Food Friday-a Hit and a Flop!

Happy Friday everyone! TGIF!

This past week I had to make a little something for two different events. I decided to put my Pampered Chef mini muffin tin to good use.

Our local mom's group got together for lunch and a playdate for the kids on Wednesday so I made mini ham puffs. They turned out great! I used to sell Pampered Chef many moons ago and I made this recipe all the time when I did my cooking shows. You can't go wrong with it!


Here's the link from Group Recipes:
Mini Ham Puffs

I enjoyed meeting new moms and seeing all the little munchkins playing together. Since it was at lunch and near my office, I'm glad I was able to go.

The next day was our monthly birthday breakfast at work. Since I had such great luck with the ham puffs, I decided to use the pan again and make chocolate chip mini muffins using a mix. I don't know what happened but UGH! They turned out gross. I mean, it's a mix! The bottoms burned and the muffins stuck to the cute floral liners. As seen in the photo, the tops looked good but looks can be deceiving! Tim thinks it was the chocolate chips and maybe they would have turned out better if I had made large muffins. So off to Dollar Tree he went at 8:30 pm and bought some strawberry muffins. Those were good! Next month I'll make the mini ham puffs to bring to our birthday breakfast :)

For those of you with Keurig coffee makers, a friend posted on FB about how great the Celestial Seasonings Southern Sweet tea is. She was right! I bought a box at Staples and they are THE. BOMB. as Anna would say. Go get you some this weekend.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!
XOXO,
Melissa

Going Casein Free

Good afternoon readers! I hope you all are having a great weekend so far. It is so quiet in our house, Tim is working (it is tax season after all), Anna is at grandma's, and Monkey Boy is asleep on the couch. Time to update the blog!

We have started Camden on a casein free (or CF) diet. We took him to a doctor in Charleston, SC in December to get some answers regarding his autism and see if there was anything we could do to help his behavior. We did some lab tests and Camden has a sensitivity to casein, the protein found in milk products, and this is not unusual in children with autism. Thank you Lord this is his only food sensitivity and we're not looking at a gluten free, soy free, yeast free, etc. diet.

It has been relatively easy to stick with this CF diet. Tim and I went to the swanky new Earth Fare store in Huntersville and I bought some Daiya non-dairy/vegan mozzarella cheese since Monkey Boy loves his cheese quesadillas! The cheese is actually pretty good and doesn't taste weird, like I'm eating chemicals. It melts too!

I always do a special dessert for Valentine's Day and since most baked goods were out of the question due to Camden's CF diet, I bought two containers of Haagen-Daz sorbet, which is not made with milk. Aren't they cute?

I bought Mango and Raspberry and they are both AWESOME! The mango reminds me of summertime and I love the color of the raspberry. Camden loves them too, we have a few bites after supper every night. I'll be on the lookout for different flavors, the peach and strawberry flavors sound delicious.

I've had to study the school breakfast and lunch menus closer now and sometimes I have to send his food to school. Did you know that Pop-Tarts and Cheerios are not made with milk? I'm so glad Camden is a good eater and he loves to drink almond milk.

If any of you all want more information about the doctor we saw in Charleston or more specifics about the CF diet, just send me an e-mail mbsmith@tntie.com.

Have a great week everybody!
XOXO,
Melissa

Free Coffee Today at Krispy Kreme!

Greetings readers! Today is National Coffee Day and in honor of the occasion, Krispy Kreme is giving away a FREE 12 oz. cup of their new House Blend coffee! No purchase necessary! Here's a link to their YouTube video with more information:

http://www.youtube.com/krispykremedoughnuts

Too bad there isn't a KK here in town but I have already celebrated by drinking a cup of decaf this morning.

Have a great day!
XOXO,
Melissa

Happy Punch Day!

Greetings readers! Today is National Punch Day. No, not the "punch" where you punch someone upside the head but the kind you drink. Here is a favorite punch recipe of mine, taken from the so wonderful Cooking With Class: A Second Helping cookbook from the Charlotte Latin School. This is my go-to punch recipe.

