Top Posts in 2011

I have enjoyed other people's posts about their top 5 posts from the previous year so I decided to do that here. I just based it on most page views for posts made in 2011, though, some of the most viewed pages were from 2010 posts.

Anyway, here are the top 5...

5. I Think I Did It



Maybe it's the coffee ice cubes or the fact that a ton of people are looking for a perfect iced coffee recipe, but either way, this post made it to the top five. I feel kind of bad because I am going to share something this week that will make this post obsolete. Seriously, folks, stay tuned.

4. P is for... (part 2)



I would like to think it's my clever "Princess and the Pea" cake that got all the page views but it probably has more to do with the super cute dollhouse, pillow and quilt that were given to my P.

3. P is for... (part 1)




This makes me happy to be in the top five because I'm usually not a crafty gal. I busted out all my secret skills on this party and it seems that people liked it, thank you pinterest.

2. Homemade Pizza Balls

Say hello to my favorite snack recipe for 2011. Those babies were so good. I have made them several times since and have no plans to stop. The Nathan's ball is my fave.

1. Maybe a Tad Biased



Maybe it's the too-cute-for-words pictures my sister took of my P or the subtle announcement at the end that made this the top 2011 post but in all honesty, I'm quite certain it's the fact that my sister linked up to the news. Most page views in one day goes to this post as well. Thanks, sister.

Hope you enjoyed at least one of those!

Christmas Vacation

Howdy folks! I hope you all had a great Christmas! Here's a little recap of some of our Christmas vacation in photos.



I'm going to be taking a break from blogging for a little while but I'll be back.

Until then, have a great week!!

Puppy Chow - A Christmas Snack Tradition

In yesterday's post I told you about our Advent calendar tradition. Well, one of the food-related doors we opened had a card for puppy chow. Have you had puppy chow? I'm sure just about everyone has. Have you made it? If not, the purpose of this post is to show you how easy it is. I'm pretty sure the recipe is quite standard but I've given it below in the event you don't feel like googling it.

Here's what you need:
9 cups - Crispix cereal
1 cup - chocolate chips (I use milk chocolate, not semi sweet)
1/2 cup - peanut butter
1 1/2 cups - powdered sugar

Don't you just love my festive measuring cups!? I do. Mom got them for me for holiday baking - thanks Mom!

Anyway, get a big pot - one that has high walls so you don't make a huge mess when you stir the cereal around - and melt the chocolate chips. Then add the peanut butter and stir until combined. Next, pour in the cereal and gently fold/stir until all the cereal is coated.

Get a big plastic bag, like a gallon bag or I just use a clean plastic shopping sack, and pour the powdered sugar in it. Then dump all the cereal in the bag, twist the top and give it a good several shakes, spins and rolls. Open it up and grab a couple warm little treats and eat them up. They are great with a glass of milk.

That's it! Once it's cooled, store in an airtight container our separate into little baggies and give as gifts.

The Stache Party

So last week was my dad's birthday and my sister and I worked up a little party to celebrate his many years of life!

I originally saw this photo collage on pinterest and wanted to do it for dad. I didn't even know it came from MS at the time! Have I mentioned how much I love her?

Anyway, my mom pulled some photos together for me and I took pictures of each one with my phone, converted them all to black and white and added a border, then printed them for the backdrop at our swanky venue.

Looking back on dad's pictures, one thing that popped out was his mustache. He's had one my entire life so I thought I would be fun to incorporate the stache into the party decor. Thus, the theme was born.



My sister and I made treats for the party. Lots of mini cupcakes came out of my oven and a few didn't make it to the party - a girl has to taste-test. I used Bakerella's cookies and cream icing recipe (with butter, not shortening) and added some crushed Oreo's to a little of the chocolate batter (in a box) as well as the vanilla batter (also from a box). Folks, I may never make  a standard cupcake again. Those things were delicious. The cookies even kept their crunch.



Anyway, my sister made a variety of fancy treats like peanut butter bites, rolo pretzels and sugar cookies. They were all so tasty. She also cut out mini mustaches and the number 60 so we could top the treats. I think the party table came out pretty cute if I do say so myself!



My sister probably got tons of cute party pics so while she was doing her thing, I chased her kids around trying to get them to pose with mustaches with me for a little photo booth fun.

Side note - do you have the pocketbooth app?

photo from itunes

No!? Go get it now. If you do, you know how much fun that thing is, especially at parties AND parties that have mustaches on sticks!

Anyway, here are just a few of the photo booth pics - there's a whole lot more.



Oh, and the swanky setting? We had it at none other than Jim's Coney Island. I've mentioned it on this blog before and some know it by "Never on Sunday's" but I basically grew up there. I've even ran into my Dad at Jim's a time or two. It was the perfect setting: laid back, the smell of chili dogs and Greek food and just classy enough to not get stares from the other patrons as we ran around covered in fake mustaches!

