Recipe Round-up

Here's a quick little round-up of some new recipes we've been cooking around here lately.  I've really been in the new recipe trying mood and have finally been going through the recipes that I've tagged or bookmarked over the last several months.  So I thought I would share because who doesn't love perusing new recipes?!

This recipe for Crockpot Chicken Posole Soup was so easy and seemingly healthy.  You can add all kinds of toppings like avocado, shredded radishes, cheese, green onions, sour cream, etc.  You get the picture.

I think this is Daniel's favorite new meal:  Buffalo Chicken Eggrolls.  It is a bit spicy (so kids MAY not like it), but very, very good!  I actually thought they would be harder than they were to make, but they were pretty simple and fairly quick to assemble.  We have these with carrot and celery sticks and ranch dressing.

BBQ Meatballs are my current favorite go-to comfort food.  I LOVE these!  I think I originally got hooked up to these from Joanne?  They are really, really good!  Serve them on top or alongside mashed potatoes.  The sauce would probably be really good with meatloaf too.  One day I'll try that since the meatballs are a little time consuming to prepare.

Italian Sausage Soup is another easy recipe. It will be great for a nice cool fall day. I probably shouldn't admit this since Daniel is in the pork industry, but I used turkey Italian sausage for this to lighten it up.

These Drunken Pork Chops are good.  I think they'd work pretty well in a crockpot too.

I just made this Key Lime Cake over Memorial Day weekend and it was a yummy, fresh tasting cake that's good for summer.  It's pretty tart...much like key lime pie would be.  FYI, I also really love that blog.

This next recipe is our new absolute favorite dessert recipe (for the time being).  It is fresh, yet really indulgent tasting.  I could seriously eat this every single day (and night)!  It's another really easy one.  Are you starting to catch a theme with my cooking...E.A.S.Y!  :)  Eton Mess (from Barefoot Contessa).  We omit the liqueur though because I'm way too cheap to buy something that I would probably only use for this recipe.

Well that's what's cookin' around here!  We've been looking into doing the 17-Day Diet soon.  Anybody have any experience with that?  Neither Daniel or I have ever done an organized diet.  So I'm not sure how well we'll do, but I need some kind of jump start to get the rest of this baby fat off, and working out other than walking is just not happening right now.  I'd love to know if anyone else has tried the 17-Day Diet and how it went!

Happy 3rd birthday!

Sadie celebrated her 3rd birthday (March 28) with a tea party this year with three of her little friends: Janie, Makenzy, and Makaley. While a little crazy for her poor sleep deprived mom, Sadie and friends had a great time!

We decorated tea cup pictures with flower stickers, read the book "Tea for Ruby", decorated straw hats with flowers, ribbons and tulle, and opened presents. But the highlight of the party was unmistakabley the TEA PARTY!

Sadie was the youngest little girl at the party and easily the craziest! I'm thinking we'll do a tea party for Molly one day as well, but probably not until her 4th birthday.

It was a really fun party for little girls though. I LOVE having girls!!!!

After it was all over with, we enjoyed some quiet time...

and Sadie tried out her new rain gear....



for those who are interested (and for our own failing memories around here)...

Extra Details:

Invitations:

I had ordered Sadie this tea party print when she moved into her big girl room last summer. The artist also had these invitations with the same painting on it.

Decorations:

I really had a fun time planning this party in my head, but when it came time for execution, it was pretty thrown together at the last minute! I don't know what the proper protocol is for kids' parties....when to send the invites and how much is too much...that sort of stuff. I tend to err on the more relaxed side of most of this, mostly because Daniel and I weren't raised on extravagant birthdays. So the invitations were sent out with one week's notice and much of the prep work was done the week of the party. I do feel like, with our kids a million miles from their grandparents and cousins, we have to do something to celebrate their little lives and make them feel special, but honestly (in my little party-planning and detail-loving mind) I consciously hold back a little to not overdo things. No need to create unreal expectations in my already dramatic 3-year-old, huh?

My mom bought this embroidered tablecloth for us to use...I LOVE it...so pretty! Of course there are pink milk stains on it now, but oh well!

