Thank you Martha!

You can always count on the Martha Stewart website for the most fantastic meals and recipes. I ran across this one the other day, and boy am I glad I did!! This was so ridiculously delicious! There are 3 thing I will warn you about. This recipe definitely took an hour (maybe a bit more) from prep to finish (I don't know if it's because I used fresh veggies or what??). Also, it dirties a lot of dishes. I'm a big advocate for not making a HUGE mess, and cleaning while I cook, and it definitely used a lot of dishes. The comments below the recipe state that it came out a little blah.... and.... yeah... it could have been. But I doctored mine a bit. I really feel like I need to incorporate more veggies and good stuff for my little man so I added nice fresh asparagus stalks to this meal. I also added a couple good dashes of onion powder to the final mixture, and then under the top coating of cheese I added a Parmesan herb topping that I had in my spice cabinet.
You know the best part of this meal? It makes enough for two meals, so I could cook one that night, and freeze the other half for another night! Oh me loves it when I can cook enough for 2 nights! Here ya go!!

Sorry I couldn't get a pic before we scooped Carter's portion out to cool!

Baked Penne with Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomatoes:

• 6 tablespoons butter, plus more for baking dishes
• coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 pound penne rigate
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (8 ounces each), halved horizontally
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 6 cups whole milk
• 10 ounces white mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 cups shredded provolone (6 ounces) (I Sargento's Shredded Mozerella/Provolone mixture)
  
• 1 cup finely grated Parmesan (4 ounces) (I would suggest a little more than this)
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400. Butter two shallow 2-quart baking dishes. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta 3 minutes short of al dente; drain pasta, and return to pot.
2. In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Season chicken with salt and pepper; cook until opaque throughout, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Halve each piece lengthwise, then thinly slice crosswise.
3. In a 5-quart Dutch oven or heavy pot, melt butter over medium. Add flour and garlic; cook, whisking, 1 minute. While whisking, gradually add milk; bring to a simmer, whisking frequently. Add mushrooms and tomatoes; cook 1 minute. Off heat, gradually stir in provolone and 1/2 cup Parmesan.
   
4. Add chicken and pasta to pot; season with salt and pepper. Divide pasta mixture between baking dishes; sprinkle each with cup Parmesan.
5. Bake, uncovered, until top is golden and bubbling, about 25 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.
6. Prepare through step 4; let cool. Cover tightly with foil, and freeze, up to 3 months.
7. Preheat oven to 400, and bake (still covered in foil) on a rimmed baking sheet until center is hot, about 1 1/2 hours. Remove foil; bake until golden, about 15 minutes more.

OOOOHHH!! It was sooooo yummy and I'm really looking forward to my left-overs for lunch today!

P.S.... I've noticed quite the trend of cheese-topped items on my site.... eh... oh well!! It's soooooo good!

Medicine for the heart

I've been in a really big slump lately, and really depressed with a lot of stuff going on. So, I decided to do whatever I could to bring myself out of my slump, at least for the weekend. I wanted to share these movies with you because I seriously laughed and it brightened me up. Check them out if you can.

Better late than never!

Hi guys! So, here is our Halloween re-cap!

The Thursday before Halloween was awesome! We got together with a really good friend of mine and had all the babies dress up. It was so great, and she made lots of yummy food and snacks for the adults and special little treats for the kiddos. This kind of stuff is great for memory making :)

The cutest little fisher-man saying hello to a little dragon

The kiddos- Aiden, Carter, Natalie

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that tail!

The girls and the babies

(not such a great pic of me and Carter, but good of the other girls!)

Carter had 2 costumes. One, my mom bought when I was still pregnant, and one that we couldn't resist. Carter goes to daycare at a Christian Academy so he was only allowed to dress as bible characters or an animal from Noah's Ark. Luckily, the costume my mom bought was a giraffe, and you'd best bet your ninny's that Noah had one of those on his ark! :)



So, those were the pics from Friday before Halloween. That day I also set myself to work on making my very first pie using Martha Stewart's recipe in her fall 09 issue (which, by the way, had a completely different picture in the magazine than the pic online!). I don't eat pie (for texture reasons... stop laughing!) But, I figured that I have no problem with cakes and other dessert items, so what's a little pie? I went balls to the wall my friends. I even made home-made crust with the cream-cheese pie crust out of the same Martha Stewart Living magazine! Woot!~ I was soooo stinkin' proud of myself. Check out this pie....

