Recipes | Mini Crab Quiche

I found a recipe for a one bite vegetable quiche on one of the blogs I follow (www.theperfectpantry.com).  From there I tweaked it until it contained all of the ingredients I was interested in.  Here it is if you are interested

2 package mini phyllo shells

2 large egg

2 tsp olive oil

2 Tbsp minced onion or shallot

1/2 cup minced red bell pepper

1/4 cup minced zucchini

3/4 cup crab meat

1 tsp minced fresh thyme

1/4 tsp minced fresh parsley or chives

Remove the shells from the package and place on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil or parchment paper.

Preheat oven to 375°F. In a small bowl, whisk the egg and set aside.

In a small nonstick frying pan, heat the oil. Add onion, bell pepper, and zucchini, and sauté for 2 minutes, until the vegetables are slightly cooked. Remove from heat, allow to cool for one minute, stir in the herbs, and add the mixture to the egg, stir in crab meat. Season with salt and pepper. Fill the shells with the egg mixture. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until egg is set. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Yum :)

The Cook-Off!

Last Friday I had the privilege of participating in my old job's annual "Cook-Off" as a guest :)  They didn't want me to think they were scared of my cooking skills now that I no longer work with them, so they extended the invite!  Every year, they change the category of the cooking; the first year was chili, then it was cakes and cookies, and this year it was appetizers, dips, and brownies (right up my alley!).  and we play by the rules!  What are the rules you ask?  Well there is a $5 entry fee per category entered, all foods must be made from scratch and HAVE to be made by the person entered.  There must be no special displays and it is anonymous voting.  LOL, pretty intense right?!  It's all part of the fun.  Anyway, I entered two categories, appetizers and brownies :)

I made mini crab quiche for my app and fireman brownies (choc chip cookie dough and brownies merged together to make perfect harmony)

Here are some of the other contenders

The coveted crowns!

Some of the action!

Enjoy!

Oh, and I didn't win :(

Nursing Cover

So as many of you may know, my friend Erin was pregnant.  Well her little poppy, know known as Nathan, (I'm in love) made his debut on Feb 16th!  She was planning on breast feeding from the beginning and I offered to make a nursing cover for her. We took a trip to JoAnn's to pick out some fabric and Erin fell in love with 3 patterns, so I made it work!  Here is it :)

Not sure if you can tell by this picture, but it has boning in the middle of the top so Momma can peak in and make sure her little man is on task and it also has adjustable straps so she can decided how high or low she wants the top

I'm pretty excited because I learned how to make hidden seams for this!  When Erin fell in love with using the three patterns, I was worried because typically when I sew different fabrics together, the ends are loose on the inside.  Which is normally ok for blankets and things because no one sees the inside.  But I couldn't have little frayed ends hanging in Nathan's face! 

So here's a little how-to on making hidden seams :)

Ok first, you put your fabric WRONG SIDE together.  The main piece of fabric should be on the bottom and the border piece should be on top.  

Then you fold both fabrics up as far as you want your seam.  I used a 1/2 inch.  Do this the entire length of your fabric, pinning it in place along the way. 

Next, you flip it over the fabric so both RIGHT SIDES of the fabric are facing up.  This is where it gets a little tricky because you'll have to gently pull the pins out and re-pin it so the fabric can lie flat. 

Next, you sew it one stitch on the RIGHT side of the fabric, then flip it over and sew another stitch on the WRONG side.  This will anchor your hidden seams and it will look like this :)  

This is the back!  So proud, no frayed ends in Nathan's face!

MomMom

So I haven't been in the posting type of mood.  January was really rough for me and I think my mind and body really just needed time to relax and mourn the loss of my mommom.  She was an amazing woman and I had the privilege of knowing her for 27 years.  She was a wife for 68 years, the mother to 6, grandmother to 12, great grandmother to 5, and friend to countless.  She was a constant supporter during my childhood, always rooting me on during soccer games even if she couldn't physically be there.  She encouraged me to be the person she knew I could be and always made me feel welcome in her home by offering me endless amount of food :)  She showed me what unconditional love is, taught me to be dedicated and headstrong when needed, and always lent an ear when I had stories to share or needed words of encouragement.  She was an amazing mommom and I am eternally grateful for having someone like her in my life.  <3

Carrot Cake Cupcakes {Recipes}

My sister and I made two different kinds of cupcakes to serve at the luncheon following our Mommom's funeral today.  I am not kidding you when I say that at least 15 different people came up to me and said that the carrot cake cupcakes were the best cupcakes they've ever had.... and that was just perfect because the recipe's name is actually "The Best Ever Carrot Cake Cupcakes" courtesy of Miss Paula Deen :)  

Please don't compare my actual cupcake pictures to this... because you will be let down.

So here it is folks.... 

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 8-oz. can of crushed pineapple, well drained
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Small pinch of ground cloves
• 3 cups grated carrots, grate on larger side of cheese grater
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• For Frosting:
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 3 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Fresh coconut, shaved and toasted for garnish (optional)

Steps

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, apple sauce, sugars, pineapple and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and small pinch of ground cloves. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into muffin tin lined with beautiful paper or foil liners. Fill each liner 3/4 full. Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 min. Let cupcakes cool completely. While cooling, prepare frosting.

Frosting: 
In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Pile the frosting high on the cooled cupcakes and garnish with the toasted coconut if desired.

* The only thing I did a little differently was the frosting.  When I made it according to the directions, it came out pretty soupy, so I added about an extra cup of sugar and a little extra cream cheese.  That gave it a little bit of a stiffer consistency so when I piped (I have no idea if I am using that word correctly!) the icing on, it looked a little nicer :)  

Here are mine!!

