Monday, December 30, 2013

Our New Year's Eve Dinner Menu

2013 New Year's Eve Menu

Drinks
Coronas
Triple-Citrus Mojitos


Appetizer
Gorgonzola Artichoke Crab Dip
With Assorted Crackers

Entree
Frogmore Stew

Bread
Golden Cornbread with
Creamy Honey Butter

Dessert
Key Lime Pie with Fresh Whipped Cream & Raspberry, Mango Sauces




Triple-Citrus Mojitos

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 pkg (.75oz) fresh mint leaves
1 orange
2 lemons, divided
2 limes, divided
1/2 cup white rum
5 cups chilled lemon-lime soda

Combine sugar and water in a small bowl. Tear six mint leaves in half and place into a pitcher. Set aside. Finely chop remaining leaves. Place into small bowl. Zest orange, one of the lemons and one of the limes. Add zest to mint mixture. Microwave on high 2-3 minutes or until sugar is dissolved. Slice orange, both of the lemons and both of the limes in half crosswise. Reserve half of one lemon and half of one lime for garnish. Juice remaining lemon and lime halves. Add juices to pitcher. Juice orange and add juice to pitcher. Pour mint mixture through a strainer into pitcher.discard chopped mint. Add rum. Carefully add soda to avoid overflow. Slice reserved lemon and lime halves, place into pitcher. Serve over ice
To garnish the rims of glasses zest an additional orange. Combine zest and 1/2c sugar. Place on a plate. Rub rim of glass with orange wedge to moisten. Dip rim of glass into sugar mixture. 
8 servings


Gorgonzola Artichoke Crab Dip

5 Slices pre cooked thick bacon
1 (14 oz) can artichoke hearts well drained and Chopped
6oz lump crabmeat 
1 1/2 (12oz) packages cream cheese softened
2 oz (1/2c) Gorgonzola cheese crumbled  
2 oz (1/2c) Parmesan cheese shredded
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8 inch quiche dish or pie plate with cooking spray. Chop 3 slices of bacon. Place in a medium bowl. Reserve remaining bacon for garnish. To bacon in bowl add remaining ingredients mix well. Spread mixture in sprayed dish. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Stir dip. Bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until dip is bubbly around edges. Chop the reserved bacon. Sprinkle on top of dip. Serve warm dip with petite toasts, assorted crackers or baguette slices. Makes 2 cups. I like to use rosemary crackers or butter rounds. 

Frogmore Stew

Ingredients
6 quarts water
3/4 cup Old Bay Seasoning 
2 pounds new red potatoes
2 pounds hot smoked sausage links, cut into 2 inch pieces
12 ears corn - husked, cleaned and quartered
4 pounds large fresh shrimp, unpeeled

Directions
Bring water and Old Bay Seasoning to boil in a large stockpot.
Add potatoes and cook for 15 minutes. Add sausage and cook for 5 minutes more. Add corn and cook for another 5 minutes. Stir in the shrimp and cook until shrimp are pink, about 5 minutes. Drain immediately and serve. You can add king crab legs, mussels, scallops or whole crabs if you like. Add it towards the end of the cooking time. I cover our table with plastic then brown paper. When ready to serve, drain the water then dump out onto the center of the table right on the brown paper. Squeeze butter on top of seafood and add old bay seasoning. Set out extra squeeze butters, old bay seasoning, cocktail sauce, salt, pepper and napkins.


Golden Cornbread

1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup of cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups whole milk
1/4 cup shortening
1 egg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine the dry ing. in a medium bowl. Add the wet ing. and mix only until well combined. Pour batter into a greased 8x8 pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes.Yum!

Creamy Honey Butter

1 cup honey
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter

In a medium pan, combine honey, cream and sugar. Bring to a boil; continue to boil for 1 minute. Place butter in blender. Pour honey mixture over butter. Pulse until thoroughly blended. Pour into jars and refrigerate.


Easy Key Lime Pie I

INGREDIENTS

5 egg yolks, beaten
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup key lime juice
1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust (I like to make my own crust)
Whipped cream topping
(I like to make my own)
1 small key lime for garnish
Mango sauce:
2 11.5 oz can's Kern's mango juice

Bring the mango juice to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until sauce thickens.

Raspberry sauce:
1 1/2 cups of water
2 cups frozen raspberries 
1/2 c granulated sugar

Combine the water and raspberries in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer raspberries for 10 minutes. Use a potato masher to crush the raspberries as they boil. Strain raspberry seeds from water, then put the liquid back in the saucepan and add sugar. Bring mixture back to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until sauce thickens. Cover and cool sauce  until ready to serve pie.


Directions
Preheat oven to 375.
Combine the egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk and lime juice. Mix well. Pour into unbaked graham cracker shell.
Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Allow to cool. Cover pie and put in freezer for a couple hours before serving. when ready to serve let sit for 10-15 minutes before slicing. Top with whipped topping, both sauces and garnish with lime slices if desired.

Ready in 2 hrs 35 min, Servings: 8




Friday, September 27, 2013

Decorating for Fall!


