Red, White and Blue Salad

4th of July is almost here!  So many festive foods to make and not enough time!  Here's an awesome salad I adapted from Real Mom Kitchen.  Great tasting and good for you.


1 head lettuce, I used romaine and and some mixed greens from my garden
1 cup glazed walnuts
2 cups sliced strawberries
1 ½ cups blueberries
crumbled feta cheese

Dressing:
1/2  cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/2 cup persian lime oil
1/2 cup coconut vinegar
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 Tbs poppy seeds

Glaze your walnuts.  Put the walnuts and 1 Tbs honey in a saucepan on medium and stir to coat.  Let them cook for about 5 minutes or so.  The honey will become a bit foamy in the pan, then they are finished.  Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper to cool

Prepare your salad.  Place your lettuce on a serving platter.  Next add your cooled walnuts.  Then add your strawberries, cheese, and blueberries.  As you can see from the picture, I kept mine separated for a nice presentation, but this will still be beautiful with everything layered.  

 

Make the dressing.  Combine all ingredients in a blender and mix well.  

I know the oil and vinegar I chose are in the unique category and not everyone has that sitting around.  You can substitute regular olive oil and red-wine vinegar too, it will have a very different flavor, but very good.  If you do that, you will probably need to sweeten it.  I would use honey or maple syrup, and you could also just use sugar.  Check out the dressing recipe at Real Mom Kitchen.  

What are you making for the 4th?  I'd love to hear from you!

Chellie

Bird's Nest

Here's a fun Easter treat I made with the kids.  This was so easy and quite tasty!  You can decide which eggs you want to use as there are lots of choices.  The recipe calls for cadbury mini eggs, I bought those, but they were not pastel colored.  I also bought some peanut butter filled eggs.  I liked the color of those much better.  They tasted good too, but I am a fan of dark chocolate, and that's what the cadbury eggs are.
You can see both reflected in the photos.
I found this recipe on the curvy carrot.

Ingredients:
cooking spray, for greasing the pan
muffin tin
6 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips
6 ounces of butterscotch chips
1 cup creamy peanut butter
6 ounces of chow mein noodles
36 mini eggs

Melt the chocolate and butterscotch chips in the microwave in a microwave safe bowl.  Use 30 second increments, stirring after each one, until all the chips are melted.

Add your peanut butter and stir until it's mixed well.

Carefully add the chow mein noodles, and gently stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until all of them are coated well.

Fill your muffin tin with the mixture and mold them slightly so there is a well in the center.

Chill until hardened, about an hour or so.  Remove the nests from the tin.  I used a butter knife to kind of pop them out.  Then you can add your eggs (you could also use jelly beans).

St. Patricks Day Mystery Diner Part 2

In honor of St. Patricks day coming up, please enjoy this re-post.  This particular St. Paddy's day was one of my favorites because not only was it just plain fun, but it was 80 degrees in Michigan!  Unheard of in March!  

Finally, I'm posting about our wonderful celebration!  I've just been too busy soaking up the sun, running the household.  :D  If you missed Part 1 or our Mystery Dinner, you can see it here.
So, we had our lovely friends The Lubberts over for dinner.  They were great sports and totally up for our Mystery Dinner.  A good time was had by all.

Here's my daughter, all decked out in her green.  She was even wearing green corduroy pants--and it was 80 degrees here in Mi.

also very excited about her stick-on earrings.

Originally, it was just going to be for my family, but when we added our friends, I changed a few of my ideas really just to make it easy on myself.  You'll notice some changes here from my Part 1 post.  Things have to be ready to serve up, so, I did prepare some things in advance (and prepared easy things)

Here's what we had:

Shamrock Shake:  Pour the dressing on the veggies and shake her up!  (kids totally dig this)

Leprechaun Pie (recipe here) 

Spoon Bread   (recipe here)

Taste a Rainbow

Emerald Isle (recipe here)

U-Pick Clover (sour cream cookie recipe here)  This was a decorate your own cookie dessert.

Irish Kiss (napkin)

Blarney Stone (fork)

St. Pat's Sword (knife)

Digging for Gold (Spoon)

As you can see, some of the menu items are your utensils.  This keeps it really interesting!  

Here's our Menu's:

The first thing we do is fill out our menus.  You'll want each person to keep a copy and give a copy to the chef.  All the fun names are listed and 3 courses.  We all eat 1 course at a time, then I serve up the next, and so on.  

