First's!

The month of May has been a BUSY one! We went to NC from the 13th-24th and visited with family and friends. The weather had called for rain most of the trip BUT luckily it was pretty instead. We didn't get a chance to take Emma out in the boat or even to the beach while we were home, but she still enjoyed her time there :)

Before we left Emma experienced a few "southern first's" she was always seeing her daddy drinking out of a big blue cup and she finally got curious enough and we let her try Sweet Tea for the first time! She enjoyed it, so now every time she sees him drinking out of any kind of cup she instantly reaches up towards it ha! The other thing she tried and LOVES is Watermelon! We put a piece of seedless watermelon into a mesh container thing (not sure what its called) and she was just sucking the juices and oh my goodness if you try to take it away from her, even if your trying to add more watermelon she throws a hissy fit! It's crazy how much she loves a piece of watermelon.

her trying sweet tea/eating watermelon


While we were home Emma took a stroll in her new stroller for the first time and we took her down front street. It was incredibly hot that day, so of course to cool her off we stopped into the General Store where we got some ice cream (cookie dough) and I gave Emma her first taste of the General Store :) Definitely a right of passage....if you are from Carteret County you have to get ice cream from the General Store. Below is a picture of her striking a pose in her stroller...I love this little girl more than words can express!

We took Emma to the Aquarium for the first time while we were home. Papa B came to visit for the day so he got to go with us. Emma seemed to enjoy bits and pieces of the aquarium, but I think some of the tanks were too dark for her to really see inside and see the fish. But it was still a fun experience and we also did the nature walk, where she ended up falling asleep. She did enjoy being able to touch some of the fish sculptures (you are allowed to touch).

This picture below was pretty cool (in person) the ground would do a ripple effect when you walked over it and she seemed to enjoy this, of course the pictures don't do its justice.


Haha this picture of her mouth is the best I could get because every time I try to stick my finger in there she just licks my finger. But I'm trying to take a picture of her first tooth! Its barely showing but it is there! :) Its on the bottom in the front. She hasn't been cranky like you hear of most babies when they are teething. She's been acting like she normally does so perhaps we have lucked out again!

Emma's first Memorial weekend and we finally took her to the beach!!!! We went with our neighbor's to a local beach here in VA called "Pub Beach". It was a nice beach with lots of families :) There is a place where you could order food and drinks and they also have bands that play on Sundays. It was very hot that day we went, which was perfect beach weather! The water was cool and refreshing, but NOT to Emma! We put her in the water for the first time and she cried! We kept bringing her back thinking she was just in shock of all that was around her, but she still cried every time. Finally I put her in the water with me facing towards the beach and she seemed content longer than she had been in the water. The thing is she loves a bath so I really thought she'd enjoy the beach, but it just wasn't her thing. I'm guessing its the temperature of the water. Maybe when we go home for the entire month of June the water will be warmer for her. I know once we move to FL the water is going to be like bath water!






She did love playing on the beach and consuming LOTS of sand! Every time I tried to pull her hand away from her mouth she would get upset! But all in all it was such a great experience! I'm so glad we got to share it with some great friends. We are truly going to miss our neighbors once we move :(




So speaking of moving and "first's" we had been looking and looking for places to rent in FL and we finally crunched some number's and realized it's cheaper for us to BUY a place then to rent one. We contacted the VA Loan people to see how much we could get a loan for and then they basically did the rest for us! They found us a realtor who found us a few places to look. Eric ended up having to drive to FL our last weekend, but it was well worth it because he found us a place that is just perfect! It is located in a great neighborhood that has lots of other military families who also have lots of kids everywhere. Eric met the neighbor's on both sides of the house. The house is a 2 story, fenced in backyard, front porch, 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house built in 2005..it is perfect for our first time buying a house! I can't wait to actually see it in person! We put an offer on the house and a few days later the seller's accepted the offer! They first told us we could close by June 30th, but do to the military HAP (homeowners assistance program) that the sellers are doing it might take longer so they pushed the closing to say on or before July 31st! Our realtor seems to think that it could still close by June 30th, but I'm not going to get my hopes up! Eric's first day at his new job is July 8th so in an ideal world it would be PERFECT to move in by July 1st, but I just don't see that happening. Our lender says they are ready on their end. Anyway we are extremely excited!!!!!!!

