Foodie Friday

Lots of recipes to share this week since I completely skipped last week!  Several are oldies but goodies in our house, but definitely worth sharing.

First up is a recipe I have made many times, but it's so good, I think I need to share it.  My mom has been making Sweet & Sour Meatballs for forever, and it was one of the recipes I took with me to college.  For the longest time, I called it pineapple and meatballs, which apparently didn't sound too appetizing when I offered to make it for my friends!  Everyone always came around once they tasted it.  I actually made this recipe for Cameron when we first started dating.  I think it won him over! ;)

Sweet & Sour Meatballs

1 lb ground beef
1 egg, beaten
1/4 c. dry breadcrumbs
1/2 t salt
1/4 t ginger
1/4 c flour
3 T oil
15oz can pineapple chunks
3 T brown sugar
1 T cornstarch
1/4 c vinegar
1 T soy sauce
1 green pepper, cut in strips
Rice, cooked

Mix ground beef, egg, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.  Form 16 balls.  Roll balls in flour.  Brown in oil.  Drain pineapple juice into a measuring cup and add water to make 1 cup.  Stir juice into pan drippings.  Mix brown sugar and corn starch (no lumps!).  Add vinegar and soy sauce and mix together.  Stir into pineapple juice in skillet.  Allow to cook down into a thick sauce.  Add meatballs, pineapple, and green pepper.  Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.  Serve over hot rice.

I decided to make Breakfast Casserole for our beach trip.  I have had this before and went searching for the recipe last fall.  Success!  I actually made this for breakfast on Christmas morning last year.  It's great to make ahead and just put in the oven that morning.  Personally, I do not add mushrooms, tomatoes, or onions to it.  Also, I recommend decreasing the number of eggs from 10 to 7.  It was a hit with the boys and reheats well for the next morning so perfect for a weekend getaway!  (It got devoured before I took a picture, but of course the camera is gone, so I wouldn't have a picture anyways!)

You always need good junk food on a beach trip so I tried out a new cookie recipe to take with us.  Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies via Pinterest were amazing!!  The blogger mentioned keeping them in the freezer - what a genius idea!  a) they don't sit out on the counter, tempting you every time you walk by.  b) they stay fresh longer.  c) somehow they taste better!  You do lose the chewy cookie sensation a bit, but still delicious.  I think they taste better than plain chocolate chip.

For Mother's Day, we had the Gill family over for Cameron's ribs for dinner.  I'm always up for trying out a new dessert when there are other people around to eat it.  I chose a Sweet Tea Icebox Tart recipe that I pulled out of Southern Living.  I tried to make it in my cute ceramic tart dish, but unfortunately it didn't bake evenly.  The gingersnap crust ended up a little overdone.  Overall, it wasn't bad, but it was very reminiscent of key lime pie, just not as good.  The tea flavor really wasn't that prominent.  Oh well, that's why you try new recipes right?

Last night, Cameron  made some delicious fillets!  The Big Green Egg was money well spent!  Who needs Ruth's Chris?

 

That's it for the last two weeks.  Happy cooking!

Working on my green thumb

So I have accomplished a couple garden projects over the last couple weeks that I wanted to share.  Nothing major, but, hey, it's a start!

Several months ago, Cameron and I started talking about trying out a small garden.  With our rambunctious dogs, a planter box would be a necessity in order to keep their little paws out.  Cameron was able to use some old wood from a friend's deck renovation to build the planter, so the dirt was the most expensive part.  Ideally, I would have left it a natural wood color, but some of the boards already had some white paint on them.  I toyed with painting it a bright, fun color, but in the end decided I would be happier with neutral brown.  We planted mint, basil, rosemary, cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, and okra. 

I'd love to say that's how my little garden planter still looks, but less than 24hours after planting it, a tomato plant was destroyed with muddy pawprints left as evidence.  So we now have it surrounded by chicken wire.  Certainly not the most attractive, but the plants are staying where they're supposed to and actually starting to grow!  (and yes, those are kayaks hanging on the side of our shed.  They aren't exactly easy to store when they're not being used!)  I am planning on surrounding the base with monkey grass to pretty it up a bit!

For my second project, I attempted some planters by the front door.  I have wanted big, black urn planters for our front porch for at least a year, but everytime I found some I liked, I did not like the price tag.  While scoping out plants for the garden, I found these at Lowes.  Cute, lightweight, and only $25.  I'll take two!
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After getting Mom's approval that they were an appropriate size for my porch, I picked out some plants for them.  Because they sit next to the door, they don't get much sun (although I'm now realizing they get more than I originally thought), so I looked for things that do ok with shade.  I went with coleus, an orangey-pink begonia, and white impatients.

