What do you do with 18 pounds of strawberries? Try out some tasty new strawberry shortcake and strawberry drink recipes! :) We’ve been making all sorts of tasty strawberry treats this week. The results of two of our favorites from Food & Wine are shown below.
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE PIE
Liz and I are huge strawberry shortcake fans. Normally we pull out the recipe from Liz’s grandmother but with 18 pounds of strawberries we had to try something new. This Strawberry Shortcake Pie recipe from Food and Wine was the perfect choice. Plus we learned how to make our own whipped cream, which is surprisingly much easier than you might expect. Check out the full recipe here and then enjoy a few photos from our creation below.
STRAWBERRY REDHEAD IN BED DRINK RECIPE
Tasty beverages in bed are definitely the way to go. Especially if the drink is part of a tasty breakfast in bed with someone you love! So when we saw a strawberry drink recipe with “In Bed” in the title, we had to give it a try. The results were the perfect summer brunch drink to replace the traditional Mimosa or Bloody Mary. Just blend up a few strawberries, add vodka and a splash of white wine for a refreshing treat. Check out the full recipe we used from Food and Wine here.
Happy first day of Summer and have an AMAZING Weekend!!!
You all know how much we love cookies… especially during the holidays! Well, our love for holiday cookies has just gone to a completely different level! We hosted a holiday cookie exchange and ornament swap date night with our AMAZING couples on Thursday and I have never seen a table so beautifully full of cookies! It was filled with a lot of holiday love and that in itself is reason enough to host a Holiday Cookie Exchange! Did I mention the chance to taste 12 different kinds of cookies that are out of this world AMAZING?!!! For Day 15 of the AMAZING Life Holiday Advent Calendar, we hope to inspire you to gather the AMAZING people in your life and Host a Holiday Cookie Exchange.
Having never hosted a Cookie Exchange before, we weren’t really sure what to expect. However, we sent an invitation out and asked everyone to bring at least 36 of their favorite holiday cookies! As our friends arrived and placed their cookies out on the table, my eyes started getting bigger and bigger and my stomach started growling! ;) It was so much fun to see so many different types of cookies (only Allison and Tom and Ryan and I duplicated with our Rolo cookies! :)… but even still, you can never have too many Rolo cookies! ;) ) and see a table full of so much love!
Every cookie has a story… whether it was made in the 30 minutes prior to coming to the party because it was the easiest cookie to find on Pinterest :), or it was the all time favorite cookie of the holidays and has since become a secret family recipe! My favorite part about the evening was hearing all of those stories surrounded by some of our favorite people ever (Ryan might argue that is a close second to tasting all of the AMAZINGNESS! :) )!
Hosting a Cookie Exchange is super easy and super fun. Gather those AMAZING people in your life and invite them to bring their favorite cookies to your home! ;) Then be sure to have supplies ready for everyone to make a cookie platter to take home and enjoy with their family and friends! You will have plenty of cookies… promise! ;)
Huge thanks to our AMAZING couples (and friends) who made our Holiday Cookie Exchange everything that we had dreamed of and more… a table full of love and room full of AMAZINGNESS. You filled our hearts with so much love! THANK YOU!
(More on the Ornament Swap to come tomorrow! ;) ).
It’s Thanksgiving eve!!! Ok, we know it’s not an official holiday but it totally should be! To everyone that is traveling near or far today or tomorrow we wish you save travels! We are hurriedly trying to cross off our remaining items on our to do list so we can enjoy time with family and friends once they arrive.
So how many of you are cooking Thanksgiving this year? This will now be our fourth year in a row that Liz and I will be hosting dinner with our family. Tony the turkey is resting calmly in the refrigerator awaiting his brine bath later tonight. Tony is a 22 pound bird and should do nicely for lots of tasty leftovers this year. Leftovers usually consist Turkey sandwiches accompanied by macaroni and cheese that Liz’s Dad brings from ironically enough Tony’s Delicatessen, no relation to Tony the Turkey I’m sure. :)
This year we wanted to think of something a little different to do with all the leftovers. We always have so much turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie that it usually last for weeks and getting creative is a must. We also wanted to provide a little inspiration for your own leftovers and a way to share the fun with friends. If you haven’t seen our Thankful for Leftovers and Game Night Party post yet, be sure to check it out. For the party we came up with a unique twist on the Leftover Turkey Sandwich, made an AMAZING Pumpkin Pie Milkshake, and stuffed the stuffing inside some red bell peppers. Enjoy the recipes below!
