Fresh Strawberry Lemonade

This is by far, one of my favorite drinks on earth. Oddly enough, I've never made it myself with fresh strawberries.

So simple, too. It is perfect for an afternoon refresher or to take to that last minute BBQ. All you need are three things:

1. frozen lemonade concentrate (12oz)
2. about 2 cups strawberries, pureed or blended
3. water

First, puree the berries. I stopped my blender before they were perfectly blended because I wanted a few chunks of strawberries in my lemonade. Next, make your lemonade according to the can. Pour your pureed berries into the lemonade and stir. (You will need to stir/shake it up any time it sits for a while, as the berry puree will sink to the bottom.) Add a few freshly cut berries if you wish. Next time, maybe I'll try my hand at making fresh lemonade to combine with the strawberries.

Now you're set for a nice afternoon outside in the sunshine!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheat

I loooove cookies. I enjoy making them most of the time. Sometimes though, I get tired making the dough into balls. So, I cheat.

There are obviously far worse things to cheat on than this. Really, this is just making bar cookies from the dough, but look how great these are displayed as so:

I love the look, as it reminds me of a display at a bakery or something far more pulled together than my kitchen. Just bake in a pan (1/2 inch think of cookie dough) until golden brown and cut into thick strips and place in a tall jar of your choice. You could even add a cute ribbon tied around it to match your kitchen or to give as a gift!

You have got to try this recipe I used from The Girl Who Ate Everything. She isn't lying when she says this is the best dough ever. It may be the best dough I've ever tasted, and I've tried lots of cookie dough recipes. (If you've got a better one, post it in the comments. I want to taste!) When I made these, I omitted the butterscotch chips so they are just regular, extremely yummy, chocolate chip cookies.

Liberty Square Cookies

by Stephanie Jensen

1 lb unsalted butter (4 sticks ), softened

2 C. brown sugar
1 1/2 C. sugar
2 T vanilla
3 eggs
1 1/2 t salt
1 1/2 t baking soda
6 C. flour
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips ( or you can do both bags chocolate chip and don't add the butterscotch chips)
12 oz. butterscotch chips

Cream butter, brown sugar, sugar, vanilla, and eggs until creamy. Next add in salt, baking soda, and flour mixture. Fold in the chips. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Do not overcook.

Sometimes I use parchment paper to make sure they don't stick. This recipe is very touchy. Follow it exactly or it won't turn out. This is hard work for your mixer. I even had a hard time using a KitchedAid getting it all to fit. Probably would stick with a huge bowl and hand mixer. Makes 6 dozen.

Her Recipe Index is one of my go-to's when I want to try something new. Not that this recipe is crazy new or different, but I have never tired one of her recipes and not been completely thrilled I made it, hence I keep coming back. I even devoted a whole post to her amazing-ness a while back.

Strawberry Stuffed French Toast

Sunday mornings are possibly one of my favorite times of the week. Sleeping in a wee bit and having a tasty breakfast is pretty much the best way to start off my day. Add a few friends or family and I'm golden, just as I was this past Sunday at Michelle and Steve's house. I am a breakfastaholic. I'd eat it every meal if I could. Naturally, I couldn't help but eagerly anticipate when I would get to make this Blueberry Stuffed French Toast recipe from Lyuba at Will Cook for Smiles.

Thanks to an abundance of fresh, hand-picked strawberries, I decided to alter the recipe to fit my berries. In this case, alter = substitution. I'm sure come blueberry picking season, I will try her recipe, just to taste test and indulge.

Seriously, do make this as soon as you can and you will have no regrets, except that you waited so long to try it.  This recipe will make about 6 thick stuffed slices. (You will probably have some filling left over, but it can always be a topping or refrigerated for later, simply to top regular slices of french toast or pancakes!)

For Strawberry Filling:

• 8 oz cream cheese
• 2 Tablespoons milk
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup strawberries, diced (to whatever size you want to eat - my small berries were cut into fourths, bigger ones in sixths)

For French Toast:

• 3 eggs
• 1-2 Tablespoons milk
• 1-2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• one loaf French or Italian bread (I used French)

1. Beat cream cheese, milk, powdered sugar and vanilla together until smooth. Fold in strawberries. Refrigerate.

2. Whisk eggs, vanilla and cinnamon in a wide enough dish to dip bread into.

3. Cut a 2 inch slice off the loaf. Then, cut nearly through the middle of your slice lengthwise, to make a pouch to fill.

4. Spoon the filling into the slice pouch, making sure not to overfill, or you will have a lot of strawberry filling on your griddle.

5. Dip both sides of the stuffed slice into the egg mixture.

6. Set on medium hot griddle, until golden on one side. Flip to golden the other side. (about 3-4 minutes each)

7. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, top with a few berries or a few drops of syrup.

8. Share with amazing friends or family and dig in, just like Ellie. Yummy, yummy!

Scentsy Cake Party

Yes, you read that right. My awesome friend Michelle was gracious enough to host a Scentsy party for me. We thought what a great excuse the Scentsy party would be for a spread of homemade cakes. We're always looking for any excuse to bake. Here's her rundown of the day.

Michelle made a super yummy Lemon Blueberry Cake (from Sweetapolita) with Lemon Curd Filling and Lemon Frosting. I loved the addition of sliced lemons on the border of the cake. Yellow is such a happy color.

I was really rushed taking these pictures and they are all so dark. I'll link up Michelle's post when it happens, which will certainly have better photos to oogle over!

She also made a Pink Almond Cake, seen in the foreground of the photo below. Incredibly tasty.

And my favorite, as a finale, her fantastic creation of a Chocolate Mousse Cake. Yes, a chocolate cake, frosted and filled with chocolate mousse. It was soooooo tasty.

Guests arrived, smelled as many Scentsy scents as they could, sipped on pink lemonade and iced tea (thanks Allison!), chatted, decided to start a book club [hopefully more on that soon!] and after placing a few Scentsy orders, tried all three cakes. You really couldn't go wrong, except consequently regretting to wear stretchier pants, thanks to the cake trifecta. Talk about sensory overload. Guests even got to take home cake in adorable boxes, thanks again, to Allison. Let's do it again!

Special thanks to all the ladies who came! I really enjoyed your company!

Speechless Sunday

Strawberry Cream Cheese

So after picking loads of strawberries (17 pounds to be more or less exact), I obviously needed plenty of reasons to use them. Here is one, very simple thing I made with them: strawberry cream cheese.

 

It really is quite easy, as you only need strawberries & cream cheese, and a smidgen of powdered sugar. Try this:

1. Allow 8oz. cream cheese to be at room temperature, so it is not so hard to mix.
2. Puree 1 to 1.5 cups of strawberries, adding 1 Tablespoon (or so) to the liquid.
3. Mix puree into cream cheese thoroughly.
4. Taste to make sure you like it. Add more strawberries, if necessary, but remember, the more you add, the thinner your cream cheese will become.
5. Enjoy on whatever you wish! (I did refrigerate mine before doing this because I like my cream cheese firmer than it was after mixing strawberries in.)

Strawberry Syrup Recipe Comparisions

 
Thanks to picking a million 17 pounds of strawberries, I had to find plenty of uses before having to freeze the leftovers (as you may have noticed the handful of strawberry related posts lately). I wanted to try and make my own strawberry syrup. Google magic. First I tried this recipe from allrecipies.com. It wasn't bad, quite yummy actually, just not as syrup like as I was thinking it would be. It was more like jam. Really simple to make with only three ingredients: strawberries (mashed), sugar and water.

Then, I tried Emeril's recipe from the Food Network. It has some pretty spectacular reviews, but it still wasn't what I was hoping for. It did taste different than the first (in a good way!) because there is a different ingredient than the first recipe: strawberries (diced), orange juice and zest. Again, I was hoping for a more syrup consistency.

