Heather at 2

Heather is 2! Time has flown so fast! Your vocabulary is increasing every day! You are talking in sentences. Your words are mostly clear. You are combing 2-3 word phrases. I think it is cute the way you double pronounce the first syllable of most words, like "bu-butterfly, p-pretty, or c-car."

You love to laugh and giggle. You think a lot of things are funny! You also like to make people laugh by doing silly things. You are also a great hugger and love to give bear hugs. I love feeling your sweet little arms tug on my neck!

You know blue, green, white, yellow, red, and black colors. You can count to 2. You can sort all of your shapes. You can stack blocks up to 8 high.
You love to play dress up, dolls, cook, swing outside, dig, and bang on the drums. I love the way you say "pretty" after you have put on a pretty dress or outfit. When you see a picture of yourself you say "mine". You know most of your extended relatives by name.
You are starting to potty train. I think you first went on the potty around 21 months. You are good about going pee pee on the potty at home and church, but not school. You go to the Prep School, MDO, 2 days a week. You are in room D and your teachers are Ms. Glenda and Ms. Bianca. You love school and I don't have any issues with separation anxiety with you.

You go to gymnastics every Monday for a mommy and me class. You love to tumble, do assisted back flips, build houses, flip on the bar, and jump on the trampoline. You also think it is funny to do something Coach John asks then immediately take off running as fast as you can in the opposite direction of mommy. This class is just as much of a work out for mommy as it is for you! We are working on obeying instructions.

You are a snacker. You would rather snack yourself through the day than sit down and eat a meal. Your favorite snack is fruit snacks followed by popsicles. You have gotten mommies sweet tooth and are always in the mood for candy! I have caught you a few times in the pantry with a big bag of candy! You also like carbonated drinks and if we leave one in your reach we will usually find you sipping on it! I love the way you sweetly wave your hand and say "HI" when we catch you doing something you are not supposed to be doing like putting on lip gloss, getting candy, etc.

You are also an ipad snob! Anytime you think you can run off and sneakly steal the ipad then you do it! If I'm trying to get something done around the house, I can usually find you watching/playing on the ipad or iphone.

You love to snuggle with baba (blankey) and min mou (minnie mouse) during nap times and at bedtime. I usually don't have a problem getting you to take a nap or lay down for bedtime. You usually take a 2 1/2hr nap in the afternoon. 
You are wearing 24month/2T clothing, shoe size 6, and 2t/3t pull ups.

Friday Food Post

I know I said I would be posting more recipes! Things just got preoccupied with school starting and Heather's birthday that I had put blogging on hold. I did try two new recipes this week and they turned out great!!

First is fried catfish. I don't usually fry stuff at home, but I thought this recipe sounded good so I figured I would give it a try and Ryan said it is the best fried catfish he has ever had! I think a lot of the flavor was from marinating the fish in a brine of salt and chalula for 3 hrs prior to frying.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp plus 3/4 tsp of kosher salt, divided
3 tbsp hot pepper sauce
6 catfish fillets
1 1/2 cup white cornmeal
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
3 cups vegetable oil

Prep:
Whisk 3 tbsp salt, hot pepper sauce and 8 cups of hot water in large bowl until salt dissolves. Chill until cold again. (I just used warm water and placed frozen catfish in it and it was thawed by the time I was ready to cook) Place catfish in brine, cover, and refrigerate for 3 hours.

Whisk cornmeal plus next 5 ingredients and 3/4 tsp salt in medium bowl. Add oil to cast iron skillet. Heat until 335 degrees F. 

Rinse catfish and pat dry. Dredge in cornmeal mixture, shake off excess. Work with 2 fillets at a time. Fry catfish turning halfway through, until golden brown and crispy, 10-12 minutes per batch. Transfer fish to drip station (I used a baking rack for cooling cookies on top of paper towels to catch drippings).


