Mel and Tonys Babyshower

I have done many baby showers and bridal showers, but this might be my best one yet! My soon to be sister in law is having a baby girl in October so we threw her a shower. Two of her friends helped, and together we had a killer party! The food was great, the decorations were cute, and there were tons of presents! There are a few key things to consider when throwing a baby shower. I like to start with the decorations for the set the mood for the baby shower. I went to Burlington and bought different onsies on sale and strung them around the house. It was so cute! A new mommy can never have enough onsies either!

I also took some paper and made a cute little banner in the kitchen!

We had a few activities going on as well. In the dinning room we set up a diaper signing station where the guest could write a message for the mommy and daddy to be. We had some really funny messages and pictures!

For games we did the bag game that I love to do for baby showers and bridal showers!

You spell out a word (Baby Shower, the Babies name, etc) and in each bag is something to do with a new born baby or something you would find in a nursery starting with that letter. For example, in the B bag was a bib and S bag there were socks.

You can find out how to make your own bag game here!

We also did the Chocolate game where you melt a chocolate candy bar in a diaper and have guest small the "dirty" diaper and try to identify the chocolate!

For prizes we gave away these cute homemade cookie mixes!

Find how to make your own jars here!

One of the girls made cute popcorn for favors. She took some pink melted chocolate and drizzled it over the popcorn with little tags that say "someone is about to pop"

By the front door we also had a thumb print station and a onsie signing station. We took 2 different paints for thumb prints to make a tree to put in the babies room.

One of the girls painted this cute sign we put on the door. I found the circle papers at micheals on sale!

For our family members I made these precious tags for them to wear, They were a huge hit!

Here is the Mommy to be, Mel, in hers!

And one of our grandmas to be!

And of course me with my Auntie tag!

Now we cant forget the other most important part of a baby shower... THE FOOD!

And boy did we have some food! We decided to do something easy since we had about 20 ladies there and we made a taco bar. We had everything from shredded chicken, beef, beans and all the toppings.

I also made my stuffed mini sweet peppers (Click here for recipe) My bean salsa (click here for recipe) and guacamole from scratch !

On our side table we did a littler dessert bar.

We got some cupcakes, "it's a girl" Hershey kisses, strawberry pound cake and a trifle.

The trifle cake I made was AMAZING! The basics of the cake are similar to my cream cake trifles I make. This is an easy recipe to make. No baking required and is always a crowd favorite! (click here for the recipe)

We also had a little drink station with Margaronas and an alcohol free punch. Both were equally delicious!

Click here for Margarona recipe. Click here for punch recipe. 

Overall the baby shower was a huge success. Everyone had a blast and loved the decorations and food! I will certainly use some of  these party decorations and recipes again! Hope these can be used at your next shower! 

   

Low Carb Chicken Cordon Bleu

Week 3 on the Atkins diet and I have started to get tired of the same old things so last night I experimented in the kitchen last night and what a satisfying reward it was! The secret..... crushed up Pork Rinds! They are 0 carbs! I love chicken cordon bleu but I am not a huge fan of Swiss cheese so I switched up the recipe a little to make it a little more me. Even if you are not on a low carb diet, you will still love how creamy and delectable this savory dinner is!

Ingredients:

1 egg, beaten

2 large chicken breast

8 slices of ham

8 slices of cheese (swiss or provolone)

1 bag pork rinds (I used barbecue flavored)

3/4 cup mayonnaise

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Crush your pork rinds in a bag to get a nice thin crust texture. Place pork rinds in a bowl and set aside.

Take your egg, and beat it in a small bowl, set aside.

Slice your chicken lengthwise in half to get 4 thin pieces of breast. (If you have really thick chicken you may be able the cut it into 3 pieces)

Before we begin with the layering please keep this in mind, when dealing with raw meat it is extremely important not to cross contaminate. With that said I like to take the ham and cheese slices out of the package so I don't have to put my hands in the bag with raw chicken on them. Also, I recommend taking the mayonnaise that you are going to use in a separate bowl. You don't want to put the same knife you spread the mayo on the chicken with back in the jar (unless you are going to wash if off each time) Okay lets get assembling!

Beat the chicken slices with a meat hammer to thin them out.

Slather on 1-2 tablespoons of mayo on the chicken breast.

Layer on a slice of cheese.

And then your ham.

Carefully roll your chicken breast. The ham may slip out the bottom, just tuck it back in the best you can trying to have the chicken on the outside. 