I hope dad had as much fun at the party than we did planning it!

Oktoberfest Feasting

As I've mentioned, Oktoberfest was this past weekend here in T-town. The plan was to save money by going during the free-admission time and not eating anything while we were there because we had a German feast to come home to. Such was the plan anyway. We made it inside the gates with seconds, and I mean seconds, to spare. We didn't plan on the traffic and had to run for the gates. Sweet P and I made it through, then Eric and then the ticket-takers started moving out saying time was up and everyone needed a ticket. My mom held her phone up with the time showing there was still one minute to go as she pushed on through. They ended up letting her through - along with a drove of others!

It was a fun start to the event. We walked from tent to tent, hearing various sounds of music and cheering and smelling all kinds of tempting treats.



We hadn't been there 20 minutes before the beer (the husband's beverage), potato pancake and Ludgar's Bavarian cream cheese cake had been purchased.



With full bellies it was time to work a little of those calories off with a little chicken dancing. Sweet P once again wooed the crowds and had everyone around her clapping and smiling.



It was a good time. I think I need one of those German hats for me and Sweet P next year.

The rest of the weekend was filled with family, a lot of football watching and more German feasting. Last week I mentioned a few recipes I wanted to try and I made all but one. I also added one I didn't mention so here's the reviews...

First up, the Wiener Schnitzel and German potato salad.



I tried this chicken schnitzel recipe but used tenderized-boneless pork chops for the meat. The husband said it was the best schnitzel he's ever eaten and that it reminded him of the one he would order as a kid at Ursula's (Tulsa restaurant no longer in business). I thought it turned out pretty good.

Then there's the German potato salad recipe that I mentioned last week. Again, the husband loved it and said it was the best potato salad I've ever made. Personally, I prefer a cold, smashed potato salad but it went well with the dinner.

Next up is the recipe for apple strudel I also mentioned last week.



After I converted everything in her recipe, I decided to use puff pastry instead of phyllo dough. I like puff pastry, it's easy and I'll use the leftovers. Plus, I didn't feel like taking the time to do the whole buttering the 4-5 layers or phyllo. I'm lazy.



The puff pastry ended up working out really well and the strudel was amazing. Really folks, delicious. I used honeycrisp apples inside and topped the strudel with some icing to really take it over the edge in the healthy department.

And, last up, I tried this recipe for homemade pretzels.



They were a huge hit. I read a lot of the comments on the recipe and ended up going with 4 cups of flour and using my kitchenaid with the hook attachment to knead the dough. That thing made this recipe SO easy. The pretzels smelled amazing and were perfect right out of the oven.

The recipe calls for sugar but the husband didn't care for the sweetness of the dough. I didn't mind but will probably use less next time I make them. They were also really good covered sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and coated with melted butter. Such a great treat.

After all the German food cooking and eating I have determined that the German folk aren't too concerned with calories and I'm happy Oktoberfest only rolls around once a year.

Birthday Weekend Celebration

My birthday was last week and we celebrated all weekend. It was awesome, especially since the fair is always in town on my birthday weekend!

I took Sweet P to the fair on Thursday with my mom and grandma. We went early and since there weren't any crowds yet, she got to run wild.



Then I went back on Friday with the husband. When we got there MC Hammer was practicing with his dancers for the concert that evening. He was too legit to quit.



Then it was off to eat the fair food.

Corndog.



Followed by cheese curds and fried green tomatoes.



And then we shared a pineapple whip to wash it down but didn't get a pic of that.

Then we walked down the midway and headed for the petting zoo. It was a success.



Sweet P kept saying, "goa" (goat) and really wanted to get in the pin and play with them. She made pig faces at the pigs, mooed at the cows and pointed to everything. It was so fun to watch.

Then we had to get the annual fair pics and monster cookie before we left.



Last year's pic:

Last year's pic:

There was a surprise party that evening for me, but, since I didn't know it was coming, I didn't have my camera. :( It was tons of fun though.

Saturday we finished up the birthday fun by taking P to Philbrook's Fall Family Festival. It was free to get in so we had to take advantage of that!

We had to finish our coffees before going in and that's when we saw the squirrel.



Sweet P finally saw it and tried talking it down.



But, sadly, it ran away.



After walking through the museum, we headed out back to the gardens. I snapped a couple of pictures of P.



Then she found the band. They were playing up on the rocks but came down and surrounded her and started up again.



I was so surprised she didn't run away! Instead, she just stared up at them and then started walking around dancing and clapping her hands. Show-stopper, folks. SHOW. STOPPER.



And that takes care of our weekend. Too many pictures? Sorry. That's not even close to the amount I took!!

