Happy Birthday Mom!

Today my mother would have turned 48. It is a hard time but I have the strength and support of JL and our families to help me get through this time.

For all of those who still have their Mom in their lives, tell her that you love her, you never know when you will wish you had one more chance to say it.

Sorry for the sad post...

My Mom was such a wonderful and happy person. Always going out of her way to help people and animals. She always said to enjoy life and I honestly believe that the only person who can make you happy is yourself, so SMILE :)

"Let go, let God." - Her constant advice to me :)

Live, Laugh, Love & Pray


Her resting place, isn't it beautiful?

The Shindig...

So this past weekend JL and I hosted yet another gathering at our house and I personally think this was the best one yet. All the food was perfect and everyone had fun laughing and hanging out.

So we had decided on making a few new items as well as some old tried and true favorites.

Layered Bean Dip
Spinach & Artichoke Cheese Dip
Fruit Salad
Pizza Rolls
BBQ Ribs
Potato Salad
PB Cup Brownies
Mini Funfetti Cupcakes

Most of those I made by scratch, all but the cupcakes and potato salad (I know, probably one of the easiest things to make on the list...), and this was time consuming!

Below I will list the recipes on some of the dishes I did make and I hope you will try them out!

Pizza Rolls
2 cans pizza dough (Pillsbury)
8 oz mozzarella cheese cubed into 48 pieces
1 pouch of peperoni
1/4 c olive oil
1 tsp Italian seasoning
Parmesan cheese, to sprinkle on top
Pizza sauce for dipping

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Roll out dough rectangle and cut into 24 squares, you will need to do this for the second can of pizza dough once you run out of dough from this one.

In each square, wrap a cube of cheese and a piece of pepperoni.

Place seam side down in a greased 9x13 pan. The sides of the rolls should touch. Continue until you have used up all the dough.

Combine oil and seasoning in a bowl and brush on top of the rolls. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 16 to 24 minutes.


BBQ Ribs
1 rack of baby back ribs
1 dark beer, I use Newcastle
BBQ sauce

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

In a 9x13 pan lay the rack meaty side down, you can also cut it into pieces before this process to make it easier (I did this for the party to allow for people to grab just the amount they wanted).

Pour the beer over the ribs and place in the oven. Bake for 2 hours or until the meat is tender, test with a fork.

Once they are done, place rack, or pieces, on the BBQ and brush sauce over them. Allow for sauce to caramelize a bit on the ribs and flip. Since the meat is cooked through, you are just trying to add the flavor of the sauce to the ribs, so you will have to judge when they are done.


PB Cup Brownies - Recipe Courtesy of Jessica from How Sweet It Is (the link to her site is on the left)

Brownies

1 stick unsalted butter
2-3 squares baking chocolate
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt butter and baking squares in a microwave safe bowl. In the mixing bowl, cream melted butter and chocolate mixture. Add in sugar and vanilla and beat until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add in eggs, beating one at a time. Add flour and stir just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour into greased muffin tin. Bake for 18 to 25 minutes, or until just barely done. Cool before frosting.

Peanut Butter Frosting (Recipe was adjusted from original)

3/4 stick butter, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 pound powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-2 tablespoons milk

Cream butter and peanut butter together. Gradually add in powdered sugar and vanilla. Add milk 1 tablespoon at a time. If frosting is too thick, add more milk. If it is too thin, add more sugar.

Frost brownies once they have cooled.



Live, Laugh, Love & Enjoy!

My 100th Post

Sorry for the delay in the posts. The past week has been an interesting and emotional one. To begin, I have no idea why I have been feeling this way. Sunday I went to bed with a bad headache and so Monday I woke up with one. For the remainder of the week, including today, I have had a dull pain in my head that I have been ignoring, simply because I am way too busy at work to try and do anything about it. Advil didn't help, but caffeine seems to. I was putting an ice pack on my head and that seemed to help, until it started to get cold. This is all something I can deal with, what I have a problem with is when I get grumpy for no apparent reason, thus making JL grumpy because he has to put up with it... Sorry baby...

The positive part of this is that I now feel like I am out of my gloomy fog and headed in a better direction. My thinking is, I am not having enough calories. I tend to get emotional when I am hungry so why would this time be any different?

So what is on the horizon for me? A dinner party tomorrow night! Yay, I love having people over and I LOVE making food for everyone. I want to make food that people will enjoy but will be easy to eat... Trying to think up ideas that JL won't shoot down. He says, "why not just burgers?"... humpf... That wouldn't be fun, plus I have made burgers quite a few times for our friends and don't want to just have that again. This time we are thinking of something new and creative! I'll just have to battle him on it. I swear, if he had his way we would just be eating meat patties on a bun with cheese and potato chips, men...

So far I found some fun ideas:
Pizza Bites (using Pillsbury pizza dough and stuffing with peperoni and cheese, with a marinara sauce on the side for dipping)
BBQ Chicken pizza bites (not sure if we should try this one yet...)
Spinach Artichoke Dip (love! but might have to invest in a small crock pot, thus making this one a maybe)
Mini Italian Cream Cake cupcakes (maybe, I need a mini muffin pan)
Some sort of cheesy dip :)

And that's about all I have for now. Today we are going shopping so I need to decide now... I guess I will have to start looking for inspiration :)

Live, Laugh, Love & Enjoy!

A special thank you to my Grandmother Jo Hanna for giving me the Food Network Magazine, I'm in LOVE! I have found so many great ideas for recipes. Thank you Grams :)

Living Outdoors

So recently we have come to realize that we need to upgrade our patio. Right now we just have lots of weeds and sand and rocks, not sure what the previous owner was thinking, covering the majority of our yard. The only space we can call a patio was a small brick area right outside the green room that barely fits a round table and a BBQ, while being able to go in and out of the house. So we have taken upon ourselves to create a new patio. This includes breaking up the hard dirt, removing about 3 inches of it and flattening it. Then we will cover with an ample amount of sand to make sure it is really level and place flat stones on top of it.

So that is our big project and I'm going to try and push Jose so we can have it finished Sunday, or at least pretty much finished Sunday.

Otherwise we are doing a lot of eating right and exercising. Since working in the yard is actually really good exercise, we have been doing that, but when we are not out in the yard we have been walking the dogs and trying to stay active. So far I have lost 3 pounds and I think most, or all, of it is water weight. That can happen when the majority of food consumed is over processed foods that tends to have a lot of sodium. Either way though, I am feeling much better already and its kinda funny, once I start to feel better about myself I have a tendency to not eat foods that will be bad for me. Weird I know but it happens :)

This means I have not been baking lately and I'm sorry to not be posting delicious recipes to fill your indulgences but you can find delicious recipes on the Baking Bites blog, the link is on the left.

Last night we did enjoy the apricot glaze/dressing I posted about last year but for those of you who haven't been following long or forget it, you can find it below. Last night I marinated two chicken breasts in this glaze for about 30 minutes and then BBQed them. Along with this I prepared a small salad consisting of spring lettuce mix and grilled onions, also marinated in the glaze and added a side or red potato (one of my favorite things ever!). This whole meal was relatively low in calories and absolutely delicious. Keep in mind that I only ate half of a chicken breast as a whole one is too much food for me, thus making my meal consist of around 350 calories, give or take.

Apricot Dressing

3 T apricot preserves
2 T white balsamic vinegar or white wine vinegar
2 T olive oil
1 t pepper
1 t garlic powder or 1 t grated garlic
Juice from 1 lemon wedge

Live, Laugh, Love & Enjoy!

Grown Up Chocolate Fudge Pudding

Hello all! Sorry it has been a few days since my last post.

This past weekend JL and I decided that enough was enough! No more silly excuses, we were just going to get in shape, once and for all! So he requested I make nothing but salads and we go running daily... Ok so maybe the salad thing will be adjusted but for the first week that is our goal :) I personally love salads and he likes most vegetables too so if we can just stick to something we actually like eating then all the better.

Now with dieting comes cravings, or urges as I have been calling them, at least for me. These typically are for sweets like chocolate and baked goods. Since I have been dieting a good portion of my life, I have found little tricks to get around this, one of my favorites is sugar free pudding. Now you may think that sugar free pudding will be gross and have a nasty after taste like diet coke but on the contrary, I can't really tell its sugar free at all! Just to make sure, I go for the full flavored kinds like chocolate fudge or butterscotch. For the recipe below I took boring sugar free chocolate fudge pudding and upped it a notch by adding some calorie free spices to it.

Grown Up Chocolate Fudge Pudding

1 small packet of sugar free chocolate fudge pudding mix
2 cups of milk (I used 2% because it is as low fat as JL will go with milk but you can use any type you want here)
Dash of cinnamon
Pinch of cayenne pepper (weird I know but you don't really taste it)

Combine pudding and milk and whisk for a minute or two, incorporating air in it only makes it more mousse like so burn some calories and whisk!

Add spices and mix in well.

Refrigerate for a few minutes until firm.

If you would like to jazz it up, a dollop of whip cream won't hurt, just adds a few more calories.

I personally love the cook and serve type of pudding too so to make this warm just microwave it for a few seconds and you have a warm chocolate pudding to enjoy.

If you need help with figuring out your caloric needs this article really helped me: http://weightloss.about.com/od/eatsmart/a/blcalintake.htm

Live, Laugh, Love & Enjoy Pudding :)

For the love of coconut!

One of my favorite blogs, How Sweet It Is (you can find the link on the left), posted recently about her love of coconut and got me thinking... I LOVE coconut too! Anything with coconut I can't resist like, coconut shrimp, Mounds, pina coladas and of course my mom's (and grandmother's) Cookies That Will Make You Fat. They definitely had such a sense of humor!

