Seth's MDO Christmas Party

Yesterday, Seth's MDO class had a Christmas party! They wore their pajamas and decorated gingerbread men and then watched a Christmas movie! I teach the class next door to Seth's so I am never able to go to his parties :( but Evan is always sure to be there! :) Seth gets SO excited when Daddy comes to MDO!

Also, I made these gifts for Seth's MDO teachers... I saw the marshmallows on Pinterest and found the cute little containers at Walmart!

The cans are filled with Dark Chocolate Candy Cane Marshmallows (to go in hot chocolate) and they are so easy to make... you just melt dark chocolate (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips), dip the marshmallows in the chocolate and then roll them in crushed candy cane, place in a wax paper lined dish and allow them to cool in the refrigerator until the chocolate sets. After the chocolate sets, store them in an airtight container. I wrote, "Just add hot chocolate!" on the lid to help his teachers know the intended use of the marshmallows!

Seth was so cute taking his gifts to his teachers! He was so proud of them! haha

Hopefully, I'll get caught up enough to share a few of our Christmas decorations and traditions sometime next week! Right now, I'm just trying to get our Christmas cards in the mail sometime BEFORE Christmas! haha But hey, if I don't, who doesn't like a nice Christmas surprise just when you thought the fun was over? :)

Have a GREAT weekend!

Teepee Cupcakes

Yesterday, Seth's MDO class had a Thanksgiving party. I teach the class next to his at MDO so I couldn't leave my room to go to his party but Evan was able to be there (and I may or may not have peeked over the door a few times)! :)

I signed up to take cupcakes and I found the cutest teepee cupcakes on Pinterest! I thought they seemed very boyish! :)

They were a little trickier to make than I anticipated but I still thought they turned out to be pretty cute... flaws and all! haha

And Seth and his friends seemed to enjoy them... once they figured out how to eat them!

Haha Have a great weekend! :)

Evan's 25th Birthday

We celebrated Evan's 25th birthday on July 1st. We went out to eat at a Hibachi restaurant and then went back home for a casual summery party with a hint of a baseball theme (baseball is Evan's favorite sport). Here are a few pictures from the evening and the recipe for the Fresh Strawberry Tart that served as Evan's birthday cake! :)

Fresh Strawberry Tart

Ingredients:

1/2 recipe of 1-2-3 dough

2 T cornstarch or all purpose flour

1 cup milk

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 piece of vanilla bean

2 egg yolks

1 quart fresh strawberries

1 cup heavy cream

1-2 T Kirsch apricot glaze (or apricot jelly)

Directions

Butter and flour a 9 inch tart shell with a removable bottom. Pat the dough into the shell. Prick well with a fork and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool.

Heat 3/4 cup of the milk with the vanilla bean. Mix the egg yolks, cornstarch, sugar and remaining milk. Add the egg mixture to the hot milk, stir and cook until thick. Spread on a plate and sprinkle with sugar to cool. Whip the heavy cream. Stir the Kirsch into the cooled egg mixture (pastry cream). Fold the whipped cream into the cooled egg mixture (pastry cream). Spread the mixture into the baked and cooled crust. Slice strawberries and arrange on the cream. Brush more apricot glaze on the top of the tart. (tart needs to be served the same day that it's made.)

1-2-3 Dough

Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar

2 cups butter

3 cups of all purpose flour

1 egg

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together until well blended. Chill. This amount of dough is enough to make 2 tarts.

Happy LONG weekend! :)

It's Carnival Time!

My sister's 22nd birthday was last week and we had a carnival themed party for her. The main reason we chose this theme was because she has a huge love for cotton candy and funnel cakes and the second reason may shock you! haha At the age of 22, my sister is the world's youngest Elvis fan. She LOVES him and she has ever since she was a little girl. As a result of this love, she is always trying to get her friends and family to watch old Elvis movies with her. There is an Elvis movie called "Roustabout" that takes place at a carnival so we decided to surprise her and have a carnival themed party and eat her favorite carnival foods all while watching "Roustabout"! It turned out to be a lot of fun!

We had some really heavy foods at the party so we decided to make some of the treats miniature so we could still enjoy the taste of a carnival without feeling sick! haha Here are our precious mini cotton candy bags...

We also made mini carmel apples. We used crabapples and cocktail toothpicks to make them mini and them we dipped them in regular melted carmels. I LOVED these!