How do you celebrate St. Patricks Day?  Or don't you?   I would love to hear from you!  Please share your traditions in the comments.  

I hope you find a reason to celebrate today!

Blessings

~Chellie

Emerald Isle

This was our St. Patricks Day Beverage.  You could do this in a punch bowl for a party, but we did it in individual cups so we had just the right amount.

Ingredients:

Lime-aid

7-up

Lime sherbet

Pour equal parts Lime aid and 7-Up in a glass and top it with a scoop of Lime Sherbet.  Enjoy!

If you are doing the Punch bowl thing, just do 1 bottle of Lime-aid (I buy Simply Lime-aid) and 1 2-liter of 7-Up, and top with several scoops of Lime Sherbet.

St. Patricks Day Mystery Dinner (pt. 1)

                             


It's about a week away from St. Patricks day!  I am not irish, but I love a reason to celebrate.  :-)  Last year we did a mystery dinner with the kids for Valentine's Day.  They loved it so much they asked to do it again, so this year, we are doing it on St. Patrick's day.

I will post many more pictures after the event, but I will try to give you a good description here.

Here's our menu so far:

Shamrock Shake  (this will be a green veggie salad in a jar w/dressing that they will shake to mix)
4-leaf clover         (mini-pizza in a clover shape, I'll use a cookie cutter)
Leprechaun Pie    (shepherds pie, recipe found here)
Pot of gold           (lemon jello in a lime pot)
over the rainbow   (fruit kebab in the colors of the rainbow.  strawberry, cantelope, banana, kiwi, blueberry
                                grape)
emerald isle           (green punch)
digging for gold     (spoon)
Blarney Stone       (fork)
St. Pat's sword       (knife)
Irish kiss                (napkin)


Dessert is yet to be determined, both what it is and what I'll call it.  Although, I may just do it as it.  There is alot of balance here, vegetables, starch, meat, fruit, etc.    I will be making a menu with all the fun names, and a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd course.  The kids will put the items they want in which course.   You'll notice some of the items are utensils!  It's always fun to see how it all ends up.  I will definitely keep you posted as we get closer to the event!

Irish blessings to you all.

Valentine de-coder cookies

I first saw these 'stained glass' cookies at my neighbors house a few years ago.  I've been wanting to make them ever since, and finally got around to it.  I was browsing the web and found them as 'decoder' cookies. How fun is that?!  So, the recipe for the cookies is a Sour Cream Sugar Cookie which I got from my friend Becky.  Then I used my heart shaped cookie cutters and filled the middle with Jolly Ranchers.  If you have a 4 inch and 2 inch heart cookie cutters, you can probably just drop the whole jolly rancher in the center of the cookie and be fine.  My cookie cutters are a bit smaller, so I ended up crushing them and using about 1/2 tsp in each cookie.  If you're not sure, just try one to start.  To see how to make your own coded message, go to Family Fun, you can also find some to just print at Gourmet Mom on the go  (she's amazing).

Old Fashioned Sour Cream Cookies

1/2 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. soda
2 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. sour cream

Beat & cream together shortening, sugar, egg & vanilla.
Mix & sift together salt, soda & flour; add to creamed mixture alternately w/ sour cream. Chill if desired.
Roll out & cut w/ floured cutters. Bake @ 400 for 8 min.  (line your pan with foil and cooking spray for decoder cookies)

Once you remove the cookies from the oven, let leave them on the tray to cool so the centers harden up.  

Valentine Chex Mix

I have had a sick little girl the past couple days, so that has put a damper on all the fun valentine's recipe's I wanted to try.  But, here's a quick and easy one from Betty Crocker.

4 1/2 cups Rice chex cereal
1/2 cup white vanilla baking chips
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 tbs butter
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup red, white and pink candy-coated chocolate candies (I used m&m's)
2 tbs red or pink jimmies sprinkles (I used red jimmies and some heart shaped sprinkles)

Place cereal in a bowl.  In a separate microwavable bowl, microwave vanilla chips, peanut butter and butter uncovered for 1 -1 1/2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted and smooth.  POur peanut butter mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated.

Place 1/2 of the cereal mixture in a 1 gallon food storage bag.  Add powdered sugar.  Seal bag and shake until well coated.  Spread on waxed paper and cool about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, stir candies and sprinkles into remaining cereal mixture.  Spread on waxed paper and cool for 15 minutes.