I'm sure I missed mentioning something, but I figured this was a good start :) OHHH yeah Emma bug is now saying "dada" she doesn't say it all the time, but she does say it! As many times that I've said "mama" to her somehow "dada" came out haha! Either way its super cute!

Hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Memorial Day Weekend!

Cinco De Mayo!

Not Pictured: Boneless, Skinless Chicken Strips, Red Pepper, Green Pepper & Onion

Go ahead and turn your oil on medium heat because it takes about 20 minutes to heat up.

Cut the peppers, onions and chicken in long strips. You want to start with onions so they can saute down and then add the peppers. Add the taco seasoning into the onion and pepper mix (flavor to taste). Put on a low or medium heat and stir occasionally. In a different pan add the chicken and taco seasoning (flavor to taste) and cook until chicken is done. Add all ingredients together in biggest pan and just mix and put on low heat.

While your peppers, onions and chicken is sitting on low heat (stirring occasionally) place 1 tortilla at a time (unless you have a bigger pan) and let it fry for about 15 seconds on each side. Then place on a paper towel to damp off remaining oil and repeat until you have your desired amount.

Finished product! Serve with sour cream, mexican shredded cheese and hot sauce! Let me just say this is such a SIMPLE fajita dinner and I enjoyed mine much better then the local mexican restaurant Eric and I went to! :)

Now on to DESSERT :)

SOPAPILLA CHEESECAKE PIE....yes I just said that! For those of you that aren't sure what a "Sopapilla" is a crisp, puffy deep fried pastry often served with honey and syrup...ummm YEAH they are delicious! Well this recipe just adds more goodness because the top and bottom are pastry and the inside is the cheesecake! It is REALLY easy and definitely worth trying for your family or if your having a Cinco De Mayo party :)

INGREDIENTS:

What it looks like before going into the oven

Usually I don't take a picture of what it looks like while its in the oven...but the kitchen SMELLED Soooo good that I felt I had to capture something! :)

Right out of the oven

Add Honey on top after it comes out the oven and let it cool! Then SERVE!!!!

Ingredients

• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon Mexican vanilla extract
• 2 (8 ounce) cans refrigerated crescent rolls
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup honey

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Prepare a 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Beat the cream cheese with 1 cup of sugar and the vanilla extract in a bowl until smooth.
3. Unroll the cans of crescent roll dough, and use a rolling pin to shape each piece into 9x13 inch rectangles. Press one piece into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Evenly spread the cream cheese mixture into the baking dish, then cover with the remaining piece of crescent dough. Stir together 3/4 cup of sugar, cinnamon, and butter. Dot the mixture over the top of the cheesecake.
4. Bake in the preheated oven until the crescent dough has puffed and turned golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and drizzle with honey. Cool completely in the pan before cutting into 12 squares.

Stuffed...cookies.. :)

As I've told you all before I enjoy reading food blogs, but I'm also addicted to cooking magazines--you know the ones that are in the checkout line at the grocery store!?! Yeah they get me every time, just today I went to the grocery store to get a few things and low and behold I ended up purchasing 2 cooking magazines while waiting in line ha!

Well the recipe below I got from a food blog, but I am sorry to say that I can't remember which blog it was from :( I'm wanting to say it was "Picky-Palate" (I think) you'll see her website in the left hand column, great blogger!

This past weekend Eric was on duty and when he's working I have a tendency to visit him at work and of course I bring some goodies to everyone there. But this past weekend was one of the girls birthday (well she's the only girl stuck at work with a bunch of guys--bless her heart ha). So it sucks having to work on your birthday and I figured to make her birthday a little better I'd bake her something good. Well this treat was definitely different! It is STUFFED chocolate chip cookies!!! Yes I said STUFFED! The recipe is at the bottom of this post. I used a homemade cookie recipe but if you don't feel like going through all that you can always just buy the store bought cookie dough.