My grandmother shipped the tablecloth along with the tea cups and saucers to us. So sweet of her! The tea cups were my great grandmothers. They are nothing special as far as worldly value, but my great grandmother, my sister, and I had tea parties with them when I was a little a girl. So they are quite sentimental, and I'm so glad my grandma, Jean Jean, thought to offer them to us AND ship them here. What a treat!

The other dishes are my depression glass that Jean Jean collected for me growing up and gifted to me when I graduated from college (as I was officially an adult...yikes!). I use these dishes all the time, but generally they're saved for special parties.

The party was a great excuse to make those banners. The ultimate destination for the banners was Sadie's room. So they are made in fabrics that match the colors in her room. It's nice that they could do double duty.

Activities:

The girls decorated tea cup pictures (made from clip art found on the internet glued to white doilies and pink gingham scrapbook paper) while we were waiting for everyone to get here:

Sadie got the book "Tea for Ruby" for her first Christmas from our sweet friend Tracy. We love this book! Tracy had it signed by the author Sarah Ferguson (who, despite her mishaps over the last several years, I really do love the former Duchess of York...she's helpessly flawed like the rest of us, right?). My sister-in-law, Suzanne, suggested we read it since it was a special book of Sadie's, and it related to tea parties and manners.

Mamaw had the idea for the girls to decorate straw hats with fun flowers and ribbons, but I had to actually FIND affordable straw hats. Insert Target! Of course! It pays to have a birthday around Easter, because these little numbers were found in the dollar bins at Target. They aren't the highest quality I'm sure, but they sure did work for a party activity and favor.

Food:

My favorite part! ;) We cut out the sandwiches into flower shapes. For the pb&j, I cut little circles in the top so you could see the red jelly. :) The cucumbers were also cut out like flowers and had ranch dip dabbed on top. We made mini fruit skewers with green grapes and blueberries on party toothpicks. Then we bought the sweet treats: giant petit fours (have you ever seen such large petit fours? I'm not certain they even qualify as a petit four, but they were so yummy!), pastel butter cookies, and lemon glazed mini cakes.

We opted not to serve the little girls tea for obvious reasons (little girls don't really drink much tea yet!). Sadie doesn't like lemonade. So our options were a little limited for drinks. I didn't want to do juice or punch because of staining. Sadie does love chocolate milk. So I thought we'd give strawberry milk a try. It was a hit! I think each of the girls downed at least two glasses, if not three! he!he! So that was a treat!

We ordered some pre-made sandwiches for the adults with chips and Salado Punch. Easy peasy! Have you ever had Salado Punch? It's the punch we grew up with around Troy....proms, wedding showers, etc. It's the perfect southern punch. I love it, was craving it (Do all breastfeeding mothers crave punches or just me? I was so thirsty all the time!), and therefore decided to make it! Here's the recipe if you'd like it:

1 cup lemon juice

4 cups sugar (yes, that's FOUR cups! it's sweet!)

2 quarts water

2 cups water with 1 family-size tea bag (make a very strong tea)

2 Tbs vanilla

4 Tbs almond extract

4 liters of ginger ale

Stir all ingredients except ginger ale together and place in a 1 gallon freezer bag. Freeze. When ready to serve, let stand about 1 hour until slushy. Add ginger ale. This serves about 30-40 people.

Party Favors:

We made up little take home bags for each girl, and they got to take their newly and fashionably decorated straw hats, their decorated tea cup pictures with leftover stickers, some Fancy Nancy and tea cup coloring pages (my mom mailed to Sadie to use for party favors), and some decorated tea pitcher sugar cookies.

Neighborly love!

We have the absolute sweetest neighbors, Cory and Julie, and we have so enjoyed having them next door over the last year. They moved in the week after Sadie was born. So it took us a couple of months before we were functioning well enough to go introduce ourselves! ha! But we have quickly become friends, and they are really the nicest people you will meet...salt of the earth! Oh, and Julie is an OB/GYN nurse practitioner. So I bombarded her with post partum questions and questions about mastitis last summer. She was so patient with me and didn't judge (at least I don't think she did! :)) We are just so fortunate to have them next door!

They are expecting their first baby at the end of August....a lucky little baby boy, Owen. I was honored to get to host a baby shower for Julie this past Saturday. Here are a few pics of the decorations and the sweet, cute pregnant mama! Owen's room is decorated in bright green and navy blue. So I tried to stick with the same colors, and used a few "O"s for Owen here and there (because his mom loves monograms).

