Today’s Friend Favorite is MOST CERTAINLY a Favorite Friend and an amazing mom!  Not only is her son darling, her home design eye to die for, she keeps a beautiful garden and makes most food from scratch, and works full time carrying on conference calls late into the evening on the other side of the world!  She is a master at managing A LOT!  She is also the queen of wonderful resteraunt receommendations!  Here are a few of her Orange County pics…so sorry for all of you that don’t live here!  You…

Happy Friday everyone! It’s our last family weekend with 4, come Tuesday we will be 5…and that just sounds like a BIG NUMBER! My husband is thinking plane tickets, ski lift tickets, school tuition, cars, and weddings…..I’m just thinking of shoes….

Just to let you know, next week’s menu and shopping list are posted.  And I am hoping to post one for each of the weeks in March.  We will not be making these menus in our house as we have been given  a GIFT from SO MANY FRIENDS…

As most of  you know from stopping by each day, our third Little is going to be joining us Tuesday, March 9th (still keeping my fingers crossed we make it to the date!)  As such, I have a treat to share with you all!!!

First off the truth, as I tell you repeatedly, I’m not super human!!! I’m a regular mom and regular person just like you, that just has lots of tricks up her sleeve!

The only thing I may do differently than others is organize our life to try…

This just looked like a nice refreshing, complimenting salad. And since I’m not a huge salad lover, I like to find salads that either of an especially good dressing, or else lots of interesting ingredients.  This recipe comes from The Best of Bridge Series that I love.  The book in particular is, “The Best of The Best and More“.  We’re trying it this week, I’ll let you know what I think!

Romaine with Oranges & Pecans:
Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

2 heads of Romaine Lettuce torn into bite size peices (I’m using Speing Mix)
…

Not sure why, but every now and then a quiche just sounds good.  Not a delicate little girlie quiche, but one that means business and that can satisfy my husband too.  Plus the added benefit is the girls love the eggs so its another meal we all can eat!

I have not made this one before, but I love all things from The Peach Tree Cafe in Fredricksberg, Texas and therefore all things from their cookbook.  So I’ll let you know after we make this tonight!

Southwest Quiche…

Holy Moly, I’m all about comfort food, and this just looks like little mini meatloaves to me, which is most certainly comfort food in my book!  For awesome step-by-step instructions, check out The Pioneer Woman’s photo steps on her site.  We’ll be trying this out tonight for sure! Thanks goodness for The Pioneer Woman!

(Image: The Pioneer Woman)

Ingredients:

FOR MEATBALLS
1-½ pound Ground Beef
¾ cups Oats
1 cup Milk
3 Tablespoons Very Finely Minced Onion
1-½ teaspoon Salt
Plenty Of Ground…

Happy Friday Everyone!!

So this Friday’s suggestions actually come from a reader that sent in a request for “Meatless Menus” for the next 5 Fridays in observance of Lent.  Now if you know me at all, then you know I’m not a seafood eater, so typically when we go in the seafood direction I’m heading to Bear Flag Fish Company for fish tacos because they are AMAZING!  Or to Gulfstream for their grilled Ono, YUM! Neither of these have any “fishy” taste to me and…

So Super yummy!!!!

Super colorful,

super healthy,

BIG party winner!

Check out the recipe!!

Chile-Lime Crab Salad with Tomato and Avocado
Sue Zemanick / Food and Wine

This dip is AMAZING!!!!  I have never made it myself, but have been the happy to eat guest MANY times!  My Genius-Sister-in-Law has a knack for finding great recipes in magazines and this one is beyond a winner.  It is honestly the MOST gobbled up appetizer at every event she makes it for.  I dont even like seafood that much and I cold eat this by the truck load!  You can make it as one large dip, but she also makes…

Happy Friday!  We made it one more week without Baby #3 arriving, whooohoooo!!

