Easter Baskets for Everyone!

Spoiler alert: Hayden, Damon or parental unit don't look!!! 

One of the great joys in staying home is being ahead of the game. No running around like a chicken with my head cut off planning holidays! This year, it is Tuesday and I've already hid my responsibility's  Easter baskets for Sunday morning. #winning 

While I was stashing it got me thinking, I have created Easter baskets for "everyone" this year. A small person, a spouse and a pair of parents. Then I thought, why not share? I got a little creative & maybe some of you will appreciate that while you get your creative juices flowing in time for some last minute shopping. But let me warn you, if you haven't already shopped hurry cause Target was bananas today. :-) 

Basket #1 - The Littlest Person

H will only be 1 next month, which was surprisingly challenging. I wanted to do something to start a tradition but I also wanted to put limits or goals on it. It had to be practical, it had to be inexpensive & he had to like it! This is what I came up with: 

Clockwise top left: bubbles (!!! Supervised only of course but this will at least get him outside), foam book for the bath, Annie's Animal Cookies, minion socks, 2 rompers and a Ninja Turtle ball he helped himself to while shopping. Total cost: $19.00

Basket #2 - The Spouse

D is pretty easy to read, focus on the things he likes. Some of his favorites are money, meat & chocolate. My goal was really just to make him happy. I'm pretty sure I'll just add a 6 pack of his favorite beer and round this basket out. 

Clockwise starting top left: Forbes magazine, summer sausage (switching up the predictable jerky), and the trifecta. Which is a good chocolate bunny, "bunny food" (Reese's pieces carrot) and "bunny eggs" (Cadburys). Total cost: $17.00 // $25.00 with beer. 

Basket #3 - The Parents 

Yes, it may seem a bit strange to get my parents an Easter basket but you know what? I like it. I like them. Any they deserve it. This year, I wanted to do all food, which is hard when one of them is on a serious diet and the other is a serious sweets horder. So my goal for this one was to balance it out. 

Clockwise starting top left: Skinny Pop, Peeps mini pack, Jelly Beam tube, Skinny Girl Chocolate a pretzel bars, Reese's Pieces carrot, mini Robin Eggs, traditional Cadbury Cream Eggs and a Yankee Candle travel air fresher in Peeps scent! Total cost: $23.00

There you have it, a little bit of Easter love for all ages and flavors. And don't worry, I didn't forget about my favorite fuzzy friends either.... they'll be getting flat friends & denta sticks! 

Hope this inspires you! 

Easter "Carrots"

So I've been Pintresting a lot. Part of my new too sick to actually do anything ritual. Tried this cute one for Easter since I'm hosting for the first time ever. Not exactly what I imagined but I'll take it.

They're silverware Easter Carrots. Supposed to look like this: 

Of course, when I saw glitter silverware at Target and pipe cleaners seemed like an easier solution mine turned out like this: 

Not exactly the same.... But then upside is they kind of look like carrots when they're all together in a cute basket. Like this: 

The basket for the record was also form Target on sale for $1.50. Napkins I had to get from Meijer.

Anyway, my recommendation is to "hide" your green ears a little more and don't ever expect anything to come out like it does on Pintrest! Lol 

Happy Easter crafting ya'll!!! 

Shepard's Pie

Happy St. Patrick's Day friends! Of course as a ginger there is some Irish running through these veins and I love to celebrate it! St Patrick's Day is one of my favorite holidays, mostly because I love a cold beer, dancing like a fool & I look good in green. 😉 I have celebrated in many ways but always make time to fit a Shepard's Pie into the mix.

I must warn you, it is very Americanized due to my own experience and family's personal taste. However, I've shared it with quite a few people over the years and have never had any complaints of clean dishes. Try it and let me know what you think. 

What You Need 

4 Carrots, petite diced 

4-6 Stalks of Celery, petite diced 

1 Can of peas, drained

1/2 of Large Onion, petite diced

2 lbs Ground Beef 

4 lbs Red Skin Potatoes 

4-6 oz Cheddar Cheese, shredded 

3/4 Stick of Butter 

2 1/2 Cups of Milk 

1/8 Cup of Beef Stock 

Garlic 

Salt 

Pepper

Parsley 

How To Do It

Start by boiling a pot of water with cleaned whole potatoes inside. 

Then take your celery and carrots into a medium pan with 2 tablespoons of butter. Let them simmer over medium heat for about 10 minutes until the vegetables are soft.  Once done, set aide. 

Next, take the onions, broth and salt and pepper to taste in the pan on medium until brown. Then and beef until cooked brown. Once everything is done, add vegetable mixture back to pan with peas. 

At this point, the potatoes should be softened enough to drain and slice. If so, place back into stock pot with milk, butter, salt, pepper, garlic and parsley to taste. Bring to a boil for about 10 minutes, may need to add more butter or milk if drying. Once soft enough to mash, go ahead and make them into a mashed potato topper. 

