out for inexpensive, versatile card-making supplies when you find yourself at places like Target and Michael's. When I initially bought the chipboard set, I thought I might use the cupcakes on a birthday page or something like that, but I love how they really spruced up these Valentine designs. Both Target and Michael's almost always have sets of simple (notice I said simple, not necessarily plain) notecards in their dollar bins, and I encourage you to look at these gems in a new light. Think of them as bases that you can build your own cards on -- a great start on a set of themed notecards, with just the addition of a few embellishments or bits of paper and letters. When we see, in particular, printed notecards (like the heart ones I used for my Valentines), we tend to think of them as complete, finished products. And of course, they can be used that way. But adding a few handmade touches to commercially produced cards is a quick way to personalize them, spruce them up, and make them lots more special. And who doesn't love getting a handmade card in the mail?

White Space

Okay, I know the only things I've been posting lately are layouts that I've done for my Design Your Life online class with Cathy Zielske. And, yeah, this is another one. But I am finding this class to be so interesting, and so eye opening, that it's making me feel like sharing some of my work product. This week, we have been studying white space and how to use it in designing scrapbook pages. Well, I thought I knew all about white space, but it turns out that I knew a little and learned a lot!

Cathy generally provides templates or sketches for us to use for our assigned layouts, and we are free to tweak them and make them our own. For this layout, I decided to follow Cathy's sketch pretty closely. One of the benefits of following someone else's design rather closely is that you get to see how your own photos and stories play out when used in a design style that may be pretty far from your own. This layout is a great example of what I mean.

I often mat several photos together and then use that large element on my page. But I would not typically leave the amount of space around the central mat that we were supposed to on this page. As soon as I finished this page, I saw what the effect of that was -- it draws your eye in, right to the focus of the page.

Another thing is leaving equal borders around the photos on a page. I typically don't do this, because, frankly, it can be a pain in the butt to get those borders absolutely accurate (even though I'm a pretty good eyeballer). So, much more often, if I have photos in a line or a linear grouping on a page, I just jam them up right next to each other. While that isn't necessarily a bad approach, I'm finding out why there is almost always a border of white space around photos and similar elements in advertisements and other printed materials -- because it looks great and it forces your eye to zero in on the photos, but in a calm and unhurried way. I see much greater use of my quilting ruler in the future!

Cell Phone Layout

This is another layout from the Design Your Life class I am taking online. This was last week's "Real World Color" assignment. Cathy Zielske finds a color combination in the real world, then gives us a sketch and we have to use the given color combination and sketch (we can adapt the sketch, of course) to make our page. This lime green, red, grey and white combination was something she spotted in the outdoor decor of a hip bistro near where she lives. I changed the red to more of a cherry red, but otherwise followed the assigned combination of colors.

Cathy had done her "example" page about the day she got her daughter a cell phone, and it made me realize that I had never done ANYTHING on my older son and his cell phone, which he's had for two years now. It really cracks me up how much teens love their cell phones and can't seem to exist without them, so that's what I journaled about. Oh, and that font I used for the title? It's called Rough Draft and it's available free on the internet. I was looking through some old pages and saw one using that font, which made me remember how much I've always liked it for a title.

I have a really nice DSLR camera, and frankly, I often forget about many of the features it has unless they are features that I use all the time. It just does soooooo many things! Cathy uses a lot of black and white photos, and seeing her pages made me realize that I haven't taken very many monochrome shots lately. So I set my camera to capture images in black and white, and rediscovered that my camera has a very cool feature -- the ability to "tint" the monochrome image so it is very subtly sepia, blue, green, or purple. The instruction manual gives tips on when you'd be likely to use each color tint, which is very helpful. Anyway, I played around with the monochrome settings and vowed to take more black and white photos in the future!

So, with three weeks under my belt in this class, I can say that I am keeping up without too much trouble, I'm learning and reinforcing design principles, and I'm learning all kinds of related things, too (like the monochrome settings on my camera). Great inspiration!