Isn't she a beauty! My crust was a bit of a devil and I couldn't quite understand how to shape it, but I think it turned out ok. I wish I had taken a pic of the inside once we cut it. You know why? 'Cause it was horrrrrible!! It was allll liquid and fell apart as soon as you cut into it! The dang thing cooked for 90 minutes! It should have set! I wonder if it was because the recipe didn't call for flour? I don't know! I was soooo upset. I was so proud of the dang thing and then it turned to crap in an instant. I will try it again I guess. I'm just glad I did my first pie on Halloween instead of the one that I'm planning to make for my first Thanksgiving Dinner this year!
Anywhooooo.... Here are pics from Halloween Day. We had such a beautiful day to sit outside on the porch and carve pumkins. It was so nice and just the dream setting to spend time with my family.

Group shot. Starting at the bottom and going left: Carter, my mom, Paisley, Phillip, my dad, my sister

Super focused to get the perfect shape cut into the most awwwwesome double-stacked pumpkins that we found in the "pumpkin patch" at Lowes

Daddy and Jamie, scooping out the gross insides

Mom is really getting into the fact that we use a lot of sign language with Carter and she's learning also. He's got "more" mastered!

He loves his apple sauce, and his grandmother loves giving it to him!

I should know better than to ask him to smile for a picture!

Phillip's awwwwesome pumpkin. I'm pretty impressed that he did this without a stencil!

My cute little man!

So, I got Carter's costume in the very beginning of October, and ever since, I knew exactly what I wanted Halloween to be like. I convinced my sister to dress Paisley up as a princess and I knew that I wanted to make Carter's wagon into a castle that they could both be in together. The castle in my mind was a lot more detailed with towers and stuff, but I didn't buy enough foam-board for that. I was pretty proud of the finished product though. Lots of hand painting and "sponge" technique to get the aged look in the bricks. This is the finished product of the mean old dragon guarding his princess in the castle.


I really wanted to make a personalized license plate on the back that said "drgnwgn" (aka- dragon wagon), but I figured that might be taking it a little too far :)

Barnyard Cupcake how to!

So, here are the instructions on how to make my barnyard cupcakes for all those parents making the last minute dash to make something cute for their child's birthday!

Let me start by saying that I believe sometimes a boxed cake mix is the answer. For this party, indeed it was! I do not like Betty Crocker mix. It never fails to come out waaay to dry. Duncan Hines never does this girl wrong. One of my favorites is the "Moist Deluxe Classic White Cake Mix". It's fantastic! It's so light and airy because your only using the egg whites instead of the entire egg. It's a fantastic base for cakes. That being said, I always feel the need to put in a more personal touch if I'm using a box cake. So, I always make homemade icing. Wilton's website has THE BEST recipes for different icicings. Their buttercream icing is always a winner for me. It colors well, it's not too heavy, and it's easy to make. Along with the boxed cake, I used this for both Carter's barnyard cupcakes and Paisley's Dora Cake.
Also, quick apology for the quality of the cupcakes and the picture. I made about 50 cupcakes and sent a lot home with people before I got to take pictures of the really good ones. The pictures I'm sharing are from the box of "imperfect" ones that were left after everyone left. And, for some reason my camera is being extra blurry and crazy. Enjoy!

Cow cupcake

Materials:
Pink meltaways
Black meltaways
Chocolate chips
Mini marshamallows
Cupcake
Buttercream icing

The night before the party I covered all the pink meltaway bottoms with smiley faces which are supposed to be the nose and mouth portion of the face. The smileys were made from melting black meltaways in a ziploc bag, snipping the end off of it, and piping the nose and mouth on. I also made the cow's horns with the same black meltaways. I piped the shape of the horn on wax paper, and then filled in the middle. Let air dry overnight.
Cover your cupcakes smoothly in buttercream. Place the pink meltaway (bottom up so you can see the face) close to the bottom of the cupake. Place 2 Chocolate chips in upside down as eyes. Also upside down needs to be the horns so you have the smooth side (the part that was in contact with the wax paper) up. Place the mini marshmallows between the horns.

Pig cupcakes:

Materials needed:
cupcake
Reserved buttercream icing tinted with red food coloring for pink color
Pink Meltaway
Black Meltaway
Large Pink (Strawberry) Marshamallows
Circlular sprinkles in white

The night before the party I covered all the pink meltaway bottoms with dots which are supposed to be the snout portion of the face. The nostrils were made from melting black meltaways in a ziploc bag, snipping the end off of it, and piping the nostrils on. Let air dry overnight.
Cover cupcakes smoothly in pink icing. Cut large pink marshamallows in quarters. Place across the top for ears. Place white sprinkes as eyes. Place the pink meltaway (bottom up so you can see the nostrils) close to the bottom of the cupake as a snout.

