Valentin'es Dinner!

We had a GREAT time last night with Bethany and Brian! It was soo much fun!
What we had for dinner:
For an appetizer I made a fancy bread loaf. You will need an Italian Bread loaf, sliced mushrooms, swiss cheese, poppy seed, garlic, butter, and a small onion. Slice the bread diagonally but not the whole way through. Leave about 1 inch from the bottom. Then slice it diagonally the other way. Put a mushroom and a piece of swiss cheese in each slit. In the microwave, melt the butter (1/4 cup) with 1 1/2 tbsp of poppy seeds, a dallop of garlic, and the small onion (diced). Spoon the butter mixture on top of the bread. Put the bread in foil and bake for 40 min at 350. :) delicious!!
For dinner we had asparagus, Garlic Chicken, and Cheesy scalloped potatoes.
Then for dessert, I made Chocolate Pots de Creme. It's a very complicated recipe, so if you want it you'll have to email me. :D But it was really really good. Very rich though. But very very good.
I hope all of yall had a great weekend too!! Talk to you soon!

Sneek Peak!!

Okay, So next weekend my friend is coming for dinner and she is bringing her new boyfriend! I met him at our Halloween party, but did not get to talk to him much, being a hostess and all i was all over the place... So i thought maybe dinner would be nice. And since it's almost Valentine's day, I decided to do a Pink Valentine's Day Themed Dinner Party! I'm super excited! I just love a good excuse to throw a good ole fashioned Southern Dinner Party. So here is a sneek peak at some of the decorations i've made so far: the first picture is of my tissue paper pom pom and triangle banner! Super easy and super fun to make. I just guessed at the banner and the pom pom i used Martha Stewart's diy tutorial. The second picture are little hearts i decorated from Hobby Lobby to use as my placecards.

I'm also making a menu card, and hopefully these super cute charger plates made out of old records.

I'm sure it's going to be a great evening! I can't wait!!

Jeremy's Famous Katalina Roast!

Instead of going somewhere for date night this week, Jeremy made his famous Katalina Roast and I wanted to share the recipe with you! :)

Ingredients:

1 2lb beef roast

2 bottles of Katalina Dressing

Baby Carrots

Red Onion, chopped in big slivers

Small red potatoes, halved

Small bottle of green olives

Salt and Pepper

First, Brown the Meat in a pan so that the flavor will stay in the meat. Just get the ends nice and browned. Don't cook the meat all the way through.

Next, put some of the potatoes in the bottom of a crock pot so that the meat does not touch the bottom of the pot (it will burn).

When you are done browing the meat, put the meat on top of the potatoes. Add the rest of the veggies on top of the meat.

Pour the Katalina dressing on top of everything. Add a bottle of water if you need it (you want the meat to boil in the sauce, that way it will be nece and tender).

Cook in the crock pot for 5 to 6 hours or until the meat is done and tender. Be careful it does not boil over! lol, that happened to us, so be careful. Then Enjoy!!!!

New Year, New Stuff!

Okay, sorry about the long leave of absence. Work gets really crazy during the holidays and i'm just now slowing down to a pace that is more comforatable. Lots of things have happened since Thanksgiving!

1. Christmas was awesome! i got some brand new luggage for our cruise in March and our honeymoon in September (which by the way we are going to go to SCOTLAND!!!yay!!)

2. My cousin Ashley is going to have another baby!! i'm so excited!!

3. On a really sad note, our cat Talmadge lost his battle with heart disease on Jan. 8th. Mom and I were looking at invitations when jeremy called. He was fine that morning before we left. i even gave him some treats. And the night before he even had his favorite meal, chicken. But Jeremy said that he let him inside and he jumped up in his bed, and fifteen minutes later he started having a heart attack and he died in jeremy's arms. I'm still really hurting about this and it makes me cry typing it. i feel terrible that i wasn't there for him. Mom took me home immediately and i got to say goodbye to him on jeremy's bed. We put him in a box with some of his favorite toys and a letter telling him how much we love him. I still cry everytime i think about him and Jeremy says it will get better with time. Mom bought a little statue of a cat with wings that we put on his grave and mama fudge got us a tombstone with his name on it for us which should be here by the end of the week. I really miss him alot.

4.. Okay, Wedding stuff: We finally got a DJ for the reception. His name is TJ McKay and he also does a show on the oldies station in Columbia. real excited, i think he'll be perfect!