Step-by-Step Beef Enchiladas

I LOVE Mexican food. I make a number of Mexican dishes, but enchiladas are one of my absolute favorites. Now, I am currently very fond of these Black Bean and Rice Enchiladas that I make that are delicious and vegetarian and are actually surprisingly healthy and full of fiber. My kids like them, too; still, when my older son comes downstairs to dinner and sees a big pan of beef enchiladas sitting on the table, he'll say "Yay! We're having REGULAR enchiladas!" Yes, at 16, he's already a "man" in that sense -- gotta have that meat. So, I'm going to save the yummy vegetarian enchilada recipe for another day, and today I'm going to share my recipe and method for "regular" beef enchiladas. And, hang with me til the end, because there's a surprise later!

Ok, here is the basic ingredient list:

1 package (12) corn tortillas
Vegetable oil
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 can vegetarian refried beans
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1-1/2 cups shredded colby-jack or cheddar cheese
1 can red OR green enchilada sauce
1 cup salsa (any kind)

To make the enchilada filling, saute the onion and garlic for a few minutes in a little vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the ground beef, breaking the meat up with a spatula, and continue cooking until the beef has browned. Drain any fat from the skillet, then, with the skillet over medium low heat, stir in the cumin, coriander, black pepper, and the can of refried beans. Heat mixture through, and set the filling aside.

Now, the first step to actually making the enchiladas is to soften the corn tortillas so that they can be filled and rolled. This is done by frying the tortillas for just a few seconds in hot oil. I put just a little canola oil in a small skillet and place it over medium heat. When the oil is hot, slip a tortilla in and let it sit in the oil until the top of the tortilla starts to bubble and puff a bit. Seriously, this will only take a couple of SECONDS.


Carefully remove the tortilla from the oil using tongs or the side of fork. The tortilla will be really soft so be careful not to rip it with whatever utensil you're using. I place my softened tortillas on a plate with a couple of sheets of paper towel on it. Continue frying/softening the tortillas until you have 3 or 4 on your plate. Let the tortillas cool for just a minute, otherwise you will seriously burn your fingers trying to roll the dang things up.


Place a large-ish spoonful of the filling mixture down the center of one of the tortillas. Top the filling with a little cheese, then roll the tortilla up into a slim cylinder. Be careful not to use too much filling, or you won't be able to roll the tortilla up. Remember, these are enchiladas, not burritos! To gauge the "right" amount to use, half of the filling mixture in the skillet should fill 10-12 tortillas.


This is what your rolled tortilla should look like. Place the rolled tortilla, seam side down, in a 9x12 baking pan that has been greased or sprayed with cooking spray. Continue filling the tortillas, and softening and filling additional tortillas, until the pan is full.


With a bit of gentle squeezing, you should be able to fit 10 to 12 enchiladas in a 9x13 pan. Now, once the pan is filled, if you haven't overstuffed your tortillas, you've probably only used about HALF of the filling mixture. Set the remaining filling mixture aside for right now.

Pour the can of enchilada sauce evenly over the tortillas in the pan. Red enchilada sauce is generally spicier than green, and will have a chili-like, robust taste. The green sauce has a milder, more subtle flavor. But both make great tasting enchiladas! Sprinkle the remaining cheese over top of the enchilada sauce, then spoon the salsa over everything. Cover the pan with foil and pop it into a 375 degree oven for about 30-40 minutes, until everything is hot and bubbling. Note: if you leave the pan uncovered while it is in the oven, the enchiladas will become crispy on the edges. Some people like this, but it does make them harder to cut and serve. My kids like them not crispy.


I serve these enchiladas with finely shredded Romaine lettuce, chopped Roma tomatoes, and chopped fresh cilantro. I love the contrast of the cold and crunchy lettuce with the soft, hot enchiladas. Yum. You could also put out bowls of sour cream, guacamole, or additional salsa as accompaniments.


Here is what the pan of enchiladas will look like when you take it from the oven. It looks like a lot, right? Well, be forewarned that guys can eat A LOT of these enchiladas. Okay, okay, in the right frame of mind, so can I. But seriously, 12 enchiladas sounds like a lot, but it is amazingly easy to eat three of these babies, so you may not get more than 4 servings out of one pan.