I Started decorating for fall! I have a white front door and wanted to see some contrast and also wanted to tie in my black furniture with their rust colored cushions. I was seeing a lot of wreaths made from feather boas this year and loved the look of them. I got to looking around my house to see what I could make a wreath out of and found my "living wreath form" in the garage. I love the extra large size of the form.The site I got the form from is at the bottom of 
this page. It's from my favorite garden store!
I covered the empty wreath form with 5 black
feather boas that were each 72" long. I didn't 
wrap them around the wreath because it would 
have taken a lot more boas. I attached them
over the top In a zig zag fashion from the outside to the inside 
of the wreath and attached with small black zip ties 
at each point. I gathered the flowers in groups 
of two and attached them to the wire with the zip
ties. I took strips of the fabric and made loops and gathered
them in twos and attached them to the wreath.
 Too Easy!! 

http://www.kinsmangarden.com/product/Large_Living_Wreath


Sunday, July 21, 2013

Board & Batten Beautification

Started the Board & Batten project on Sunday. Took a break from it yesterday to celebrate my son Austin's 15th birthday! As you can see it goes up pretty fast and is very easy to do! I posted pics of what I have gotten done so far and will post more throughout the project. Today is MY birthday and I am going to stop here and celebrate with my family! Post soon! (The pics are out of order)

Friday, July 19, 2013

Vintage Locker Redo

I was out looking around the Charleston area and found out we have a Habitat for Humanity store! They had all sorts of goodies in there! Old doors and windows, furniture, lighting, kitchen cabinets, sinks etc. The first thing I noticed was an old vintage hospital locker sitting up against the wall, all by its self, that had 8 compartments (Lots of storage options for all those skateboards!). It was gray and dirty
And it was missing some locks. Nothing that couldn't be fixed! I checked the price and they wanted $50 for it. If you have ever looked at the prices for old or new lockers you would know that was a steal!! I took it home, cleaned it up, primed it and spray painted the vintage locker and gave it a pop of color for my son's skateboard room. He has gray walls and a brick graffiti wall that has some orange in it so I went with a bright orange spray paint. I am waiting on the replacement handles and locker number plates. I will post new pics when they come in and I get them installed. We also found some DC skateboard stickers we used on the locker from our Milton Flea Market (love that place!) Here is a photo!

Friday, February 8, 2013

"Epic Meal Time" Party!

The "Epic Meal Time" party food went over Very Well with all of David's birthday party guests! I made the Fast Food Lasagna from their YouTube video (but a little different!) and couldn't find a dessert lasagna, from them, so I made up my own. Here is what I did for the lasagna:

8 McDonald's double hamburgers (no toppings)
Two pounds of bacon, cooked and drained
8 Wendy's double cheeseburgers (no toppings)
1 Medium McDonalds cup filled with Big Mac sauce ($3.00)
1 1/2 pounds of shredded cheddar cheese
4 orders of Burger King Onion Rings
Meat Sauce (recipe below)

Layer 8 McDonald's hamburgers in bottom of a pam sprayed deep casserole dish ( I used my pampered chef deep dish baker lid) press them down. layer with all of the cooked bacon. Top with half the meat sauce and half the cheese. Pour all of the Big Mac sauce over the cheese. Layer with the Wendy's 8 hamburgers and press down again. Top with all of the onion rings and the rest of the cheese. I covered it with foil and put it in a 350 degree oven until hot and cheese is melted.

Meat sauce:
1 pound ground pork sausage
1 pound ground beef
1 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce. (I used bullseye BBQ sauce with a little teriyaki sauce)
Cook the pork and beef until done. Drain and add BBQ sauce. Heat until BBQ sauce is hot.


McDonald's Apple Pie Lasagna:

15 McDonald's Apple Pies
Cream Cheese Filling (recipe below)
8oz Cool Whip
Melissa's dessert sauce-White Chocolate
Melissa's dessert sauce-Raspberry

Layer half the McDonald's pies in an 11x7 casserole dish. Spread cream cheese filling over pies. Layer the other half of pies on top. Spread all of the cool whip over the pies. Drizzle with the raspberry and white chocolate sauces. Serve!
(I had asked my husband to get Carmel sauce but the local grocery store was out of it. It originally was going to be: 1/2 pies,cream cheese filling, caramel sauce, 1/2 pies, cool whip, Carmel sauce, white chocolate sauce)

Cream cheese filling:
6oz room temp cream cheese
2 Tablespoons room temp butter
1 teas vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar

Beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Mix in powdered sugar until blended.

(Picture is of one of David's friends at his party with the Fast food Lasagna)

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

"Epic Meal Time" Birthday Invitations!

It's Lil' David's 16th Birthday Party! He chose to have an "Epic Meal Time" themed party. We are going to be making "our" version of the fast food lasagna and apple pie lasagna (on a slightly smaller scale!) ;) Epic Meal Time is a Canadian YouTube cooking show known for creating extremely high-calorie meals, generally out of meat products (with particular emphasis on bacon!).
They make the world’s most obscene rendition of lasagna…the "Fast Food Lasagna". Made from bacon, 15 Big Macs from McDonald’s, 1 litre of Big Mac Sauce, 15 Wendy’s Baconators, 15 Teen Burgers from A&W, Onion Rings, Cheese and Jack Daniel’s Meat Sauce, this entire meal has 5,463 grams of fat! Of course, ours will be much, much lighter & smaller than that!!!