These are just a few things that I chose to stuff the cookies with! Yes you even see brownie mix in that picture HAHA! I only did one with the brownie mix though.

My cookie dough

Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookie!

Snickers stuffed chocolate chip cookie

These are what they look like stuffed!

Voila! what they look like after they've been baked. I chose to cut the cookies in half so everyone could see what they were getting and plus the cookies are big so you'd only want like one or two and this way you can have a variety.

This is the oreo stuffed cookie and this was by far my favorite! The oreo cookie actually softens and the cream melts but just enough, its not a gooey melt.

All my lovely cookies!

So instead of just putting them in a container, I saw these cute boxes at walmart in the Easter section and they were toooo cute to pass up. So because these cookies made such a big batch and even more when I cut them in half, I shared them with a few of my neighbors in these pretty boxes too (they got great reviews!).

Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks softened butter

3/4 Cup packed light brown sugar

1 Cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 Tablespoon pure vanilla

3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

10 oz bag chocolate chips

1 bag Oreo Cookies, I used the double stuff

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand or electric mixer cream butter and sugars until well combined. Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.

2. In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda. Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined. Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie or Snickers or whatever miniature candy bar you'd like. Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo Cookie. Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed with dough. Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Serve with a tall glass of milk, enjoy!

Makes about 2 dozen VERY LARGE Cookies

FOODIE!!!!

It’s is no surprise that I LOVE to cook and bake! So don’t be surprised to see a few post’s regarding FOOD :)

This past Thursday I was basically addicted to Food Blogs! Which is where I came across my weekend menu—from multiple blogs.

Here is what we had this past weekend:

Friday Dinner

-Cheese Biscuits (like Red Lobster’s)

-Hash brown Casserole

-Fried Shrimp

-Sautéed Shrimp

-Homemade cocktail sauce (Thanks Dwayne!)

Saturday

-Homemade (Semi) Donuts

-Bourbon Chicken with rice and sautéed green beans

Sunday

-Scalloped Potato and ground beef casserole

See below for pictures and recipes…..

CHEDDER BISCUITS (Like Red Lobster’s)

2 cups bisquick
1 cup cheddar cheese
2/3 cup milk
¼ tsp. garlic salt
4 tbsp. butter, melted
¼ tsp. parsley

Preheat oven to 450º F

In a large mixing bowl, combine bisquick, cheese, and milk. Mix together until a soft dough forms then beat vigorously for 30 seconds. On an ungreased baking pan, spoon the dough onto the pan in small balls. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Keep an eye on them though, they tend to bake quickly!

While they are baking, combine the melted butter, garlic salt, and parsley. Once the biscuits are done cooking, brush the butter mixture onto the biscuits while they are still on the baking pan.

Hash Brown Casserole
Can condensed cream of chicken soup
8 oz. Colby cheese - shredded
1/2 cup melted butter
1 small onion, diced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 lb. bag frozen shredded hash browns

Spray a 9x13x2 baking dish with non-stick cooking spray; set aside. In a bowl, combine soup, cheese, butter, onion, salt, and pepper. Gently fold the potatoes

into the mixture and pout into prepared pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35-40

minutes, until heated through and top is browned.

VOILA dinner is served! Come HUNGRY!!!!!!!!!