The two tables.....

Favors....


Present opening spot....

The food (blueberry parfaits, sausage balls, eggs, cheese muffins, gorilla bread--a Paula Dean overhaul of monkey bread, lemon poppy seed muffins, donut holes, and green grapes)...


and, last but certainly not least, sweet Mama Julie....

Here are recipes for a few of the foods....

Sausage Balls

(these are a classic...at least in mine and Daniel's families, but poor Julie had never had them)

1 lb pork sausage

3 cups Bisquick

1 lb sharp cheddar

1/4 tsp black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all ingredients together. Form 1 inch balls. Place balls on greased jelly roll pan and bake for 18 minutes, turning balls halfway through.

Gorilla Bread

(from The Lady & Sons, Too cookbook)

1/2 c sugar

3 tsp cinnamon

1/2 c butter

1 c packed brown sugar

one 8-ounce package cream cheese

two 12-ounce cans refrigerated biscuits (10-count)

1 1/2 c coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray. Mix the sugar and cinnamon. In a saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar over low heat, stirring well; set aside. Cut the cream cheese into 20 equal cubes. Press the biscuits out with your fingers and sprinkle sugar each with 1/2 tsp of cinnamon sugar. Place a cube of cream cheese in the center of each biscuit, wrapping and sealing the dough around the cream cheese. Sprinkle 1/2 c of the nuts into the bottom of the bundt pan. Place half of the prepared biscuits in the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, pour half of the melted butter mixture over the biscuits, and sprinkle on 1/2 c nuts. Layer the remaining biscuits on top, sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon sugar, pour the remaining butter mixture over the biscuits, and sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 c nuts. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Place a plate on top and invert.

Cheese Muffins

(from The Lady & Sons, Too cookbook)

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 T sugar

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups coarsely grated Cheddar cheese

1 egg

1 c milk

1/4 c melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir the cheese into the dry ingredients until all the particles of cheese are coated with flour. Beat the egg with the milk and stir this into the flour mixture until just blended, then add the butter. Bake the batter in greased muffin tins for 20 minutes.

Hummus, eggs, and vermicelli

Sadie's been eating alot of hummus this week for snacks and lunch.

When we tried it before, she wasn't that into it. She really likes it now. Can you tell? I don't know if you can see in the pictures that it is all in her hair and on her arms, head, dress, etc. and all over the high chair tray.

This is her "squinting because I'm trying to not smile at you" face.



These pictures are actually from dinner last night. She had hummus because she had had a bigger lunch at Chic-Fil-A with our playgroup, and Daniel and I were having this.....




Eggs and vermicelli with fresh homemade salsa! Yum! This is definitely not an Indiana type meal....so hopefully I won't gross anyone out. Trust me, it is GOOD! I didn't grow up with this either, but Daniel did. Some of their ranch hands that were from Mexico would make this. So I guess it is a Mexican dish? I don't really know, but I think it is great, and I crave it.



Here's a rundown of how to make it, because I know my sister was asking about it. It is actually quite a frugal dish to make, it consists of ingredients that we always have on hand, and it's QUICK! Bonus!



What you need:

onion

oil (we use Canola oil)

vermicelli (last night we used whole grain thin spaghetti cause that's what we had)

canned tomatoes

water or broth

seasonings

egg (and butter to fry the egg)



Saute some onion in oil in a deep skillet. After starting the onions, break up some vermicelli into the pan and brown the vermicelli with the sauteing onions. When the vermicelli appears browned and the onion is translucent, add a can of tomatoes (we used Rotel last night, but any can of diced tomatoes would do) and some liquid (water, chicken broth, etc.) to cook the pasta. We add a little liquid at first to cover the pasta and generally have to add more as the pasta cooks. You can season it with a little chilli powder, garlic salt, black pepper, or whatever seasonings you choose to give it flavor. If you use chicken broth, you don't really have to add any salt/garlic salt. While the pasta is cooking, fry up a couple of eggs in butter (or whatever you want...we used lowfat margarine last night and it worked fine) with salt and pepper, and serve the egg on top of the cooked vermicelli. Yummy! Last night we had the ingredients for fresh salsa on hand. So Daniel whipped that up while the vermicelli was cooking. It's good with or without salsa on top though.