When all the components are complete, break out your 9x13 casserole dish. Start with your meat mixture on bottom. Next make an even layer or potatoes. Place in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Then, spread shredded cheese on top and place back in oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown. 

Like I said, not extremely authentic but it's a fun way to celebrate and it's bang friendly. Mr. H was begging for more! 

Little St Pats cuteness... 

Blue Apron Experience

My parents went on a vaca & my treat was their Blue Apron delivery for the week! I've been wanting to try it so my mom offered since apparently you can't suspend it for the Bahamas. I even got to pick the two meals.

If you don't know what Blue Apron is, let me share. It's a weekly service that delivers two unprepared meals to your door. The dry ice packed boxes are filled with carefully selected, fresh, measured and labeled ingredients and an instruction sheet. You do the prep work, learn how to cook and have creatively delicious meals to show for it. The menus are limited but when you sign up you take a survey to help guide your selections. If you remember, you can go onto the site and choose two options from the 3-5 they're offering that week. The service runs about $60 a week which breaks down to about $15 per 2 person meal. Selections often include options like salmon with quinoa or steak with vegetables and rice. Dietary restricted options are always available as well. 

I've been seeing a lot of the commercials and it really seemed like a good idea. I had a bit of a hard time with the price because it's half the weekly household grocery budget. But I LOVED the idea of having fresh, new-to-me menus and easy to follow instructions delivered to my door. So, when my mom offered, I had to take her up on it. 

My first option this week is Italian Wedding Soup. It's cute, on the instruction card they give you a little background about into the dish. According to Blue Apron, the Italian Wedding Soup is named after its debut appearance in Italian weddings and the marriage of both meat and leafy greens in the dish. 

For the dish, they give you all the ingredients unprepared, instructions and a 25-30 minute cook time. Well, that went out the window pretty quick. It took almost an hour for my to finish. Maybe they based their times off more experienced chefs. But I had to dice a carrot, celery stalk, medium onion, garlic clove and 2 cups of spinach. Then I was instructed to hand make my chicken meatballs. They didn't look like the recipe.... 

After all was prepped, they had me sauté the vegetables, add water with a gel bouillon and drop in the pasta with balls. It told me to only boil for 5-6 minutes which I did before dropping in the spinach. 

All seemed pretty typical go me. I watched the clock and landed about an hour before I was ready to serve. As you can see; Blue Apron versus mine. Looks like a Pintrest fail! 😝 

But don't judge a book by its cover unless that book's pasta is way too al dente and has no flavor. It was officially a fail. Even if I didn't have to cook a second dinner (I ended up making D pork tenderloin) there really was not enough to fill my pregnant self and Big D before bed. 

So, Round 1 was kind of a foodie bust. But I'll give it another try. I did however leave this experience with a knowledge of how to make Italian Wedding Soup. Plus, this was the first time I've ever made a meatball cooked in liquid and I felt really good about that. Meatballs have NOT been a forte of mine in the past and this did give me the motivation to try again. 

I'm not gonna lie, I'm a bit on the fence about Blue Apron. However, if I see menu options in the future that would suit my family's needs I'll definitely try it again. If not for anything but the experience and education alone! 

Thank you Mom & Dad for the trial!!! 

Princess Peach Baby Shower

It's throwback Thursday time aka sharing my back log of events! Here's a baby shower the Party Planning Mafia threw for my sister. We wanted to take inspiration from they the Super Mario Bros. theme nursery they were planning. Our plan was to do a bit more of a feminine spin on it and create pieces that they could use permanently a decoration in my niece's room. Here is what we came up with:

Invitations 

Sorry it's blurry! The outside folded over to look like a game boy case and the inside was all made up like Princess Peach was the game and controls along the side. Found a graphic designer on Etsy custom make these for us. Funny story though, if you're doing one similar don't use a BCRF return address sticker because some guests might think it's fundraising literature an not open it! Lol 

Food

Had to have a baby girl fruit salad, so cute! We also did light pasta, chicken and salads - the mother-to-be's favorite.

For drinks we made a variety of iced tea, a specially requested peach Bellini punch from the mother-to-be, lemonade and spirits to spike with. 

For dessert there were little candies and cupcakes topped with sugar details from the game. 

Decorations

Here is part of my gift: a year's worth of onesies marked for special occasions. I made sure each was personalized with a family tradition. It was a fun way for the guests to learn more about mommy and her family. 

Here are the Venus fly trap plants we made and a Princess Peach poster that Marnie can enjoy in her room for years to come!

It's all in the details, little Princes Peaches everywhere! These flower pots were game prizes along with makeup kits for the quiz winners. 

Our Little Surprise 

We had our very own Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach! :-) 

This was such a challenging yet fun shower to plan. Hope it inspires yours.