Once the chicken is rolled, dip in the egg mixture and roll in the pork rinds, coating as evenly as you can (the finer the pork rinds are ground up the better they will stick)

You may need to put a tooth pick or 2 in it to keep the chicken from unraveling. Shown in the picture is the BBQ pork rind mixture.

Bake for 35 minutes or until chicken is fully cooked. I like to peel the chicken back a little the make sure it has cooked all the way threw. 

VOILA! LOW CARB CHICKEN CORDON BLEU!

Enjoy!

Cookies in Jar Favors

These are one of my favorite things to give away! I give them away during christmas, birthdays, game prizes, and favors. They are perfect as an inexpensive gift or an impressive favor! And the best part.... the cookies are actually amazing! I have done a few variations of the cookies in a jar but the best are the cowboy cookies. This recipe is similar to the cowboy cookies Laura Bush used for the Family Circle cookie bake off and hers won! This is a simpler version of those cookies! And look how cute they are!

There are so many ways to decorate the jars too! I took some left over ribbon from my baby shower name tags I made and some lace to tie around the jars and then attached little binkys I found at party city . So cute!

The cookie ingredients are as follows:

1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup chopped pecans
1 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Layer the ingredients in order as they are listed. It is important to tightly press down on each layer in order to make room. It is going to be a tight fit. I like the do the flour in parts so I can press down and make sure I have room for all of it with out spilling.

Place the lid of and decorate!

Make sure you have some sort of tag with the directions on how to bake the cookies.

I normally like to put the baby's name on the cookies but our new mommy and daddy to be don't have one yet so we are calling them "Baby Propst Cookies" 

The directions are:

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a bowl mix 1/2 cup melted butter, 1 egg, and 1 tsp vanilla in a bowl. Mix in the entire jar of cookie mix. Roll in to small balls and place on a cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes or until a light golden brown.

Since there are pecans in the cookies I like to put a "food allergy" tag on the back.

Look how cute these are! We are giving them away as game prizes for the baby shower. 

I also did these cookies for Harper's Baby shower. We gave them away as favors. They were a huge hit!

We topped these with burlap and twine! Good luck on your cookie jars! 

Low Carb Pork Rind Nachos

We are on week 3 of the Atkins diet. I am 10 pounds down and FULL of energy and I love it! My clothes are fitting loser and I'm starting to feel comfortable in my own skin again. The great thing about the Atkins diet is the result, the down fall.... how many ways can you eat meat and pork rinds? After some playing around last night we found our brand new favorite meal! Pork rind nachos! It was really quick and they were just like regular nachos! You can mix your toppings a bit but here is a good recipe to get started.

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 packet low sodium taco seasoning
2 bags pork rinds
1/2 cup sour cream
2 jalapenos
2 cups of cheese
1/2 cup salsa
1 cup chopped lettuce

Directions: 

First preheat your oven to 300 F.
Start browning your meat and cook according to the taco seasoning packet.

Take a cookie sheet and lay out your pork rinds (we used a pack of original and a pack of salt&pepper)

Top with your meat (you could also do chicken!)

Top with what ever cheese you like (if you are on the atkins diet you can use as much cheese as you want!) We used the remaining of our shredded mexican cheese and then shredded some sharp cheddar on top.

We took some jalapenos from the garden and chopped them up and layered them in. I would say about 2-3 small jalapenos were perfect. (If you don't like it too spicy make sure you seed the peppers first)

Okay now its time to bake! We put ours in for 12 minutes, until the cheese was melted and the rinds underneath were all crunchy. 

Once you take it out, top with lettuce and sour cream!

I added salsa to my side and it was so worth it! So delicious!

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

SMOREO DESSERT

So I have made many variations of the Oreo Cream cake. There are just so many fun things you can do with it! Well with these new SMOREO cookies that came out I had to find a way to put it in a dessert. I found a recipe on hugsandcookiesxoxo.com and mixed a little of my own flare into it to make the most awesome dessert ever!

The Smore Cream cake

You can also so the recipe in a small loaf pan or trifle dish (which the recipe I originally saw called for - but we were making for a larger crowd so I did the larger pan)

Ingredients:

2 packs S'more Oreo cookies

1 large instant chocolate pudding (and milk to make it with)

1 jar marshmallow cream

1 jar hot fudge

1/2 bag mini marshmallows

1 large container of cool whip (or 2 small containers)

1 8 oz cream cheese

1 stick butter, melted

1 cup powdered sugar.

