Pins I Love

Unless you live under a rock you've heard of Pinterest. Here are some of my

favorite pins I've tried.

Source: theidearoom.net via Sabrina on Pinterest

These cookies were so moist. I love anything peanut butter and chocolate so this was amazing.

Source: smithsfoodanddrug.com via Sabrina on Pinterest

This was a recipe we received from Smith's Marketplace. It's so easy and more fun that traditional meatloaf because it's mini. This was a big hit for dinner.

Source: bloghungry.typepad.com via Sabrina on Pinterest

This pin I almost put as a flop. It definetly takes longer to prepare than regular calzones but the garlic butter glaze makes it taste so good and Tad made it two weeks in a row he liked it so much. Anything Tad will prepare is a winner in my book.

Source: southernliving.com via Sabrina on Pinterest

Love this version of broccoli salad so much more than the traditional version.

Source: chef-n-training.blogspot.com via Sabrina on Pinterest

This was so yummy. Mine looked nothing like this because the recipe says to throw everything and cook but this photo shows uncooked green onions. Yeah it doesn't look this pretty at all but it was yummy.

Source: rufflesandstuff.com via Sabrina on Pinterest

I created one of these prints of my own with dictionary paper I have from a book from the DI.

Source: simplesong.typepad.com via Sabrina on Pinterest

These were listed as free printables but they aren't. There is however a very cute book that the book cover contains all the alphabet that I've cut up to hang up in the boy's room. So cute.

Aisha's Chicken Bean Quesadilla Dip

Photo isn't the best but I seriously craved this after I had it. My friend Aisha made this for me when I had Evan. I had to get the recipe because I was craving it. She said she made it a lot on her mission because it was so easy to make.

Rotisserie chicken taken off and shredded or cook chicken in slow cooker with lime, cilantro and chicken broth for the day.

1 can black beans
1 can pinto beans
1 can refried beans
1 can red beans
1 can Mexican style stewed tomatoes
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, diced
1/2-1 Tbsp. cumin
salt and pepper
lime, optional
sour cream, optional

In skillet cook onion and green pepper. Drain and rinse all the beans. Add beans, tomatoes, chicken and chicken broth to skillet. Season to taste with cumin, salt and pepper. Let simmer for 20 minutes.

This is a really hearty chili so I liked it more as a quesadilla dip. Use the uncooked tortillas for your quesadilla, I promise it will taste better. Add lime and sour cream to your chili and then use quesadillas to spoon in the yummy goodness to your mouth.

Brek's Sangria Punch

This a super sugary (almost syrupy) drink that I should have shared this Summer but it's coming to you now.

1 tub Crystal Lite Raspberry Ice Flavor Drink Mix
1 qt. (4 cups) cold cranberry juice cocktail
1 cup cold orange juice
1 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
3 cups cold club soda
2 medium oranges, sliced
2 medium limes, sliced

Empty drink mix into large pitcher. Add cranberry juice cocktail, orange juice, and lime juice and stir until drink mix is dissolved. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Stir in club soda and fruit. Serve over ice in tall glasses.

Zucchini Recipes

Our garden is just about done but we've had plenty of zucchini from our garden. I've tried a bunch of recipes and here are three that were good.

Summer Zucchini Pasta (pictured)- I left the mint out but all members of my family ate this and liked it.

Roasted Vegetable Minestrone - This makes tons so you could share or freeze some of it for later.

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna - This really was the best of all three recipes. It makes tons and Tad took the leftovers to work all week and actually ate them. Groundbreaking! It tastes just like an Alfredo pasta not vegetables. It's amazing.

I also made a chocolate zucchini cake and zucchini bread with mini chocolate chips that was good but there are hundreds of those recipes you can find anywhere.

Cola-Marinated Flank Steak and Potato Bundles

Not the best photo but this meal was amazing. Even Logan ate it all and my very picky husband. Click on the link below for recipes.

Cola-Marinated Flank Steak

Potato Bundles

Also today 13 years ago was my first date with Tad.

Cheesy Grilled Tomatoes

This Summer I have a goal of grilling at least once a week. So far so good and most of the new recipes have been amazing.

Cheesy Grilled Tomatoes
2 large tomatoes
1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Heat grill. Cut tomatoes in half crosswise. With small spoon, scoop out seeds from seed cavities. Fill cavities with blue cheese. Drizzle tomatoes with oil; sprinkle with basil and Parmesan cheese. Place tomatoes cut side up, in disposable foil pie pan or on piece of heavy-duty foil.

