My Mother’s Day Brunch

Posted in Food, Holidays, Homemade by mszerwo

I hope you all had a nice Mother’s Day (or Sunday, if that’s what you chose to celebrate)! Brandon and I went over to my sister and brother-in-law’s house for a homemade brunch with my Mom and Dad and my brother-in-law’s Mom and soon-to-be Step Dad. The food was delicious and the company was great.

With eight people in attendance, some with gluten and lactose intolerances, my sister and I got creative with the menu and really leaned on the flavors of the new spring fruits and veggies for our Mother’s Day Brunch Feast:

Broccoli quiche with ham
Crustless spinach quiche with ham, mushrooms and goat cheese gouda
Homefries
Butter croissants (from Trader Joe’s freezer section – have you tried these? They taste amazing, are easy to make and are perfect for brunch! However, the ones we made for Sunday may have been in the freezer too long. They didn’t proof right but they tasted ok. We bought some other croissants to supplement them.)
Chicken and pork breakfast sausages (I normally get the Jennie O turkey breakfast sausages, but these were ‘healthier’ [less bad] for you. They were really good!)
Fruit salad with raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and pineapple with a pinch of mango sugar

And a MIMOSA BAR!

Here are a few photos and recipes that helped make our Mother’s Day celebrations shine…

Mimosa Bar

(2) Gigantic bottles of Cook’s Champagne (there are eight people, after all)
(1) bottle of Trader Joe’s Tangerine Juice (like orange juice, but BETTER!)
(1) box of Trader Joe’s Tropical Fruit Juice Box
(1) handful of the following: fresh blueberries, raspberries and strawberry slices

Follow these steps for a mimosa bar of your own:

Cut and/or wash the berries. We did this the night before.
Chill the Champagne/Prosecco in advance of the event. We put ours in the fridge the night before. I have heard that you shouldn’t chill wines or champagne for more than four hours, but this stuff is pretty medium quality and we’re adding juice, so it’s better that it be cold than super flavorful.
Create an amazing display! We got a ton of serving dishes and trays when we got married a couple of years ago and I love getting them out. This was one of those occasions. We also rimmed the champagne glasses with some mango sugar. It was a wonderful touch.

Cheers!

1May2013

Wine Wednesday: Cork Art!

Posted in 2013 Pinterest Lifestyle, Around the house, Crafts, DIY, Homemade, Wine Wednesdays by mszerwo

If you’re like me, you might have more than a few corks hanging around your house. I’ve always been good at hoarding, I mean saving, my corks, which has led to bags and bags of them over the years. Thanks to Pinterest, I found a good use for them: wine wreaths!

I started off with this tutorial from LollyChops and had incredible success. Do take note, though: use a straw wreath (rather than a styrofoam one), straw will get everywhere and you will burn yourself with the hot glue gun(also note that you’ll use A LOT of hot glue, be prepared!). I used a garbage bag as my place mat and have never been so pleased with my forethought. Straw wreaths = a huge mess.

Wine wreaths… the before

I followed the LollyChops tutorial as written and ended up with this beauty. Voila! It’s on the front door now, welcoming guests into our home.

Voila! Beautiful wine art made by me!

I’ve still got some corks leftover and I’m thinking these might be fun to make… However the timing listed in the tutorial is a bit daunting. I do have a history (successful but lengthy) with styrofoam ball art that I’ll share with you sometime soon. What do you think? Have I inspired you to make a wine wreath or cork ball?

Next cork art project?

25Feb2013

Cookie Monster!

Posted in 2013 Pinterest Lifestyle, Food, Homemade by mszerwo

It’s me again. Look at that: two posts in a row! I’m on a roll!

This post is about cookies. It’s fitting, since it’s the Girl Scout Cookie time of year.

Nom. Nom. Nom. Butter free too!

I just pulled some delicious, delicious cookies out of the oven. And the best part about them: they’re “healthy.” (At least when it comes to cookies.) These cookies have oatmeal and don’t have butter! (They use canola oil instead of butter.) Even more healthy? The batter is so oily and nasty that you don’t even want to touch it, let alone eat it.

I was skeptical at first, with the oily batter and all, but these cookies are FANTASTIC!! They’re crunchy, soft and not oily at all. I’d highly recommend making a batch for yourself!

Half Baked Hostess, I love you! These oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are now on our favorites list! Thank you!

I also discovered a recipe for homemade samoas. (Yes, please!) Find it for yourself on the Just a Taste blog. I’ll make them soon and report back.

Now, I’ll leave you with the real Sesame Street Cookie Monster in this “Call me maybe” spoof while I got scarf down a few more cookies.

26Dec2011

A new adventure for 2012

Posted in Food, Homemade by mszerwo

I love cooking!

I have to admit it: I miss taking pictures of my dinner.

You know I love to cook, and now it’s time for YOU to tell me what to make! I’ll be taking suggestions from comments here and on Facebook and will pick a winning ingredient to use each week. I’ll ask for recommendations on Fridays, so I can buy the necessary ingredients over the weekend. Think Iron Chef.

We’re going at this with an open mind, but have some stipulations:

No eggplant
Nothing pickled
No intestines or brains
An emphasis on seasonal eating (for veggies)

Get to commenting! I’m a very good planner and will include the “item of the week” as much as possible in our week of meals– and of course I’ll photograph it all and include recipes!

Here’s to a healthy and adventurous 2012!!

23Dec2011

I did it. A year of dinners: photographed.

Posted in Food, Homemade, Photos by mszerwo

Phew. 365 dinner postings. Thank you for sticking around, for commenting and for not hiding my Facebook feed. Thank you most of all for following me here, to my new blog!

I hope to post regularly to this blog—so bookmark it now—and come back often. In addition to posting photos (and recipes!) of some of my particularly fascinating or delicious meals, I will post my newest craft creations and excerpts and photos from around the world wide web.

Now, for the dinners.

Brussel sprouts on a pizza!? YES!

It was quite fascinating to actually see my favorite meals, the frequency I make them and my favorite dishes, like pizza and brussel sprouts. There were certainly some fan favorites (shown below) and some fan not favorites. Who knew people would be so judgmental about a dinner!

Over the past year I’ve eaten better than I normally would. I’ve always tried to eat a very well balanced meal for you, my viewers, and I think that I’ve been pretty successful. Sometimes this has meant eating a lot more than I’ve been hungry for, as to not disappoint my followers. There are some weeks when I could eat the same thing over and over again for dinner. I amazed myself at my new-found plating abilities and how frequently I cooked and ate dinner at home. A pat on the back for me.

I spent a few minutes go back through my dinner photos and along with getting hungry, I jotted down my favorites, in no particular order.

Famous Stacy Reilly

Best comment: Stacy Reilly “Omg… I feel super famous right now!!” {On being pictured in October 16’s bowl of tailgating chili}

Worst meal pairing: October 29’s cheese tortellini, leftover chorizo and broccoli. Yuck. I get a bad taste in my mouth just thinking about it!

Most pitiful meal: A tie! December 28’s very yellow meal of corn niblets and taquitos and January 6’s corn niblets and brussel sprouts. I guess that’s what happens when there’s no food in the fridge and I’m too lazy to go to the store or grab take out.

I was pretty adventurous on this food journey. We tried a lot of new recipes and a few new ingredients. That’s one of my 2012 goals: trying new foods.

Here are some other favorites from my year of photographing my dinner: