Fairy Ferry

Tonight we are heading to a Midsummer Night's Dream themed outdoor party at a friend's home.  Costumes are strongly encouraged, but no amount of encouraging would get Tony to wear a fairy costume.  So instead, I got to work drawing a ferry on a shirt for him to wear.  I went as a fairy, complete with sparkly purple eye lashes, fairy wings, and pointy fairy ears.  Tony went as a ferry...

His shirt was the hit of the party, and not because people understood the joke.  Apparently people really want tshirts with a ferry on them.  It was pretty cool.  If you want one, email me.

Baby Onesies

We are visiting my sweet little niece today and as gifts, we created little onesies for her.  I made two: one with ruffles on the buns, and another with a 'G' on the front.

C and B both made one too.  C's foot on the left, and B's drawing of a rainbow, heart, and balloon coming out of a smokestack on right...

What an adorable little girl!

Kitchen Sink Pasta

Pasta dishes are great. You don't really need a recipe to make a meal with noodles.  You can add just butter and some parmesean cheese for an ever popular kid dish (adult too!).  Or add some crushed tomatoes, basil and a pinch of salt for a light summery dish.  Or add some butter, cream, cooked bacon pieces and cooked butternut squash chunks. Or go all out and spend half a day making a hearty sauce.

Tonight I was staring two cooked chicken breasts, cooked bacon, and the makings for caprese salad.  Tony was at a golf tournament, so I wanted something fast to make.  But also flavorful.  I knew caprese wouldn't be a smart item to serve a 4 and 1 year old.  Instead I chopped it all up and tossed with fresh fettucine noodles.

To get started, I put the grape tomatoes on a cookie sheet lined with foil and sprinkled with salt and some olive oil.  I put it oven on broil until the skins started to split and char a bit.

Meanwhile I boiled the water and cooked the fresh fettucini noodles, chopped up the cooked chicken breasts, basil, mozzerella, and cooked bacon.  When the noodles were done, I drained them and reserved a cup of pasta water in case the finished pasta needed some moisture.  Then added the chopped up ingredients as well as the tomatoes to the noodles and sprinkled each serving with some grated parmesean.  It was a hit with everyone!

Strawberry Cake

I was browsing the internet and came across a strawberry cake that had rave reviews and looked pretty good.  It uses a white box cake mix as the base and calls for a few 'extras' to add a great fruit flavor.  I served this at a pool party tonight and everyone seemed to like it and the kids couldn't eat it fast enough.

The overall flavor of the cake is very fresh and tastes like you're eating an actual strawberry; one of my favorite fruits. Only downside is that its pretty sweet, but that just means this cake will serve a larger group than normal if you do slightly smaller slices.

I predict I'll be making this again, maybe for my daughter's 2nd birthday party.

Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting, adapted from Bake or Break recipe

18.25 oz box white cake mix

3oz box strawberry-flavored instant gelatin

16oz frozen strawberries in sugar, thawed and pureed

4 large eggs

1/2 c. canola oil

1/4 c. water

Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly grease/spray 2 9-inch round cake pans.

Combine cake mix and gelatin in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat in 14oz of pureed strawberries, eggs, oils, and water until smooth. Pour batter into pans, dividing the batter equally between them.

Bake 25-30 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in pans 15 minutes. Then, remove from pans and cool completely on wire racks.

Frosting:

1/4 c. butter, softened

8oz cream cheese, softened

Remaining 2oz of frozen strawberries in sugar, thawed and pureed

6 c. confectioners’ sugar

With an electric mixer, beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed until creamy. Beat in strawberries. Gradually add confectioners’ sugar and beat until smooth.

Spread frosting on cake, covering between layers, on top, and on the sides. Garnish with fresh strawberries.

Invitations

Before my life was full of kids and chaos, I would make invitations for weddings, baby showers, bridal showers, rehearsal dinners... basically anything that could use an invite or a card.  Recently I was contacted by my mom's friends to design and create their wedding reception invitations.  I was excited to get back to my creative roots.

I had so much fun coming up with a simple, yet tasteful invite with some asian flair.  The end product was beautiful and the hand screened Washi paper from Japan really added to the invite. 

Congrats Ken and Stafne!  I know your party will be so much fun!  Canlis is such an amazing venue.

Vegetable Garden

This year I got a little smarter about what to plant.  I'm not wasting time with lots of onions or garlic.  I could never tell when they were ready to harvest last year.  I added a few more pumpkin plants, squash plants, and corn.  We also had a surprise potato plant pop up, so hopefully we'll have a few of those to enjoy too!

Jack o'lantern pumpkins, with some onions and lemon thyme in background:

More pumpkins in their own pots:

6 corn plants:

Two tomato plants and chives:

Raspberry plant:

Potato plant that popped up because I obviously missed digging up a few potatoes last year! 

We also have sugar snap peas, peppermint, rosemary, chives, parsley, basil, butternut squash and zucchini.  Crossing my fingers that the sun will come out for a few days in a row.  None of these plants are very happy without some warmth and sunshine to get things moving and growing!

What do you grow in your veggie garden or containers?

Happy 4th!

Nothing screams patriotic pool party like bright red strawberries and watermelon.  And the annual flag cake...

 

Happy 4th of July!