Chicken cupcakes:

Materials:
Buttercream
Mini Marshamallows
Very small portion of reserved buttercream and colored with Wilton's Icing Coloring (red & yellow)
Red licorice
Black Meltaways

Cover entire cupcake with buttercream. Instead of smoothing the icing on the top, spike it up with the back of your spatula to simulate feathers. Use your melted black meltaways in a ziploc bag to pipe eyes on the face. Cut your licorice to desired lengths for the chicken's comb and place on the top of the head. Put your reserved orange icing in a ziploc bag, snip the ends, and pipe a "V" under the eyes for the chicken's beak. For the chicken's wings snip a "v" shape into mini-marshamallows, but do not let the snips touch each other. Smoosh or pull the marshmallow a bit to make it a little more obvious and fluffed.

Farm Themed birthday party

So, I've been waiting to post this because there were so many cameras snapping shots during Carter's b-day party...... and mine was BARELY one of them. It's been such a bummer to not really have any pics from his party. I was ridiculously busy during the party and did not get the dream pictures I wanted and planned for. I was hoping people would send me there's, but there's been no such luck. Here's what I've got so far. Enjoy!

Poppy, Aunt Mamie, Paisley

Singing Happy Birthday (not sure why all these pics are blurry!)

Blowing out the candle

Little man loooooved his cupcake and demolished the entire thing!

All the kids were dressed in their farm attire! It was just precious!

Oh daddy please let me get in my car!

Cousins- Jake & Carter

My best friend from college and her little boy

Phillip's mother

Farmer Carter

So you couldn't see the detail of the shirt I made him for the party, so I had to make sure to get some pics without the pants so you could see it (and the fat little legs hanging out beneath it are always a bonus!)

Applique is my friend!!!

Barnyard cupcakes!! Phillip couldn't figure out the top one was a cow so I'm not so sure it was a sucesss. I think it's pretty obvious.... but, whatever...

The Food
Ok, so I have to confess, I didn't get ANY good pictures of the food b/c I was so busy, so I got pictures of them after everyone tore into it. Sorry folks!! Oh, and some of this stuff was supposed to have tags with it stating what it was, but I never got around it to either. (I got some of the ideas from Kara's Party Ideas)

The veggies tray was supposed to be "Carter's Veggie Garden"

From the top left: "Cow Pies" (also known as "No Bake" or "Boiled" cookies), apples and caramel, "Pigs in a blanket", chips, Veggies Sticks, "Chicken Feed" (also known as Chex Mix)

Bullocks BBQ (yummmmmy!)





Not pictured was the potato salad, baked beans, coleslaw, sweet tea, and lemonade.

THE DETAILS

Added a little fabric bow to my wreath on the front door

Pig cupcake

Chicken cupcake

Cow cupcake

This is a horrible picture of the balloon weights, but I refuse to spend $2 on weights to hold the balloons. So, I cut squares into fabric that I bought to use for the party (blue and red bandanna pattern and cow print) and put a ziploc bag of dried beans inside to act as weight. They turned out stinking adorable, but you really can't tell from this pic. Also, I bought these table covers from Oriental Trading. They came in a pack of 12 for $15.

The napkins (purchased at Hobby Lobby). The red bandannas were placed on my island in the kitchen, under all the food that was on top of it (better picture can be found above in the "food" section).

The balloon bundles. I looooove cow print!
These balloons also came from Oriental Trading.

I didn't get a picture of them, but I found some great gift bags for the kids to take home along with the balloon bundles. They matched the blue and red bandanna and cow print fabric the balloon weights were made out of and were JUST PERFECT!

The aftermath

This was little man taking his first steps unassisted! Just cruised right across the room like he's been doing it for years! Little stinker!

Overall, the party went really well. Unfortunately, a few friends didn't get to come, it made the guest list smaller than we expected, but we still had over 20 people there. I really wanted the party to be outside, with hay-bales all around and places for the kiddies to play, but it was too cold, so we all just huddled in the garage. But, you know what, end the end, Carter had a great time with all his family and the other babies around, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and that's ALL that matters to me. Everyone made Carter's party so special and I could not have asked for a better time myself!

My next post will be for people like me who were SCRAMBLING the week of his party to find different designs for barnyard cupcakes and couldn't find annnnnnything. Granted, there were plenty of fondant cupcakes that I would have loved to do, but I just did not have the time!