Here are the enchiladas, as served. Don't they look great? Ok, now for that SURPRISE I promised you. Remember that half of the filling that you didn't use? Scoop it out of the skillet into a bowl or other suitable container, and pop it in the fridge. You can then use the filling to make another pan of enchiladas a few nights from now -- just soften the tortillas, fill, roll up, and bake as before. With the filling already made and waiting, I can whip up a pan of enchiladas even on a busy school night. Love that! But, here's another option. If you don't want to make more enchiladas, you can use the leftover filling to make nachos for the football game on Sunday! Just spread a little of the filling over round tortilla chips laid out on a baking sheet, then top each chip with a little cheese. Pop in the oven at 400 degrees just until the filling is hot and the cheese has melted, about 7 or 8 minutes. Serve with salsa and pickled jalapenos, and you'll have a football snack to cheer about.

Pinks and Oranges and Guys

So, I HAD to post this layout, because I finished it tonight and I am totally loving it! Yep, another layout done for my Design Your Life online class, with sketch and color palette provided by Cathy Zielske. When we got this assignment, which was to compare and contrast two people in our lives, I knew immediately I wanted to focus on my sons. But the "real world color" combination Cathy had chosen for us was pink, orange, and brown! While I like those colors a lot, they didn't seem to lend themselves to "guy" photos. Since pink and orange are analogous colors on the color wheel (they are basically next to each other), Brandon asked me if I couldn't just choose two other analogous colors, since that was, after all, the point of the exercise.

Well, sure, I could have done that. But, I've never been one to shy away from a scrapbooking challenge, so remembering that I had some crazy bright (and really old) Doodlebug papers hidden somewhere in my paper stash, I decided to go ahead and use Cathy's chosen color palette, and try to make it work with my theme. This layout is the result, and I couldn't be more pleased with it. Oh, by the way, these pages are 8x8, so our physical space was limited, too.

I love how the big Doodlebug cardstock letter stickers work with the patterned paper and the grid design of the layout, and once again, I've managed to put a few FLOWERS onto a layout about my boys! Now, would I make a page like this for the boys' books? Maybe not. But it's a really fun layout to have in my own collection.

Yeah, I'm loving this class. So far, I am CAUGHT UP! I was convinced I'd be behind by now, but since Cathy provides us with sketches for each layout we do to practice the design principles we're learning, actually putting the layouts together goes more quickly than when I'm making all of the decisions on my own. Well, my plan tonight was to post a recipe and "in process" photos for these great beef enchiladas that I make, but I guess that's going to have to wait a day or two longer!

Design Your Life

On December 30, after procrastinating for a couple of months, I finally signed up to take an online scrapbooking class, Design Your Life, taught by the incomparable Cathy Zielske through Big Picture Scrapbooking. If you're not familiar with BPS, they offer content-rich online scrapbooking classes taught by some of the best and most well-known names in the business. In the past, they've had classes that lasted for an entire year, while others are brief workshops. DYL is a three-month course, and one of the reasons I finally took the plunge is that by time the twelve weeks are over, it will be the end of March and spring will be just around the corner! I thought some serious scrapbooking and learning might be just the thing to keep the winter doldrums away.

So, we've just finished week one, addressing symmetry, and are now into week two. Cathy said we could post our "homework" assignments online as long as we gave her and the class their due credit. Which is, hopefully, what I'm doing here. The layout above was one of our assignments based on the principles we learned in the first week's lesson, and the layout was created from a sketch provided by Cathy. Can I just say that I LOVE how this layout came out? I tend to be a linear scrapper anyway, so entering Cathy's designing and scrapbooking world doesn't feel all that foreign to me, except maybe that her pages, in addition to being much better designed than mine, are generally pretty sparse in terms of embellishments. But hey, after this class is over, hopefully I'll be designing better pages, too! Anyway, I love all of the blues in this layout and I really love the effect of the enlargement with the smaller photos underneath.