Random Thursday

I've been away for a couple of days so here's a little random catch up post.

I've been baking. I have an unhealthy addition to pinning all kinds of sweets recipes on pinterest and it gets even more unhealthy when I decide to try them!

So, this recipe has been on my tasty board and I finally decided to try it. I had to add a lemon glaze though.



It was pretty good. Not sure if it's a keeper yet, but pretty good.



We had an Indian night a few months ago when some friends introduced us to Indian food. It was so good that I decided we had to have it again. This is a cheapo, cheater version. I'm sure you could find a recipe for tikki masala and make your own, but, I had a $10 gift card to a local Indian restaurant so I got some to-go.

I made another one of those "fauxtesserie" chickens. While that was cooking, I assembled some veggie kabobs with zucchini, yellow squash, onion, mushroom and yellow peppers. I poured a little olive oil over the sliced veggies and sprinkled a little curry powder over them and tossed it all around to coat. Then I put the veggies on skewers and broiled them for about 30 minutes, turning a couple times while they were cooking.



I steamed some brown rice in my handy-dandy steamer, diced up the chicken, topped it with the veggies and then poured hot tikki masala all over it. Mmm. It satisfied my heat-craving and kept the kitchen cool.



The whole dinner cost a total of $8.22 which comes to $1.37 per person! That's cheap!

I've also been enjoying this summer with my girl. She's been enjoying the cat.



Our very, patient cat.



And here's me and my girl in the shark cage at the aquarium for Embrace the Camera.

Happy Thursday.

P is for... (part two)

Thank you guys for your sweet comments on the decorations yesterday! Now onto part two of "p is for" and it's all about the cake and the rest of the party!



As you know, the birthday girl's nickname is Sweet Pea. Well, she also happens to be our little princess so I thought it would be fun to try to make a "princess and the pea" cake. Hopefully you know the story of the Princess and the Pea because I had to explain it to my husband. Sad.

Anyway, I set out to make a layered cake with each layer representing the mattresses and a little pea at the very bottom. My first thought was to put a jellybean at the bottom but I ended up just saving some of the batter, dying it green and baking a mini cupcake . I rolled it up into a ball, added a little frosting to keep it together and voila, a pea!

I had a little too much fun making this cake! I started with just a box of butter cake mix, mixed it all up and added a few drops of pink food coloring to make a very light pink. I poured it into a small, 6"x2" round cake pan. Once it was done baking, I set it on a rack to cool and started on another layer.

I just added several more drops of pink food coloring to make a darker shade of pink. I poured it into the same pan and baked it, let it cool while I finished up the last layer. I added several more drops of pink food coloring to the remaining batter, baked and cooled it.



Then the fun began!

While the three layers of cake were cooling, I made this frosting. It tasted so good and make plenty for the entire cake, 12 cupcakes and 24 mini cupcakes! Plus I had a little left over.

Anyway, next I cut each of the three cake rounds in half so I would have 6 cake layers.

I started to assemble the cake. First I put the "pea" down.



Then topped it with the lightest pink cake layer and some frosting.




Next, I put a darker pink layer on top and frosted it.



Followed by the middle shade of pink and frosting.



Then I started all over with the light, then dark and finished with the last layer and frosted it.



I added a little bunting with her name on it and string it between two pinwheels, and ta-da! Her very own cake!



Now, I realize she totally didn't care what her cake looked like, and I admit, I probably had more fun making it than she did eating it, BUT, I think she'll enjoying looking back at her pictures from her birthday one day and smile. AND, she did enjoy eating it!





Here you can see the pea and a little helping hand from her sister-cousin.



more digging in





Thanks, Ashley, for getting such great pics of her eating her cake!!

We are blessed to have so many close relatives living near and it made for a super fun party for my girl. She was doused with love and attention and tons of gifts. There were a couple of very special gifts I wanted to share with you.

Her auntie had this pillow made by my friend Anna. It's so girly and I love the verse on it. Proverbs 3:24 - perfect.



Anna also sent this amazing little quilt to P to open at her party!



You can't really see it very well in the photo because P thinks she's a matador with it but it has her name and birth stats. Gorgeous. I think Anna might post posted a better picture on her blog soon so check it out.
 
And last up, to finish up the party fun, is P's very own, custom doll house. My sister decorated each little room with fabric from her nursery!!



How cute is that!? Sweet P has already found her picture in one of the rooms and points a talks to it. She also really likes the little rocking chair and putting her play food in the rooms! This is one of those gifts that I might be found playing with and decorating without her.

So there you have it, Sweet P's first birthday party. It's hard to believe she's been here an entire year but I have loved every minute of it! Here's to another fun, kiss, laughter and hug-filled year!