I'm liking the way they turned out.  Now I have to see how they fill in.  I'm worried it may be a tad crowded, but not bad for my first attempt!

Since I have yet to share many pictures of our house, here's a picture from when we first bought the house 2 years ago.  It hasn't changed much to be honest, except the Alabama flag was replaced with a MUCH more attractive Auburn one. :)  Unfortunately, the tree to the right is starting to die and will likely need to be cut down soon, preferably before hurricane season gets here.  I'm dreading it because the trees were part of what attracted me to the house to begin with.  The plan this fall is to redo the flowerbeds - move the larger wild azaleas to the back yard and plant some new bushes.

As for the backyard, we've been experimenting with a patch of sod and so far have kept it alive for about a month.  We are seriously considering resodding the backyard, and then maybe we will FINALLY have grass back there!  Then there's the topic of actually planting something in the flowerbeds we laid out last year...but that's a whole other post on its own.

Happy Mother's Day!

I want to wish our moms a very happy Mother's Day!!  Thank you for all that you've done for us over the years.  We could not be where we are without you!

To Dottie - Thank you for raising an amazing son!  I'm sure it wasn't always easy in a houseful of boys, but you raised a perfect Southern gentleman, who has become a wonderful husband to me. 

To Charlotte - You have truly become my idol.  I know it was rough sometimes, but you always managed to be the perfect mother.  And somewhere along the way you became my best friend!  I only hope that one day I can be half the mother you were to me!

Funny that these days the pictures aren't with us - they're with their grandchildren!!

I hope both of you have a wonderful, relaxing day and know how much you are loved!

Love, Heather

Birthday Weekend Recap

I think it's about time for a birthday weekend recap.  I am sad to say there are no pictures to share.  Trust me, we took plenty and had quite a few priceless ones.  Unfortunately, my little camera is now MIA.  I'm still holding out hope that it will show up eventually, since we know for sure that it was in the car on the way home.  I've been very upset the last few days.  It's not even the loss of the camera - it can be replaced.  It's losing the pictures.  Fingers crossed it shows up!

On to the recap - As some of you know, I turned 29 last Sunday.  Only 1 year left to enjoy my 20s - then I'm old! :)  Cameron and I decided to head to the family condo in Gulf Shores for the weekend and invited our friends, Elliott & Harry to come with.  It was an amazing weekend!  Of course, I would have loved having some of my girls to celebrate, but these boys treat me right!

We spent all day Saturday on the beach.  Except for a very brief rain shower early on, the weather was AMAZING!!  Warm enough to get in the water, but cool enough to sit on the beach.  Cameron bought a new cooler float for the trip.  If you haven't seen a cooler float before, it's awesome.  You can take your cooler out in the water with you and stay all day!  The boys enjoyed a little football and I caught up on some magazine reading. 

Saturday night, we went to Lulu's per my request.  If you aren't familiar with Lulu's, it's a seafood restaurant owned by Lulu Buffet, Jimmy Buffet's sister.  It has all the colorful, beachy atmosphere you'd expect, plus plenty of sand and toys for the kids to play while their parents sip on a frozen concoction.  The problem is that during peak season, the wait time runs about 2 hours+!  So we usually opt for a less popular restaurant.  But it was my birthday so we were going regardless!  We only waited about an hour and 20 minutes.  We got some drinks at the outdoor bar (the Jet Ski Killer is so good!) and even took turns hula-hooping, much to the entertainment of people nearby.  After dinner, we headed to the famous Flora-Bama, a dive bar located on the Florida-Alabama line.  It's most popular among college kids & bikers, but always promises a good time.  The last time Cameron & I were there, the majority of the building had been demolished by a hurricane and the "bar" consisted of tents & portapotties - yet it was still packed!  They've completely rebuilt it now, better than before, with 2 stages for bands.  After people watching and the obligatory birthday shot and Bushwacker, we spent the rest of the night dancing to a 90s band that seemed to have gotten their setlist straight from Elliott's ipod. :)  Back at the condo, the boys had an ice cream cake dessert that Elliott made, complete with candles.  Told you the boys take care of me!

Sunday was a repeat of Saturday out on the beach, followed by a little pool time, before packing up and heading home.  It was a wonderful weekend getaway and I desperately wish I had pictures to share. :(  We really are blessed to be barely over an hour from the beach plus have a free place to stay.  For this beach girl, it's heaven!

Foodie Friday

I've got two recipes to share this week - one is new to us, the other may be new to you.

