Warming Up To Grandpa

Colin has proved my point, food is the way to a man's heart. For a while now, Colin has not been to fond of either my dad or Wes's dad (at least he doesn't discriminate). He really doesn't care for anyone other than Grams, Daddy, or me, but he will at least tolerate some other women. Yes, he's already checking out the ladies. Wes took him to the mall last week and a girl with high heels walked by. Colin stuck his head out of the stroller and watched her as she walked by. What? Convinced she must have looked like me, I asked Wes if she had blond hair. No, she had brown hair and looked nothing like me. Great! But I digress. It breaks my heart to see both grandpas try so hard to entertain and gain his affection, but Colin will have no part of it. They both pass him off as soon as he even whimpers and I almost wish them to keep holding him, in hopes that he'll get over it. Well my dad has learned the trick, feed him! As long as you're shoving food in front of him, he doesn't care who you are or what you look like, just keep it coming. I've read that they start to grow out of this stranger anxiety stage at about 18 months - not a minute too soon for me. I know he'll love both of his grandpas so much if he just gives them a chance!

Mommy wow! I'm a big boy now!

It seems like just yesterday I was posting about Colin sitting, kneeling, and wobbly standing. Today I'm back with more of the same. It seems like these things happen overnight and the next morning he just decides, "today I'm going to sit up", or "today I'm going to stand". Just as I was afraid, with his new found tricks come new found headaches! We've found yet another similarity between Colin and his Dad, he loves pots and pans. He doesn't discriminate though, as long as it's in a closed cabinet, he wants to play with it. Right now he prefers all the plastic Tupperware-type dishes. He likes to pull them all out into the floor and then play with the very first thing he yanked out, which is also usually the smallest thing. He is quite destructive and is not content until he has pulled, ripped, or yanked everything in sight onto the floor. If he sees something that he can't reach, he grunts, no whines, until he reaches it on his own or we help him. You can just imagine what story time is like at night when he has to pull down every single book and then when I try to pick them up and put them back, he looks at me like, "hey, I worked hard to get those all down and now you're just going to put them all back?" My Mom took some pictures of him with all of his Tupperware and then one where he climbed into the cabinet once he pulled everything out, which I'll post later. For now, I'll post some pictures of his progress in standing up. Right now he would rather be standing than anything else. Oh and he has progressed into a full crawl now and he took his first sideways steps on Sunday! Stay tuned for more adventures in Colin-land.



These are him discovering the stairs and looking longingly at them.

Leftover Girl Scout Cookies??

By this time, you have either eaten all of your Girl Scout cookies or you're wishing they were gone because you're sick of them. Well I have a great little recipe here where you can get rid of some extras. The recipe is flexible in that you can substitute any type of cookie that you have on hand. I chose the peanut butter sandwich cookies, but thin mints, oreos, nutter butters, or anything else would work too. I actually had some other softer peanut butter cookies leftover that I used in the filling and on top, but the Girl Scout ones will work too.

Girl Scout Peanut Butter Cookie Cheesecake Cups

7 Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies, ground in food processor or blender(if you use a single cookie like Thin Mints, use about 13 cookies)
2 Tablespoons melted butter
8 oz softened cream cheese
1/2 Cup sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 Tablespoons buttermilk
3 Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies coarsely crumbled
1/4 Cup chocolate chips
2-3 Tablespoons heavy cream
1-3 Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies, crumbled (for top of cups)

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Combine ground cookies and butter in a medium bowl. Drop about 2 Tablespoon of cookie mixture into 12 cupcake tins that have been sprayed with cooking spray. (If you have cupcake paper wrappers I'd use them). Press crust into cups with back of a spoon or your fingers.

2. In an electric or stand mixer cream the cream cheese and sugar until well combined. Add egg and buttermilk until well combined as well. Stir in crumbled cookies. Pour cheesecake mixture into cupcake tins filled almost to the very top. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through. You don't want to overcook them so when the edges are set and the middle is still a little jiggly, they are probably done. Remove and cool for 15 minutes. Melt chocolate chips in microwave until melted and smooth. Stir in heavy cream until smooth and shiny. Spoon about 1 Tablespoon over each cheesecake cup and sprinkle with additional crumbled cookies.

12 cheesecake cups

Wes's special birthday cake

About this time last year, a new store came to Lexington, The Fresh Market. If you are familiar with this store, you know that you can spend a couple of hours just aimlessly walking around. On one such visit, Wes and I were casing the bakery department, when he spotted the Black and White Cookie. One bite and we were both hooked. If you've never had one, you might not want to start because they are addictive, but you should also know these aren't small cookies. The first time we each had our own and I was somewhat sick afterwards. Since then I have graduated and can now easily eat the whole cookie, sometimes I think I could eat 2! This has become Wes's dessert of choice and a must anytime we go to Fresh Market. So when I found this recipe for Black and White cake, I knew this is what I wanted to make him for his birthday. Since the recipe is quite long, I'll spare the long post and you can just visit the link to get the recipe. I will, however, post my final product. I must say, I am quite proud of this cake and he thought it was wonderful, so it was all worth it.









The perfect slice! Is your mouth watering yet?