Saturday is the girls double birthday party. Hoping the rain doesn’t come….rain and an outdoor Sock Hop just don’t mix!  Think good thoughts for me!  Addie had fun practicing her dance moves and trying on her skirt…hoping she’ll still like the skirt on Saturday…

The meal plan and shopping list are up for next week, as a reminder, I post the EXACT menu that our family is eating.  The past few weeks I’ve had a lot of evening…

mississippi pound cake:

Ingredients:

3 cups sugar
2 sticks softened butter
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
3 cups flour
1/4 t salt
1/4 t baking soda
2 small t vanilla

Directions:

1. Cream together the sugar and softened butter.
2. Add 4 eggs, 1 at a time.
3. In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt and baking soda.
4. Alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk to the sugar mixture.
5. Add vanilla.
6. Pour into a butter/floured bundt pan.
7. Bake in preheated 325 degree oven for an hour and 15

…

You will laugh at me as there is not much to say about making a tri tip.  I’m going to photograph the steps on Monday night 2.22.10 when I make this as it really is more simple to see.

Ingredients:

1 tri tip
Lindberg Snider Porterhouse & Roast Seasoning
olive oil

Directions:

1. Cover both sides of a tri tip with Porterhouse Seasoning.
2. Heat olive oil in an oven proof pan.  (Any All Clad type pan will work, I use a grill pan).
3. When pan is hot, brown all sides of tri

…

Make your own pizzas:

1. I totally cheat and use Bridgford Bread loaves.  I love to make my own pizza dough, but this is such an easy way and you ALWAYS have it when you need it.  Bridgford Bread loaves are sold in the freezer section at most grocery stores.  You can use it to make bread, pizzas, cinnamon rolls, etc.  And if you forget to set a frozen loaf out to defrost in the morning, then defrost in a couple minutes in the microwave and you’re good to go!

…

So it’s Valentines Day on Sunday AND it’s Chinese New Year.  Not that I’m a BIG celebrator of either Holiday, BUT

1. When you have Littles, you can’t ignore that it’s Valentine’s Day

2. Celebrating other holidays can be a fun learning experience and add a little spice to the dinner scene.

3. In our family, it also gives us a theme for our February birthday dinner.  February is the one month out of the year that my husband dreads.  A whole ton of birthdays fall in February for us….2 of my hubby’s brothers,…

Well, I have to apologize as it seems I made some readers anxious I had gone into early labor because there wasn’t a post Monday morning!  So sorry!  Not nearly as exciting as that!!  Just had a super busy weekend and it seems both girls came down with colds again so my time got away from me.

BUUUT, I do have a great little product tip to share with you and it SAVED me when the girls had first come down with colds a few weeks ago (Pnemonia and…

It was a crazy busy week again (What weeks aren’t for moms??  Do any of you have a new found respect for your mom?? I sure do!) And I can’t believe it’s just over 4 weeks until the newest babe is here!  PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don’t make a showing any earlier!!!  I love ya and can’t wait to meet ya, but you just go ahead and stay nice and cozy until March 9th, Pretty Please!

OK, onto the fun things from this week.  I actually had to edit this a bit because I saw…

Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie dough
Vanilla store bought frosting
Rainbow Sprinkles and Pink Dots
MANY afternoons of fun!

So easy, even an almost 2 year old can do it.

We baked all the cookies and saved some to decorate (and eat!) each day.

Easy as….

well, a Betty Crocker cookie.
(and pretty darn tasty too!)

Want to see more Wordless Wednesday’s?  Check in with Angry Julie!

These weeks keep flying by, HOW does that happen?!?!?  I must say, I LOVED my week off from cooking!!  Such a treat!  I can honestly say I have never done that before, but will definitely again.  It was obviously a little pricier than cooking every meal, but if you balance it between some lower priced places, it’s not too bad.  And fun for older kids too, you could have everyone pick a place for a night.

(And YES,  I Have posted

Does wine REALLY require words?

This is all you need to know:

It’s about $8 at the grocery store.

“Full and rich flavors of Black Cassis and Black Cherry dominate the broad pallet with a long, smooth finish. Underlying notes of vanilla and cola fan out on the expressive bold finish.”

A friend told me to try it.

I did, I liked it, mellow, fruit flavor.

Check it out

Good week night dinner wine!

I think I’m boycotting cooking next week. I was going to post a menu, but not follow it ourselves.  Then I thought there are probably other moms out there like me that just don’t want to cook sometimes. Last week was HARD! To be totally housed, with 2 super young, sick and bored kids, and hitting 6 weeks until Baby #3’s arrival – while keeping up with life in general, was a lot….kind of hit burn out mode. I’m sure there are a lot of mom’s out there…