When ready to grill, place pie pan on gas grill over medium heat. Cook 15 minutes or until tomatoes are thoroughly heated and begin to soften.

Weenie Roast '11

A week and a half ago we had our semi-annual weenie roast. It was supposed to be a Royal Wedding Weenies Roast but due to snow/rain we had to postpone a week. I'm sure everyone was grateful so they could watch the event. ;)

Logan hamming it up with the girls.

These two were so funny. While one was digging the other would be putting a pile of sand on the other's head. I'm sure bath time was lots of fun later that night.

Tad helped hold down this bench for the night. It's a crappy picture but I figured I had to throw one in of the guys at the party.
Chelo is in Primary with me and she grew up in Peru. She'd never had a s'more before so we had to quickly fix that.

Logan is so excited to be a big brother. He loves babies and had so much fun pushing Brooks in the swing. He actually cried afterwards because he wanted a baby to push in the swing.

There was lots of yummy food and friends but I think everyone's favorite item was the Milliron's salsa. Below is the recipe.

Milliron Salsa
1 can black beans
1 can black eyed peas
1 can white sweet corn
drain and rinse
2-3 avocados
cut into bite size pieces
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 pint of favorite salsa
1 package of Good Seasoning Italian dressing
Prepare dressing for oil version

Zucchini Fritters

I had some zucchini I needed to use and so these were it. I tricked Logan into eating them by telling him they were like chicken nuggets. The real kicker is I got Tad to eat 3 of them. MIRACLE! Might be the fact that you fry them and they probably aren’t nutritious anymore or the fact they don’t really taste like zucchini. We’ll definitely make these again. **I didn’t like them as leftovers they were too soggy so next time I’ll save the batter and only fry what we will eat for that meal. Click here for the recipe.

Heart Cake

Isn't this the cutest cake ever. I'm not a baker at all but I might have to try this with yellow cake mix and chocolate frosting (The Tad's favorite). He'd love me forever (shouldn't he all ready?).

Photo and tutorial are from I Am Baker.

If any one tries this send me a picture or sample.

Tomato-Basil Pizza

This is my new favorite pizza. This summer we ate this meal once a week. At the beginning of summer we used fresh basil from our garden but that quickly was depleted. I took the recipe that PW had posted and modified it a little because her version was a little too salty.

- Roll out favorite pizza dough.
-Drizzle lightly with olive oil. Spread it around the entire crust so it makes a very thin layer over it.
-Make a layer of fresh basil leaves over the crust (you could use a pesto spread but the fresh leaves taste better)
-Slice tomatoes and put a layer on top of the basil
-Slice fresh mozzarella to put over tomato layer (I've also used grated not so fresh mozzarella and it tasted fine)
-Sprinkle grated Parmesan over the top (optional)
-Bake pizza according to crust directions

Brittany's 30th Birthday

On the 7th we had a party for Brittany's 30th. If you didn't know she's a total foodie so the menu had to be super cool even though I wasn't sure she'd eat any of it.

Love this shot Diana took of Logan. It makes our dilapidated shed look almost cool in the background.


Logan and Eli had their own table. I think they are finally getting the friend thing down and are starting to get along.

I'm realizing we had two D families at the party. The first D family has the cutest twin girls that are 4 months old and so cute. I was glad they could make it.

The other D Family even dressed to match the decor. Speaking of decor I had big plans for the decor but a huge rainstorm came in 2 hours before the party. It cleared up and we moved the party back outside but no cute decorations.

We even had "my paralegal," Diana and her husband at the party. Diana is mine and Brittany's sanity at work even if we don't work together anymore and have silly fights about photoshop and room temperatures.

There were more guests that showed up but I didn't get photos of along with photos of all the food.

I'm so glad Brittany lives in my hood and we've become such good friends. I know she's my right hand woman when it comes to all these crazy ideas I've had for church projects. She's an awesome cook, fabulous makeup artist and I hope she enjoys eating again because Logan and I both miss our dinner buddy.

Okay so now onto the menu. We did a sliders party because Britt said one time that it would be fun to make a bunch of different ones for a party. It was fun and I think it was Tad's favorite party food to date. We had four different sliders: BBQ chicken, BBQ meatball, inside-out cheeseburgers and mushroom & Swiss sliders.

Probably the most popular sliders were the inside-out cheeseburger and mushroom & Swiss sliders. For the meatball slider I originally wanted a meatball with marinara like at a deli shop but then I was lacking the time and ingredients so I make Pioneer Woman's BBQ meatballs instead.