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Wes! Today is my darling husband's 31st birthday. I've always heard food is the key to a man's heart so I thought I'd test that saying this year. I decided to have a week of birthday festivities all revolving around food! Perhaps that is a little self-indulgent but don't tell him!! The marathon began on Sunday when we had Thanksgiving dinner, except in April. I made a wonderful discovery with this meal - turkey cooked in the crockpot. Wow, if you've never tried it, you MUST try it. The key is to make sure the turkey you choose will fit in your crockpot and the rest is so easy. Although there are many variations, the one I chose was to mix a can of cranberry sauce and a package of dry onion soup mix together and pour it over the turkey. I would strongly suggest purchasing one of my new favorite products, the crockpot liners that I think Reynolds Wrap makes. They are essentially just a giant plastic bag that fits in your crockpot, making cleanup a snap! Do I sound like an infomercial?! Okay, so that's really it, you rinse and pat the turkey dry, add the cranberry-onion mixture, and then cook it on high for 2 hours and low for 8-10 hours. The result is a fall-off-the-bone, moist turkey breast. Once I removed the meat, I spooned the sauce over the meat. (We did have other "Thanksgiving" type accompaniments to go with this, which were all good but I'll spare the 12 page long post!)

The second food related birthday surprise was yesterday. We went to Wallace Station in Midway for their Monday night fried chicken! I am not a huge fan of chicken and I'm even less of a fan of chicken that I haven't prepared, so this was a HUGE sacrifice for me. All in the name of love. I wanted this to be a surprise so before Wes left for work yesterday morning, I hid an envelope and my cell phone in the glove box of his car. The envelope had directions how to get there, using no road names or other distinguishable directions. Since he would be taking mostly country roads, they were mostly road numbers. He was supposed to get off at Exit 65, which is the Midway exit. I was hoping that would throw him off since we frequently go to Heirloom, The Black Tulip, and Holly Hill Inn. Well, that is if he would have followed my directions! Since yesterday was my mom's day to watch Colin, she was nice enough to meet me out there with him. We wanted both she and my Dad to join us, but my Dad is helping coach Dunbar's girls softball team and he had a game. So I went straight there from work and Mom promptly tells me to call Wes because he is lost. She had already had to tell him to get on Paris Pike, then New Circle, then Old Frankfort. I knew right then that he would know where he was going. At this point, I was hungry and I just wanted him to get there safe and sound. I wasn't so concerned with the surprise factor. Come to find out he is a self proclaimed idiot (those are not my words, they are straight from the horse's mouth), and forgot that there was a short stint on I-64 that turned into I-75, before turning back into I-64. So while he was on the I-75 part, he saw exit number 113 and thought I was wrong, that there wasn't an exit 65. Thus the call to my mom, and thus the rerouting. In the end it was all worth it because it was a beautiful day, we all got there safe and sound, and the food was SUPERB! Wes couldn't stop talking about how much he enjoyed the food. He says that he is a self proclaimed fried chicken connessuier and that was the best he had ever had. Wow, what a great compliment! If you are ever in the market for a good down home meal of fried chicken and the fixin's, I'd strongly suggest Wallace Station. The meal consisted of 1 generous chicken breast, mashed potatoes, green beans (not your average green beans because they had carrots, kale, along with the beans), and a biscuit.

Today we were supposed to meet for lunch downtown. He was going to bring Colin so I could show him off to my coworkers and then we could again enjoy the beautiful weather by walking to the restaurant. Well Colin had different plans because as of 1:15, he was still taking his morning nap. Oh well, he needed the rest more than Wes and I needed yet another meal out. He'll still get a raincheck for that one though.

Tonight is mini-burgers at Danielle's Cafe. Tomorrow night my Mom is cooking him a special meal. Thursday I'm cooking again and we'll be having homemade corndogs (his favorite, not mine). Friday I think we're going to get a stuffed crust pizza and Saturday is a surprise dinner at a surprise location. Sorry, I can't post about it because I'm afraid he might read this and ruin the surprise. I'll post about it later. He has received some clues about the destination though. I have to be so vague because he's too good with my clues. I hate it when he guesses it right off. I love nothing more than a wrong guess - is that wrong?!

All this to say, Happy Birthday Wes! Oh, I'll post his cake later.

Hawaiian Delight

As I was typing the title, all I could think about was Colin's baby food. Yes, there is a flavor called Hawaiian Delight that I just bought a couple of weeks ago. He hasn't gotten to try the new sensation but if it's half as tasty as this recipe, he's in a for a real treat! Having such a big sweet tooth, I've heard of and sampled a lot of sweets. However, when I came across this recipe for Pineapple Pie, I must admit I had never heard of such. I had just made Pineapple Upside-Down cake a week or so ago and everyone, especially my Dad, really enjoyed it so I thought I'd give this one a whirl. It was fantastic! Thanks, Ashlee for another great recipe. Just as Ashlee did, I used a fresh pineapple with it's juices, instead of canned (Who would want canned when you could have it fresh?!). This is another easy one so you should definitely try it if you like pineapple.

Mary Jane's Killer Pineapple Pie

1 can crushed pineapple with juice (8 oz.)
1 can pineapple chunks with juice (8 oz.)
*I used 2 cups of fresh pineapple, finely chopped with juice*
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup flour
2 pie crust shells (homemade or store bought)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine pineapple and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Stir in butter until melted. Add cinnamon and nutmeg, stirring continuously until spices are completely incorporated into mixture.In a separate bowl, whisk water and flour together. Strain if mixture has lumps. Add to pineapple mixture and cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly until thick. Pour into a pie shell, cover with another and bake for 45 minutes.