Peach & Mango Bellinis

Cooking Club's theme this past month was Barefoot Contessa inspired recipes. We all made a recipe from one of Ina Garten's cookbooks or found one online. I was in charge of cocktails for this dinner club meeting so I made Fresh Peach Bellinis and made it my own. So yummy! I got these great champagne flutes from my mom as a wedding present years ago and like to bring them out every so often. Bellinis are the perfect occasion! Check out the other Barefoot Contessa courses at our Cuisine Queens website! :-)

Ingredients (serves 8 to 10 people):

• 4 peaches
• 2 champagne mangoes
• 2 tbsp of sugar or equal
• 2 tsp of lime juice
• 1 bottle of sparkling wine or champagne, chilled
• I used Peach Seltzer water for a non-alcoholic version (we have some pregos in our group)

Directions:

• Chop fruit into small pieces.
• Place fruit, lime juice, & sugar into a food processor.
• Puree in processor until mixed well.
• Pass through sieve (optional) and leave out skins & bits.
• Place 2 tbsp of the puree in each champagne glass
• Fill with champagne and serve.

For a non-alcoholic or low cal option use peach seltzer water instead of champagne/wine.





My husband & I had an awesome dinner on the back porch (the weather has been fantastic)   and I tried out the bellinis on him before making them for cooking club the following night. They were a hit! They also paired nicely with leftover Southwestern Pasta Salad & these AMAZING BLT Lettuce Wraps which I made for the first time that night! YUMMO!


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Strawberry Pie

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Strawberry pie. It's my favorite non-chocolate dessert. One of my best memories from college is being at my friend Stevie's house and sneaking into the kitchen with 3 friends and devouring the strawberry pie that his mom, Sue, made. [SHE MAKES THE BEST STRAWBERRY PIE!]. It was for everyone else to share but we weren't going to let anyone else get a piece. It was heaven.


This was a time in my life when I was trying to impress my husband (before he was my husband, before he was even my boyfriend) so I knew the quickest way to his heart was through his stomach. Therefore, I was on my mission to to make an equally awesome strawberry pie. The secret = graham cracker crust. 


Ingredients:
graham cracker pie crust
1 tbsp powdered sugar
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
1.5 quarts of strawberries, cut & sliced.
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp karo white corn syrup
1 cup water
3 oz. strawberry jell-0
1 tsp of salt
3 tbsp cornstarch
cool-whip or whip cream


 Directions:
Mix the cream cheese & sugar into a medium bowl. 
Spread into the bottom of a baked pie shell.
Place berries on top of the cream cheese spread.
Meanwhile, mix sugar, corn syrup, water, salt, & cornstarch in a pot over medium heat.
When it thickens and the jello mix and stir.
Remove from heat and let cool before pouring over berries.
Place in fridge for at least an hour.
Serve with whip cream.

It was a hit!

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

More Baby Shower Fun

If you want some great baby shower ideas, then you've come to the right place!


I recently shared about my sister-in-law's belated Baby Shower. But I also helped throw a baby shower for my friend Jessie last month. Such a great shower! Her mom, Kelly Steadman, owner of All Things Beautiful, was my fabulous wedding florist 5 years ago, and let me tell you, she knows how to throw a party! 


This was an owl-themed baby shower for baby Trevor. 


For food we did a slider bar as the main meal.

But we also had fruit kabobs, cups of pasta salad, veggies & dip.

But I just loved these mini twice-baked potatoes. So cute!

All the food was great, but dessert was even better! We had a dessert bar. We had owl cookies. Kelly made these delightful sugar cookies with blue fondant and chocolate icing. The noses are chocolate covered sesame seeds. The mouths are candy necklace pieces. 

There were chocolate cigars in honor of Baby Boy Smoker. 

The best part was the Make-Your-Own S'more Bar

Besides the traditional ingredients that you use to make a s'more, we also included Reese's Peanut Butter Cups & Peppermint Patties. So good! And everyone could make their own on the fire pit. 

And of course, no party would be complete without cake pops! We did owl cake pops as favors and baby boy cake pops that were ready to eat. Check out that sweet cake pop stand!

These two were a highlight for a lot of the guests at the shower!

HOW CUTE IS THIS!?!??!

Isn't it nice to have a florist in the family???

My very own mother helped out with this shower by making this poster using her cricut. We all signed a leaf with a word of encouragement for baby Trevor. Then the leaves will get attached to the branches and it will be hung for him in the nursery. So stinkin' cute!

This post is so long I will need to stop here. But another fantastic part of the day, besides the great weather, was the baby shower games. Instead of doing traditional games, my friend Ashley found lots of Minute-To-Win-It games with a baby-theme to them. They were a riot! Stay tuned for a later post on that. 

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Fruit Kabobs

For my sister-in-law's belated baby shower we made fruit kabobs. They were a big hit! Very easy to do and you can style them any way you want. After slicing up the pineapple we used the top as decoration. The possibilities and combinations are endless. ENJOY! 

I helped another baby shower recently, and I took no part in the assembly of these, but we also made fruit kabobs. Here are some more ideas. Instead of doing grapes & blueberries, these have watermelon. Then we used the rest of the watermelon to display the kabobs. So cute!

I also saw the coolest Rainbow Fruit Kabobs on GreenLiteBites. There is a video up on how to make them and really cool pictures. 


