Quick Queso

Last year when we had our big Derby de Mayo birthday party, I spent a good amount of time searching for the perfect queso recipe and I found this. Who would have thought it'd be so simple?  This queso is one of our favorites to have as a snack with salsa or to serve with items like Crockpot Chicken Taquitos.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb slices of American Cheese (white or yellow is okay)
• 1/4 cup diced, canned green chiles
• 1/2 diced jalapeno
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/4 cup water



Directions:

Are you ready for how quick and easy this is??

• Combine all ingredients in a medium sized, microwave safe bowl
• Microwave on high for 5 minutes; stop every minute to stir
• After 5 minutes, cheese shall be melted and creamy after stirring

After 2 minutes

After 5 minutes

Linking up with Let's Get Bananas and Blissfully Miller for Taste of Tuesday

Bridal Bliss

Last weekend was a whirlwind of fun in Indianapolis for my high school friend, MT's bridal shower and bachelorette.  There are seven of us bridesmaids that collaborated to through the shower. We planned the majority of the shower via emails. Despite not having met four of them in advance, I felt like I already knew two of the girls because of social media.  The shower went off without a hitch and was a blast.

The theme for the shower was the bride's favorite foods.  Some items were made (I made puppy chose) and some were catered, but everything was delicious! 

 

The punch included lemonade concentrate, sherbet, and champagne. The original recipe also called for vodka, but given that we had bachelorette festivities ahead of us that night, we nixed that. 

You know that I love fruit in my salad. All summer I've paired bleu cheese with my spinach and strawberries but this salad used feta (and a poppyseed dressing) instead, which was light and yummy!

Holy motherload! I love homemade mac 'n cheese, but this, this was the creamiest, cheesiest mac I've ever tried and man was it good! (I've already requested the recipe to share with you!)

Chicken fingers were catered and good; I mean, it's hard to mess them up, right?

Mashed Potato Bar = genius. So easy, so filling and so good. It can do no wrong.

The cookies were purchased from Taylor's Bakery and were the perfectly soft and sweet.

The puppy chow I made was a huge hit. It's one of those foods that brings a sense of nostalgia to us high school friends. Every year we had a baked good fundraiser which consisted of making batches upon batches of chow to sell.

If I had a dollar for every time MT said "all of my favorite things!", I would probably be at least $50 richer.  She even went as far as too say that if she were ever on deathrow, this would be the exact meal she'd request. I'd say that means success?

And even though these were MT's favorite things, I found them quite delicious!

{Paper items from Birthday Direct}

We decided against games for the shower; but instead we had a list of questions one of the girls had asked the groom and before every gift opened, MT had to answer a question. We all made bets on how many of the 14 she'd get right. There were a few "half-points" given, but she did really well and got 12 right.

Is that not the most adorable engagement picture?

Goodies!

One of the best parts of the weekend is that the three of us hometown girls got to spend quality time together and rekindle our friendship.

After the shower we scooted home to relax until it was time for the bachelorette.  We started the night off with dinner, drinks and gifts at 10-01 in Broadripple.

One of the cutest things I've ever seen, rather than a store bought picture frame for all attendees to sign their name, we all layered on the lip stick and gave a smooch to a plain mat decorated with stickers. I loved this idea!

Leaving 10-01, we split up into two teams for a bachelorette scavenger hunt. This was a great alternative to just standing (or dancing) around a bar. Each time was given the same list of objectives and an hour to complete the mission. All tasks required photo evidence, thank goodness for iphones!

After we all got back together we had a blast doing some dancing and drinking in honor of MT. Throughout the night we'd all joked how old we were getting, but I'm proud to say we made it out past 3am.  Of course, the next morning wasn't as fun as the night before...but thank God for MT's fiance, at your service! He rolled in the next morning with McDonald's breakfast, Sprite and Starbucks for all!

No wonder she's marrying him! Here's to you MT!

 

Chicken Taquitos

If I had to name three foods from my childhood as my favorite, I'd probably say Bagel Bites (except that I always burnt my mouth on them), Uncrustable PB&Js (who really likes crust?), and taquitos (need not say more).

 

Earlier this summer when we had over a couple couples for a brewing session and I needed to have food items to serve that would be 1.Substantial (brewing also involves drinking:) 2.Premade (so as not to take up the kitchen), I looked at my Pinterest boards, I was smitten to find an easy recipe for chicken taquitos. Besides the tortilla, these are a fairly healthy and super easy food to throw together for a small fiesta or quick dinner. They're baked, not fried, and use Greek yogurt, high in protien.

 

Chicken Taquitos

Ingredients:

(Makes ~15 rolls; modified from Good Thymes and Good Food)

• Package of 8" flour tortillas
• ~1lb cooked chicken (shredded)*
• 1.5 cup water*
• 1 cube chicken bullion*
• 3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup green salsa (canned)
• Juice from 1 lime
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp garlic salt
• 3 Tbsp chopped cilantro
• 1.5 cups Mexican blend shredded cheese
• Cooking spray (I use spray olive oil)
• Pinch of salt

*See step one of directions regard using of water, bullion and cooking chicken

Directions

One of the quickest and easiest ways to make shredded chicken is in the crockpot  (Well, actually the easiest way is to buy an already oven-roasted chicken from the grocery, but you get what I mean.)

