Weekend in review and a little treat

Well, it is cloudy here today but this past weekend we had beautiful weather!

Lovely weekend spent with the the family.

Saturday we headed to the Home and Garden Show... I must admit I was a bit disappointed. It seemed that unless you were in the market for a new bathroom, done by the "Bath Fitters type" of people, needed new gutters or a new deck, the show wasn't much of a show for you!

However we did run into DiVine, The living Gardenivine. I wasn't sure what to think but evidently it was suppose to be a show "highlight".

See her face in this one... kind of creepy!

 

Moving on... as I awoke at the wonderful hour of 3:00 this morning I decided and to be a bit productive by doing the dishes, washing some clothes, and what else can you do at that hour besides whip up some homemade gornola! 

Honey Almond Gronola

3 cups of this:

1/2 cup this

1/4 cup this

 

1/2 cup this

 

1/4 cup this (melted)

 

1 tsp this

Plus 2 tbsp warm water. 

Mix oatmeal, almonds and coconut together in a bowl and set aside. 

Melt the cocount oil and then add the honey, vianialla and water. Mix together and pour mixture over the dry mixture coating it well. Transfer to a greased baking sheet and pop in over for 10 to 15 mintues at 325. Stirring every 5 minutes. 

It will look a bit like this

Super yummy to eat alone or mixed in with some yogurt.

It makes 10 servings and from what I can tell a serving is about 1/2 a cup. With some help from MyFoodDiary.com with the recipe builder it is around 268 calories a serving. Seems a bit high but you would only probably eat it in 1/2 serving size... 1/4 cup making it just around 134 calories. Either way, better eating exactly what you know than a list of ingredients you have never even heard of.

Got this recipe from Mallory, my bootcamp instructor! Next time you are at the store and are about to buy your gonoala take a look at those ingredients... might make you think again!

Happy Monday!

Christmas, Yummy Soup and E-Bay!

So I took a blog vacay but now I am back and ready to roll. Let's back up a week or two and do a little Christmas recap. This was a wonderful Christmas, as it is every year, but it was our 1st White Christmas! Down here in the South that is more than rare so it was really exciting. We were in Cullman for Christmas morning and I just couldn't stop taking pictures. Talk about "magical" as you are watching the snow fall while opening gifts.

And of course, Bella Baby wasn't quite sure what to think!

Our attempt to get a "family" photo. We finally got a decent one.

If this is anything compared to having kids, then we will be in for a treat one day.

(Especially if they take after their daddy! LOL)

We also got to spend Christmas with Ted's side of the family a few weeks earlier. All in all there are 6 kids under the age of 6! (one being only 2 weeks old!)

Of course this makes for one interesting present opening session and my OCD has to go out the window!

We have a wonderful holiday with family and friends!

Really makes you stop and count your blessings.

And what would the holidays be without yummy food! I wanted to share this super simple potato soup recipe I found online a few years ago, back in my "early" days of cooking and I still use it. Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE me some potato soup! I swear I could eat it everyday if I wasn't scare the effect it would have on my physical body. (already gots enough curves)

This is what you will need:

(plus 3 cups water and salt & pepper)

 And this is what you do:

(I think you can read the card)

It will look similar to this:

Top with these:

And you will get something like this:

Yummy to my tummy. Disclaimer: I always think it is better the 2nd day.

And it is great for freezing too!

Enjoy!

And last but not least... my new obsession... E BAY!!!

Oh my goodness where have I been! I have recently bought a purse, flip flops (new of course) and currently bidding on a ring for my mom for Mother's Day or Birthday. More importantly I SOLD my old camera for a great price.

This could get scary fast!

Happy Tuesday! Be back this week to discuss upcoming home projects! Although I love January since it is my birthday month, I wish we could move right on into Spring for cleaning and projects!

Baby it's cold outside...

And I am so excited about it!
(and I LOVE that song.. the Rod Stewart or Dean Martin version preferable!)
We got a load of firewood delivered to the house this morning and can't wait to use it this weekend!