In a serving bow, mix both cereal mixtures.  Store in an airtight container.

How festive!  For more valentine recipes, see the following post:
http://artfrommytable.blogspot.com/2012/02/valentines-day-recipes.html


I hope you'll share with me your valentine's day ideas too.  

Valentines Day Recipes

Yes, Valentines Day!  We don't do it real big over here, silly hallmark holiday and all, but I do love an excuse to make fun festive treats!  This year, I have not done anything yet!  I'm not sure why, it seems I would have more time with the kids in school part time, but apparently I don't.  I guess technically I do, since we all have 24 hours in a day.  :-)  Anyway, until I get something new posted, you can enjoy these posts from the past.  I'm hoping that by me mentioning I will make something new, it will keep me accountable.


http://artfrommytable.blogspot.com/2011/02/healthy-valentine-snack.html

http://artfrommytable.blogspot.com/2011/02/black-forest-tartlets.html

http://artfrommytable.blogspot.com/2011/02/valentine-bark.html

http://artfrommytable.blogspot.com/2011/02/valentines-pizza.html

http://artfrommytable.blogspot.com/2011/02/valentine-mystery-dinner.html


P.S.  I'm happy to say my photography, for the most part, has improved!

Christmas Eve Open House 2011

As many of you know, we host an open house on Christmas Eve.  We've been doing it for a few years now.  This year was another blessed evening.  I was so blessed by those that came, and hope they were too.  This is the Menu:

Cold

Caprese Salad on a Stick

Sparkling Cranberry Brie Bites

Cheese Plate

Olive Plate

Fruit Plate

Warm

Sweet Potato Cakes with Black Bean Salsa

Pumpkin and Goat Cheese Pies

Apricot Bacon Wraps

Desserts 

Assorted Christmas Treats  (see the bottom of this post for a photo)

Peanut Butter Brownie Trifle

Blizzard Bars

Beverages

Sparkling Jubilee

Candy Cane Punch

Hot Cocoa Bar

The recipe's that are posted should be highlighted.  If they aren't, just hover your mouse over, and you should be able to click to the recipe.  

In case you are wondering "Sparkling Jubilee" is 1 bottle of White Grape juice,  and 1 2 liter 7-Up in a punch bowl.  I add fresh cranberries and fresh mint to garnish.  I just thought it needed a fun and festive name.  :-)

Christmas cheese plate

This was fun and easy to do.  Just a more festive way to serve cheese and crackers.

Candy Cane Punch

This is almost dessert rather than punch.  It was sooooo good!  I mean, I thought it would be good, but it was way better than I expected.  I was going for festive, and it was, along with deliciousness!
I found the recipe on Pinterest, and it's actually from Taste of Home.  My guests at the open house loved it!  My only regret... no picture!!  I was bummed.  But, you can see a photo of it here.


Ingredients
2 jars (10 ounces each) strawberry jelly
2 liters lemon-lime soda, divided
2 quarts peppermint stick ice cream
Miniature candy canes, optional

Directions:
In a large saucepan, melt jelly with 2 cups soda. Chill the jelly mixture and remaining soda. Just before serving, place 6 cups ice cream in a punch bowl. Gently stir in jelly mixture. Add remaining soda. Add remaining ice cream by scoopfuls. Garnish with candy canes if desired. Yield: 3-1/2 quarts.

Sparkling Cranberry Brie Bites

These are delicious!  And almost too pretty to eat.  The recipe comes from Yummy Mummy.  I love how in her post she compared them to her sparkly shoes.  So creative!  I adapted it a little.  Instead of cranberry chutney or relish, I used jellied cranberry sauce and warmed it a little so it would be thinner.

Sugared Cranberries

2 cups fresh cranberries
1 cup good maple syrup
1 cup granulated sugar

Rinse cranberries and place in a medium bowl. Heat syrup in a small sauce pan just until warm. Pour over cranberries when syrup is warm, not hot, or cranberries may pop. Cool, cover, and let soak in the refrigerator overnight.
Drain cranberries in a colander. Place sugar in a large bowl or baking dish. Add cranberries in 2 batches and roll around until lightly coated in sugar. Place on a baking sheet until dry, about 1 hour.