The next new recipe is a breakfast casserole. We were having breakfast for dinner tonight and I've been wanting to try out a breakfast casserole that I signed up to take to my next MOPS meeting. I found the recipe off of pinterest.

It turned out really good and even Brooke liked it!

Here is a link to the recipe:
http://www.meals.com/recipe/potato-bacon-casserole-29566

Sorry, I forgot to take any pictures of these recipes, but trust me they were delicious!

Heather's 2nd Birthday!

Has it truly already come and gone! Is my sweet little baby already 2! I can't believe she is already a full blown toddler! For this party, I decided what I wanted it to be months ago. I found a rainbow layer cake on Pinterest and that's when I decided for it to be a rainbow theme party. I have loved making cakes for my family. I have been trying to find all sorts of occasions to practice my skills and techniques. I thought this would be the perfect cake to advance my technique. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be and it turned out great! I was very happy with the results. There was a ton of ideas on Pinterest for rainbow parties. I wanted to keep it simple and do as much and I could myself. I don't know why, but when I thinking about it months in advance it seems so easy! Really this was not a difficult party to put together, but the last week was a little stressful. I was happy to do it for my spunky 2 year old, Heather! Ryan and I decided to just have family and the neighborhood kids and keep it in the afternoon. So, I made the desserts and just had snacks. I saw a similar wreath on Etsy for $40 and I figured I could make one for less than that! The numbers are interchangeable so I can use this until Heather begs me not to! I have a Happy Birthday banner that I made a couple of years ago and I just change out the center to reflect the birthday we are celebrating. This was Heather's center for this birthday! I found how to make these tissue poofs off of pinterest and I made 5 in different colors. Heather's bedazzaled birthday hat! There was a funny behind-the-scenes story for this party, although I didn't think it was funny at the time! So, about 3 hours before the party. Everything seems to be going smoothly and I was beginning to relax and realize this was going to be a fun party! That's when the power went out! Ryan and Brooke were outside getting ready to head to the lake for a little fishing. I poked my head out the garage door and told Ryan the power just went out. He said he thought he heard a loud bang and went hunting in our backyard for answers. He found a fried squirrel. A dang squirrel had knocked out our power (and 3 other houses on our street)!! How random is that! My anxiety immediately went through the roof! I knew it was a Saturday and the electrical crew was slim on the weekends. I called the electric company immediately and was on hold for 20 minutes. I tried explaining to the dispatcher the urgency of this matter as we have a birthday party planned in 2.5 hrs! He didn't seem to be interested in that at all! I probably sounded a tad stressed! I decided to call my father-in-law, who has magical social skills and he was able to get the guy to tell him that the electrician was on his way, but they had to stop by the office and get the truck. Finally, 30 minutes later we see a truck in our neighborhood. They fiddled with the line in our back yard and then a few other spots in the neighborhood and with an hour to spare our electricity was turned on! I was so relieved and the party went on smoothly! Thankfully I didn't have much preparation that I needed the electricity for and I could do the rest with the sunlight coming in the windows! Heather had a blast at her party. We played a punch-the-hole game. I saw this on pinterest and it reminded me of the price is right game. I had the kids line up in order of birthdays starting with Heather's. Then they spun a wheel (from the high ho cherry o game) to see how many punches they got. I didn't realize when I was taping the bags on the back of the poster board that all the prizes had slipped down, so the bottom two rows was where all the good stuff was. The kids had fun once they got the hang of it. Next, on our game list was a musical star game. Kind of like the cake walk game. I played music and all the kids had to walk in a circle, when the music stopped they had to stand on a star. Then someone picked a color out of a bag and whoever was standing on that color star would win a prize. The kids absolutely love this game! I will probably do that one again at a future party! This is how I made the punch-the-hole game. First I started with poster boards and cut a bunch of holes in them. Then I placed candy or money on the holes and taped a cut paper sack to cover them. I'll have to remember to tape in between the sacks so all the prizes don't slip down when I stand it up, if I ever make this again! This is the final product! Next came cake time! I was nervous because I didn't know how my cake was going to turn out. It turned out great and Heather really enjoyed the icing. Cooking day!! I had set all the eggs, and butter on the counter to come to room temperature before I started baking the cake, 24 cupcakes, and 4 dozen cookies. Yes, that is 14 sticks of butter if you look closely! Dying the cake batter. I only had 2 9" round pans, so I had to bake the cakes in 3 different sessions. The iced cake! The cookies before decorating. The rest of the cookies not pictured were saved for Heather's school party! The dyed royal icing. This was my first time working with royal icing. It took me several attempts, but I think they turned out cute for her party. The cupcakes were the easiest thing to make. I got this idea off of pinterest! Party favors! Food Display Rainbow Fruit Cake and layered skittles with pinwheels Living room decorations Singing Happy Birthday to Heather! Sweet display After the first cut! Hooray, it looks like a rainbow! Birthday girl enjoying her cake! A better picture of the cake Brooke loves it! Heather saying, "I'm two!" Then on to presents! Heather's favorites. She had a few helpers helping her open, but she finally got the hang of it and enjoyed opening a few on her own.             Thanks for making my birthday so BRIGHT!!