Directions:

Prepare the chocolate pudding according to the package and set aside. 

Take one bag of Smore Oreos and crumble them (I take a large ziplock bag and crumble them or toss them, into a blender).

Pour the Oreo crumbs into the bottom of your pan. Take your melted butter and mix it into your Oreo crumbs, pressing down into the bottom of the pan to make a crust.

In a medium bowl, beat your cream cheese until blended. Mix in 1 cup powdered sugar until evenly mixed. Fold in half of the large whipped cream (or 1 small container). Set aside. (this will be referred to as the cream cheese layer)

In a separate bowl blend the remaining cool whip and marshmallow cream until well blended, set aside (this will be referred to as the marshmallow cream layer).

We now are ready to start layering! You can do this a few ways. In the picture above in the 9x13 dish I layered it as follow:

Oreo Cookie Crumb layer, Cream cheese layer, Chocolate pudding layer, chocolate syrup layer, marshmallow cream layer, marshmallows.

If you are using a trifle dish or the bread pan you will want to use small layers. I would recommend:

Cookie layer, cream cheese layer, chocolate pudding layer, chocolate syrup layer, marshmallow cream layer, a layer of cookies and continue this pattern until you get to the top and add the marshmallows.

We didn't put an extra layer of cookies in ours but we think it will bring even more gooey goodness to it! You could also toss in some graham crackers. 

To get the browned marshmallow look, just broil for a few seconds (no more than 30. It doesn't take long at all!)

Once the marshmallows are browned, wrap up and place in the fridge for a few hours until ready to eat! Its SOOOOO delicious. Perfect for summer nights!

Old Fashion Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Filling and Frosting

I have made MANY cakes in my day but this has jumped to the top of my favorites list. It was a HUGE hit this year. It was moist and rich but not too over powering. The cake was so delicious there were no left overs! I mean look how amazing it looks!

The cake itself was a delicious vanilla cake recipe I made from scratch with a strawberry jam frosting layered with strawberries. I found the recipe on boymeetsbowl.blogspot.com

Ingredients:

Frosting:

2 - 8 oz packages cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

4 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup seedless strawberry jam

3/4 cup chilled heavy whipping cream

Optional: Red food coloring

Cake:

3 cups cake flower

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3 cups sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (I used 1 stick salted and 1 stick unsalted)

7 large eggs

2 tablespoons vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

6 tablespoons plus 1/3 cup seedless strawberry jam

2 1/4 pounds strawberries (I only used 2 containers)

Directions:
Start with preparing the frosting. It needs to sit 2 hours before spreading.
In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth.  Beat in sugar ( I like to mix mine 1 cup at a time to prevent it from flying all over the place) and jam until well blended.

The pink is very light so I added a few drops of red food coloring to get a more pink tint to it. 

In a separate bowl beat the whipping cream on high until peaks form.

Fold whipped cream into frosting. Cover and chill (about 2 hours) until firm enough to spread.

Now lets start the cake! Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

The original recipe calls for using 2 cake pans (with 2 inch sides) You would take those 2 cakes and cut them in half horizontally to make 4 layers. I try to avoid cutting cake when ever possible so I chose to use shallower pans I made 3 layers. Pick which ever method fits best for you. Butter and flour your cake pans.

Sift the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda into a medium bowl, set aside.

In a separate bowl blend butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each until well blended. Beat in vanilla and sour cream. Slowly add the flour mixture (Just like the powdered sugar before, add slowly to prevent from the mixture flying up)

Divide the batter into your divided pans. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool  in pans on a rack for 10 minutes. Loosen the sides of  the cake with a knife and turn upside down on your cooling rack and continue to cool completely. 

If you are going to cut the slices, using a large serrated knife, cut both cakes in half horizontally. 

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Now place your first layer on the plate (if you are cutting the cake, place the freshly cut side upwards) 

Spread 2 tablespoons of your seedless jam over the layer, then 3/4 cups frosting, and then layer with washed and sliced strawberries.

Continue this for the remaining layers.

(If using sliced cake, put the remaining layer face down)

Use the reaming frosting to frost the top and sides of the cake. 

The recipe calls to take the remaining jam and spread it on the top of the cake and decorate with strawberries. I decided to go the more simple route and just used sliced strawberries on top on the cake and around the edges of the plate. 

Cover with a dome and refrigerate until ready to be served (Best when cold!)

And yes it is as good as it looks!

Enjoy!