For dinner, we had corn dogs and onion rings with pink grapefruit sodas. We put it all in little baskets so we could eat while we watched the movie.

And her birthday cake was, of course, a funnel cake!

We found mixes for the corn dogs and funnel cakes but we made the onion rings from scratch! Here's the recipe we used (from a Southern Living cookbook):

Beer-Battered Onion Rings

3 large Vidalia onions

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

1/4 cup yellow cornmeal

2 cups beer

1 large egg, lightly beaten

vegetable oil

Directions:

Peel onions; cut into 1/2 inch thick slices, and separate into rings. Place rings in a large bowl of ice water; let stand 30 minutes. Drain on paper towels. Combine flour and next 3 ingredients, stir well. Add beer and egg, stirring until thoroughly blended and smooth. Chill batter for 15 minutes. Dip onion rings into batter, coating both sides well. Pour oil to a depth of 2 to 3 inches in a dutch oven; heat to 375 degrees. Fry onion rings, a few at a time, 3 to 5 minutes or until golden on both sides. Drain well on paper towels, serve immediately.

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And for your viewing pleasure... the inspiration behind the party and the title of this post :)

Haha! Happy Friday, everyone!! :)

White Hot Chocolate

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving... We sure did! We got a chance to spend some quality time with both sides of our family and we ate a TON of good food. I already gave you my favorite pie crust recipe so today, I thought I would give you a great recipe that I recently found for hot chocolate.

A few weeks ago, Evan and I had our community group (small group from church) over to our house. I made Paula Deen's "White Hot Chocolate" and set up a "hot chocolate bar" complete with dark chocolate shavings, crushed peppermints, mint leaves, marshmallows and whipped cream. It was really fun and the recipe is definitely a keeper! :)

White Hot Chocolate

Ingredients:

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup heavy cream

4 cups half and half

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

In medium saucepan, over medium heat, combine white chocolate chips and heavy cream. Stir continuously until white chocolate chips have completely melted. Stir in half and half and vanilla extract. Stir continuously until heated through. Pour into mugs and serve.

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In addition to our two Thanksgiving celebrations and a little black Friday shopping, we also cut down our Christmas tree this past weekend! Here are a few pictures from our time at the Christmas tree farm! :)

Cheers ;)

Party Week and Sweet Potato Biscuits

I have decided to call this week "Party Week" here on Dinner Bells. My brother, grandma and I all three had birthdays in the month of September and there were family birthday parties for all of us so I have decided to spend the week sharing pictures and recipes from those parties!

My brother's birthday was on the 17th and my grandma's was on the 18th and although we usually celebrate their birthdays on different days, we had one big party for them this year. We had a dinner table for "Mammaw" and a dessert table for Luke. Basically two completely different parties in different rooms of the house... so fun! I'm going to start with Mammaw's party today because dinner comes before dessert! :)

My mom and I decided to do a black and white theme for Mammaw's party because she LOVES black and white... it's always been a huge joke in our family about black being her favorite color! Here are a few pictures, followed by the recipe for Sweet Potato Biscuits. During the course of the week, I will also share the recipe for a pesto that we served with an heirloom tomato and mozzarella salad and a delicious scalloped potato dish.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

Ingredients:

2 cups self rising flour

1/4 cup sugar

3 T. shortening

2 T. butter

1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potatoes (about 1 large sweet potato)

1/3 cup half-and-half

Directions:

Combine flour and sugar in a medium bowl; cut in shortening and butter with a pastry blender until mixture is crumbly. Add mashed sweet potato and half-and-half, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead dough 4 or 5 times. Roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness; cut with a 2 inch biscuit cutter. Place on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake biscuits at 400 degrees for 14-15 minutes or until lightly browned.

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Happy Monday!!

Come back tomorrow for more of "Party Week"! :)

Birthdays, Friends and Cupcakes

My friends and I recently started this new thing... we are now doing birthday dinners for each one of our birthdays. The birthday girl picks the restaurant and the rest of us take turns bringing a cake and a card for everyone to sign... it's been really fun so far!

This week, the birthday girl was my friend, Jill. Jill and I are basically like sisters since we lived together all through college so I thought it would be a good chance for me to volunteer to bring the cake! First, I decided to make cupcakes since they are easy to deal with in a restaurant. I also decided to give the cupcakes an Asian flair because we were supposed to have dinner at The Sushi Cafe. However, we ended up changing the restaurant at the last minute (after I had already made the cupcakes) and I had to take my Japanese cupcakes into a different restaurant and I think everyone thought I was weird... haha!!

