Simple Fall Brunch

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Food is such a part of my story, that I love sharing it with others.

I remember the meal my husband cooked for me during my “year of vegetarian” when we met, dated, got engaged, and got married – he cooked the meal before he asked me to marry him.

There are food stories I have that bring a smile to my face and ones that bring me to tears – either because they bring sadness or deep hurt.

Weight has always been a part of my story as I have been heavy most of my life.  I wasn’t even the skinny ballerina during my one year of ballet in Kindergarten, and I probably had a plus size tutu for clogging in 4th grade.  I loved clogging.  And I still remember some of the steps.  And it still is a part of my story.  I remember specific life events and the weight I was when those events happened.  I’ve lost weight and gained weight so many times I’ve lost count.

But today, I got to share my love of food with new friends.  Being in the creative industry gives us a common ground, being mamas is another line of commonality, but today, we also got to enjoy loving food together.  And I enjoyed putting it all together.

One of my favorite things to do is be in the kitchen together with friends.  So, today, I still had to put this quiche together (go run by leeks and make this tonight for dinner).  And my friend jumped right in and helped.  We talked, photographed food, and made food together.  Food is one of the only things in life that every human has in common.  We all have food.

So, food is a wonderful joiner.  Hopefully.  Today, we joined over conversation about our motherhood journeys, food, creative business, weddings, travel, and community.

Having some friends over for brunch should not be hard.  And we through in a toddler too!  I just picked a few things to make – a quiche, fruit and cheese tray, and cookies.  I made the cookies yesterday.  The board is super easy with just some fresh fruit, cheese, and little danishes from the Publix bakery.

The quiche was made during the preparation this morning and my friend helped.  Don’t be afraid of help.  Allow friends (and family, including littles) to join you in the kitchen.  And y’all, even though I know how to make a crust, I always use Pillsbury rolled doughs.  So easy and yummy.

And the cookies, I just made them yesterday as I was home and the recipe said they would be better the next day.  Reading recipes is super important.  And I didn’t have dirty dishes from baking this morning.

And here’s a little hint: my floor hadn’t been swept, but for the most part my home was picked up.  Two things: having people over regularly keeps your home clean.  And if you pick up a little every day and have a husband and kids that help – it makes cleaning easier.  And you know what, your friends shouldn’t care if your home is super clean or not.  But, I think it is good stewardship of your home to keep it tidy.

The Fall – perfect time to bring people in, hear their stories, share yours, enjoy good food, and live life with other people.  And Hannah Anderson, who launched a new book yesterday, also wrote a piece today in CT about doing community with broken people (hint: we are all broken).  Go read it!

 

Sunday Funday

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Hey yall.

So, I’m home from church this morning because I woke up with a killer sore throat and ear ache (probably tonsillitis again like I had in December).  I took a low-dose oxycodone because I didn’t want to walk downstairs and get tylenol.  And with little sleep and on meds, I locked myself out of my house.  Had to wait for the mister to be done with playing for the service to tell me where our spare key was.  Now, I’m fading, but thought I’d have some fun.  If this post makes no sense, you’ll know why.

Just thought I’d share some things I’m loving right now!

This book.  It has be a good primer for me in drawing flowers.

These little cute things.  They will go over my desk when we get a curtain rod, so right now they are in our dining room. I got them from a local nursery.

Friends who know more than I do about DIY projects.

These chocolate chip cookies.  They are perfection.  I like them with dark chocolate to cut the sweetness just a little.

Dreaming of summer and day trips to visit friends.

This book.  I just finished it.  A must read.

What have you been loving?  Please share!

Finding Lovely

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Finding Lovely

To say its been a hard week over here, may just be an understatement.  But, in those moments, God still wants me to pursue him, pursue a grateful heart, cry out to him with everything I’m feeling (he’s not surprised by any of it).  He gives me Himself, He gives me friends that accept crazy texts in the middle of the day, who pray for me.  He also gives me lots of lovelies that I find here.

This is the post each week where I get to share these lovelies with you.  Enjoy.

This soup looks crazy good.  I’m definitely making it next week.

I showed these to my husband.  I’d love all these pretty things to organize my home office.  Which currently is my dining room table and a desk positioned in a beautiful bay window.

I love this momma and these chocolate cookies.

Podcasts are amazing.  I’ve been listening to these this week: DC preaching, real life momma and ministry, and raising boys.

And since i’m not really traveling any time soon, I thought I would post about a little place I would love to go – especially in the fall or winter when I could snuggle by the fire.

What are some lovelies that you have found this week?