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Baby Shower Fun

Two and a half years ago I became an Aunt for the first time. My niece Maddie is a lot o fun and so stinking adorable. Fast forward to this past September where I became an Aunt again, but I went to having one niece to having FIVE. Yes, Five! My niece Halle was born September 2nd and my triplet nieces were born on September 11th; Annabelle, Clare, & Grace. The triplets came 3 months early so we ran out of time to throw my sister-in-law a baby shower. So we threw a belated drop-in meet-and-greet baby shower party this past April when the girls were 7 months old. It was a blast! 


On the menu was meatballs, spinach dip, and crab dip. We had bread & cucumber slices to use for the dips and the cutest part was the fruit kabobs.

Special thanks to my sister-in-law's sister, Julie, for opening up her home and doing a great job with decor. I loved what she did with the chalkboards!

I got this for my mother-in-law for her birthday this year since I know she's always hosting meals for large groups of people. 

Pink Lemonade, so appropriate!

And of course, CAKE POPS!!! (As the favor.) Pink & Silver to go with the baby shower theme. Complete with a note from the girls! :-)

I was also blessed to throw another bay shower this year for my friend Jessie, this past June. It was soooooooo cute! Stay tuned for a future post on that coming soon!

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Mixed Berry French Toast Bake

My friend Nicole sent me this recipe and insisted that I make it. I'm so glad she did! It's a great treat when making breakfast for a group of people. 


Ingredients:
1 loaf of French Bread, cubed -- very small
6 egg whites
3 eggs
2 cups fat free milk
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1 package frozen unsweetened mixed berries
2 tbsp cold butter
1/3 cup packed brown sugar


Directions:
Place bread cubes in a 13 x 9 baking dish coated with cooking spray.
In a medium bowl combine egg whites, eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and salt.
Pour over bread. (I suggest fully emerging the bread into the liquid mixture).
Then refrigerate overnight for 8 hours.
The next morning, remove the berries from the freezer 30 minutes before baking and set aside.
Also remove the baking dish from the fridge.
Bake, covered, at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 
In a small bowl, cut butter into brown sugar until crumbly. 
Sprinkle butter mixture over French toast. Top with berries.
Bake, uncovered, for 15 to 25 minutes.


If you want more details and tips for this recipe see Nicole's blog.


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Chocolate Berry Baked Oatmeal

I was sick last week and thought I know I should have nursed myself back to health with some chicken soup I wanted some baked oatmeal instead. I was craving sometime of comfort food and I'm guessing the simplicity of baked oatmeal just brought me a lot of comfort. Not sure why. I know there are also healthier ways to make baked oatmeal, but that was not where my mind was at. It was mid-afternoon when I made it and hadn't eaten all day so I wanted more of a sweet snack then a breakfast treat. I wound up making more of a dessert and less of a traditional baked oatmeal. But it was perfect because I could still eat it for breakfast the next day. Obviously, the sprinkles are an optional touch, but you'll see they are totally worth it if you are anything like me. :-)


Ingredients:
2 cups of mixed berries (frozen)
3 cups of old-fashioned oats
2 eggs
1/2 cup of heavy cream
1/4 cup of brown sugar
4 tsp oil
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp cocoa powder (secret ingredient!)
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp salt
approximately 20 walnuts, halved
half a bag of chocolate chips (or as much as you want)
sprinkles!



Directions:
In a bowl combine eggs and oil.
Mix in oats, baking powder, sugar, salt, spice, cocoa powder, and cinnamon.
Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.
Add frozen fruit.
Transfer to a sprayed 9 in. circular pie dish.
Pour heavy cream over top.
Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Remove from oven and top with sprinkles. 

Mmmmmmmm....Comfort :-)

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Strawberry Baked Oatmeal

This blog post is dedicated to my friend Nicole who was the inspiration for this creation. The amazingness that is baked oatmeal was only recently introduced to me in the past year. Since then I've made it a lot and posted several versions of the recipe. This one has been one of the best!

After sampling Nicole's baked oatmeal with blueberries I knew that I needed to mix in some fruit with mine as well. I didn't have blueberries, only had strawberries, so I used them and it was a nice touch. A while ago I was on the hunt for Pumpkin Pie Spice and couldn't find it at Darrenkamps. Luckily, Nicole found some for me at Sharp Shopper! So now that I had a brand new bottle, I needed to put it to good use. So instead of ground cinnamon, I used the pumpkin pie spice. I recommend trying it yourself. Enjoy!

This recipe serves a lot of people, probably about 12. So cut it in half if needed.

Ingredients:

4 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2/3 cup sugar

1.5 cup of milk

6 cups old-fashioned oats

6 tsp baking powder

2 tsp salt

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice or ground cinnamon

1-2 cups of frozen strawberries

1/3 cup raisins

1/3 cup walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix eggs, oil, 1/2 cup of the milk, & sugar in a large bowl.
Combine the oats, baking powder, spice, &, salt in another large bowl.
Combine two mixtures.
Add strawberries.
Spoon into a greased 13 x 9 x 2 in baking dish.
Top with walnuts & raisins (I only covered half the dish since not everyone likes nuts & raisins)
Pur remaining milk over over baking dish and put into oven.
Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until edges are gold brown.

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)