Five on Friday │ the salad edition

It seem like every other pin I make on Pinterest these days are salads, I guess I'm totally ready for fresh veggie season. I wanted to share some of the recent ones that I am super excited to try in case you too are a salad lover.

1. Avocado and Heirloom Summer Salad from What's Gaby Cooking. The presentation alone is what drew me in to this yummy salad. I love the idea of serving a salad on a board and not in a bowl. This is high on my list to try very soon.
2. Sriracha Lime Chicken Chopped Salad from Lexi's Clean Kitchen. One of my friends shared this recipe on Facebook a few weeks ago so I had to make sure to save it. I love a good chopped salad and the spice of the Sriracha sounded delish, I mean it has grilled pineapple on it! 
3. Avocado Caprese Chicken and Avocado Salad from Joyful Healthy Eats. I love a good Caprese Salad and the addition of the Avocado and Chicken sounds delicious as does the dressing recipe to go with it.
4. Parmesan Zucchini and Corn from Damn Delicious. While this might not be a traditional salad, I would totally serve this as a salad/side dish at my next BBQ.
5. Cranberry Almond Spinach Salad from Cooking Classy. I always love spinach salads and the orange poppyseed dressing in this recipe sounds delish. I'm not a huge feta cheese fan so I'll probably switch this out for another cheese but I'm excited to try this one.

I have way more than five new salad recipes on my Garden Fresh Pinterest Board so if you want to pin these that I have shown here and see some others you can click here and start pinning away.

(Note: all images shown above are from the original websites that I have linked too, all the credit goes to those original authors for such appetizing photos)

Here's to salad season!

I {heart} Valentine's Day

Happy early Valentine's Day! We tend to do it up around here on the big day but then again any excuse for a little party and I'm usually all in. I think it's fun to celebrate these little holidays even in small ways. I don't go to overboard with making a lot of things but one thing I have made the past few years are these yummy cookies. If you love Dark Chocolate you will love them. Simone helped with the sprinkles as you can probably tell and she did a really good job. I also dip a few in just plain chocolate because my husband doesn't love massive amounts of sprinkles. If you don't want to go thru the dipping process don't worry, they are still super yummy left plain. To dip them I just melted about one cup of Nestle Semi Sweet Morsels in the microwave added about a teaspoon of vegetable oil to make it more fluid and dipped away. We laid them out on waxed paper and added the sprinkles while they were still wet. A few minutes in the fridge to set them up and they are ready to eat. I do keep the dipped cookies in the fridge just to make sure they don't melt and stick together. Plus I like them cold and crisp right out of the fridge. Yum!

xoxo,

Project Life 2013 - week 39

I can't believe its the end of September in Project Life land, its kind of crazy actually.  This spread is super out of the norm for me, its very dark, its funny how it turns out like that some times.  I'm sure it won't stay this way but its a cool change for sure.

With soccer practice two nights a week, we adults get a little punchy sometimes. This past week was no exception, we photo bombed one mom's phone while she wasn't around, hilarious! While another night was a bring your own type of experience. We have met the greatest people this season and I sure hope we stay together for awhile longer.  As far as the rest of this side goes, you can definitely see the seasons changing in the weather around here, cooler morning walks to school and lots of clouds.  We had some family visit this weekend, it was so great to see them, the boys had a great day golfing.

The title card this week is super simple and I kept it black. The paper camera came in a Studio Calico kit and I love it. I popped out parts of the lens so it has a bit of dimension. I worked in Simone's class again this past week. Her homework is shockingly advanced at her young age.  A hot tub morning for the two of us. A party invitation I sent out, our first ever Halloween party, I'm excited. I made the invitation but it was inspired by this cool one I saw online.  Some donuts we had while the boys were here.  The best chocolate cake I have ever made, its amazing, you need to make it.  You can find the recipe here.  Larry and I have been on a terror catching up on this show.  We were almost three seasons behind and we're watching episodes like its our job! Me in a new shirt that I love and my sneaks for the Studio Calico class that I wrapped up this past weekend.

And the soccer inserts continue.  All my pictures this week and the first loss for our girls.  They handled it well, I'm pretty sure they didn't even realize they lost which is good.  They played well and Simone did get a goal for the team and she loved having her brother and uncle see her play.