*taken with my cell phone

*taken with my cell phone.  

the LODGE

This weekend Chris and I are venturing off to the Lodge.  It's a weekend that we look forward to every year.  This year, there are 12 of us going :) It's an all around amazing time.  We start off driving through fabulous mountains like these: 

Once we finally get over those lovely things, we are there!  We spend the weekend cooking massive meals, reading books, playing games, making fires, hiking, skiing, tubing, and just lying around doing nothing :)  Here are some pretty cool pictures from past trips:

Where we serve our grub :)

the amazing CAST IRON stove we cook our grub on!

Who's that you ask?  Oh that's JR the ram that lives on the porch ;)

Chris pretends to grow facial hair  <3 him

LODGE 2009

What's wrong with chicks with staches?!

Tubing!

LODGE 2010


Hope everyone has a great MLK weekend!

Happy (Belated) New Year!!

This year for New Year's Eve, we went to our friends' house in West Chester for a par-tay :)  I was in charge of bringing a dessert and an appetizer of some sort.  Long story short, my appetizer (delicious mini crab quiches) got scratched because Wegman's is not a fun place to go on New Year's Eve and they were COMPLETELY sold out of mini philo dough cups.  Thumbs down!!  Thankfully, they weren't counting on mine and there was plenty of food to go around.

I did, however, use the dessert bringing opportunity as a practice round for the brownie-pops.  Kelly (different Kelly from the baby shower post) and Tim got married this past July and their color scheme was bright pink and teal and the teal has definitely crossed over into aspects of their home.  So I decided to incorporate that into the Pops.

The amazing cake, I <3 teal and pink

A picture of their reception area.
It was held in the Curtis Center in Philadelphia, PA

I bought this really cute teal with white polka dots bowl to put the pops in.  Since the bowl was pretty wide (I think about 8-9 inches in diameter) I used these flat disc like styrofoam things to smoosh the pops into.  Then I used a combo of bright pink and shimmery white ribbon to create a layered effect.  This let me cover the styrofoam in a really cute way.  (AND I thought of that idea ALL by myself, which is a rarity.  I usually steal... I mean borrow my ideas)   And that's pretty much it.  I almost dropped them (and had a heart attack) when I was walking to my car that night, but thank god, I caught them and all was right in the world again.  

Ta-Da!!

I <3 them

Kelly's food spread :)

Ed was the first {dirty} man to try the Brownie-Pops!!  

Me and the hostess, Kelly!  Happy New Year!!

The Main Event! {Baby Shower}

So today was the day!  And everything was great even with the oh-so-fabulous 5 inches of snow mother nature dumped on us.  

Big shout out to Kel's mom for lending us her Jeep or it would have been.... let's just say, interesting.... trying to get to the shower.  

Ok so onto the details.... We teamed up with Er's mom and decided on having the shower at Carrabba's Italian Grill.  It was perfect because they don't open to the public until 3, so we had a nice little 12 o'clock lunchtime kick-off :)   Erin and Jay decided against finding out the sex of their baby, but they did pick an adorable green/yellow/brown Monkey theme for their nursery and everything else that goes with a baby.  Once we knew the color scheme, Kelly and I were off.  We wanted to have fun yet make the decorations as functional as possible.  

Oh you want to know about the details??  Well here they are!  

A few months ago, I was wandering a craft fair with my mom and stumbled across these adorable little rosebuds make from socks!  As I am with pretty much everything else, I was dead-set on making them myself.  I bought two different sized socks and got to work.  

Secondly, we wanted to make a diaper cake.  Not only are they a really cute way to give someone diapers, but they also make an amazing centerpiece!  I apologize, because we made the diaper cake at Kelly's house and I totally forgot to bring my camera, so I don't personally have picture documentation of a "how-to", but I PROMISE I will steal Kelly's pictures and attempt a how-to post!  Here are a few pictures of the final diaper cake.  Erin's cousin made the edible cake that you see in the picture... It came all they way from CT and was soooooooo delicious!

Lastly, we made the favors for all the guests to take home.  This was a joint effort... Kelly initially came up with the "Poppy" nickname, I came up with the idea of doing some sort of lolli-POP, and Er's mom suggested doing a yummy brownie-pop!  And that's how the Brownie-POP was born!  (we used a Land O'Lakes recipe)

Here are a few pictures of how they turned out.  We chose to use them as centerpieces on the tables... we bought lime green and grass green chinese take-out boxes, pushed the flaps inside, stuck a piece of floral styrofoam in them, stabbed the brownie-pops in the foam and covered the foam with some decorative tan grassy/moss stuff.  (I'm a really good describer right?!)  Let me be the first to tell you that they were delicious... Kelly and I had a few brownie-pop casualties that we couldn't just WASTE, so we ate them.... and loved every second of it :)  

Here are the tags I made for the favors.  They were VERY simple, I used Microsoft Word,  pirated the pictures from www.babysupermall.com (they are Poppy's bedding), and printed them on cute tan polka dotted cardstock.  Donzo.  

I dare you to tell me you wouldn't gobble these up.... actually, make that a
DOUBLE DOG dare :)

Lastly, (and this isn't really a craft, it's just super cute), we bought pretty much any clothing with a monkey on it and put it all on a clothes line and hung it up as decoration.  

Ta-Da!!  Sometimes I wonder why I spent 6+ years getting a Masters degree when I could just party plan and decorate my life away.... lol.... wishful thinking!!

And just for fun, here are some random pictures from the shower and the after party :)

Getting ready to open presents!

Sweet Jesus, where is all of that going to go?!

Best Friends :)

Poppy's Nursery 

NONE of these were given to Erin for the baby.... they all belonged to her or Jay already :)

<3 Robin