The bbq chicken is a super simple recipe. 4-6 chicken breasts thrown in a greased slow cooker. Pour 16oz of your favorite BBQ sauce over chicken. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Right before serving, shred chicken. Recipe is from Stephanie Ashcraft's 101 Things to Do with a Slow Cooker

The D Family brought a really yummy fruit salad and I made a caprese. If you've never had a caprese salad it's so simple and easy. Grape tomatoes, sliced thinly basil, sliced fresh mozzarella or fresh mozzarella balls, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper. See easy.

Greek Feast

Lately we've been grilling a lot. Here is a recipe for chicken souvlaki that I had for my mom's birthday party. It was so good. This is a recipe that was in the Salt Lake Tribune, March 13, 2002 (it's about time I tried it).

1/2 cup lemon juice
2 Tbs. red wine vinegar
3 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbs. fresh Greek oregano, chopped
1 Tbs. fresh thyme, chopped
2 Tbs. garlic, minced
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 lbs. chicken breasts, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
Wooden skewers

Combine lemon juice, vinegar, oil ad spices in a bowl. Add in chicken pieces and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours or overnight. Soak wooden skewers.Thread meat on skewers and grill until juices run clear and internal temperature reaches 170 degrees.

** I added red onions and summer squash that I had from my garden.




The other Greek dish that I made was Mediterranean Orzo Salad. I absolutely loved this pasta salad but then again it had feta and basil in it. What's not to love. Found this recipe on Tasty Kitchen right here.

Peanut Butter Fingers

I'm willing to go out there and say these are the best peanut butter bars out there. Our neighbor, Michelle, makes these and I bugged her several times to make sure they ended up in the ward cookbook. Kirsten was so nice to let me use her big belly as the backdrop for this photo. So I'm sure you are having a big BBQ this weekend so make a batch of these to share and you'll be every one's favorite person.

2 cubes butter/margarine

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

3/4 cup peanut butter

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 cups flour (best if whole wheat flour is used)
2 1/2 cups oatmeal

Cream together first 6 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients. The batter will be very thick. Spread batter on 9x13 and 8x8 pan or one large cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes or until slightly brown. DO NOT OVERCOOK. Cool in pan.

After taking out of oven, put peanut butter all over top. After cools, frost with your favorite chocolate frosting. Cut into bars.

Sabrina's notes: I had to bake this longer than instructed. I also had to wait till it cooled before putting peanut butter on because it just was falling apart when I tried adding while hot. I personally probably ate a 1/3 of the bars, it's that good.

Meatballs

I got this recipe from our neighbor who has a HUGE neighborhood Utah/BYU tailgating party. The recipe is so simple. If made right they are sweet with just a little kick. I don’t recommend making them while you have a cold or the sweet/hotness ratio gets messed up and you burn your guests’ mouths.

Ingredients
Costco meatballs
Frank’s Original Hot Sauce (it’s rumored Sam’s Club sells this sauce in bulk but it isn’t sold at Costco)
Brown Sugar

I cook half a bag for an event and it’s plenty of meatballs.

Directions
-Cook meatballs according to directions on bag.
-While meatballs are cooking mix hot sauce with almost equal amount of brown sugar in pan on the stove. For ½ bag of meatballs two large bottles of sauce are enough.
-Cook sauce on stove until the sugar does that caramelizing thing (caramelizing may not be the proper word). Make sure you taste the sauce to know if you need to keep adding more sugar to make it more sweet.
-Add meatballs to sauce and either cook on stove or put in crock-pot just to warm everything.

Green Chili Pork Tacos

We made this recipe a couple weeks ago and it was so good. We forgot to use the tomatoes and I also halved the recipe because let's face it we're not the Duggars. I totally recommend this. We're eating some of the leftovers that I froze. Click here for recipe.

Surprise Brek!

Saturday we had a surprise pampering party for Brek. She's expecting her 3rd boy. I knew that Brek hasn't been enjoying being pregnant so much (who does?), so we planned a fun day for her.

Well I'm not a spa type person so I couldn't figure out what to do. Brittany was in charge of planning the menu since her food is always amazing. She made her taco soup. I made preggatinis. For the recipe go here.

Everyone was teasing me because everything I do right now comes from a blog. It's totally true. Part of the reason I wanted to do this shower was so I could do some decorations. Right now I'm totally into pennant garlands and tissue paper pom poms. Right now if you look at any party/wedding blogs you'll find them there.

So for these ideas I'll just give you links to two of my favorite blogs that I check daily.