Cheerwine Punch
2 (2 liter) bottles Cheerwine soft drink
1 (2 liter) bottle ginger ale
2 (46 ounce) cans unsweetened pineapple juice

Directions:
Chill Cheerwine, ginger ale, and pineapple juice thoroughly. In a large punch bowl, mix all three. Serve immediately.

I might just whip up a half batch and break out my punch bowl and have some tonight.

Have a great day!
XOXO,
Melissa

Sweet Tea for Dummies

Hello, I'm Melissa, I was born in the Deep South, but I can't make a decent
pitcher of brewed sweet tea.

My mom makes the best sweet tea but when I asked her for the recipe, she said
"Boil your tea bags, let it steep for a few minutes, and add sugar and stir."
Thanks Mom but when I make tea like this it is either A. weak as colored water
or B. thick and strong like motor oil. GROSS. So to make drinkable tea, I have
used instant tea from Aldi, which isn't half bad but it certainly doesn't have
the flavor of brewed.

Luckily for my tea drinking family, I got the new Southern Living magazine earlier in the week and in it was a feature on tea with 28 different recipes including the basic Southern Sweet Tea. Is it sad that I needed actual measurements and cooking times to make
sweet tea?! I made a pitcher immediately and it was pretty good. The recipe is
now in my recipe box. When I get more confident in my tea making abilities,
I'll try my mom's vague recipe.

Ingredients
3 cups water
2 family-size tea bags
3/4 cup sugar
7 cups cold water

Preparation
1. Bring 3 cups water to a boil in a saucepan; add tea bags. Boil 1 minute;
remove from heat. Cover and steep 10 minutes.
2. Discard tea bags. Add sugar, stirring until dissolved. Pour into a 1-gal.
container, and add 7 cups cold water. Serve over ice.

NOTE: this makes more like a half-gallon of tea instead of a gallon. Tea photo is from the SL website, photographer is Beth Dreiling Hontzas.

Until next time,
Melissa

Food Friday: Peanut Butter Chip Orange Cookies from Hershey's

Happy Friday! The weather has turned cooler here (if a high of 78 is considered "cooler weather") and I wanted to bake something. We had some oranges that needed to be used up so I narrowed down my recipe ideas to something orange. I found this recipe for Peanut Butter Chip Orange Cookies from Hershey's and whipped up a batch after lunch.

Cookie dough anyone? This batter was so fluffy and I loved seeing the flecks of orange zest in the dough.


They smelled so good while they were in the oven! At first I thought orange juice and peanut butter chips would taste, ummm, rather interesting together but the flavors blended really well. I got 70 cookies out of this batch and I will be freezing some since lord knows we don't need 70 cookies hanging around our house and tempting us!

The recipe is a little involved so click on the link above for the recipe on the Hershey's website.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone!
~Melissa

Great Giveaway At Shoffee.com!

Coffee freak that I am, I'm always on the hunt for giveaways and great deals. Shoffee.com is giving away 5 boxes (1 box per winner) of the new Wolfgang Puck K-cups sampler. 48 K-cups are included in each box, four per flavor. Details and entry form are here. Giveaway closes at midnight PST Sunday, July 4th.

The Creme Caramel and the Breakfast in Bed sound delicious!

*Photo via the singleservecoffeedeals.com website.

Have a great day everyone!
~Melissa~

All Set For Coffee Now!

I'm a fan of shoffee.com on Facebook. Shoffee is an online coffee shop that has great deals on K-cups, brewers, coffee gifts, etc. Recently they had a photo contest for their Facebook fans, the theme was "how do you reuse your K-cups?" and the prize was a rolling cooler from Green Mountain Coffee filled with K-cups.

To the left is the photo I entered and I said: "I reuse my K-cups by taking the lid off and saving it, like some people do with wine labels, so I know which flavors I have tried and liked. Then I save the grounds to use as fertilizer and finally I put the empty cups in the curbside recycling bin."

