Family and food. Those two words often go together for most people. Whether you wake up and cook pancakes on Saturday mornings, have a weekly pizza night, or always make certain Christmas cookies around the holidays – there are some things food always brings to the table. Maybe you always go to a certain restaurant for special meals, or maybe you have your grandmother’s recipe for gingerbread and her worn cloth apron that she would wear as she labored hard over her yeast rolls. Smell in the memories.
Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of these. We loved food – don’t get me wrong. There are a few things: smoked mullet, Granny’s chicken and rice, and Dad’s creole black eyed peas every New Years. Those are good traditions and I even introduced my mister to Papa’s smoked mullet a few years back. However, I want more.
As a wife and a mother of two littles, I want to create traditions, with the OK of my mister, that will do two things:
1. Provide a way to create memories for our family.
2. Help us to see the goodness of God to our family.
Here are three that we have started, and I will explain these two above points as we go along.
Weekly Pizza Night : making it, Little Caesars, store bought – just a night for pizza (and leftovers of course). Who doesn’t like cold pizza for breakfast. Hold the olives, please!
Weekly trips to Trader Joe’s and Ray’s Donuts. I am so grateful that my husband makes time to keep the boys while I go grocery shopping. I seldom go with them anymore because even if I’ve just fed them, they will eat the produce in the cart. Not going to happen. But, I like taking them to Trader Joe’s on Monday mornings. We get TJ cinnamon cookies, try new products, and make all the clerks smile. Building relationships. Its important. And happy boys. Also, we’ve started going to Ray’s Donuts in Marietta (amazing donut holes) one day each week. Nothing fancy, but good donuts. We spent 1.80 this morning, hung out with some friends who joined us, and ate donuts. It was so much fun wiping down my boys’ fingers with a wet wipe because they had glaze in between their little fingers and on the corners of the their lips.
Homemade Pad Thai for New Years. I am definitely southern and like greens and black eyed peas – but I wanted to do something different. So, last year the Mister and I said we would do this. I want to teach my boys to love it – and to teach them to love the different cultures of the world.
Our family is just starting out, but so far I’m building relationships that can hopefully spread into opportunities to share the gospel and I can teach our boys to be thankful for pizza, donuts, and pad thai. God is so good to us. Whether its an additional 5$ for pizza on a Sunday night – where we can rest and enjoy one another and not dirty up a kitchen – or 1.80 for a mid-morning, mid-week fun time with mommy with sticky fingers. These boys will have memories.
What food memories are you creating for your family? We will install more just waiting to see what yumminess!
Fall equals apples to me. And I had a reason to make a cake today: because I had a bag full of apples. And I had a spice cake mix so all I had to do was run to my neighborhood Publix and get some cream cheese. Because we all need some good creamy rich cream cheese frosting every now and then right?
This is simple and moist and definitely a winner. Enjoy tonight!
Spiced Apple Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Recipe Type: Cake
Cuisine: Dessert
Author: kd316
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 12
Moist, perfect fall cake with a thick layer of cream cheese frosting
Ingredients
1 boxed spice cake mix
3 eggs
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 cups chopped, peeled gala apples
1 8oz package of cream cheese
2 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
4 1/2 T unsalted butter
Instructions
Mix cake according to box instructions.
Add in apples before baking.
Spray pan and cook according to box instructions.
Let cool.
Mix cream cheese and butter.
Add in vanilla
Add powdered sugar until frosting is smooth.
Frost cake.
Eat.
I cut circles out of the cake and just set a double layer and made naked cakes with just layers of cream cheese frosting. Sprinkled some cinnamon on top.
This week is vacation week mostly – for our little family (and my parents, otherwise known as Mimi and Pops). We are heading about 90 minutes north of us and retreating to a place we went to while we were growing up (yes, my Mister went too though we didn’t know each other). It will be great to go as a new family!
So, while I won’t be cooking in the Charming South Kitchen, we will still be cooking because the cabins have full kitchens.
Mom is bringing taco soup
I’m making this cake to celebrate both of the boys’ birthdays with Mimi and Pops.