RECIPE: Leftover Turkey Sandwiches with Blue Cheese Crumbles
Normally our leftover turkey sandwiches consist of Turkey, Mayo, Salt and Pepper and a maybe slice of tomato. If you are tired of the standard turkey sandwich spice things up a little bit with a hearty loaf of bread, a few blue cheese crumbles, and leftover cranberry relish. The tangy sweetness of the relish and savory taste of the blue cheese combines for the perfect flavor in this leftover turkey sandwich.
INGREDIENTS:
Leftover Turkey
A hearty loaf of bread sliced approximately ½” thick
Spread mayonnaise on one side of bread and add 3-4 leaves of Arugula.
Add turkey, and cranberry relish. Sprinkle blue cheese crumbles on top and close sandwich with second slice of bread.
In a toaster oven or conventional oven, toast sandwiches for 5-8 minutes, or until cheese melts and bread just begins to brown.
RECIPE: Stuffing Stuffed Peppers
Ahh stuffing. We love stuffing!! Just add a little butter, celery, and onions to cubed bread and cook in the oven. Fortunately for our waistline, we usually only indulge in this carbohydrate heaven around Thanksgiving. But when we do, we always have a ton of leftovers and stuffing by itself, although amazing, can get a little boring after the first few days of leftovers. So the perfect solution is to stuff it in something else besides the turkey. It’s called stuffing for a reason right!? For a perfect side dish to your Blue Cheese Turkey Sandwiches, stuff some stuffing in a few bell peppers, sprinkle with cheese and roast in the oven. Hmm, what else could we stuff with stuffing??
INGREDIENTS:
4 Red Bell Peppers, stem and seeds removed
2-3 Cups Leftover Stuffing
Chicken stock or vegetable broth
Olive Oil
Grated Parmesan Cheese
PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
In a bowl, add vegetable broth to stuffing until moist, about 1 cup depending on how moist your stuffing is already.
Place peppers open side up in a square baking pan and stuff peppers with stuffing. Drizzle with olive oil and place in oven and roast for 20-30 minutes until peppers begin to slightly darken. If stuffing begins to burn, cover with foil until peppers finish roasting.
Remove from oven and sprinkle on Parmesan Cheese
RECIPE: Pumpkin Pie Milkshakes
My favorite thing about thanksgiving has to be enjoying a tasty slice of pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving would not be complete with out this tasty treat. Especially a pumpkin pie made by Liz’s MeMe. In fact, nearly 200 pies made by MeMe will be enjoyed this year at Thanksgiving! Crazy! So if you are lucky enough to enjoy one of MeMe’s pies this year and have a few slices leftover after the big day, then you definitely need to try this recipe. Trust us, you’ll thanks us later.
INGREDIENTS (makes one milkshake):
1 slice of leftover pumpkin pie, preferably MeMe’s but if you don’t live in Montoursville, PA any type of pumpkin pie will do the trick
2-3 Cups of vanilla ice cream (add more as necessary for desired thickness)
1 Cup whole milk
Cinnamon stick for garnish
PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth. Add more milk and ice cream as necessary to reach desired thickness.
Pour into glass and garnish with a cinnamon stick
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And we just wanted to share one quick picture of MeMe in action! She is a pie machine! :) Apple, Pumpkin, Blueberry, Minced Meat, you name it, she can make it!
For the past four years we have hosted Thanksgiving Dinner at our home. And each year we wake up early to start cooking our turkey. It’s also a tradition to name our turkey, oddly enough we also name our Christmas Tree. Doesn’t everyone? In past years we have roasted Albert, Joey, and Tom. This year is no exception and Tony will be getting a nice salt water bath and a good warm melted butter rub down. After our Turkey is in the oven we always take a moment to relax before our out of town guests arrive. This usually involves watching the Today Show and learning from our good friend Martha how we actually should have prepared our turkey. Fortunately by that time our turkey is already roasting away and we don’t quite feel so bad that Tony’s legs aren’t properly tied. Normally we use the basting approach to cooking a turkey but this year we have decided to brine Tony. That’s where the salt water bath comes in. This simple method is guaranteed to keep your turkey extra moist and juicy. But don’t take our word for it, check out this awesome video by Alton Brown on the Food Network to learn about the magical powers of brining.
Of course to brine your turkey you will need a sufficiently sized vessel to fully submerge it. Not having such a container that was food safe lying around the kitchen, we took a trip to Lowe’s to find the requisite container, aka a perfectly blue five gallon bucket to match the Liz and Ryan brand! Thanks Lowes!
Now for the Brining…
Brining a turkey takes roughly 6-8 hours so preparing the night before is your best bet. Start with one gallon of vegetable broth (regular not low sodium), 1 cup of sea salt, 1/4 cup of whole peppercorns, and 1/4 cup of sage or other savory Thanksgiving spice. A little sugar will also give your turkey a nice flavor.
Combine all the ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Once all the salt thoroughly dissolves, remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
Next it’s time to get out your bucket.
Fill the bucket halfway full with ice water, mix in the brine mixture, then add Tony the turkey. Add additional water and extra ice until the Turkey is fully submerged. Allow your turkey to enjoy it’s ice bath overnight or for at least 6 hours. Remove the turkey from the ice bath first thing in the morning, rinse, and pat dry.
Next up is preparing your turkey for roasting. Instead of filling your turkey with stuffing, use a combination of herbs and aromatics to add flavor from the inside out. We used a combination of parsley, fresh sage, garlic, pepper, apples, and onion. Chop your apple and onion, place in a microwaveable safe bowl, season with pepper, add 1/2 cup of water and microwave for 1 minute. This will help release the flavors of the apple and onions.
While the apples and onions are in the microwave, create a foil shield to add to your turkey to prevent the breast meat from overcooking. Do this in advance so you can easily add it to you turkey later.
Preheat your oven to 450 degree. Place your turkey on the rack of a roasting pan. Stuff the turkey with parsley, sage, garlic, onions, and apple. Then brush melted butter over the entire bird. To add extra flavor, gently separate the skin from the turkey and add butter between the skin and breast meat. Add 1/2 inch of water to the bottom of the roasting pan. This will prevent any drippings from burning on the bottom of the roasting pan. We forgot this step the first time and our smoke detector quickly remind us of it’s importance! :)
Add a thermometer to the thickest part of the turkey breast and place in the oven. Roast at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees, add the foil shield to the turkey breast and cook until the thermometer reads 161 degrees.
Once the thermometer reads 161 degrees remove from the oven and let rest for 20 to 30 minutes. The turkey will continue to cook and increase in heat for a few minutes once removed from the oven. Carve and serve.
Have extra leftovers? Don’t worry, we will be sharing plenty of leftover recipes from our Leftovers Game Night Party later this week.
Looking for more info on how to brine and roast a perfectly succulent turkey? We highly recommend Alton Brown’s short videos on how to cook a turkey. We have provided the links below.
Happy Sunday! We hope everyone is enjoying a FABULOUS weekend with family and friends! We have so many fun and exciting posts coming up this week on our blog that we just had to share an extra fun bonus Sunday post with ya’ll. We will be sharing all sorts of recipes and DIY projects throughout the week so be sure to check back often.
Ahh Thanksgiving! It is definitely one of our favorite holidays. Especially since we bought our first home and decided to host Thanksgiving as a couple. For the past four years, we have been sharing our love of everything Turkey with our family. But cooking Thanksgiving often leaves us with tons of leftovers and no idea what to do with them. So this year, we decided to plan ahead and came up with a fun way to enjoy the leftovers with our friends …
“Thankful for Leftovers and Game Night Dinner Party” by Liz and Ryan
If you are hosting Thanksgiving and you are anything like us, then you will most likely end up with a ton of leftovers. This year we wanted to be creative and think of a fun way to share our leftovers. So we came up with a Leftovers Game Night Dinner Party for our friends that you can create too.
Hosting Thanksgiving is definitely a lot of work so we wanted to make sure we kept things simple. With just a little gold spray paint, glitter, board games, and supplies you can pick up at Home Goods or Michael’s, you can create a super fun way to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends.
Start the evening off with your favorite board games and cocktails. For us, that means pulling out two of our favorites, Scrabble and Monopoly. When you “pass go” be sure to mix up some of your favorite fall drinks such as a Caramel Apple Cider Martini.
Next spice up the leftover turkey sandwiches with a little blue cheese, cranberry relish and arugula, and stuff the stuffing in red bell peppers. Finally turn the left over pumpkin pie into one of the most AMAZING milkshakes ever.
This party could be turned into a couple’s date night or just a fun evening with friends. No matter what, it will be a full of laughter and tasty Thanksgiving leftovers. And that is something to be thankful for.
We will be sharing how we made this glittery gold invitation with DIY instructions later this week!