5. We picked out our invitations!! They are super cute! And they have everything i was looking for. They have a bow, monogram and we get to use purple ink! :) yay! i don' t have a picture but i hope to in the future! :) get excited!!

6. Earlier this month i started a kind of bridal boot camp thing. By the end of 2010, i weighed 220 lbs. I know, awful. So i've started a strict low calorie diet with lots of exercise. I love this dvd called walk away the pounds. I feel so much stronger! i still have to go and buy a new scale (mine broke, well actually i got really pissed off at it for telling me i was weighing more than when i started so it got put in the trash can) ... But, i did measure myself and i've lost 3 inches on my waist!! That is AWESOME!! i'm so proud of myself! I'm hopeing to get down to 190/180 by April, which i think is doable. I go for my first dress fitting in April so i'd really like to get to that ideal weight by then. After April, i'm going to start focusing on my arms and back, since that is what will be seen in the dress. So thats my plan. Any more suggestions and lots of encouragement would be much appreciated!

Well that's all i can think of right now. I will post again soon! Less than 8 Months to go!!

Thanksgiving

What I'm Thankful For 2010:

• My great and supportive family
• My incredibly Awesome Fiance
• That I have a job
• My three cats
• That my cat Talmadge's heart disease has not gotten worse
• All of my wonderful friends
• Strangers that have turned into good friends
• Food on the table
• Roof over my head
• Gas in my car

I Hope that Everyone has a Wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

7 Course Dinner

Okay, I have never ever had a 7 course dinner in my life and let me tell you that now that I have, i'm going to have to do them more often. For those of you who don't know, my little brother, Jamie, is in Culinary school at USC. For his exam this year, he has to make a 7 course dinner. So tonight he did a trial run and me and Jeremy were invited to help "taste" his creations before the actual test. OMG! it was Fantastic!! I'm so impressed by his culinary skills! I feel so lucky that he is my brother! I'm going to run down the menu for you so you can also see how awesome he is.

1. Appetizer: It was a shrimp/cream cheese/ yellow and red bell pepper dip with French Bread rounds.
2. Salad: Waldorf Salad on lettice leaves. (i've never had waldorf salad before and I loved it! It's sliced apples in this white sauce and cheese over lettice. yummy)
3. Soup: Butternut Squash soup with lentils with a spoon full of sour cream and parsley. (again, OMG! sooo good! I was very suprised when i took the first spoonful becuase it was sweet! not super sweet, but still sweet but then it turned very savory at the end. Mom informed me that there was also pureed apple in the soup as well. I got to take home some leftovers so i'm very excited)
4. Fish Dish: A salmon fillet with lemon, arugula, and white wine. (Melt in your mouth. very very good)
5. Sorbet: lime sorbet to clense the pallet before the main course.
6. Main Dish: Stuffed Beef Tenderloin (stuffed with mushrooms, onion, and spinach), grilled asparagus with balsalmic vinegar, and sweet potato rounds with blackened sage. ( i think this was one of everyone's favorite parts. The conversation stopped so you know it was good. The steak was so tender you could cut it with a butter knife. LOVED IT!)
7. Dessert: Banana's Foster. (O, M, G. this was my second favorite! First of all, I LOVE banana's foster. it's one of my favorite desserts. The way Jamie did his up in a glass was: bottom - vanilla icecream, middle - the bananas which he did over the stove with banana rum and regular rum, above that - choclate sauce (!!!!!), and then he topped it off with whip cream and a strawberry. just wow people, just wow)

So if you can imagine I am totally STUFFED! but it was sooo worth it! And if he doesn't pass with flying colors on this exam, i'm gonna go give the judge's a piece of my mind. I just can't wait for him to cook up something else. And i already told him that if he needs anyone to taste-test again to call us up immediately ! :D

My New List

I've been worrying and stressing out about alot of things lately for no good reason. And it's time for a change. So I wrote a list that I'm going to read every morning before I leave the house to help me get through the day. I'm really trying to do this with out drugs or doctors this time. I thought i'd share my list and hopefully it might help someone else out there that is feeling the same as i do.

• Leave Work at Work
• Family and Home take precedence over Career
• More Flies are caught w/ Honey than w/ Vinegar
• You are a Smart and Beautiful Person
• Positive, Optimistic Attitudes are a necessity of life
• Choose your Battles Carefully
• Laugh at Life's upsets and turn them to your advantage
• Learn from your mistakes
• Kindness and Compassion are enver out of date or out of style
• Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
• If it won't matter in 3-5 years, don't worry about it