So now onto Saturday’s food day! Well we woke up and made breakfast— figured since we had leftovers of the hash brown casserole we would just cook some of it on the stove top and have some eggs J But for some reason the casserole didn’t turn out like I had thought it would, what basically happened was I ended up just reheating the casserole—which wasn’t a bad thing, but I guess I was expecting more the regular hash browns you see for breakfast..oh well. So after breakfast I decided to make the Homemade (semi) Glazed Donuts-----YUUUMMM is the only word that describes these ooohhh sooo simple donuts! I don’t think we even ate lunch that day because we started cleaning out closets and storage boxes that were in the attic! We are trying to de-clutter as much as we can before we move to FL. When Eric and I went to Washington, DC for our 1 year wedding anniversary I had Bourbon Chicken for lunch and he had never had it before and tried it and loved it! Soo I figured we could attempt to recreate it! It turned out really great! So we had the Bourbon Chicken served over white rice with a side of Green Beans.

HOMEMADE (SEMI) DONUTS

Ingredients
-4-8 cups of oil for frying (the oil needs to be at least 2 inches deep)
-1 refrigerated tube of 10 biscuits (the smaller tubes, not Grands. I use Pillsbury Country Style biscuits, they come in a 4-pack)

-1/4 stick butter
-1 cup powdered sugar
-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
-2 tablespoons milk

Directions
Start warming the oil in a pot on the stove. I set my stove on 5 (medium heat) and my oil takes around 20 minutes to warm up. Don't turn your heat higher than medium or your donuts will burn in .2 seconds.

I ended up using 2 cans of biscuits so I doubled everything in the glaze!

For the glaze. Melt the butter in the microwave and add the powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. Stir until combined.

For the donuts. Use a small circular cutter (the cap of a 2-liter works well) to cut circles in each biscuit.

Place a few donuts in the oil and cook until browned (1-2 minutes). Flip and cook for another 1-2 minutes until browned.

Pull the donuts out of the oil and set them on a cooling rack (or paper towels) to drain the excess oil. While the donuts are warm, dip them in the glaze.

Use a fork or tongs to lift the donut out of the glaze and to shake off excess glaze.

Place on a cooling rack (or plate) to cool and store. They don't really have to cool off before eating.

For the donut holes I fried them and shook them in a ziplock bag with cinnamon/sugar instead of using glaze. BUT we didn’t like them as much as the glaze. So I think next time I’ll either use powdered sugar or just dip them in the glaze. But do whatever you like. My sister loves chocolate so we will be making a chocolate glaze when she comes to visit!

BOURBON CHICKEN

2 lbs boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces (***I used four chicken breasts)

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

1 garlic clove, crushed

1/4 teaspoon ginger

3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 cup apple juice

1/3 cup light brown sugar

2 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup soy sauce

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add chicken pieces and cook until lightly browned. Remove chicken. Add remaining ingredients, heating over medium heat until well mixed and dissolved. Add chicken and bring to a hard boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve over hot rice and enjoy.

Sunday Dinner: Of course I had to eliminate some of the stuff in the casserole cause my dear sweet hubby has a very limited palette! So in our casserole we didn’t have any onions or green peppers L But it still turned out pretty good. I used onion powder for a little seasoning.

Scalloped Potato and Ground Beef Casserole

1-1/2 lb ground chuck
medium onion, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
3 Tablespoons minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon chili pepper flakes
1 teaspoon seasoning salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
For the potato/soup mixture:
5-6 russet potatoes
2 cans cream of chicken soup
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon seasoning salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

In a skillet cook the ground beef with onion, bell pepper, and chili flakes until no longer pink; drain fat over a colander. Return to pan and add in garlic, season salt, and black pepper; cook until meat is lightly browned. In a medium bowl, mix together the soup with milk, sour cream, Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, seasoned salt and black pepper and add the potatoes. Mix well to combine. In a greased 9x13 baking dish, late the potato/soup mixture. Top with half of the cheddar cheese. Then spread the ground beef mixture. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour on 350 degrees. Uncover and continue baking for another 20-30 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Sprinkle the remaining cheddar cheese on the top and return to the oven for 4-5 minutes or until cheese has melted.

Well I hope you all have enjoyed my blog….the food was very good. Our favorites for the weekend were the Donuts and the Bourbon Chicken! If any of my readers try any of the recipes please let me know what you think J

ENJOY!!!!!!!!!