I'm taking a much needed scrap break for the rest of the week.  I'm hoping I don't set foot in my office except to do homework with Simone.  I'm officially fried!

Have a great rest of the week everyone!

Coconut Cheesecake - Revised

Last year around this time I made my Coconut Cheesecake for St. Patrick's Day, well I made it again this year but I tweaked the recipe just a bit.

It came out really good again and honestly I think both versions are good but this one has a plain graham cracker crust and I upped the amount of cream cheese by one and used only coconut milk instead of that and sour cream.

Here's a photo of the original

and this years version, not much visible difference.

Here are the two recipe versions for you; the original and the newer.

I hope you love it whichever version you make.

Weekend Recap

What a weekend! Summer is here full swing and blazing hot.  Saturday we had some friends over for a BBQ, their kids go to school with Simone so it was an awesome time to hang out and let the kids play, 6 total, it was like kid soup in the pool!  We adults hung out had some drinks ate some yummy appetizers and had an awesome BBQ dinner. 

I made this recipe for the first time, come to find out it was one of our guests family favorite.  It's called Cowboy Caviar and it was delicious.  Here's the recipe if you want to try it too.  Super yummy and great for a hot summer day.

As you can see the weather was quite warm, the adults stayed in the shade and let the kids play in the pool.

After everyone left Larry and I enjoyed the super warm evening, it was still 91° at 9pm.

Before we went to bed I left out some cinnamon rolls to rise, they sure loved the nice warm air and more than doubled in size overnight!

My in-laws came over in the afternoon and brought all kinds of yummy food to cook on the smoker, including this beautiful salmon.  It came out awesome as did the pork roast.

We set up a tent over part of the pool to have some shade and spent all day in it.  A few breaks here and there for some sun but boy was it a hot one. The drink of the day was Picinich Punch, my favorite.  The recipe is easy, Malibu rum, pineapple juice and Sierra Mist.  Super refreshing and just enough coconut.

That shot above was my 1,000th Instagram shot, felt it warranted some celebration!

I hope your weekend was awesome too!  We are hitting the gym this morning, its been awhile so wish me luck!

Coconut Pound Cake

Man I love Pinterest...the food shared on the site is amazing.  It seems like just about everything I've tried I liked so when I saw this Pin pop up on my feed the other day I wanted to make it right away.

The recipe is from this site, I was so excited to make it I took a screen capture from the website and posted it to Instagram.  Quite a few people commented that it looked yummy and I had high hopes that mine would turn out just as delectable looking.

The batter blended smoothly and everything went as planned.  The only divergent path I took with the recipe was I used a bundt pan instead of the called for tube pan which would ultimately prove to be a bad choice.

When I pulled my cake out of the over it looked and smelled amazing.  Internally I was high fiving myself for creating such an amazing piece of baked goodness.  This of course all came crashing down when I tried to remove said amazing piece of baked goodness from its pan.

Holy stick-ola, and yes, I did prepare my pan but apparently not well enough.  I'm thinking the fluted edges were also too much for this delicate cake.  When I did finally get the cake to turn out most of the top half was still stuck to the pan.  Here is my cake, decidedly different from the perfection shown above...and since I had shared with the world my plans for cake perfection I felt it was only fair to fess up, be honest and show my decidely less than perfect cake on Instagram too.

As you can see on the left side my attempt to stick the broken bits back on in the hopes that the delicious glaze would adhered it back together did not work at all.

The good news is despite its less than perfect appearance it was one of the best coconut cakes I've ever had.  Not only that by my husband and family all loved it. 

It's safe to say that my old, tired, losing its not stick coating bundt pan is not long for this world and a new one as well as a tube pan will find their way into our kitchen soon.

Thanks for stopping by and if you bake anything this week, I send you non-stick good thoughts!

Five on Friday

I realized I had a few things to talk about today so I'm trying something new.  But before I do and because I can't have a post without a photo.  Here's a shot of some serious hail we had last night.

