High Five for Friday

Ever have the kind of week that just tries every last nerve you have? That's been my week. I definitely needed a reminder of some of the better stuff from this week! So I'm linking up Jennie to share some of it. 

1) Last Friday we had dinner with my friend Janis and her husband. Since her husband's retirement, he's become quite the cook! He made us a delicious lasagna with cheesy garlic bread and Olive Garden-esque salad. My contribution, as always, was dessert. I went with Pioneer Woman's mocha brownies. It was so good to see Janis & John and we had a great evening catching up. It was the perfect start to the weekend.

Brownies!

2) At some point over the weekend I broke out this new bubble toy. It puts little bubbles inside big bubbles. Such a fun toy!

What kid doesn't love bubbles? (If you have toy envy,
you can find them at Walmart or Target)

3) I knew it was going to be a trying week, so I started it off with some yummy Cinnamon scones to go with my Monday morning coffee (and Tuesday morning coffee...and Wednesday 3:00 snack). (Recipe HERE; I was out of honey so I subbed REAL maple syrup and it was delightful.)

4) Workbook time! Grant finished up two chapters in his workbook he's been working on and he was so proud of himself. He loves to learn :)

5) FOOD. 

I'm not really a spaghetti lover but this was good.
(recipe based on THIS one)

Yeah...pasta again.
(recipe HERE)

6) It felt wonderful outside last night and was perfect for a little post-dinner pre-bath baseball. Grant told me "I'm gonna whack the mess outta this ball!"

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a great weekend!

High Five for Friday

Happy New Year! Today I'm linking up Jennie to share some of my favorite stuff from the past week.

1) With Christmas being just over a week ago, I had to post this picture. This crazy kid is the best and we had such a great Christmas!

2) Santa brought Grant a marble maze for Christmas. Santa was really excited about this gift because "he" thought Grant would be really fascinated by it. Santa was right. Grant think it is - as my mother would have said - the cat's ass. But when Santa ordered it from Zulily...Santa had no idea that it doesn't come with instructions. Have fun with that Christmas evening when you're deliriously tired. It doesn't work out so well. However, after a good night's sleep and an great cup of coffee (with the promise of much more in the pot waiting for me) I managed to get that marble maze going correctly based solely on a picture from the box. Hooray Mama.

3) Friday I cooked a yummy beef roast in the crockpot. I'm typically a terrible beef cooker (or perhaps I just think that because when I eat it I want it to be life-changing and it never is) but this turned out really well. I shredded it to make french dip sandwiches - one of my favorite sandwiches ever. I didn't love it in a sandwich so next time I think it would be good with just some mashed potatoes and a veggie. (beef roast recipe HERE).

4) Saturday we wen to Hill Ridge Farms for their Festival of Lights. Last year I won tickets to this through a raffle at work and I did again this year too! Grant loves to ride through the huge light display on the hay wagon!

5) My Aunt Bonnie sent some Christmas presents to Grant and she told me that she'd put some old pictures in there for me. I love to go through old pictures and there were some good ones in there!

Me and my sister

Me with my cousins Nick and AJ

Me and my cousin AJ

6) Grant's school did early closing on New Year's Eve so I decided to just take the day off and have some fun with him. We went to an early movie, ran some errands, and then just relaxed at home (he got to stay up a little later that night and we had ice cream to celebrate NYE).

Hogging the popcorn and waiting for The Penguins of Madagascar to start!

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a great weekend!

High Five for Friday

Today I'm linking up with Lauren and Jennie to share some of my favorite stuff from the past week. This week seems very food-oriented!

1) On Friday our big boss had a pizza lunch for us just to say thanks for what we do. We don't do things like that often and it was nice to sit with everyone at lunch for a bit and just talk. I'd been itching to bake something new, so I made these chocolate peanut butter cake bars for our dessert:

2) Saturday morning I really branched out and tried grits for the first time! I've been living in the south for 13 years now and have adamantly refused to try them every chance I get because they just looked gross. But I recently found this recipe for Cheddar Garlic Grits with Fried Eggs and the picture made my mouth water. I had all the stuff, so I made it Saturday morning. I have been turned. The garlic was a bit heavy for a morning meal but I'd definitely make this again sometime.