Pictures are of Emeril's recipe only, simply because the final products are too hard to distinguish in a photo. They just taste a little different.

I wanted to try this recipe from food.com but needed to save strawberries for other recipes. And frankly, I was tired of cutting/hulling, boiling/simmering and being bummed to have two more pints of strawberry jam-like "syrup", in addition to the multiple jars of jam Grammy gave me. The photo with the food.com recipe looks more like the syrupy texture I was hoping for.

Maybe next berry picking round! Anyone have any tips or a killer syrupy, syrup recipe I could try?

Bookshelf Beautification on a Budget

Since Addison's new bed is chocolate brown in color, my sister and I wanted her bookcase to match. Having next to no budget to buy her a new one, we used her old one and spray painted it! Spray paint is such a great solution to give something a new look! (If you want to see some of my recent love for spray paint, look here and here.)

We were so excited to use American Accents Espresso spray paint, we forgot to take a Before picture. So, here is the Almost Before picture.

And the After picture.

 

Not too shabby of a "new" bookshelf for a whopping $3.99.

Strawberry Pickin'

Yesterday afternoon, notably one of the warmest we have had at 85 degrees (yay mild Oregon summers), my mom, sisters, niece and I went to pick strawberries at Grandpa's Farm - not our grandpa, just the name of the farm.

 
Of course, Addison ended up with a whopping 3 nearly-not-smushed berries in her tub, the rest in her tummy, or on her face.

Keeping in strict toddler fashion, she didn't leave the patch dirt-less either.

My sisters and I picked about 17 pounds of strawberries! At 90 cents a pound, I couldn't resist.

I've got a handful of ideas that our bowls of berries will turn into. I'll share the outcomes soon enough!

Manhattan Deli Pasta Salad

For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I wasn't very festive for Independence Day. I think the closest I came was a blue shirt and red flip flops. Oh well. Next year. I did however contribute my quite-often-requested pasta salad to our 4th of July shenanigans last night. See?

After sharing a few pictures from last night's 4th of July celebrations, I'll give ya the recipe. Okie dok?

My niece, Addison and her littlest buddy, Olivia.

The Waters Family in red, white & blue. Michelle's 4th of July blog post has a well lit picture, instead of my impatient, dark one. ;) It's on my list of things to do: practice changing camera settings more so I am comfortable when the moments come.

It's not a BBQ without a lawn game or two, right?

Thankfully, Michelle made up for my lack of festive-ness and made a spectacular patriotic cake!

I love how adorable this tiny little pennant banner looks!

Finally, just what each other needed.

Addison watching little street fireworks with our lovely host, Steph.

And back to their usual antics. Post-dessert mac 'n cheese.

Arguably my favorite part of the night - Ellie saying "look!...woah..." to the big fireworks in the sky.

Michelle's 4th of July coverage and make sure to check out her ridiculously good recipe for passion lemonade. It was such a fun night complete with perfect weather, awesome friends and food that was too good! And now for the recipe...


Manhattan Deli Pasta Salad
16 oz spiral pasta
1 bottle of Italian dressing (I use Kraft Light)
8 oz. feta cheese
1 cucumber
2-3 roma tomatoes
1 package dry salami
olives (optional)

1. Cook pasta noodles according to directions.
2. While the noodles are cooking, cut up cucumber, tomatoes and salami into salad size bits.
3. Drain the noodles and place into serving bowl.
4. Add cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, salami and olives.
5. Mix about half the bottle of dressing (maybe a little more) into the bowl and toss to mix up all ingredients.
6. Refrigerate until serving. Make sure to really scoop down to the bottom of the bowl and mix up again before serving because the dressing tends to sink to the bottom.

TIP: I keep just less than half (or about a third) of the dressing in the refrigerator because it seems to be a little dry after refrigeration overnight.