Another thing I use to qualm my urges (as we are calling them now) for coconut is to take some sliced banana, drizzle with some honey and top off with a good amount of coconut. Something that could take this over the top would be to do the following: Cut 1 banana in half length wise and then in six pieces width wise. Sprinkle some brown sugar on a plate and dip the flat side of the banana in the sugar just enough to coat. Place each piece sugar side down in a fry pan on medium heat until the sugar is browned and banana is heated through. The drizzle honey on top and sprinkle with coconut. (To add to the guilty pleasure, you can add chopped pecans, or to change it up you can substitute honey with chocolate syrup or caramel) Can we say sooo yummy!

So on with the cookies that will make you fat :)

Cookies That Will Make You Fat

½ c butter, melted
1 c graham cracker crumbs or vanilla wafer crumbs
1 c chocolate chips (you can also sub 1/2 with butterscotch chips)
1 c coconut
1 c chopped pecans
1 can condensed milk

1. In a 9x13 inch pan, pour butter and sprinkle with crumbs.
2. Sprinkle on top of that chocolate chips, then coconut and last, pecans.
3. Pour milk over it all.
4. Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes.
5. Cut into bars while still warm.

Live, Laugh, Love & Enjoy!

So Sore...

Hello all! Sorry I have been a bit quiet the past couple of days. I had the luxury of not having to go to work since last Thursday so we were busy in the yard and hanging out with the family.

Friday JL's parents came and did a lot of work in the back yard. Recently, with the rains, we have been having a huge weed problem. Not that kind of weed, the kind that runs rampant in the yard and garden. It had gotten really bad so for a few hours we were in the back yard working hard to clear them out. We weren't able to finish completely but I was able to whip up some Hot Cross Buns in my down time. You can find the recipe on the Simply Recipes blog, the link is on the left. I will warn you, they don't last long. The next day they were starting to get a little hard so for next year I will be trying another recipe.


Saturday I was able to relax a little bit but around 10:30 JL's dad came by and started to work on the yard again. After I did a few chores around the house, I went out to help him. Around 11:30 JL came home from work early, yay, with his mom in tow. We, meaning the men, started to work on clearing space for a patio. Once they were pooped we went to Home Depot and out to dinner. We frequent Home Depot about once a week, they know us there...

Sunday was our day to kinda relax. I made ham, salad and a pie. On our way to JL's parents house we stopped off to get some macaroni salad to find out they were completely out. I guess that wasn't an original idea... So potato salad it was! Everything was great, especially since JL's mom doesn't use her oven so I had to make everything ahead of time. The pie was good, the crust was fabulous! The berries were a little too moist so I will be working on that part of it but I came across the BEST pie crust recipe ever. Keep in mind, no fat was spared for this crust! (See Recipe Below) A little trick I learned, make an egg white wash and line the bottom of the pie crust before filling to prevent it from getting soggy.

Monday we had errands and appointments but for the second half of the day we just did a whole lot of nothing! I felt so guilty doing it but it was good for me to try and relax and just spend time with JL. With all that time together, you would think we would get tired of each other but it was just the opposite and today I missed being with him.

So why sore you ask? I woke up at 6:00am to work out and it felt good but definitely tired. I am so out of shape but I hope in a couple of weeks I will be able to start to go jogging, just waiting for the sun to rise earlier...


Never Fail Pie Crust

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter(unsalted),softened
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
5 1/2 tablespoons water

Directions
1. Whisk together the flour and salt. Blend in shortening until texture resembles coarse crumbs.
2. Mix together egg, vinegar, and water. Pour into flour mixture, and mix together.
3. Roll dough out between wax paper; no extra flour is needed to roll out dough if wax paper is used. Use as directed in recipe.

Notes: Roll the dough out very thin, it will rise while baking! This recipe makes more that you will need for a top and bottom crust so you can do what my mom always did, make some cookies with the remainder by rolling out the dough, cutting into shapes and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

Live, Laugh, Love and Enjoy!

Little bites of heaven!

OK, might be a bit of an exaggeration but my Maple Roasted Yams were yummy!

Side note: "craving" we are now calling "urges" because cravings sound too much like I'm preggers and I'm not.

So yesterday I was having some urges for sweet potatoes (aka yams) and seeing some pretty hefty ones at the farmer's market made me jump for joy. Last night for dessert I made these and they were so yummy and good for me, giving me added fiber I needed for the day.

Before I go into the recipe, I want to show off our babies...

Bear wanting a treat... Before I stepped outside, he was sun bathing, something he LOVES to do.


Blue after his bath... He is so spoiled!



Maple Roasted Yams

1/4 C maple syrup (the real kind)
1 large yam, cleaned and cubed
Pinch of salt
Cooking spray

Preheat the oven to about 375.

Spray baking sheet with the cooking spray and spread out potato cubes on tray.

Drizzle the maple syrup over the potatoes and stir to coat.

Spread out potatoes again, sprinkle with salt and bake for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes is up, toss them again, the syrup will start to fall off them so its good to flip them.

Bake for another 15 minutes or until tender.

Remove from baking sheet immediately or else they wills tart to stick as the syrup cools. That's what happened with mine after the photo shoot was over :/ I was still able to salvage most of them.

Live, laugh, love and enjoy!