 

Crockpot Shredded Chicken:

• Dissolve one bullion cube in warmed water
• Place chicken breast in crockpot and pour seasoned water into pot
• Cook on low for 6-8hrs
• Shred with fork

The chicken should end up looking something like this:

Taquitos:

• Preheat oven to 425F
• In a medium bowl, mix together: chicken, Greek yogurt, green salsa,  juice from lime, cumin, chili powder, onion powder, garlic salt and cilantro
• Once combined, add cheese to mixture and stir in

• Cover cookie sheet(s) with aluminum foil
• Microwave tortilla for 15 seconds to soften (this step is optional, but tortillas are more flexible when warmed)
• Place approximately 3 Tbsp of chicken mixture near middle of tortilla
• Start from one end and wrap
• Place on pan with seam down
• Repeat until you run out of chicken mixture
• Spray with cooking spray and sprinkle salt
• Bake for ~15min or until edges golden



• Repeat until you run out of chicken mixture
• Spray with cooking spray and sprinkle salt
• Bake for ~15min or until edges golden

Serve with your favorite dippings, such as salsa or queso.

 

To keep warm for our brewing party, I simply picked the aluminum foil up off of the cookie sheet and placed in crockpot on warm. It worked perfectly!

Linking up with Let's Get Bananas and Blissfully Miller for Taste of Tuesday

Finally Friday! (+deals)

After a stressful week, it's finally Friday! I'm headed to Indiana for my high school friend, MT's bridal shower and bachelorette. I have been looking forward to this for a while now and given the past week, now I'm really looking forward to having some fun with the girls! (Don't worry, Ben is okay. I offered to stay home and he insisted I should go).

Three years ago we celebrated my Bachelorette and now it's time for MTs!



What are your weekend plans? Anything fun?

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Shower the People You Love with Love

A little JT anyone?, The original JT, James Taylor, that is.

 

This past weekend my mom and aunts hosted a baby shower for my cousin.  We decided to hold the baby shower after the baby was born because my cousin lives out of state. This allowed her to make one less trip and for us to all meet Miss Peyton. Win-win.

 

I volunteered to help with games.  We invited around fifteen family members ranging in age from 20s up to 80s.  In my experience with showers (baby and bridal), sometimes games can be tedious and monotonous for guests.  We decided to go more of the "activity" route rather than games.

 

Upon arrival, guests were greeted with a ribbon clothesline of onsies and baskets of diapers.

 

After some time spent mingling, we began our first activity: onsie decorating. When we had asked my cousin if she had a registry or what items she still needed, her request was 9 months+ clothing.  We bought a few packages of short sleeved and long-sleeved onsies and prewashed, then hung on our clothesline to add to the decor.

 

Growing up, my mom was quite the sewer. She used to make us outfits, blankets, curtains, etc. Over the years she accumulated a number of items which turned out to be perfect for the shower. We had baskets and bins of supplies and guests eagerly started deciding how they wanted to decorate their onsie.

Onsie Decorating Supplies

• Pre-washed onsies
• Puffy paint
• Fabric crayons
• Fabric cut-outs (super old school, made by Daisy Kingdom)
• Fabric scraps
• Ribbon
• Iron-on fabric adhesive
• Iron/iron board
• Fabric scissors

You could also use items like buttons, rhinestones, bows, etc.  We elected not to use this items for fear that at some point Peyton may rip them off and of the potential choking hazard. All of the items above, except onsies, can be found at your local fabric store.
 
For fabric crayons, be sure to "set" the design by following the directions and applying heat.
If you're not familiar with fabric adhesives; they're used to bind fabrics together.  Basically you cut the piece of fabric you want to adhere, place it on top of the adhesive sheet and iron.  There's two layers to the sheet. After the first (the rough) side is adhered to the fabric piece, you can cut along the edges of your design to perfect it.  Once done, remove the paper covering on the other side, place on your main fabric item, and iron in place!

Remember: Your iron must be completely dry (no steam) or the wunder-under will not stick!



This process might sound a bit tedious, but it's very easy. Here are the results:

In our experience, it works well to "line" the fabric applique with puffy paint to ensure that none of the fabric edges fray in the wash.  Here's my masterpiece (which I planned to match a pair of pink, orange, and light pink polka leggings as part of my gift).

Our guests got pretty creative and everyone enjoyed figuring out what to put on their onsie.

We ended up with a number of masterpieces.  The only downfall was that there was a little bit of smearing with puffy paint.  Those onsies we let dry and will ship to my cousin.





Of course, what fun is a baby shower with out the cute gifts?

 

For our second activity, my sister-in-law had suggested The Late Night Diaper Change. Having a three month old of her own, I'm sure she spoke from experience of dreaded over night diaper changes. 

What it is: The only supplies you need are: diapers (we used size 2 for Peyton to grow into), permanent markers and a creative mind.

 

We asked all of our guests to take a few diapers and write a note on the front of them; something to keep my cousin/her husband entertained when they're up in the middle of the night changing diapers.  Not only was this activity fun, but the diapers will prove useful for the new parents.

 

Here are a few examples of what we got, although my favorite was when my Aunt Jayne (from Aunt Jayne's mix) wrote down "Take a picture and send it to Aunt Mindy".

 
All in all, the shower was extremely fun and well received.  It was great to spend time with family we so rarely see, and, of course, it was wonderful to meet this sweet little 7-week old baby.