Crab Linguine

I know its been another 2 weeks since I have posted and I have actually tried a few new recipes since then, but it has been so chaotic and busy around here that I am just now getting to this post! Since I kind of combined 3 recipes and ad-libbed for this recipe, I am expending all the thought energy I had left for today on this post. I made this for a family with a newborn and it was enough to split between 2 families, however, I'm going to modify the ingredients a little and it should be enough to serve 6. It got rave reviews, so I hope you enjoy!

Crab Linguine

Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup minced shallots
1 tsp garlic
zest and juice of 2 lemons
2 red jalapenos, finely chopped (more if you like added spice)
3/4 lb fresh linguine
1 lb fresh crabmeat
1 pint of heavy whipping cream
large handful of torn basil leaves
sea salt/pepper to taste

Prep:
Add olive oil, 2 tbsp of butter, lemon zest, shallots, garlic, and jalapenos to a small pan and cook on med-low heat until they soften. Set aside.

Bring large pot of salted water to a boil and cook linguine according to package. Rinse and set aside.

Add lemon zest, jalapeno, onion mix to pot that linguine was cooked in. Add lemon juice and cook over medium until sizzling. Return linguine to pan with 2 tbsp of butter. Mix in crabmeat, cream, and add salt/pepper to taste. Toss for 2-3 minutes until heated through. Fold in basil.

Recipe Crazy

I know it has been a couple of weeks since I last posted a recipe. I've been cooking and not posting, sorry! ...and maybe watching some OLYMPICS! So, instead I have a bunch of new recipes that I have tried over the last couple of weeks.

I have pinned a ton of recipes from pinterest and one evening at about 4:30 I had no idea what I was going to fix for dinner. Then I remembered I had pinned this mini corn dog recipe a few weeks ago and I began scouring my pantry/fridge to make sure I had everything. It turned out I did and this is a super quick recipe so I HAD something for dinner! Also playing on the corn theme, I had Ryan grill some corn I had bought at the store. The girls loved it so this is definitely going down as a kid favorite recipe!

Mini Corn Dogs:
1 8.5 oz box of jiffy corn dog mix
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup of milk
1 tbsp honey
4 hot dogs cut into 5 pieces

1. Spray mini muffin pan with PAM. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Mix first 4 ingredients and let sit for 3-4 min. Slice hot dogs
3. Fill 20 mini with 1/2 tbsp of mix then top with hot dog. Cover the hot dog with remaining corn mix.
4. Bake in oven for 10-15 min until golden brown. Remove and allow to cool before removing from pan.