3) Grant and I went for a walk together Saturday afternoon! Usually for walks he's in the stroller (which I do know he's too big for) or he'll ride his bike. But this time we walked together - 2.25 miles! - and it was so much fun! He kept calling it our adventure :)

4) Sunday night we busted out this ice cream machine that Grant got for his birthday that basically makes blizzards for you. It was a lot of fun! And, I have to say, I was impressed with how easy it was to put together, easy it was to use, and very low-mess on the clean up. 

Grant mixed Cap'n Crunch into his...which wasn't great. I went
with peanut butter cups...which was great.

5) Fall mornings. I love Fall!

6) I actually planned out our dinners for the week (and have stuck to it!) and to break up our weekly routine, we had a picnic dinner in the park Wednesday evening. Grant hinted over the weekend about a picnic and he really loves them - and being outside in general. With the days getting shorter I thought we'd need to do it sooner rather than later. We invited my in-laws to join us and we ate giant sandwiches, chips, pasta salad, and brownies for dessert. Followed up with some playground time! It was a great evening!

So  happy :)

7) One more about food! Last night I decided to try this recipe for Garlic Parmesan Roasted Broccoli. I almost didn't make it because I was in a rush to get dinner on the table. I'm so glad I didn't skip it! It was SO easy to get ready, cooked fast, and was - hands down - the best broccoli I've ever eaten in my life!

Happy Friday!

Have a great weekend!

Cake Mix Cookies

I can't call this a new recipe but it's one that I really want to share because I love it. Easy and yummy and so many ways to change it up. I found the recipe right before Mother's Day from a Betty Crocker post on Facebook. That led me to this blogger who shared the recipe for cake mix cookies. When I saw the picture and the recipe I had to have them so they were part of our Mother's Day desserts. This past weekend I was really craving something cake-like but never got around to baking. Wednesday since I had the very few ingredients called for I decided to whip myself up a treat. I rarely ever bake "for me" so this was nice :)

Cake Mix Cookies 

1 box cake mix

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

1 can prepared frosting
*for the record I used Betty Crocker party chip cake mix and
 Betty Crocker party chip frosting

• Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, beat cake mix, butter, vanilla, and eggs with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth.
• Onto ungreased cookie sheet, drop dough by slightly less than tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart.
• Bake cookies 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are set (centers will be soft). Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheet to cooling rack.
• When cookies are cooled completely spread one cookie with frosting then top with another cookie to make a sandwich. Enjoy!

 

Mix the dough

 

Drop it on the cookie sheet (I used a cookie scoop)



Cookies may be a little difficult to remove

Mmmm...yummy :)



Notes/Suggestions: 

• Although you may be tempted - because the cookies do stick to the sheet a little - do not grease the cookie sheet. I did it thinking "I always grease my cookie sheet" and I burned them. Don't do it!
• So many flavor combos! I've also done red velvet cake mix with cream cheese frosting. Delicious! I think my next batch will be chocolate cake mix with peanut butter frosting for Husband. Lover of all things Choc & PB. (To make PB frosting just mix peanut butter into some vanilla frosting until it's as peanut buttery as you like it - easy peasy).

Enjoy!

Food for a Cookout

Last weekend (yes, I'm behind - I know this) we went to a cookout hosted by my boss. It was basically just a reason for everyone to hang out. Our whole staff usually only gets together once a year for our work conference in July. When we have the summer cookout I usually make macaroni and cheese but this time it was stolen out from under me. So I was forced to come up with another side dish equally as yummy. They usually cook steak and what goes better with steaks than blue cheese? In my opinion, nothing. So I made blue cheese potatoes. Basically a blue cheese version of hash brown casserole. Its a recipe that I found years ago on allrecipes.com that I try not to make too often because it's really not good for you. But it's great for this sort of potluck event because you don't have to eat too much of it.

Blue Cheese Potatoes

8 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup milk

1 cup cream

1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

1/3 cup bread crumbs

1) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the potatoes in a large saucepan with water to cover. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook until tender, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain, and transfer to a casserole dish.

2) Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Gradually whisk in the milk and cream so there are no lumps. Reduce heat and simmer until thickened. Remove from heat and whisk in the blue cheese until smooth. Pour over the potatoes in the dish. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top.

3) Bake for 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until top is nicely browned.



It was going to be a long morning of cooking so I put on some coffee. It also gave me my
first opportunity to use my new handwarmer coffee mug :)



Potatoes peeled and cubed



Boil 'em

 

Drain 'em




You can use the same pan/pot that you cooked the potatoes in to make the sauce



Butter & flour in the saucepan

Making the blue cheese sauce

The recipe says to mix everything together in the casserole pan, but I think it's
more even when you mix it in a bowl first.



Ready for the oven



Ready to go to the cookout! Mmmm...looks so yummy!

I also made a chocolate cake to take for dessert. This is my favorite chocolate cake. I got it from a hershey cookbook that my mom got me for my 19th birthday. But you can also find the recipe HERE. Usually, I make this cake from scratch but this time I used a box mix (Duncan Hines devils food) and it was quite yummy. So I really only used the chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache from the recipe.


Mmmm...chocolatey...

Notes/Suggestions:

• I used a bag of white or yellow potatoes...I didn't bother finding "8 medium potatoes". I just peeled and cubed the whole bag and figured it would work. It did.
• I used more than 1/2 cup of blue cheese. But I also used more liquid than was called for so I had slightly more sauce. The sauce always seems to get too thick so I add more milk to thin it out. I ended using a whole container of blue cheese which I think was about 6 ounces (maybe?).
• If you want it to be slightly less bad for you, could try substituting milk for the cream (I did use skim for the milk in the recipe and it was fine).
• If you're not a fan of blue cheese you could probably substitute any strong flavored cheese that you like. But if you decide to use cheddar then you may as well make hashbrown casserole.
• Be creative. This recipe is great for experimenting with adding things.
• As I said in the beginning, this a great recipe for a potluck gathering and could probably be easily doubled for a large group.

I hope if you decide to try it that you love it. Happy eating!


Sunday Dinner

I love to cook and, since my husband still eats what I make and I haven't killed him yet, I will assume I'm not bad at it. I have gotten very lazy with my cooking since Grant came along but I'm making an honest attempt at getting back into it. When I have a day off I like to cook a meal that I don't have time to cook during the week. Yesterday I made a pork tenderloin in a homemade BBQ sauce (vinegar based). The recipe is courtesy of my friend Henri who made it for a gathering at work. I don't think mine ever turns out as good as hers was but Husband ate the mess out of it and I think it was pretty good. So I thought I'd share the recipe:

Pork Tenderloin

Pork Tenderloin (4-5 lbs.)

For the sauce:

1 1/2 cups cider vinegar

10 tablespoons ketchup

1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

Pinch of red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 cup water

Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients for the sauce and simmer for about 15 minutes. Put the pork tenderloin in a crock pot and pour some of the sauce over it so that it almost covers it. Cook on high 5-6 hours. The meat should shred easily when done. *She noted that she cooks her on high for 3 hours, then low for 4 hours.

Making the sauce! (Hey Shauna, "I'm the souce makaaaaaa!")

Putting everything together (the tenderloins I buy always come packaged in pairs)



Ooooooh....almost dinner time. (P.S. this crock pot was my Christmas present last year from Husband - yes, I asked for it - and its a pretty kick ass crock pot!)




Ready!




I threw together a loaded baked potato casserole to go with it. That's what I'm calling it because I really didn't want just plain mashed potatoes. Basically, this is fancy mashed potatoes.



Notes/Suggestions:

• I make an extra batch of sauce for serving. That way people put on as much as they want or they can eat it as is.
• When the meat is finished, but before shredding, I pour off most of the sauce it cooked in. Then I use two forks to shred the meat.
• I played with the cooking time a little bit this time and I cooked it on low for about 6 hours (may have been a little longer) and then I kept it on "warm" while I finished up the potatoes. It shredded perfectly and was pretty tender!

It is not my intention to turn this into a food blog. Cooking (and baking) is one of my favorite things to do and if I have or find a good recipe I love to share. If any of you end up making this, let me know how it turns out and what you think!