May Angel Star

Posts Tagged ‘Recipes’

Awhile back I went out with some friends, Kelly and Tammy to be exact.

We had an exciting desperately needed girls night out planned.

First a fantastically yummy Teriyaki Marinated Sirloin accompanied by some mashed potatoes and a salad doused in ranch at Outback. I had my first martini ever, Strawberry Passion. It was good, real good.

We then made our way to the dollar theater and watched Date Night. Yeah, that was hilarious. You must see it!

Our night wasn’t complete though, we ended it with a bang, yeah, that’s right, we went to Walmart!

I was in the mood to be healthy and fun. I loaded up my cart with apples, bananas, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, blueberries, carrots, and sugar snap peas. Super proud of myself and couldn’t wait to bite into those nectarines, they smelled absolutely amazing!

One problem, the kids don’t really like blueberries.

They turned up their noses when I brought out the full fresh pint. Well two out of three did. Alex wanted some, I obliged by placing a few on his plate. He tasted, made a face and said, “No like it,” and then proceeded to spit out the smooshed blueberry. Gross!

So I did what I needed to do.

I googled “blueberry muffins made from scratch” and clicked on a few recipes.

I ultimately decided on this one, the best blueberry muffin recipe evah!

Seriously these are amazing! You must try them. You will never go back to your regularly scheduled muffin recipe again!

The best part, the kids devoured them. As did Brian and I. I also had to give some to Jason, Daph and Beth.

They thought they were amazing too!

I think I may need to go out and buy some blueberries. It would make a great treat for the girls teachers.

I can’t believe they start school this week. Where did the summer go?

Awesome Blueberry Muffins

Found on Food.com

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
3. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder.
4. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup.
5. Mix this with flour mixture.
6. Fold in blueberries.
7. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
8. To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon.
9. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
10. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

So I just decided to jump right in with this little blog carnival that Keelie at Red Writing thought up. Check it out, link up and don’t forget that every week there is a giveaway!

I love the reason for the season, Jesus Christ! I love giving presents, especially ones that I make by hand. I love the sheer joy etched on the faces of my children. I love the Christmas tree (white non-blinking lights only please!) and it’s beauty at night! I love spending time with family and friends. And I love the treats that only come along during that time of year.

Yes, I love cookies, candy and pie! Lots and lots of sugary goodness! I love breakfast casserole, stromboli, and our newest tradition Christmas day lasagna! I love sneaking choconut dainties when my Dad isn’t looking! Those tasty little things are so darn addictive!

Here are the recipes to my fave Christmas foods starting with breakfast and ending with dessert!

Breakfast Casserole

• We have this every Christmas morning at my parents house!

Stromboli

• 1 loaf frozen bread dough thawed
• 1/2 lb. swiss cheese sliced thin
• 1/2 lb. cooked ham sliced thin
• 1/2 lb. salami sliced thin
• 1/2 lb. pepperoni slices

Preheat oven 350°. Roll out bread dough 1/4 inch thick. Layer ingredients in order. Start at one end, tightly rolling dough and ingredients, tucking in ends as you roll. Place seam side down on edged, foil-lined cookie sheet. Bake 1 hour. Cut loaf into 1 inch slices.

Kelly’s Traditonal Lasagna Recipe

• Yeah, lasagna is my favorite Italian food! You must make this recipe, you will love it forever!

Choconut Dainties

• 3/4 cup butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 bags semi-sweet chocolate morsels (6 oz bags)
• 2 cups finely chopped walnuts

Beat butter and sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, beating until blended. Add flour and salt, beating well. Stir in 1 bag chocolate morsels. Shape dough into 2- x 1/2-inch logs (about 1 heaping teaspoon each). Place logs on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for about 6 minutes or until lightly browned; remove to wire racks to cool. Microwave chocolate morsels at HIGH 4 minutes or until melted, stirring once. Dip ends of cookies in melted chocolate. Roll ends in chopped walnuts. Place on wax paper until set.

My mouth is watering just thinking about all this good food!

Christmas can’t come soon enough!

Well, let me think about this. I can wait. I have so much to accomplish before Christmas, it can’t come too soon!

Enjoy!

