Surprise Dinner Guests

We got home from our Spring Break trip to the Mall of America this afternoon around 2:00. We quickly unpacked before turning around to retrieve our dogs from their “weekend vacation homes.” While Mike was at his mom’s getting Mei-Mei I was at the grocery store getting something to cook for dinner. With temperatures in [...]

Thanksgiving Pot Pie

I saw a picture of a turkey pot pie  in the latest Harry & David catalog that had stuffing on the top instead of pie crust, biscuit or mashed potatoes. What a great idea! So I thought I was being so clever by using up all my Thanksgiving leftovers and making turkey pot pie for [...]

Giving Thanks

We hosted Mike’s family for Thanksgiving dinner this year. With family members needing to be in more than 1 place for the holiday, it was requested that we host on the Friday AFTER Thanksgiving. It ended up working out well giving us more time to figure out how to brine the turkey, prepare some dishes [...]

Too Fabulous

I found these recipe cards in the dollar bin at Michael’s while shopping there this afternoon. How could I pass them up?

Pumpkin Scones

I bought some canned pumpkin last week to make something (can’t remember what so it must’ve been really good) but didn’t use the whole can. While looking online for a picture of a pumpkin tonight I came across a picture of pumpkin scones which led me to myrecipes.com where I found a recipe for some! And…it turned [...]

Cook Club Rules

My friend Jayne and I decided one day last winter that we should start a cooking club. I had been in a book club with some women and didn’t always like the books. Then we’d meet somewhere at a restaurant I didn’t always like for dinner and end up not talking about it at all! Well, if I was going to [...]

Chinese Food Feast

Last weekend my mom, sister and niece came to visit. At first the plan was just to cook egg rolls with my mom. That plan quickly turned into preparing beef & broccoli, green beans with black bean & garlic sauce, and Singapore rice noodles for a Chinese food feast! Buying the ingredients for all the dishes [...]

Concert Substitution

In lieu of going to the Keith Urban concert in Moline tonight, I packed up some pie crust that I had made along with the filling for a strawberry-rhubarb pie and headed to a friend’s house for some girl talk and margaritas. Oh yeah…we listened to a little bit of Keith Urban, too! The pie [...]

Look at Me!

I was featured in a blog post today! Okay, it wasn’t just me. I was in a blog post about blog for creative moms with 2 other moms! Here’s a link to the Iowa Au Pair Souce blog so you can read it yourself, and here’s a link to their Facebook page. You should definitely “Like” [...]

Ham-apalooza Day 2

(Post copied from “(Fill in the Blank) Fried Rice”) The perfect dish for leftover ham? Ham Fried Rice, of course! Directions: -Beat 2 eggs and scramble in a hot pan. Remove and set aside. -In the same pan, add 1 T oil. Stir fry meats of choosing (approx 1 c. total) and 1/2 c peas for [...]