Gazpacho
I've been wanting to try making Gazpacho ever since I saw it made on a cooking show. I had never heard of it before, but it sounded like the perfect summer soup. It is served cold. A friend of ours had surgery earlier in the week and she is a home chef and food connoisseur, so I wanted to make her something light, but tasteful and summery.  I searched for the perfect gazpacho recipe and found one that I thought would be really tasteful. It turned out it was super easy to make and you make it a day in advance so it had time to cure in the fridge. It was so good. Ryan was even skeptical of eating a 'cold tomato' soup, but he tried it and before I knew it his bowl was empty! The only thing I would do different is use heirloom tomatoes, but they were not available, so I used a couple of tomatoes from our garden and the rest were hot house tomatoes from the store. I also used a yellow onion instead of a purple because that is what I had. Here is the link to the recipe.

This is the beautiful picture taken by my friend. She is a much better food photographer than me, so I borrowed her picture she posted on FB.

Chocolate Pie
Whenever I'm making a meal for someone, I always have to include some kind of chocolate! I went ahead and made two pies because this was a first time for this particular recipe and I can't make a new recipe without trying it before I give it to someone else! This is another pinterest recipe I found titled Grandma's Chocolate Pie! The very name makes me recall memories of when I was little visiting my grandma! I thought since this was Grandma's recipe it must be tried and true!  It turned out beautifully. The recipe didn't include a crust recipe and although I do have a favorite crust recipe, time was of the essence and I decided to use prepared freezer crust. The only adjustment I have to the recipe would be to use cream of tartar in the meringue topping. It doesn't call for it in the recipe and I think that is the key ingredient to keeping the meringue from separating. It was so delicious. I savored the velvety chocolate paired with the fluffy light meringue. It was heaven on a plate!

 

Creamy avocado pasta:

  

I was intrigued by this recipe on pinterest. One of the few pastas my husband will eat is fettuccine alfredo. Aside from the green color, it seemed to resemble fettuccine alfredo in its creamy texture, but at the same time be healthy and use one of his favorite vegetables, the avocado! My kids love pasta and usually this is where I can sneak in some veggies in their diets. So this sounded like the perfect recipe for me to try! It turned out my kids ate a few bites and then were not as enthused as I thought they would be, but my husband ate it and said it was good. It was a creamy texture just like fettuccine alfredo and didn't have an overpowering avocado taste. The roasted tomatoes were the perfect balance of tartness to the smooth avocado sauce. Since my husband ate his portion, that means it is going in the recipe index! The only thing the recipe called for and I didn't have were pine nuts. I liked it without them, but it would also be good with them. I also used linguine instead of fettuccine because that is what I had. I served it with a buttered slice of sourdough bread. I'm getting lazy so instead of typing out the whole recipe, here is another link to this recipe.

Bacon wrapped meatloaf with a sweet potato puree

Surprise! This is not a pinterest recipe! I did mention how I have been watching a lot more cooking shows. Most of the time they don't publish their recipes, but this particular one was featured on epicurious.com and I thought it sounded really good. It is from Hell's kitchen. Although, I don't care for the language in the show, they have some great recipes and it is funny to watch Gordon Ramsey get mad at the chefs! Here is your link.

This seems like a really detailed recipe, but once you start cooking it really flows nicely and it doesn't take that long. First you let the sweet potatoes boil and bake the bacon while you assemble the meatloaf. Then bake the meatloaf while you finish the sweet potato puree and apple cider jus and all three will finish at the same time for serving. I used ground beef instead of veal because 1. I think it is a waste to grind veal 2. It is extremely hard to find veal in these parts. Also, I enjoyed the apple cider jus, but Ryan said it could do without so maybe next time I will omit that. I thought the recipe called for a lot of odd pairings of spices, but I'm naive at this so my opinion isn't worth much, but they really worked together and it came out nicely in the meatloaf and sweet potato puree. The puree had a nice spicy bite combined with a smooth creamy texture. The bacon really balanced the meatloaf with the perfect smokey flavor. The only thing I would change is instead of using a muffin pan to cook the meatloaf, where all the juices drip to the bottom and the bacon doesn't crisp on the underside, I would use a roasting pan so the juices can drain away from the meatloaf and the bacon will finish crisping around the meatloaf. I like my bacon crispy, so that is my preference.