The people at shoffee.com were so generous, that everyone who entered the contest got the prize! How cool is that?! My package came today and I was expecting maybe two boxes of K-cups which is about 44-48 K-cups. WRONG. Try 135 K-cups! That's close to $75 worth of FREE coffee! Woot! I love free stuff! I was blown away by their generosity, especially since everyone who entered got the prize! Here is Monkey Boy with my coffee stash and rolling cooler.

Shoffee.com did not compensate me for this review but it's my honest to goodness opinion. Give them a click and check out their selection, they do have great prices and lots of coffee things.

Off to brew a cup!
~Melissa~

Food Friday: Strawberry Smoothie

We had a great, relaxing time on our vacation to Myrtle Beach last week. The weather was perfect and not too humid. It would rain during the night so we were able to enjoy the sunny days by the pool and at the beach. Tim got caught up on his sleep and his cable tv shows, Camden enjoyed running around and hanging out with his girl cousins, who were like "little mamas" to him, which gave me a break! Anna loved playing Rock Band with her cousins, now she sings "That's What You Get" by Paramore and "Eye of the Tiger" around the house. I hit the Lilly Pulitzer department at Belk's and bought myself a birthday present (on sale!). It was a wonderful vacation overall.

Now on to Food Friday! New this year to Sea Watch was a Tiki bar/concession stand at the pool. After seeing other people carrying around fruity drinks, Anna decided she wanted to try out a strawberry smoothie (with added whipped cream of course). It was so refreshing! We got a banana smoothie the next day, and we decided that the strawberry one was better. The smoothies were made from a mix but here's a recipe from smoothie-recipes.com that sounds very similar to what we had:

Ingredients
6 large strawberries
1 cup Welch's Strawberry Breeze
1/2 cup ice cubes
Can of whipped cream (optional)

Directions:
Blend juice and with strawberries and add ice cubes until slushy consistency is formed. Soy milk may be used to replace juice for a thicker Straberry Smoothie Recipe. Add whipped cream on top if desired.

Delicious!

Snack Attack

Today's afternoon snack is brought to you by:


Stacy's Simply Naked Pita Chips
Tribe Hummus
and Diet Cheerwine!

If you haven't tried Stacy's Chips, they are AWESOME. I could eat a whole bag in one sitting. At least they are baked and not fried. Monkey Boy likes them too, I had to take the photo fast because he was reaching in to eat the chips!

Coffee Quiz!

I think the results are pretty accurate! Take the quiz and see what kind of coffee drink YOU are!

You Are a Plain Ole Cup of Joe

But don't think plain - instead think, uncomplicated You're a low maintenance kind of girl... who can hang with the guys Down to earth, easy going, and fun! Yup, that's you: the friend everyone invites. And your dependable too. Both for a laugh and a sympathetic ear.

What Kind of Coffee Girl Are You?

McDonald's Iced Coffee

Oh. My. Goodness. Have y'all tried this? It is my new favorite beverage. Lincolnton has a coffee shop but it's on the Court Square and parking is a pain. McD's is right next to Monkey Boy's school and I'm all for convenience. Since Lincolnton is probably the only town in our hemisphere that doesn't have a Starbucks, I feel like I'm somewhere urban (like say, Gastonia) while I'm tooling around in the minivan, drinking an iced coffee out of a clear cup (it doesn't take much to amuse me).

I usually get the medium vanilla, and for $1.69 + tax, it's a great bargain! The other flavors are regular and hazlenut. I haven't tried the hazlenut, usually hazlenut flavoring makes coffee too sweet for my taste.

I had an allergy attack today and took a Benedryl this morning. I was still feeling sleepy at 2 pm so I loaded up Monkey Boy and I got one of these. It was nice not having to share (that's awful, but when my kids see anything with a straw in it that is not theirs, they want it NOW) and I took a little break, slowly relishing each sugary slurp while waiting in the carpool line at Kangaroo Girl's school. MMMMMM!

Try it and tell me what you think. You won't be disappointed.