28 May
2013

Posted in: Food, Life
By julie    No Comments

Time for Fun

This past weekend was a relaxing time. It started with a soccer game at Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis. We got to watch Manchester City beat Chelsea. We aren’t the biggest soccer people living in a town without a pro team but it was great seeing everyone enjoying a game together.

I took Friday off work. It was nice since I haven’t missed work this year with the exception of being sick and that’s never a fun reason. It turned out to be the sunniest day of the weekend so I’m glad I did it. While I waited for my husband to get home, I took advantage of Ancestry.com’s bonus war records. Does anyone else do geneology? I like doing it on a weekend like Memorial Day when I can see all the past relatives who fought bravely. I feel like it can bring me closer to my family, even if I’m not with them all.

Thankfully I do have a great family. Nova, Daniel and I had fun taking a walk in the park. My little doggie was thrilled to finally have nice weather to take a nice walk. She’s used to running 5Ks but if the rain comes she will trot right back inside.

Speaking of reasons to trot back inside…

This guy showed up in our yard this weekend. We’re used to squirrels, rabbits, opossums, racoons and a deer or turkey now and then but this weekend we saw a coyote and a snapping turtle. We live next to some underdeveloped park land that got a little makeover this week so I’m wondering if we’ll get more visitors.

It wasn’t just a yard full of animals though. We had a nice grilling session each night. Just us, the dog, some burgers and some beers. Oh, and of course some dessert.

How do you dress up your burgers? We set up some fun burger creations for ourselves this weekend. Here were our top three:

Chicken Parm Burger

• Ground chicken mixed with breadcrumbs and some seasonings, grilled
• Top with provolone cheese and marinara

Pizza Burger

• Ground beef mixed with Italian breadcrumbs, onion powder and Italian seasonings
• Top with pepperoni, provolone cheese, marinara and some white cheddar

Western Burger (pictured above right)

• Ground beef mixed with BBQ sauce, Monterrey cheddar cheese mix, seasoning salt, ground black pepper
• Top with American cheese, BBQ sauce, pickle, mustard, and french fried onions

The fabulous strawberry pie pictured below came from The Country Cook. I wasn’t sure if I liked strawberry pie but I ended up loving it so I’m glad I tried some. I’m going to go eat some right now in fact.

Before I run off for the night, I want to give you a tease about a project I started this weekend but will have to wait a couple months till it is ready. Don’t worry, I won’t hold you off that long!

(And no, those aren’t potatoes. They smell much nicer than that, they’re just a little naked right now)

I hope you all had a great weekend!

14 Mar
2012

Posted in: Food
By julie    1 Comment

Pi Day

Happy Pi Day! Pi Day is of course one of the high holidays for nerds. The other is Mole Day (October 23) and that is best celebrated by dressing up in a mole costume and singing a special song in its honor. You’ve never heard the line “that’s 6 with 23 zeros at the end…Much to big a number to comprehend” or danced to it either? Well, fine then, we’ll just stick to Pi Day and its glorious pies made in the holiday’s honor.

Today’s pie isn’t anything fancy. When I was a kid and I would visit my grandma, she’d make it for me and my brother. As a kid I had never seen such a tall pie and it was solid chocolate. My grandma called it dream pie and the first time we ate it my brother had a nightmare that night so he called it nightmare pie for quite a while. The other name we called the pie was pudding pie but being a kid and not being trusted in the kitchen, I had no clue why it would be called dream pie or pudding pie. Here’s a hint.

For this recipe you need a magic ingredient called dream whip (a whipping stabilizer), pudding of your choice, a 9 inch pie crust and milk. That’s it. It’s so simple.

At the beginning you only mix a cup of milk with the dream whip and magically you already have a very fluffy looking base. Then you add in pudding and some more milk and you have a giant fluffy mixture that you just spoon into a pie shell. The hardest part of this recipe is that you have to let the pie chill for 4 hours. It’s super simple and straight from the box so while my grandma never told me her “secret” recipe, I just had to find dream whip on the shelf in the pudding aisle to discover her secret.