I made devil's food chocolate cupcakes (Duncan Hines... from a box) with a homemade buttercream frosting... they were SO easy and SO delicious!! :)

To decorate the cupcakes, I dipped fortune cookies in melted chocolate and printed up little "fortunes" on the computer. After I frosted the cupcakes, I rolled the edges in chocolate sprinkles and stuck the fortune cookies on top! I really liked the way they turned out... even if we didn't end up eating in a Japanese restaurant! ;)

Here are a few pictures, followed by the recipe I used for the homemade buttercream frosting:

This first picture is really old... but I thought you might want to see what the birthday girl looks like! :) This is Jill and me on Jill's wedding day in December 2007!

And now for the cupcakes...

And... if you happen to make these for a birthday, be careful how close you put the candles to the paper tags... I almost started a fire!! :)

Last but not least, all the girls at Jill's birthday dinner! Including three new friends, Amy, Amy and baby Sophie! :) So glad you girls could join us!!

Quick Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

3 cups confectioner's sugar

1 cup butter

1 t. vanilla extract

2 T. heavy whipping cream

Directions:

With electric mixer, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and mix for another 3 minutes. Add vanilla and cream and continue to beat on medium for 1 minute more, adding more cream if needed to achieve desired consistency.

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Happy Birthday, Jilly Beans!! Hope you enjoyed your cupcakes!! :)

"Cruise Cake"

Computer is fixed!!! :)

Last Wednesday was my Dad's birthday. We celebrated by having dinner and a little family party at my parents' house and we all had a great time!

My mom did all the cooking and party planning so I just got to show up and enjoy!! Very fun!!

We ate Cornish Game Hens, asparagus, steamed squash and carrots and wild rice casserole. It was delicious but my favorite part was the birthday cake that we had for dessert!!

Now let me tell you about this cake... we call it "Cruise Cake" but it's actually called "Black Forest Cherry Cake." Several years ago... I think I was in middle school... my family went on a Carnival cruise where we were served this cake and we LOVED it so much that we bought the Carnival cook book and we have been making it ever since and over the years we just started calling it "Cruise Cake." In addition to being delicious, it brings back great memories! :)

And as you probably have learned, we like to have themed parties in my family... even if they are small parties... they always have a theme! haha So my mom did a Nautical themed party for my Dad. No particular reason that she chose this theme other than you use just about every theme there is after being married for almost 30 years!

Here are a few pictures of the evening, followed by the delicious recipe for "Cruise Cake."

Cruise Cake

Ingredients:

1 pkg. chocolate cake mix

2 cups dark bing cherries, pitted

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup Kirschwasser

3 cups whipping cream, whipped and sweetened

1 cup shaved chocolate

Directions:

Separate chocolate cake mix into two round cake pans and bake according to package instructions. Cool cakes. Meanwhile, combine cherries, sugar and Kirschwasser in a small bowl and soak 1 hour. Drain cherries, reserving the liquid to put in a spray bottle and spray over the cake layers. Spread the first layer of cake with a layer of sweetened whipped cream, top with cherries and the second layer of cake. Repeat. Frost the remaining cake with remaining sweetened whipped cream. Sprinkle the top of the cake with shaved chocolate.

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Enjoy! :)

Evan's Birthday Party

Birthday week is finally over! I had so much fun celebrating my mom's and Evan's birthdays and planning their parties but I am glad to have a more relaxing week ahead! haha AND I can finally find the time to get back to posting some recipes and hopefully we can even have a Pray For Us Friday again this week! :) But before we get back to regular blogging.... here are a few pictures from Evan's party. I decided on a Coca-Cola theme... mostly because it's Evan's all time favorite beverage but also because it was summery and very American (his birthday is VERY close to July 4th!) and went well with grilling out in our backyard.... another of Evan's favorite things!

We had the whole party in our backyard. We ate grilled hot dogs, fries, Coke floats and Coca-Cola Sheet Cake and of course we drank bottled Cokes!! It was a lot of fun!

