Baby shower food!

The food table

So, my sweet pretend daughter (see her awesome profile right there? I sure love that girl!), had two requests - she's so easy to please! 

She said to her mom - You have to make your strawberry pretzel stuff. That's what's in the oval shaped dish on the back of the table. I have no idea how to make it, I just know I can't eat it. As a matter of fact, there was only one thing on this table I could eat... pshaw - the things we do for the people we love... I digress...The other request was for me and it was banana pudding. Easy!

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I also made a fruit pizza bar sort of thingy. Here's what you need for that:
Sugar cookies (make them a little big so there's good surface area)
Fruit (I used blueberries, peaches, and strawberries)
Icing (1 regular sized jar of fluff and 8oz room temp cream cheese, mix. Easy peasy, right??) 

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Then there was the Mozzarella Cheese Ball. I've never actually eaten this, but I've made it several times and always get rave reviews. I first saw it on Plain Chicken and I didn't change a thing!

• 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 package (4 1/2 tsp) dry ranch dressing mix
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• finely chopped pecans

Combine first 4 ingredients in a bowl.  Mix well.  Form mixture into a ball and roll in chopped pecans.  I made two of them, so I just doubled the recipe. I served it with good, hearty crackers. 

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Finally, I made Pepperoni Pizza Puffs. I found this recipe a while back on Lick The Bowl Good. She pulled it from a couple places and made her own adaptations. I made them pretty much the way she did except I didn't measure most of it! haha. 

• 3/4 cup flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• pinch of salt
• pinch of red pepper flakes 
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 cup cubed pepperoni

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 24-cup mini-muffin pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, Italian seasoning, salt and red pepper flakes; whisk in the milk and egg. Stir in the mozzarella, Parmesan and pepperoni; let stand for 10 minutes.

Stir the batter and divide among the mini-muffin cups. Bake until puffed and golden, 20 minutes.Serve with pizza sauce. Really, do it. They may seem like they're missing something if you don't have the sauce! Next time I make them, I may try adding the sauce IN the muffins. Trial and error, baby! 

Baby Boy shower - Favors and Drinks!

It's a BOY! 

We had a baby shower on the cheap. And I mean cheap. I also mean quick. My dear pretend daughter (yes, that's a real term in my world - deal with it), made a last minute decision to move home. Her and her sweetie were living in GA and she just really wanted to be close to family when her baby came. 

So what's a girl like me, who loves through food, parties, events, supposed to do? Well, throw a party, of course!

The photo above was filled with her party favors. We decided to go with cookies because it was something I could do much cheaper than buying gifts for everyone. These are really big chocolate chip cookies with small thank you tags on each one.

Baby boy punch!

I saw this on Pinterest and just knew that I had to do it! Isn't it just about the sweetest thing ever? I did have to make a couple changes, but the idea is just the same!

I used:

1 huge bowl

2 rubber duckies (make sure they are floaters!!)

1 two liter bottle of ginger ale

1 64oz bottle of white grape juice

1 large bottle of Blue HI-C juice

Pineapple sherbet

I used a HUGE pot to pour the ginger ale and juices into and mixed that up first. Then I filled the punch bowl, almost to the top - leaving enough room to add in the sherbet. I didn't measure how much sherbet I used, I just added it until I was done adding it. =] 

Place rubber duckies on top. Done. =]

To serve the punch, we wrapped a cute "Baby Boy" ribbon around mason jars and called 'em glasses. =]

That's how we roll. Yep. 

New laptop!

Okay, so now that I've touted the awesomeness of my new laptop from every mountain I know from which to shout, we can get down to some business!

I literally have a million things brewing in my brain and I knew the time would come when I would have to figure out how to focus my blog.

Maybe I get two?

Here's the thing...

I love food. I love to cook. I love to organize events.

However...

I also have a heart yearning for Christ and longing to love others... 

I don't know how to make both things co-exist on one blog. I mean, I can do it, but if I hope to grow my blog, which I do... where's the focus?

I want ONE place to call home. I don't want to have to wobble all over the place trying to make sure I'm updating the right things, on the right blog, at the right time... I just wanna do it! 

I'm done with the rant. I'll be thinking about how to make this work.

In the meantime, my world is crazy full! I have a few blog posts just waiting to be written. A baby shower post, a bridal shower post, and I think I have a random recipe or two.

I also have a few God things brewing in my heart. None of which I've been able to put to paper, erm blog, yet. They're coming, though.

Until I start spilling... ciao!