16 crackers
8 oz Brie cheese
cranberry chutney or cranberry relish (I used cranberry sauce)
fresh mint for garnish

Assemble crackers with one slice of brie, a light layer of cranberry chutney, and 4 or 5 sugared cranberries. Garnish with fresh mint sprigs.

Caprese Salad on a stick

I love Caprese salad!  This was a great appetizer, of course I couldn't only eat one.  :-)

1 pt grape tomatoes
Fresh mozzarella balls
Fresh basil
toothpicks

For the dressing:
EVOO
Balsamic Vinegar
1 clove garlic

Depending on the size of your basil leaves, you may be able to use 1 basil leaf per "stick".  For me, I had to cut some of mine into large pieces.  All you do is thread the tomato, cheese, and basil on a toothpick.  Easy peasy!  I laid them all out on a plate and drizzled the dressing across them.  If you can't find mozzarella balls, you can use any type of fresh mozzarella.  I bought mine in the log form and cut it into cubes.  It worked just as well.

Dressing:
Crush 1 clove of garlic and put it in your dressing bottle.  Then pour in your oil and vinegar and shake it up.  I use about 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar.  If you like it less tangy, use less vinegar.

Peanut Butter Brownie Trifle

MMMM!  How can you go wrong with Peanut butter and chocolate.  This was fab!  It comes from How Sweet it is.


Peanut Butter Fudge Brownie Trifle

1 batch of your favorite brownies, boxed or from scratch, cooled and cut into cubes
1 large box (5-ounce) of instant chocolate pudding, prepared and chilled (this will most likely call for 3 cups of milk, nothing else)
1 bag of peanut butter cups, chopped
2 cups heavy cream
3-4 tablespoons granulated sugar, depending on your desired level of sweetness
1 cup of creamy peanut butter
1 cup of powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
8 ounces of whipped cream cheese, at room temperature

In the bowl of an electric mixer (or using a hand mixer), beat heavy cream and sugar on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Transfer the whipped cream to an separate bowl and stick in the fridge until ready to use. I did not even clean the bowl of my electric mixer and just began mixing the peanut butter mixture.

Add the peanut butter and cream cheese to the bowl and beat at medium speed, scraping down the sides a few times until mixture is creamy. Add in powdered sugar and mix until combined, then mix in 2 tablespoons of milk. Remove the whipped cream from the fridge and add 1 cup of it to the peanut butter, folding it in until the mixture turns lighter in color and is mostly combined.

Grab your trifle dish and begin to layer your ingredients however you’d like. I did a layer of brownies, then pudding, then a handful of chopped peanut butter cups, peanut butter, whipped cream, and so on. I repeated it until I got to the top, then piped the remaining whipped cream on top and sprinkled the candy on. You really can’t go wrong with layering – just use a long spoon to serve!

Blizzard Bars

These were super easy to make and super delicious!  They are from Mel's Kitchen Cafe.  

INGREDIENTS:

12 ounces chocolate chips, semisweet, bittersweet or milk chocolate

1/2 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter
3 cups crisp rice cereal (like Rice Krispies)
2 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 cup chocolate chips or M&M’s

Garnish: mini marshmallows and additional M&M’s

DIRECTIONS:
Lightly grease an 8X8- or 9X9-inch baking pan and set aside.

In a large, microwave-safe bowl, melt the chocolate chips for one minute. Stir. Then continue to microwave in 30 second increments until the chips are completely melted. Stir in the peanut butter until combined. Let the mixture cool slightly, about five minutes. Add the rice cereal, marshmallows and chocolate chips and/or M&M’s. Fold together with a rubber spatula until well combined.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Press additional marshmallows and M&M’s into the top of the bars, if desired. Let the bars cool and set for 5-6 hours until they are firm and no longer gooey and melty. These bars take a lot longer to set up than the Avalanche Bars, in fact, when I made them, I kept pressing on the top wondering if they would ever set up. Sure enough, after a long enough rest, I finally cut into them (even though they still felt soft on top) and they were gloriously decadent and messy. Once the bars are firm and set, cut into squares and serve.

Give Away!!!

Hi friends!  This week, I am giving away my custom-created calendar.  Have you got your 2012 calendar yet?  Or would you like this one??  It has a recipe for each month.