Here are the five things I wanted to share today;

1. I found this recipe on Pinterest awhile back and just made it for the first time this past week.  It was seriously one of the best dishes I've ever made from Pinterest.  Try it, you will love it.  My husband bought Mini Hawaiian Sub rolls and they worked perfectly.  My roast was only 2.46lb. so smaller than the recipe called for but it still fed 8 people.  I cooked mine on low and it needed the full 10 hours before it would shred.  I kept the rest of the recipe measurements the same and didn't change anything.  I really can't wait to make this again it was that good.  I think I'll try cooking it on high next time.
2. I'm traveling down to Berkeley tomorrow for two classes with Kelly Purkey.  I haven't been to Scrapbook Territory in awhile so I'm really excited for some crafty good times.  I need to get up and out the door pretty early since the first class starts at 10:00am.  After the two classes I'm meeting a friend for dinner before I drive home.
3. As I mentioned in my Project Life pages this past week I read this book recently.  I ended up staying up until 2:30am reading it because a) I didn't feel tired and b) I really couldn't put it down.  It's a lovely book about the birth of a child that unexpectedly had Down Syndrome.  I'm not gonna lie, I had a box of Kleenex at the ready and used quite a few.  Like I mentioned to the author the book moved me in places I never knew I had.  I count my blessings everyday for a healthy child and have to hope that presented with the same challenges I would face it with as much grace and love as she has.
4. Totally cannot get enough of this song lately.  It's got a super cool retro sound that I just love and he sounds a bit like Bowie to me.
5. Totally want to get one of these so I can make these in the very near future.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend!  Looks like the rain, thunder and lightening will be clearing out and we'll be in the 70's this weekend!  Hooray!

Coconut Cheesecake anyone?

It's Sunday evening as I'm writing this, my clock says 6:31pm but my mind, body and sunshine outside tell me its really only 5:31pm but due to Daylight Savings time we all must now pretend its really an hour later.  It sucks waking up on Monday after the time change, it's easy on Sunday to pretend it never happened but Monday morning is a different matter. 

I'm gearing up for a busy week ahead, a family member is coming to visit so we have lots to do to prep and I'm trying to get things done in advance so I can play this week instead.

I worked most of the day today on my Project Life pages for week 10 and they are done.  I'll photograph them and get Wednesday's blog post written tomorrow so that's a box I can check off my to-do's, yay!

I have lots of laundry to do and a house to clean, and prep for a big St. Patricks Day Dinner we are having here on Saturday night.  It's a holiday my family always celebrated due to some Irish blood deep within our roots.  It will be fun to have everyone over to help celebrate, and come on who doesn't love a good Corned Beef, Cabbage, Red Potato and Carrot dinner.  I'm thinking I might make my Coconut Cheesecake for dessert.  It's been awhile and it's always a big hit, here's the recipe if you are interested.

Barbara's Coconut Cheesecake

Prep Time: 15 min
Total Time: 6 hrs 25 min
Makes: 16 servings

1-3/4 cups Chocolate Graham Cracker Crumbs (approx. 1 ¾ sleeves)
1/3 cup butter, melted
1-1/4 cups sugar, divided
3 pkg. (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese softened
2 tsp. coconut extract
3 eggs
½ cup Sour Cream

½ cup Coconut Milk

2 cups Sweetened Flake Coconut

Topping

1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream (or more if you like)

1 tsp. Coconut Extract

2 tsp. sugar

½ cup toasted sweetened Flake Coconut

PREHEAT oven to 350°F if using a silver 8- or 9-inch spring form pan (or to 325°F if using a dark nonstick 8- or 9-inch spring form pan). Mix crumbs, butter and 1/4 cup of the sugar. Press firmly onto bottom and up side of pan; set aside.

BEAT cream cheese, remaining 1 cup sugar and coconut extract with electric mixer on high speed until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition until blended. Blend in sour cream and coconut milk. Then mix in sweetened coconut and pour into crust.

BAKE 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes or until center is almost set. Turn off oven. Leaving door slightly ajar and leave cheesecake in the oven for 1 hour. Remove from oven; cool completely. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.

SERVE: whip heavy whipping cream with coconut extract and sugar.  Spread on top of cheesecake and sprinkle with toasted coconut

I hope you like it if you try it.  See you back on Wednesday for more Project Life.