 

This Week in the Charming South Kitchen

Chocolate chip cookies

Hooray for a Monday off (well, I really don’t work, so not much change here) and the unofficial start of fall.  I’ve got some eating healthy to do this week.  My mister has some stuff going on with work so the littles and I will be eating our meals by ourselves for a few days at night.

I have some leftovers to send with the mister for lunches: beef stew, triple b mac and cheese, cream of celery soup (recipe coming soon), and vegetarian baked ziti.  And this week I’ll be making:

Spaghetti Casserole

Lots of green smoothies

Lots of salads

The boys faves: chicken nuggets, fish nuggets, veggies, fruit, sandwich meat, pbj, etc.

Making these muffins (it is one of our rotations for breakfast along with oats, yogurt and granola and fruit, and cinnamon toast)

 

 

Lemon Cardamom Shortbread Cookies

Lemon Cardamom Shortbread

Cardamom is definitely my favorite go-to spice with anything berries or citrus.  It just lends that special “oomph” and “hmmm, wonder what is in there” to any recipe.  I have made some cardamom sugar with the pods and always have ground cardamom in my spice “basket” (a wine box I found at Goodwill which I love and am always in search of another one for cheap).

Anyway, I had to share this recipe tonight!  Just in case you have tons of lemons and you just have to have cookies with your decaf tonight!

This recipe is a shout out to Cheryl Day who owns Back in the Day Bakery – my fave cafe in my favorite city in Georgia, Savannah.  I tweaked her recipe and oh by golly is it good (and her’s is stellar too by the way).

Lemon Cardamom Shortbread Cookies
Author: 
Recipe type: Cookies
Cuisine: Dessert
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 3 dozen
 
Perfect chewy shortbread for that cup of coffee!
Ingredients
  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
  • 1½ tsp lemon extract (I love opening the bottle of this, smells amazing)
  • ¼ tsp sea salt
  • 1¼ cup 10x sugar
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • zest of two lemons
  • ⅛-1/4 cup cardamom sugar (for sprinkling on top before baking)
Instructions
  1. Heat oven to 350.
  2. Spray sheet pans with baking spray.
  3. Cream butter. Add in salt and lemon. Combine sugar and zest. Then add in all purpose flour. Shape into balls with your hands and gently press them down (I'd love to find a pretty cookie press for this one, a simple, antique one would be great).
  4. Let chill in fridge for 2 hours.
  5. Sprinkle cardamom sugar on top of each cookie.
  6. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.
  7. Cool a little - then devour them warm, or wait until morning.
 

 

Dark Chocolate Pecan Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dark Chocolate Pecan Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

I didn’t grow up on homemade cookies.  The closest we got were a couple of Christmas goodies I remember my Mom training me to bake and Publix cookies.  Oreos were always my favorite and of course I was a Girl Scout so the peanut butter sandwich cookies were my favorite thin – now, it is the Thin Mints, hands down.

But, now, sometimes, I wake up thinking about chocolate chip cookies.  Who knows?  But, I woke up this morning thinking about cookies.  It was raining.  I have boys.  Friends were coming over.  No time to go to the store.  This is how these amazing cookies started.

A new friend gave me some toffee on a recent trip to the Triangle.  I had mini chips in the freezer.  My mom always stocks my pantry full of pecans, and I had bars of chocolate in my baking stash.

These are the perfect chewy consistency.  Nice and big but not too flat.  I tweaked a recipe and it turned out great.  I hope you enjoy!

Chewy Cookies

Dark Chocolate Pecan Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: Cookies
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 24-30
 
These chewy chunky toffee cookies will be a crowd pleaser!
Ingredients
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • ¾ tsp sea salt
  • ¾ tsp baking soda
  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • ⅔ cup packed light brown sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 2 eggs
  • Half cup each:
  • chopped toffee
  • mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • chopped milk chocolate
  • 1 cup chopped pecans
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375. Lightly spray baking sheets.
  2. Combine dry ingredients and set aside.
  3. Cream together the butter and the sugars.
  4. Add eggs and vanilla.
  5. Add in the dry ingredients and stir together.
  6. Fold in the add-ins.
  7. Do not over mix
  8. I got 6 cookies per baking sheet - so these are pretty generous cookies.
  9. Bake for 12 minutes.
  10. Do not over bake.
  11. Let cool for 1-2 minutes and remove to a cooling rack. If you let them stay on the baking sheets, the toffee will stick to the pan.
 

This Week in the Charming South Kitchen

Apple Peel

I have a love hate relationship with Pinterest and Instagram.

