Category: Recipes

Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice!
I love cooking and trying new recipes.

Baby Shower #2- Tacos, Margaritas, Sangria and Sun

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My second baby shower was hosted by my best friend and we had it at my house. It was the beginning of November which in the Midwest, you will never know what weather you get. We lucked out, we had beautiful sunny, warm weather. We all sat outside on our deck, we needed sunglasses and probably sunscreen, I think a few people might have gotten sunburned. The weather was perfect with the theme of Tacos, Margaritas and Sangria. We did some prep ahead of time to make the day of easier. I was excited to have all of my favorites! My friend did an awesome job!

Here are a few photos of the day.

Baby Shower #1-Wild Rumpus Here…

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Our first baby shower was hosted by my mom and I know my pa helped a little! 🙂 I have called baby wild thing because he really likes to move and wiggle. My mom took that and wanted to do the Where The Wild Things Are theme for the shower, it turned out great! She was so creative and worked hard to find the cool decorations! We decided on soup, bread, veggies, hot apple cider and sangria. The guests had a lot of fun.  My mom out did herself and it was such a special day! Our peanut is loved by so many and he doesn’t know it yet! 🙂

Here are some fun photos from the shower!

 

Thank You Mom and Pa for throwing us a fun baby shower!

We are so grateful!

Grab Your Spoon & Fork

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Here a few recipes that we have made in the last month or so.

img_0818 This was chicken and lime soup. This was good, but to give more substance to the soup, I added rice. Carl did say, next time if I make it, I have to thicken the sauce a little more. It was fresh and light tasting.

This recipe is from Budget Bytes, I love her blog, I have cooked other recipes from there before.

Budget Bytes-Chicken and Lime Soup

 

img_1128Last week, I found this recipe on Pinterest. Carl really likes orange chicken, this was easy, made a lot and I made it gluten free. I liked that the sauce was only 3-ingredients. I did use the whole jar of orange marmalade, I didn’t want a strong BBQ sauce taste. This is from the Blog Crafty Morning, I haven’t cooked from there before.

Crafty Morning-3-Ingredient Orange Chicken Sauce Recipe

 

I had to share these photos from August when my family got together at my parents house up north! So all my sisters are amazing cooks and I love when they share that with us. 🙂 She made us homemade individual pizzas.

 

They were good, she used roasted tomatoes, sausage, fresh goat and mozzarella cheese, fig spread and arugula!

We love eating! 😀

Life as I Know it….

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What a busy last month we had. We have seen family and friends a handful of times and that has been great. We have tried to make down time for ourselves, like puzzles! We have had awesome FISH FRYs (I wrote it in all-caps because it is that exciting for me because my fish are gluten free), went to the Lion King Musical and have been enjoying summer!

Here are a few photos!

 

Cheers and Happy Summer!

-Blondie!

Foodie…

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A while back I made this chicken recipe, it was really easy and delicious with lots of flavor. I found it on Pinterest! That app that pretty awesome and all the stuff you can find on it is so mind blowing. I must say, I hate when I find a cute outfit and then there is no place to buy it! lol

Anyway, back to the food!

Carl really liked the lemon flavor that this had and the cream sauce with the chicken was good not to think. I did not modify the recipe, only used gluten free pasta and flour. I highly recommend this recipe!

Crispy Lemon Chicken Pasta

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Recipes

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Here are a few recipes that I have made that were pretty good. Both recipe ideas came from Food Network shows. On Saturdays, I like watching Pioneer Woman and The Kitchen. On Netflix, Carl and I have been watching Worst Cooks in America.

10 Cheese Mac and Cheese-The Kitchen

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This was a hearty meal and very easy to make. We had a good week of leftovers.

 

This recipe was delicious and had some kick. The idea for this recipe came from the Worst Cooks in America show. I started googling Paella and there are so many types that you can make. This one had shrimp and chicken. I had to buy $15 saffron threads for this recipes.

Easy Paella Recipe

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I highly recommend both of these recipes.

Thank You Pioneer Woman

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Last weekend Carl’s parents and sister from the west coast came to our house for lunch. His sister hasn’t seen the house at all and his parents haven’t seen it since when we moved in. We have made a lot of changes and done a lot of things.

I wanted to make a yummy lunch, so I went to the one place that I knew I would find a good recipes. I knew Carl’s sister would appreciate and crave a good midwest homemade meal; which consists of meat, potatoes and veggies.

I settled on the following:

PW’s Smothered Pork Chops This was an easy recipe and full of flavor. It was the epitome of midwest food.

PW’s Crash Hot Potatoes I have been made these a few times before and are easy and taste so good. I added rosemary and thyme.

The Recipe Critic Roasted Lemon Parmesan Garlic Asparagus  I just made this asparagus recipe a few weeks ago and love it. It is fresh and has lots of flavor.

IMG_0158 Photo of Carl’s sister’s plate.

It was a great lunch. Carl’s mom was in charge of dessert and she rocked it! I have had it before but it has been a long time so it was nice to have it again.

It was strawberry pretzel dessert! Delicious!

We had a great Sunday lunch filling our bellies and enjoying each others company! 🙂

I highly recommend all the recipes! Pioneer Woman never disappoints, I have hooked my mother-in-law and sister-in-laws on PW!

It also got Arie’s stamp of approval, he was licking his chops!

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Cheers,

-Blondie!

 

Feeling A Little Shaggy

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A few weeks ago we ordered a area rug from Overstock. I got an email an hour later saying that there was an inventory error and they didn’t have the rug. Which stinks because it was our first purchase for the house. I put the name of the rug into google and it popped up on amazon. So we ordered it from there. I was anxious to get it.

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We love the rug! Its nice and soft and fits in the area perfectly. Arie did not like laying on the hard floor but loves the rug! Little by little it’s coming along.

Two Saturdays ago, we went to go see my father-in-law as he is retiring and closing the family jewelry store. It is bittersweet for the family; however, a great adventure is ahead of my in-laws now that they both will be retired. We went Friday so we could see him and then went back Saturday with my sister and friend so they could check it out and we helped with customers. After, Carl, Me, my sister and mother-in-law went out for dinner and went to the local winery! That was a lot of fun and the wine was good! Carl and I had pizza, my sister had a panini and my mother-in-law had oven baked parmesan what was amazing and I am still trying to find a way to re-create it! I am drooling just thinking of it.

Dancing Dragonfly Winery

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We had a beautiful day!

Wednesday Night Dinner

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My sister came over for Wednesday night dinner a few weeks go. My sister is a great cook, so I wanted to make sure I impressed her or at least made a worthy supper for her. I think I succeed and it was delicious! 🙂 All of this meal was gluten free.

All of the recipes are ones I found on pinterest and were very easy!

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Rosemary Chicken with Portabella Mushrooms-The Midnight Baker

This was rich and creamy, very easy to make. I wondered if adding shallots would add another texture.

Highly recommend.

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Roasted Lemon Parmesan Garlic Asparagus– The Recipe Critic

These were easy to make in the oven and the flavor was great.

Highly recommend.

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Steamed Baby Potatoes with Parsley Butter

I actually did this one a little different, I put my potatoes in my rice maker to steam them and I had herb butter in the freezer that I made last year. So there was a bunch of different herbs, but super easy and flavorful.

Highly recommend.

This was a great meal and leftovers were awesome. We put the chicken back in the pan and heated slowly.

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My sister plated her food perfectly!

Cheers!

-Blondie!