For our meatless dish, we decided to try our hand making Pad Thai.  I found a simple recipe via Pinterest and you can find it here.  Overall it was pretty good, but we did make some mistakes.  The recipe calls for Asian rice noodles, which you have to soak in water vs. boiling.  I think we soaked ours too long.  The second mistake is that her recipe is very basic and you add in whatever meat or veggies you want.  I had completely intended on adding a bunch of broccoli, but since it wasn't written in the recipe, I completely forgot until we sat down to eat!  Oh well, it was still good.  One other thing I would recommend is doubling the sauce.  If you enjoy Asian food, it's definitely worth a try - way healthier than take-out!

The second recipe is one I haven't made in a long time - meatloaf.  Every kids worst nightmare.  Or so they say.  My mother really didn't make it much.  This recipe is from Paula Deen's The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook, but you can also find the recipe on the Food Network too.  It may not be a glamorous dish, but I love it.  I think the key to this one is the glaze over the top made of ketchup, mustard, and brown sugar.  It does not however stay together in a slice for a pretty picture...

That's it for this week.  Off to start my birthday weekend!

This week

We've had quite a busy week.  I have been working more than usual and tend to crash as soon as I get home.  So the blog has been neglected. 

First off, I forgot Foodie Friday since we didn't try out many new recipes this week.  For our meatless night (which ended up being on Thursday, but meatless Thursday just doesn't have the same ring to it...), we tried a recipe I found on Pinterest for Sweet Potato burgers.  Not bad, but we both prefer the black bean burgers I mentioned a few weeks ago.

Monday night, we celebrated our nephew, William's 3rd birthday.  He has such a bubbly personality and is absolutely precious with his head of curls.  He is quite attached to his Uncle Cameron and had informed him that he really needed a pair of sunglasses for his birthday - Curious George ones to be exact.  We didn't quite come through on the Curious George, but did manage to find a pair with monkeys on them.  I don't think he noticed!

After a busy workweek, we decided to go kayaking on Saturday.  I've mentioned before that Cameron has really been in to the kayak fishing lately.  I'm not such a big fan of fishing myself.  Now catching I like, but fishing is rather boring to me.  I did try my hand at catching the big one, but no such luck.

While fishing didn't hold my attention long, I did enjoy paddling around and taking in the beautiful day.  After years of growing up in Charleston, SC, I have a soft spot for marsh grass and Fowl River has plenty of it.

Yes, that is a Glamour magazine on the boat.  While Cameron & our friend, Elliott, fished, I worked on my tan and caught up with the girly magazines.

The boys were not too lucky with the fishing either.  A few little ones, but no keepers.  Elliott did manage to catch a seagull though.  Poor guy tried to eat the lure as Elliott was casting.  Luckily, he had poor aim and it caught him in the leg.  Don't worry, Elliott was able to reel him in and set him free.  No veterinary work needed on the river!

This morning, Cameron and I babysat his brother's 4 little boys.  Chris & Anne were out of town for the weekend so the family all took shifts with the boys.  They are so well behaved, but trust me, watching a 6, 4, 3, and almost 1 year old is hard work for someone not used to having children around.  We made it through the morning all in one piece!  I didn't take any pictures today, because I was too busy keeping up with everyone, so I stole this Easter picture from Anne's blog.  How could you not love these adorable boys?

They are tied for cuteness only with my brother's son, Elijah, who unfortunately lives several states away.  We don't get to see him much, but love hanging out with him when we do.  Definitely looking forward to our family beach vacation this summer!  Here we are on vacation last year:

I'm looking forward to a quiet night at home.  I have another busy work week ahead, then it's time to celebrate my 29th birthday.  Yep, only one more year left until the big 3-0!!  

Foodie Friday

I have several good recipes to share this week!

The first I pulled out of Coastal Living Magazine (a favorite of mine) - Pan-Roasted Pork Chops with Apricot-Ginger Glaze.  Very good!  I served it with some fresh green beans, which I make in the skillet with some butter and garlic.

I tried out a green smoothie recipe this week too.  It's called green, not for the color, but the fact that you add vegetables to it.  Now before you turn up your nose like my husband did, you have to give it a try.  You never even notice the greens!  I found the link to this blog on Pinterest.  She has tons of great smoothie recipes.  I made the Slammin' Sunrise with strawberries, blueberries, bananas, spinach, and vanilla almond milk.  This was our first experience with almond milk.  Doubt we will make the switch, but the vanilla flavor is good for smoothies.

Now for the grand finale...

Stuffed Flounder

Remember all those flounder Cameron's been catching?  Tonight we decided to try out a recipe from Uncle Bubba (Paula Deen's brother).  You can find it on Food Network.  We did switch out crab meat for diced shrimp.  Crab meat is never cheap, but it seemed exceptionally expensive everywhere I went so we opted for the shrimp.  Plus, Cameron made panko-fried shrimp for an appetizer with the extra shrimp.

We had an amazing dinner tonight.  Next on the list is Anson's crispy flounder if we can just find the recipe...