I know I need to work on my plating, but it tasted a lot better than is photographed!

Friday Food Post

This week I tried 3 new recipes and 1 of those was a total fail, but worth a second try!

First, I made dinner Monday night with bacon guacamole grilled cheese and sweet potato fries.
The grilled cheese was super easy. I just never thought of putting guacamole on it before. First you cook your bacon and make the guacamole. Then butter the outside part of 2 slices of sourdough bread. Sprinkle with cheddar and Monterrey jack cheese. Top with bacon, guacamole, and finally the top slice of bread. Grill to your satisfaction! It was super yummy!

Next, I tried the sweet potato fries. I've been trying to find the recipe that Smashburger uses for their fries. I found a recipe on pinterest that looked very similar. First, I soaked the julienned fries in water for 2 hours. Then I lightly coated them with cornstarch followed by a little olive oil. I sprinkled on a pinch of salt and herbs de provonce.   Next, you can see where my fail happened. In a rush, I wanted to cook them all at once, well that just ended up in a big gooey mess! I overcrowded them. I will try this recipe again, but only use a single layer next time! That being said, I did try one and I think the taste is there. It is really close to the Smashburger fries, so I will definitely be trying them again. Here is a link to the sweet potato recipe.

 Well, I've been trying to master a buttercream icing to use on my cakes. I want the perfect balance between spreadability (silky texture) and still tastes great. I tried a new Swiss Meringue buttercream recipe from a new blog I've been reading, Sweetapolita. It was the perfect texture I've been looking for and also tasted superb!

I got the recipe from a blog she was doing about a lemon blueberry cake. It looked wonderful! I didn't make the cake, but I did want to try the macaron cookies. I've never made them before and although they were very technical, they tasted great! The recipe called for almond flour, which I did not have, so I improvised per Sweetapolita's suggestion and ground up some sliced almonds.

 

The recipe says the cookies develop a "foot" while baking. I was unsure what she meant by this, but I figured it out after the first batch. See in the picture below the smooth rounded top and then a bubbly rough texture underneath, that is the 'foot'. I still think the next time I try these I need to bake them a tad longer and make a bigger foot. 

 Here is the final batch. I wanted to play around with the different colors. The blue ones were my first batch and I didn't whip them enough to make them a smoother texture like the pink and yellow ones. There is a technique to perfecting these. I used the Meringue buttercream as a filler for the macarons to make them a sandwich cookie. These maybe my new favorite cookie...at least for the time being!

Friday Food Post!

Banana Ice cream!
This is actually not a new recipe for this week, but we tried it first about a month ago and the girls love it! And it is new for the blog! I got this idea from Pinterest, as most of my ideas start there. It is super easy and the girls feel like they are getting a special treat, but I am happy because I know it is a healthy treat!

First, you slice a banana and freeze it on a cookie sheet for a few hours. Once the slices are frozen then put them in a blender.

Just blend until desired consistency. It took me a few times of turning on and off the blender and mashing down the ingredients to get all the banana blended, but sure enough it worked and we had banana ice cream within a few minutes. It is the consistency of soft serve when served immediately after blending, but if you want a firmer ice cream then just place back in freezer. One banana was enough for my girls to split and I just divided it up into cones with some blue sprinkles on top, Brooke's favorite!

We have also served them in bowls topped with marshmallows, sprinkles, and chocolate sauce. And tried with caramel sauce. All are favorites of the girls. Next, I'm going to try blending a little bit of peanut butter (for protein, of course) and chocolate sauce.
Enjoy!

Bubble Bath!

 I'll just let the pictures tell the story of our bubble bath fun tonight!

Now doesn't that make you smile and reminisce how fun it was to take a bubble bath as a kid!