Because my future lawyer husband really loves facts and trivia, I also did something fun for Evan and our guests to enjoy. I researched some Coca-Cola history and found out that Coke is EXACTLY 100 years older than Evan, making Coke 124 years old and Evan 24 years old. So, I made little signs for every year that Coca-Cola has changed their slogan (or something else significant has happened in their company) in the last 24 years and corresponded that fact with an interesting fact from Evan's life in the same year. I attached the fact signs to a straw and attached a picture of Evan from the same year to another straw and placed both straws in a bottle of Coke. I lined all of the bottles up on a table so that the party guests could read them like a timeline! Here's a picture:

Then there was the Cake table which consisted of bottled Cokes on ice, the Coca-Cola Sheet Cake and an antique Coca-Cola crate filled with party favors (bottled Cokes and bottled coke gummies!):

And finally, the food table which consisted of grilled hot dog and fry baskets, diner-style condiments, napkins and straws, and Coke floats in frosted Coca-Cola mugs!

Now for the first recipe that my poor little recipe blog has seen in quite a while! haha Here's the recipe for the Coca-Cola Sheet Cake... which was absolutely delicious!! :)

Coca-Cola Sheet Cake

Cake Ingredients:

2 cups sifted cake flour

2 cups sugar

2 sticks butter, cut up

3 T. cocoa

1 cup Coca-Cola

2 well-beaten eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk, with 1 t. baking soda mixed into buttermilk

1 1/2 cup miniature marshmallows

Icing Ingredients:

1 stick butter

3 T. cocoa

6 T. Coca-Cola

1 box powdered sugar

Directions for Cake:

Mix flour and sugar in large bowl. Set aside. In saucepan, heat sticks of butter, cocoa and coca-cola. Let come to boil, stir, pour over dry ingredients in large bowl, mixing until smooth. Add buttermilk with baking soda, and two beaten eggs. Add marshmallows. Stir, then pour into greased pan, 11 x 15 x 1-inch. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Directions for Icing:

5 minutes before cake is done, bring to boil: 1 stick butter, cocoa and coca-cola. Stir and then pour over 1 box of sifted powdered sugar. Mix well, add pecans if desired and pour over hot cake. After cake cools, keep covered with foil.

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Hope you and your family have had a fabulous holiday weekend!! Back to reality and regular recipes tomorrow... see you then!! :)

Company Cheese Dip

This past weekend, Evan and I went on a little retreat with our small group from church. We went to a lake house in Hot Springs Village and ate A LOT of food! I was supposed to take cheese dip so I decided to make something a little different than the usual velveeta and rotel. I made a cream cheese sausage dip. I call it "Company Cheese Dip" because all these calories should definitely be saved for a special occasion! ha!

Ingredients:

1 lb. breakfast sausage

1 can rotel

2 bricks of cream cheese

Directions:

Brown and drain the sausage in a skillet. Combine the sausage, rotel and cream cheese in a slow cooker on the lowest setting until cream cheese melts. Serve with tortilla chips or Fritos.

*****

It was TOTALLY worth the calories.

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Jack stayed with his girlfriend, Millie, for the weekend... and I don't even think he missed us!

Happy Monday!!

Tribute to the Tea Room

In the town where I went to college, there was a fun little lunch spot called Shaw's Garden and Tea Room. My friends and I were their #1 customers!!! We had to stop ourselves from going there every single day for lunch. The best part about the restaurant (other than being surrounded by friends) was the basket of happiness that they placed on our table as soon as we arrived... it was full of mini broccoli muffins. I would be willing to bet that those little goodies were solely responsible for my "freshman 15"!

Anyway, I stumbled across the recipe for those muffins in one of my Southern Living cookbooks and they were the inspiration for tonight's meal. I made chicken salad and fruit salad to go with them because that's what I ALWAYS ordered at the tea room.

For my chicken salad I used chicken, light mayo, celery, fresh parsley and salt & pepper and I topped it with salted cashews. I can't really tell you the measurements that I used because I just added things in slowly until I liked the way that it tasted.

Here's the recipe for the muffins... apparently I'm in a muffin mood this week? No more muffins for a while, I promise! :)

Broccoli Muffins

Ingredients:

1 (8 1/2 oz.) package corn muffin mix

1 (10 oz) package frozen chopped broccoli, thawed

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 small onion, chopped

2 large eggs

1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted

Directions:

Combine first 4 ingredients in a large bowl; make a well in the center of mixture. Stir together eggs and melted butter, blending well; add to broccoli mixture, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Spoon batter into lightly greased miniature muffin pans, filling almost full. Bake at 325 for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Let stand 2 to 3 minutes before removing from pans. Yield: 3 dozen mini muffins.

And here's how the whole meal looked

Isn't it funny how food takes you back?

What food has a special memory for you?