To enter this giveaway, all you need to do is add a comment in the comment section of this blog of your favorite Christmas tradition.  Extra entries for:

• becoming a follower
• subscribing to email updates
• posting about this giveaway on your blog
• posting on fb about this giveaway
• tweet about this post

Contest starts today, December 20 and ends Friday December 23 at 6pm.  Good Luck!!

Holidays

Almost Merry Christmas to you!  Thanks to my faithful bloggy friends for stopping by.
You would think this time of year I would be cooking up a storm!  I love holiday cooking/baking, and, I just haven't done that much yet!  My kids are now on vacation and we are planning to do some fun things in the kitchen this week.  Also, our annual Christmas Eve open House is quickly approaching.  So, I'll be plenty busy getting ready for that.
Here's what I'm hoping to bring to the table this year:

• Caprese salad on a stick
• Sweet potato cakes with black bean salsa
• Pumpkin and goat cheese pies
• Apricot bacon wraps (this is always the hit of the party, I have to make it)
• Sparkling cranberry brie crackers
• Chocolate covered pretzel rods
• Christmas tree cheese plate
• Olive wreath
• Pretzel bites
• Sundried tomato, basil and cheese dip

I need a few desserts, I just haven't decided yet.  

Of course, all recipe's will be posted with pictures.  Make sure you stop by tomorrow for Secret Recipe Club reveal day!  See whose blog I got to cook from!  I was impressed... so maybe you will be too.  :-)

April fools dinner

I found these fun ideas on the Family fun magazine website.  


First I told the kids we were having cupcakes for dinner.  They actually believed me even though we had been playing April fools pranks already that day.

Cupcakes for dinner?

They were actually meatloaf cupcakes.  

Before praying, my son snuck a swipe of 'frosting' and said, "hey, how come this frosting tastes like potatoes?"  My daughter told me later in the evening that she did not like potato frosting.  

Then I told them we were having Chicken nuggets with peas and carrots for dessert.

mmmmm! They were pleasantly surprised to find out their veggies were candy.

There's a couple ideas on the family fun website for the chicken, but I used Nutty Putty, which is in one of my kids cook books.  It makes a great dough that they can play with or use cookie cutters on, decorate and eat.  The recipe follows.  For the peas and carrots I used those flavored tootsie roll things, I don't know the name, they're in the bulk aisle by all the bulk candy.

Nutty Putty:

1 cup creamy peanut butter

3 tbs honey

1 cup nonfat dry milk

Just mix it together and have fun!  I halved the recipe and it made me about 9 'nuggets'.

For the 'cupcakes', use your favorite meatloaf recipe and put it in foil baking cups about 3/4 full.  After baking them, topped with mashed potatoes colored with food coloring.  

Did you do anything for April fools day?  I would love to hear about it!

Valentine Mystery dinner

I mentioned in an earlier post that we were going to do this!  What fun!  The kids had a ball, and even my international student played along and had fun!


First everyone chooses the order of their menu.  Then I serve it up.  I had my husband choose mine since I knew what everything was, then I could have some surprises too.


Here's my boy enjoying his "melted hearts" which is actually spaghetti sauce but he hadn't ordered his pasta yet!  He could've waited, but I think he was really hungry!

My girl, delighted to have her "cold shoulder" very early in her 4 course meal.  :D

but, she didn't have a spoon yet, which is actually on the menu, so she had to eat with her "heart breaker" (knife)

And, my boy enjoying his "Angel's coiffure" with his "cupid's arrow", although he has a fork, so I'm not sure why except of course...it's fun!

In case you missed my earlier post, you can get the mystery menu and all the info at www.gourmetmomonthego.  


I would love to hear your valentine's day ideas and celebrations as well!

Valentine Pancakes

Instead of decorating valentine cookies this year (as you can see from the blog, we had lots of treats), we decorated our pancakes.


Basic pancake batter
red food coloring
heart shaped cookie cutters
strawberry, raspberry, or cherry yogurt (something pink)
sprinkles


First we take a basic pancake batter, if you don't have a recipe, let me know and I will post it, I'm just guessing most people have one.  Add about 4 drops of red food coloring and now you have pink pancakes.  I will warn you though, once you cook them and they brown up, it's hard to see the pinkness.

After making your pancakes, cut out hear shapes.  Then you can add your toppings (yogurt and sprinkles), or you could use actual frosting, we just happen to be big yogurt fans.  For some it might seem odd to put yogurt on your pancakes, but you should try it, it's really good!