My First Dinner Group

I attended my first dinner group last month and was really happy that I pulled off the recipe I chose. All the recipes were taken from Gweneth Paltrow's book My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness. We had a lots of food to try. We had soup, salad, potato and sweet potato fries, maple roasted sweet potatoes, fish tacos and I know I'm missing some other items that were made.

The side dish I made, pictured above, Fried Rice with Kale and Scallions. It was a simple recipe, but something different I've never tried.

I will have to take better notes next time so I can give ya'll a better report. I'm so glad for the opportunity I had to try something new and meet new friends!

Parmesan Crusted Chicken Tenders

This was a quick an easy meal. I usually don't consider any meal that involves chicken quick and easy. I found this recipe for Parmesan crusted chicken tenders with homemade honey mustard dipping sauce out of my Joy of Cooking recipe book.

The ingredients consisted of bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, parsley and paprika, with salt and pepper to taste. The chicken was soaked in an egg mixture and then breaded. I then fried the chicken for about 4 minutes on each side. The honey mustard sauce was simply grainy mustard, honey and a dash of cayenne pepper.

I tagged this page on my recipe book for future use.

Cheerio January

Baby ate Cheerios for the first time this month (January). He very much enjoys them. He has them on his tray, in both hands and who knows how many stuffed in his mouth! 

Tired boy is hanging out with his dad after a long day.

Berry Trifle

I had the girls over tonight and made a trifle for our treat. I used the Raspberry Trifle recipe from allrecipes.com and added a few strawberries and blueberries. I wanted to get some fresh raspberries, but they're not available at this time of year. However, I did include them in the recipe. It has been very cold out (below freezing for quite some time) and I've been making a lot of heavy foods, so it was nice to have a light and refreshing dessert.

Berry Trifle

1 1/2 cups heavy cream  

1/4 cup white sugar

2 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened 

2 tsps lemon juice

1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract

1/2 cup white sugar   

1 pkg prepared pound cake (like Sara Lee)

1 pkg frozen raspberries, thawed

1 pkg frozen blueberries, thawed

1 carton fresh strawberries, chopped (reserve some for garnishing)

1 carton fresh blueberries (reserve some for garnish)

1 carton fresh raspberries (reserve some for garnish)

2 T unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting

In a medium bowl, beat cream with 1/4 cup sugar until stiff peaks form. In another bowl, cream together cream cheese, lemon juice, vanilla and 1/2 cup sugar. Fold 2 cups of whipped cream into cream cheese mixture. Reserve remaining whipped cream. 

Slice pound cake into 18 - 1/2 inch slices. Drain thawed raspberries and blueberries, reserving juice. Line the bottom of a 3 quart glass bowl or trifle bowl with one-third of the cake slices. Drizzle with some raspberry, blueberry and strawberry juice. Spread one-fourth of the cream cheese mixture over cake. Sift one-fourth of the cocoa over that. Sprinkle with one-third of the raspberries. Repeat layers twice. Top with remaining cream cheese mixture, whipped cream and sifted cocoa. Cover and refrigerate 4-8 hours before serving.

Here are a few notes on the instructions. I chopped up the strawberries the night before adding a bit of water, vanilla and sugar. Doing this will get you some of the strawberry juice that you can add to the raspberry and blueberry juice. I also squeezed the raspberries and blueberries to drain as much of the juice as possible. The more liquid that the pound cake absorbs, the better. You could probably use a package of frozen strawberries as well to get more of the juice, but I did without since I had fresh ones to work with. Lastly, I sliced my pound cake into cubes. I don't know why, but I prefer the smaller bite size pieces. I don't think it matters when you dish it out though.

2nd Birthday Cake

We celebrated Mike's birthday on January 1st (technically December 31st, but we stayed up until midnight, so it blurred all together) and we had an ice cream cake. Tonight we had his family celebration and I made his second birthday cake, pictured above. I think it's beautiful, but most important very yummy! Besides, how can you go wrong with ice cream!

I found this recipe in a Woman's Day magazine over 15 years ago and this is the third time I've made it. The cake has an Oreo crust, the sides are Pirouette cookies, and inside is layers of vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and toffee bits, topped with mini M&M's, whipped cream and maraschino cherries.