I played scattergories one time and the letter was J. You had to name a planet, and I excitedly wrote down Juniper. Then couldn’t figure out why everyone was laughing at me when I shouted out my word with glee. For the record, the planet is JUPITER. I was close right?

I ran across a pretty cool blog the other day. The Mommy Daily Vent. You must check it out! Gwyn shared 10 of her favorite things starting with the letter G. I asked for a letter and she gave me the letter J. Wish me luck!

1. Jesus. Plain and simple, Jesus is the one true king. I still have to wrap my mind around the fact that he died on the cross so that I could live. He made the ultimate sacrifice for me and all He asked in return was that I accept Him into my heart. How amazing is that!

Alright on to number 2, and I got nothing. It took me awhile to figure out that Jesus started with J. Sometimes I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. It’s also Monday morning, you’re asking a lot of me!

2. Juno. This of course falls into the category of the pregnancy obsession. Which I wrote a little bit about here. I love, love, love this movie. It is in my collection. The writing and story are just funny and great. The ending made me cry.

OK, 8 more to go. Hmmm.

3. Jewelry. Who doesn’t like jewelry, especially when it has shiny, sparkly diamonds in it!

4. Joking (around). Brian and I love laughter. There is a lot of it in our marriage and it keeps things light and fun!

This is hard. I’m going to resort to doing some more movies. And since they are in my collection, it counts!

5. Jurassic Park. I loved the movie. I will always remember seeing it for the first time. I sat next to my Dad. When the raptor jumped out at Dr. Ellie he grabbed my arm and I almost jumped right out of my seat! After watching the movie I tried to read the book, but it was too above my head. Michael Crichton incorporates a lot of technical writing into his books. I tried again a few months later and it was a really good book. I became a huge fan of Michael’s work.

6. Just Like Heaven. Love the movie, love Reese Witherspoon and love Mark Ruffalo even more!

7. June. As in the month. It’s got 3 special dates in it. Brian and I got married June 29th, 2002. We also renewed our vows with the Lord at the center of them on June 29th, 2007. Katie was born on June 27th, 2004. And Alex was born on June 6th, 2008!

8. Juicy Triple Berry Pie. I make this a lot in the summer!

3 cups assorted berries (I use raspberries, strawberries, blackberries frozen assortment)

1 graham cracker crumb (6 ounces)

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 1/2 cups orange strawberry banana juice

1 package (4-serving size) JELL-O, any red flavor

Arrange berries in crust. Mix sugar and cornstarch in medium saucepan. Gradually stir in juice until smooth. Stirring constantly, cook on medium heat until mixture comes to a boil; boil 1 minute.  Remove from heat. Stir in gelatin until completely dissolved. Cool to room temperature; pour into crust. Refrigerate 3 hours or until firm. Garnish with Cool Whip. Store leftover pie in refrigerator.

9. Joshua Jackson. From Charlie in The Mighty Ducks, Pacey in Dawson’s Creek and now Peter Bishop on Fringe. He’s hot and I’ll always love him!

It has taken me way too long to get to #10. I seriously can’t think of anything. This was super hard.

10. Justice. I can’t walk in that store without getting something for my girls. It’s spendy, but very cute!

Finally, I got it done. If you want a letter, I’ll give you one!

We had fun. I arrived at Kelly’s early and helped cut up fruit and do a nice presention, it’s all about presentation LOL. Got everything set up and ready. Then it was 6:30 and we decided we were hungry and started eating! She made this taco soup:

It is amazingly good! I could have eaten the whole crockpot, that is how good it is! Then Lynn from church showed up and ate with us. Neither of us had met Lynn before. She was really nice, older than us, she has a 13 yo son. After that we started knitting. Well Kelly and Lynn started knitting and I started crocheting. Renee showed up and she is very funny. She doesn’t have any kids but they have a miniature dauschhund, so that is her baby. We would share stories of our kids and she would share stories of hers Then Mel showed up, that is Kelly’s sister and she just cracks me up. So funny, she and I could get into real trouble I think!

I stayed until 9:30 and then went to pick up Katie. I was so exhausted, but it turned out to be a longer night than I thought when I got home and turned on the computer to see “everything” that had gone on…