Summer Salad

This was my dinner tonight. Lettuce, avocado, tomatoes from my vines,

and PW's tequila lime chicken. (it was good but not great). I'm stuffed.

Eat More Chikin

Whoo hoo! I'm pumped.

http://blogs.kansas.com/haveyouheard/2010/05/11/chick-fil-a-management-responds/

A Very Happy Thanksgiving

Our house is SO quiet now. My brothers were here for a week and my parents had been here since Wednesday but they all left this morning and Mike and I are relaxing and trying to get over the sniffles that we have before we go back to work tomorrow.

We had a wonderful week with our family here. Between the food and the Wii my parents brought with them, family pictures, seeing friends, and just enjoying each other's company - we had a blast.

Here are pictures of the highlights! (I can't get any of the pictures to rotate for some reason - sorry!)

The new candle holder my parents brought us from Chicago.

Breakfast on Thanksgiving morning - pumpkin bread!

The centerpiece on the table.

Ready for Thanksgiving dinner.

My parents and I got up at 5:30 on Black Friday to get 99 cent poinsettias at Lowe's. (that otherwise would have been between 4 & 8 dollars each depending on where we got them) We got 18 between our homes. Yep, we're funny like that.

The wreath I decorated for our front door.

We got our Christmas card from Aspen Boutique this weekend too!

And finally - a little late but here are the flowers Mike got me for our anniversary. :-)

Pumpkins, Plants and Tree Skirts

Yay for productive weekends!

Friday night, I made our tree skirt after I got all of the necessary fabric either on sale or half price because of coupons. Here's the final product. I'm excited.

I backed the burlap with red and green fabric that says "NOEL" on it. I did it so that the burlap had some reinforcement and so that it wasn't rough against our wood floor. I remembered seeing the fabric at the fabric store last year and it was on clearance so it was even better. The hilarious part was, as many times as I reminded myself to make sure the 'right' side ended up on the outside when I turned the skirt inside out, it didn't and now the fabric says "LEON". Yep. Great job, Sarah. At least I'll laugh about it every year I pull it out. :-)

Mike and I ran errands today and got pumpkins for the fall and a new little plant for our living area since I killed the last one. I DON'T have a green thumb.

Groceries for the next two weeks are put away, laundry is done (minus ironing), I made pumpkin bread for us and a loaf for our sweet neighbors just because and now I'm watching the Yankee vs. Red Sox game. Now, if only we got the Cards game tonight... they're gonna clench!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!!

My Favorite Dessert

I wish I could take credit for my new favorite dessert recipe but I can't SO, make sure you visit Closet Cooking to check out more recipes as wonderful as this one. (I recommend the beef stroganoff, my entire family loves it!)

Chocolate Stout Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Directions:
1. Melt the butter in a sauce pan, remove from heat and let cool a bit.
2. Mix in the stout and cocoa powder.
3. Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
4. Mix the eggs and sour cream in another large bowl.
5. Mix the stout mixture into the egg mixture.
6. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet.
7. Pour the batter into one or two greased and parchment lined circular cake pan(s).
8. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until a toothpick pushed into the center comes out clean. If you bake it in a single pan then it should take about 40-50 minutes. If you bake it in two cake pans then it should take about 20-30 minutes.

Bailey's Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:
4 ounces cream cheese (room temperature)
1 cup confectioners sugar
3 tablespoons of Bailey’s Irish cream

Directions:
1. Mix everything.

Other faves are gooey butter cake and brownies. If you need a really quick fix for a chocolate craving, Mike and I like making s'mores in the oven with the broiler setting.) :-)