Weeks ago when I was starting to plan for Elijah’s second birthday party – I knew school buses had to be involved. He knows how to say the word school and says it to everything from the city buses, school buses, SUVs, semis, etc. We got him a school bus at Old Navy a few months ago and that’s all he talks about now.
I just wanted to do cupcakes because I figured a school bus cake would be too difficult. And we didn’t want to spend the money on one. And this is one of the reasons I love my Mister: he wanted to do it.
I baked two yellow cake mixes, cut them in the shape of a bus, put the crumb coating on using canned frosting, and made yellow buttercream for it, then he took it from there. It was so fun to watch him tediously pour over the cake to make it right for his son. That is one of the ways he loves his son.
My Mister is multi-talented, now I can add cake decorating to the list. We are thinking of ideas for Sebastian’s first cake in a few weeks.
Thanks to my former co-worker (and friend and running buddy) for her expertise on cake decorating. And truth be told – the cake was delicious and all but a piece of it was gone!
Birthdays are for celebrating. It is the day that God brought a person into the world: the personality, the eyes, the eyelashes, the fun, the spirit, the name – everything about the person – God wants us to love and hold.
One way I love to celebrate birthdays is by having food. Celebrating over meals and friends and fun times is such a joy!
Some of my favorites from yesterday’s party:
The smell of the charcoal heating up to grill some delicious burgers.
Sebastian stuffing in little pieces of canteloupe and devouring a cookie with yellow frosting: therefore, having yellow frosting everywhere.
Elijah staring at his cupcake and then stuffing it in his face.
Friends sitting around enjoying relationships – over good ol’ American food.
Yellow everywhere! It was a happy party with a happy color!
Here’s what we had:
Burgers (thanks to my brother for the “recipe” and my neighbor for making them and the Mister for grilling them). Perfectly cooked!
Crescent Dogs (so yummy!)
Baked Beans – may never make another bean recipe again – and I loved serving it my Papa’s cast iron skillet
What a great, delicious day. Thanks to all who came, brought stuff, and ate, and laughed, and celebrated our little boy with us! Here’s to many more birthday celebrations to come!
Mexican Food. Easily my favorite comfort food. Give me a big bowl of fresh guacamole and some tortilla chips and I’m a happy camper. You can’t go wrong with anything Mexican. I do like making it at home, but don’t usually – I guess I would rather go out and get it.
We had a date the other night – and I love cooking for our babysitters. I decided to make homemade enchiladas and hoped the recipe turned out well since I didn’t even try it before we left the house. Half the pan was gone by the time we arrived home – great amount for a meal’s worth of leftovers for us the next day.
Rotisserie chickens are good and all from grocery stores, but I also like making my own roasted chicken. Especially for recipes like that – because I usually can’t find a tex-mex flavor rotisserie chicken in the deli. This one was so easy and I did it the night before while the mister and I were watching one of the our favorite summer shows.
You can serve this with red or green enchilada sauce and whatever side dish you want – we chose black beans (which I doctored up with lime juice and some avocado)
Roasted Chicken Enchilada Casserole
Recipe Type: Casserole
Cuisine: Mexican
Author: The Charming South Kitchen
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4-6
Mexican comfort food at its best!
Ingredients
1 whole chicken
taco seasoning
6 whole wheat tortillas (medium size)
1 1/2 cans red enchilada sauce)
1 can refried beans
1 onion
1/2 cup canned corn, drained
1/2 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
1 small can chopped green chilis, drained
3 cups mexican blend shredded cheese
Instructions
Preheat oven to 450.
Rinse and pat dry a whole chicken. Remove inner parts of chicken if any. Put in a pan and drizzle olive oil on top. Sprinkle (ok, a lot) of taco seasoning on top.
Cook for about an hour or until done. (depends on the size of your chicken)
Let rest and cool then shred the chicken.
In a pan on stove, heat more oil.
Cook onion for about 3 minutes, then add corn, chilis, and beans to heat through – about 3 more minutes.
In a 2 quart casserole, start layering with enchilada sauce, then tortillas (I tore mine to fit the pan I used),
Then refried beans, chicken, onion mixture, cheese.
Repeat layer one more time for a total of two layers.
Top with tortillas, sauce, and cheese.
Bake for about 35 minutes on 350 until all the cheese is melted.