Blog Redesign and some recipes

So what do you think?  I've been thinking about changing up the blog design recently and had a "just do it now" burst of energy so Wednesday evening when I should have been doing other things I sat down to tackle it.  I stuck with the same basic header just changed the background to something that was a bit more "me." The other just felt a bit to country for me, not really my style.  It served me well for almost the whole first year but I like the new fresh modern look.  Once thing I realized when doing this and struggling with it a bit was I need to take a beginning HTML class just so I understand the basics, it's hard to figure out when you have no idea what all the crazy symbols mean, ubber frustrating for sure.

Busy weekend planned, Simone and I are off later to pick up Larry in the Delta (he's helping our Brother in Law move their boat) a bit later today.  Tomorrow we are going to a 5 year olds birthday party and then we're having a really good friend of mine over for dinner.  I haven't seen her since we moved so I'm excited to see her and her boyfriend and his daughter too. Sunday is the Super Bowl, could care less about the teams but its always fun to get together for some yummy game day food.  Here's what I'm making if you are interested.

It's called Hot Bacon Cheese Dip and my sister in law made it and said it was delish.  I can't wait to try it.

I think I'm also going to make this cake, it's from the Penzy's catalog and it sounds awesome, It's called Peanut Butter Pound Cake.  Sorry I don't have a picture, I'll take one after I make it.  It sounds heavenly and I love peanut butter and chocolate together.

Have a wonderful weekend, see you back on Monday!

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

So I have another recipe to share with you, I found this online recently, it was a link posted on Pinterest for Cream Cheese Pound Cake.  Apparently it was first published in Southern Living Magazine in November of 2001.

It looked and sounded amazing, I've never heard of a pound cake with cream cheese in it before.  I made it last Monday and it was amazing.  The batter itself is quite dense, I guess that's why they call it pound cake.  It takes 1 hour and 50 minutes to cook.  Larry thought I was crazy to cook it that long but that's what the recipe said.  I did test it about 1 hour 20 minutes in just to make sure it was in fact still uncooked and sure enough, my tester came out anything but clean.  After I let it cool and removed it from the pan, the whole top edge crumbled off, just like the blog poster wrote in her critique of the recipe.  It did not however, stop us from eating it.  This cake reminded me of what a Sara Lee Pound cake used to be when I was a kid, yummy, buttery and oh so delicious.

I think this cake has so many possibilities; Larry thought it would be great for Strawberry Shortcake, I thought it would be perfect to cut up and use for Chocolate Fondue or you could also drizzle a multitude of yummy things on top of it.  I do however, feel it is just fine the way it is, simple perfection.

Try it, I think you will love it.

The Sweet Cinnamon Scones

The Pioneer Woman was at it again and suggested another super amazing recipe, these Sweet Cinnamon Scones. 

I finally made them on Sunday morning and they are delicious.  You really need to wait for them to cool completely and I actually liked them even better the next day.  They fall apart too much if they are even slightly warm so make them the day or night before.  They call for Hershey's Cinnamon Chips which I know can be hard to find but they are worth the hunt.  We are lucky to have them in our local stores here.  They have a recipe for Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Cookies on the package and I make them quite often, they are favorites around here.  We seem to like anything that has cinnamon in it for that matter.

The Pioneer Woman

I recently started following the Pioneer Woman, she is quite the blogger and has seven different categories of that she writes about.  I can't even imagine how she tackles all that she does in a given day.  She posted this recipe for Creamy Chicken Spaghetti Casserole a few weeks back and I made it for dinner the other night.  She's right, it's amazing.  You must I said MUST try this recipe.  It makes a lot so plan on inviting people over or freezing for later.  I suppose you could cut it in half easily enough.



A few thoughts/observations:

• I purchased a pre-cooked roasted chicken from the grocery store because I thought it would add more flavor plus it was easier.  Just boil your spaghetti in water since you won't have the water left from boiling the chicken if you follow my lead.
• Don't omit the mushrooms and wine, it makes the dish.
• You can replace the olives with a number of things, artichoke hearts came to mind right away
• The leftovers are divine!

I hope you try it and like it as much as we did.