Other plans, besides being lazy, on the agenda include:

• Dinner tonight with The Baxters and Sarah and Nathan coming in town from Destin.
• 3 F's tomorrow... Football, Food, and Friends! Can't think of a better way to spend a chilly Saturday.
• Relaxation and snuggling with Bella. She is a huge baby when it comes to the cold.
• And some stocking up of the freezer.

It is so nice to have single servings of food frozen for lunches or when we don't fill like cooking. I plan on making this yummy Taco Soup that Mrs. Smith posted on the other day and my Memaw's Beefy Noodle Casserole. I am not sure what the real name is but that is what I called it when I was little.

Beefy Noodle Casserole

Ingredients:

 1 pound ground bee, 1/2 cup chopped onion, 1 envelope beef/mushroom dry soup mix, 2 Tbsp ketchup, dash of pepper, 1 1/2 cups water, 1/2 package of egg noodles (the small ones), 1 cup sour cream,

1/2 cup crushed corn flakes (I never use these but it says it one the recipe)

Directions:

Brown ground beef and saute' onion

Stir in soup mix, ketchup, water pepper

Cover and simmer for 15 mins.

Cook noodles

Fold in meat mixture and sour cream with drained noodles

Melt butter with crushed corn flakes and top casserole (again, I skip this part)

Bake at 350 for 20 to 30 minutes!

Happy Weekend!

Pictures to follow.

Sugar & Spice...

And PUMPKIN!...

That is what pumpkin bread is made of!

I am headed down to Opelika tomorrow to meet the first of our college group's, baby boy, Mr, Charles Parker Moore! I can't wait to snuggle wuggle with him! In preparation for this little journey I thought what better way to let the Moore's know how much we care about them as to bring them some goodies, just as any southern lady would do! (including wine for the new mom!) So I decided to get out the ole' Kitchen Aid mixer and whip up a few loaves of pumpkin bread! I have come a long way in my cooking over the past few years, but baking is a skill I am still trying to master. However I must say, this turned out to be a success!

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

31/2 cup white sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground all spice

(I used pumpkin pie spice because I had it)

1 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnut or pecans)

1 tsp baking power

Directions:

1. Combine pumpkin, oil and eggs. Sift together dry ingredients. Combine the 2 mixtures, blending thoroughly.

Which will look similar to this:

2. Pour into 2 greased 9X5 inch loaf pans and bake at 300 for 1 hour.

Here is the fun part.. I went to Michael's the other day and found these cute little mini loaf pans for 60 cents a piece. So I decided to get them and then fix up a cute little bags of mini loaves to take to the Moore family as well as pass along to my neighbors.

How cute are those!?!?!?

(Ted had to have a little sample... that one will stay at the Baker's!)

I am going to wrap them in foil for extra protection then then put them in this cute little bag

Along with putting the recipe inside.

(also found these cute little fall recipe cards at Michael's... $1 for 20 of them!)

Hope they enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making them!

Happy weekend everyone!

So call me overexcited...

2 blogs in 1 day on my 1st day... a bit overexcited indeed. However, I do have a pretty good excuse due to a stormy, rainy night! Had plans to go work out with my dear friend Meredith, but we got washed out, LITERALLY!!!! Huge storm came through and I was left with not much to do since it was Teddy's night to cook! :-) As he was cooking I decided to look up how to make a little cocktail. We had a Stock the Bar that was hostessed by our sweet friends before we got married and I am sad to say that I still have most of the generous gifts from it in my pantry... waiting for that "special occasion" I guess. So I thought tonight was as good as any and decided to google a little concoction! This is what I came up with... an Orange Creamsicle!  And let me tell you, it wasn't too shabby! This is what it consisted of 

And yes the shot glass is a "I LOVE MY BOXER" one! Basically it consists of this:

1/2 oz Triple Sec

1/2 oz Vodka

1 oz Orange Juice

1 oz of Whipped Cream

Mix/Shake/Stir... what ever you prefer, all together and you have some yummy goodness!

 Very glad I was able to put some of our Stock the Bar gifts to good use. (other than the wine which is long gone!)

Now just sit back and relaxing this stormy rainy night my with my lit family!

(they are watching basketball of course)