That's my little guy Brian in the layout above, and I didn't want to leave out my teen, so I used pictures of Brandon for another one of our first week's layouts:


Again, this layout was created from a sketch provided to us by Cathy. I made it my own just a little bit by the addition of the heart mini brads and the red line at the bottom. For some reason, those little touches really pull this layout together and make it look finished. I chose that red tab on the left, and then decided another touch of red was exactly what the layout needed.

I did the title on the photo with rub-ons, the old, really great ones from Making Memories that came in those post-bound booklets. Do you remember those? While I bought a lot of them when they were the hot item in the scrapbooking world, in retrospect I should have bought a lot more. Many of my booklets are either almost used up, or have so few vowels left that my options for using them are pretty limited. But seriously, after using many, many other brands of rub-ons over the past few years, I was amazed all over again last night by how superior the Making Memories rub-ons really are. Theirs go on perfectly, practically jumping off the backing onto the surface where you're applying them, yet no one else was ever able to achieve a rub-on alphabet product this good. American Crafts rub-ons (which I used for the "ball" in "Goofball" on the layout at the top) are pretty good, but they tend to break if you move the slightest bit while you're applying them. Yeah, that's why that little green star brad is on the letter "a" -- that's my trick for covering up spots where the AC rub-ons break and can't be patched back together perfectly. So, anyway, after thoroughly enjoying using those Making Memories rub-ons, I checked some online sources to get more, and I ended up ordering a bunch off of eBay! I had to buy lots of the same fonts, but I don't even care. I'm happy to have stocked back up on these superior rub-ons. Now if I could just find a source for those old Making Memories metal ribbon slides, mini-plaques, and snowflakes, I'd be in scrapbooking heaven!

Great Football Snack

Happy New Year! In my house, we're big fans of college football, so New Year's Day is always filled with lots of bowl games and TV watching. And, that, of course, means snacks. Our tradition (if you want to call it that) on New Year's Day is to not really eat a full meal, but rather to graze and snack our way through the day. Since I'm usually somewhat tired of cooking after the holidays, this suits me just fine. Today, in addition to chips and such, we'll be having nachos and the appetizer pictured above, Pizza Pinwheels. Let me just say that if you're looking for a football snack that will absolutely be gobbled up, these pinwheels are just the ticket. My kids BEG me to make these for just about every occasion you can imagine. I won't lie -- they do take a bit of time to put together, but they are soooo worth it. If you have a lot of people to serve, you will want to double the recipe for sure.

Pizza Pinwheels

1/2 cup pepperoni, finely diced
1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/4 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/4 cup pizza sauce (from a can or bottle)
1 egg, separated
Parmesan cheese
1 tube refrigerated crescent roll dough*

In a bowl, combine the pepperoni, cheese, Italian seasoning, and egg yolk. Stir in the pizza sauce. Filling should be just moist enough to hold together; if not, add a little more pizza sauce.
Separate tube of crescent rolls into four rectangles; seal perforations. Flatten each rectangle a bit with your fingers.

Spread pepperoni mixture over each rectangle to within 1/4 inch of edges. Roll each rectangle up jelly-roll style, starting with a short end. Pinch seams to seal. Cut each roll into six slices. Place slices on a well-greased baking sheet. Brush tops with beaten egg white, then sprinkle tops of slices with Parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes, until golden brown. Serve warm. (Makes 2 dozen appetizers.)

*Crescent roll dough now comes in a version specifically for recipes. It's one big dough sheet, instead of a perforated sheet that is intended to be separated into individual triangles. If you can find the dough sheet, definitely buy it. Using the sheet makes this recipe about 10 times easier! If you are using the dough sheet, follow the same general instructions as above, but work with the entire sheet as one, spreading the filling to the edges, then rolling up from a long side and cutting the roll into 24 individual slices.

Also, it goes without saying that you can add other things to the pinwheel filling if desired, such as finely chopped black olives or mushrooms. Just be careful that the filling doesn't get too chunky, though, or you'll have a difficult time rolling up the dough and cutting the slices. In this case, less is more.

I am a HUGE appetizer fan, so look for more yummy appetizer recipes on this blog coming up in the new year!