Style Me Pretty

Hostess with the Mostess

Then I threw together these gift bags that I saw on Flickr from one of my favorite scrapbookers, Tara Anderson. She seriously does the most amazing paper flowers ever. Here is a link to her adorable gift bags or check out her blog for more amazing ideas - the pink couch.We also did glitter toes. No I'm not going to give you a shot of feet, that's gross. This idea I first got from Aisha. Then I saw instructions posted on one of my favorite blogs that I began checking out for YW stuff but now read every day just because the writer is so creative. So for instructions on glitter toes go here. Oh and I so wasn't going to post this picture but it's the only one I have of people. Don't hate. We also made Heather Bailey Fabric Flowers. I read her site all the time but I found out from her site she was on Studio 5 and that is where I took her fabric flower tutorial. So there you go, those are all the details for the shower, I'm not creative at all I just look at too many blogs.

Now I have to go because I need to get back to my Mr. Darcy.

Greek Souvlaki

I'm sure I've said this on here before but I could eat a Greek salad for lunch every day if I had to. I love them. Here is a photo of the one from Crown Burger. It's so good and I probably

have it at least once a week.

Another place that has really good Greek is Greek Souvlaki No. 1. This is just half of their Chicken Souvlaki Plate. Aisha and I like to go there and then split the plate.

So I've been trying to find the perfect souvlaki recipe so I can just pack my own salad (that and I also have a brick of 2 1/2 lbs. of feta in my fridge). So here is a recipe I found that was really good. I found it here - I just modified it because most recipes call for less olive oil.

4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Marinade:

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 T red wine vinegar

1 T finely minced garlic (or garlic puree from a jar)

1 T dried oregano

1 tsp. dried thyme

Trim all visible fat from chicken breasts. Then cut chicken breasts into strips. Combine all marinade ingredients and place in either a ziplock bag or airtight container. Add chicken to marinade. Make sure all chicken gets coated with marinade and store in the fridge for at least 8 hours.

Remove chicken from marinade and thread onto skewers (we were really lazy and just cooked them directly on the grill). Then eat. If you want more detailed instructions check the link I posted above.

Flourless Chocolate Mousse

This is a recipe from our caterer's. It is seriously the best dessert.

Make a graham cracker crust. The pieces the caterer serves are huge, so I bet if you used just a regular size pie tin, it would make two.

2 lbs. semisweet chocolate

1 qt. cream

some cayenne pepper

1-2 cinnamon sticks

Put the cream in a pan with the cayenne pepper and cinnamon sticks. Let it boil like it's going to boil over. After it's boiled turn off the heat and take out the cinnamon sticks. Add the chocolate and whisk it till it's melted.

Pour into graham cracker crust and you've got a really yummy dessert.

The photo has crumbs all over the top because the co-worker dishing it up kind of crumbled the crust. Also not the best photo because it's at work with my little camera.

Bow Ties with Tomatoes, Feta, and Balsamic Dressing

I made this for the ward party last month and got several compliments so I'm going to share. The original recipe is here but I pretty much doubled the recipe so you might not want to follow their directions. Also I was expecting a really flavorful salad because of the balsamic vinegar but it's not overpowering at all. It's bland in a good way. Can you tell I don't watch the Food Network?

1 package uncooked farfalle (bow tie pasta)

2 cups grape tomatoes, halved

2 cups seedless green grapes, halved

1/2 cup thinly sliced basil leaves

4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons chopped shallots

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

8 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

6 oz. crumbled feta cheese

1. Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain. Run pasta through cold water to cool it and drain. Combine cooked pasta tomatoes, grapes, and basil in large bowl.

2. While past cooks, combine vinegar, shallots, mustard, garlic, salt and pepper in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Gradually add oil to vinegar mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. Drizzle vinaigrette over pasta mixture; toss well to coat. Add cheese; toss to combine.

The original recipe served this as the main course to a meal but since I chilled the pasta and wanted it as a side salad I liked it better that way.

Well gotta go the visiting teachers should be here and then I have a date with Jordan Catalano. The last DVDs arrived so don't worry there will soon be an end to all the My So-Called Life references.

East's Fruit Salad

This is my new favorite easy salad. It's better than that jell-o salads with cottage cheese or cool whip because you don't have to let it set. Here's the recipe.

1 can crushed pineapple, undrained

1 small package lemon instant pudding

1 can tropical fruit salad, drained

1 can mandarin oranges, drained

That's it.

I usually add 2 apples cut up and 2 bananas. The best part because of the pineapple juice they don't turn brown. I think I might try adding peaches next time I make this.