Pinterest gives me so many options but sometimes the recipes just aren’t any good. Then I’ve wasted a meal and may not even serve it to my family and resort then to pbj or cereal!

Instagram shows me lovely ways to style food and tells me what food days are coming – and I usually tend to bake or cook something that I don’t need.  But its fun!

We love brinner at our house and I have tons of eggs in the fridge.

I do love to bake with the boys and these will be a fun treat to have in the house.  I just can’t eat them all!

Love fish tacos.  Nothing beats grilled or fried mahi but we have swai so I will use it.

 

 

 

Weekend Link Love

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Pumpkins and Link Love

It is a beautiful fall day here in the Atlanta Metro area.  The blue sky beckons you to be outdoors (but my littles are asleep) and we are heading to the river later on today.  The crisp morning air gives way to cooler sunny afternoons.

Here are a few posts for your weekend viewing:

We went on a two week road trip for our honeymoon and loved it all.  One of the meals in Prince Edward Island has turned out to be a much requested (never made) meal for my mister.  I’m going to aim at fixing that this week with this recipe.

I passed by a sale feature today at TJ when I went of Raspberries. My older son could eat them all in one sitting if I let him.  I give him some at each meal if I have them on hand.  I tell him the reason I give him those is because I love him.  Baby brother doesn’t like them. His daddy sure does.  I’m making this granola to go with it this coming weekend for a special breakfast before family pictures and donut day

Definitely would consider this a tasty way to use up the two acorn squash sitting in my fruit bowl on my island.

Just because into every life must come the perfect sugar cookie.

One of the reasons I love to travel is to taste all of the food that the city I’m going to has to offer.  I’ve been to the Bay Area one time and I so want to return. Actually, one of my dream trips is to fly into San Fran and mill around and then drive up the coast or however you get to Napa and Big Sur.  Oh, to dream.  But, reading this post, I at least know which stops to make with a fork in hand.

Soft and Chunky Oreo Peanut Butter Cookies

 

Soft and Chunky Oreo Peanut Butter Cookies

Here are two disclaimers for this recipe post about a delicious cookie:

1.  I am a purist when it comes to Oreo Cookies.  None of these fancy seasonal flavors or even the double stuff or reduced-fat. No, give me the original!

2.  I wouldn’t say that peanut butter cookies are my favorite.  There are plenty in front of it.

So, when I passed by the Peanut Butter Oreos in the Wal-Mart aisle today, it could only be my creative streak and giving into my son when he said “cookie” that made me want to whip up a batch of these.

Elijah's first baking

But how would Oreos and Reece’s Pieces (E. T. Phone Home – my husband’s favorite childhood flick) go together.  I guess there was only one way to find out!

Reece's Pieces

Bake!

These cookies were like pillow-soft.  I loved that about them.  Perfect texture.  I loved the chewiness with the texture from the Oreo pieces and candy coating from the Reece’s.  My husband said he wouldn’t change a thing. I’m glad. I adore these cookies.

And the colors work perfectly for the Fall.

Soft and Chunky Oreo Peanut Butter Cookies
Author: 
Recipe type: cookies
Cuisine: dessert
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 18-24
 
Soft, chewy, chunky, peanut butter cookies - easy to munch on all night!
Ingredients
  • 1½ sticks unsalted butter, softened
  • ½ cup dark brown sugar
  • ½ cup regular sugar
  • ½ cup creamy peanut butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1¼ cup all-purpose flour
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp kosher salt
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • 1 cup crushed Oreos (but not too fine)
  • 1 cup mini Reece's Pieces
Instructions
  1. Cream butter and sugars for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
  2. Add peanut butter, egg, and vanilla - mix for another 5.
  3. Add in dry ingredients
  4. Fold in Oreos and Reece's.
  5. Spray 3 cookies sheets with cooking spray.
  6. Preheat oven to 350
  7. Spoon out onto sheet pans and bake for 10-12 minutes or until set - but don't overcook.
  8. Let cool.
  9. Devour
 

Just for You: Link Love

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Pink and Orange

I spend much time on the internet: writing, reading, looking for recipes, etc – so I thought I would share some great finds with you.  Enjoy!

Because we are coming upon soup season (isn’t that every day?) and you need to make this

And this pretty one too

Love these cupcakes and the author’s ownership of her own blog instead of trying just to please her readers

Good read on how you can be a joy to be around on Sunday morning (in church) – and you can talk about football or cooking or kids

It takes a lot of skill to make steel cut oats look pretty and desirable

These cookies would make a perfect cookie for a swap

We love us some popcorn in our house, my Mister may need to make us this

This for breakfast – yes please.