Monday's Must Have

I cannot explain to you how much I love roasted garlic. When we go to Newk's, I fill three of the little cups with roasted garlic to later top my pizza with.

It's odd. I am aware. 

You can use roasted garlic in many dishes as well as on a meat and cheese platter.

It's just a good thing to know how to do. 

Here's what you need:

2 Heads of Garlic

Aluminum Foil

Good Olive Oil

Muffin Pan

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

2. Peel away the outer layers of the garlic so you can see each individual clove of garlic and leave them intact.

3. With a sharp knife, trim off the tops of the cloves leaving them exposed. Mine kind of fell apart. Oh well. Repeat steps 2 & 3 on the second head of garlic. 

4. Place two pieces of aluminum foil into the muffin pan. Add the garlic and cover generously with the olive oil. 

5. Wrap the garlic in the aluminum foil. 

6. Bake at 400 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

7. Once the time is up, remove the pan from the oven. With an oven mit, unwrap the garlic and let it cool.

8. Once cool, take it out of the aluminum foil and put it on a plate or cutting board. There are several ways of getting your garlic out of the skin easily. Some people cut the skin or just peel it away.

I like to pick up each one individually and push it out of the open end of the clove.

Easy Peasy.

YUMMMMMMMMMM

I eat all of this and then Cam is just DYING to kiss me.

HA

Alabama Shakes

My sister Sally turned me on to the band the Alabama Shakes. 

They're from Athens, Alabama and they are awesome.

 Lead singer Brittany Howard is an Aretha Franklin-Janis Joplin mix and I love her. I read a little bit about the band's history on their website. When asked how she got started with bass player Zac Cockrell, Brittany responded "I just knew that he played bass and that he wore shirts with cool bands on them that nobody had heard of." That's just great to me.

Just start this video on your computer, turn it up kinda loud and then open another window and get on Pinterest or Facebook or something. I promise by the end of the song that they will have gotten your attention back to the video.

And if they don't, I bet you have a lot of Justin Beiber on your iPod.

Keep watching this one until the 3 minute mark. 

So excited to see them at the Hangout Festival next weekend!

House Update

We are knocking things off of the "House To-Do" list left and right! Guest bath is looking much better nowadays! The wallpaper changed the entire feeling of our house. I just love this room. It makes me feel so proud of our home! Still waiting on the shower curtain and the mirrors to be hung. 

Except for a few more pillows, I think that the living room is finished! New art, the framed scarf and the new lamps were the perfect finishing touches. 

New lamps! 

I couldn't be more pleased with the framed Pucci scarf. It's bright, weird, and funky. Just what I wanted. I think that every room needs something a little strange and unusual in it. 

The drapes in the dining room are up! (With a lot of help my mother-in-law, Thanks Lynnie!)

Aaaaand the chandelier was supposed to be assembled & hung yesterday. 

See that little hole or gap in the ceiling? Yeah so, I've got to find a ceiling medallion and quick so that our electrician can get back over here and finish.  

Because I have been waiting since JANUARY to have this big boy in my house. Electrician said it's going to take him an hour and a half to hang all of the crystals. 

DYING.

For some reason, John the electrician wasn't as excited as I was. 

5 Things I Love

Fresh Strawberries

Hangout Festival tickets are in!

So, this is how much of a social networking stalker I am. I saw that someone I follow on Instagram liked a picture of a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pound Cake. It looked SO delicious that I found a recipe that looked similar and now I am dying to make it.

New style of bracelet from Tacori's 18k925 Collection.
I die.
Hope Cam reads the blog today!

Kate Upton

Want some workout inspiration?

Every time I want to get off of the treadmill early, I you tube "Kate Upton Cat Daddy Dance."

I promise, that you will suddenly want to keep working out.

Potato and Blue Cheese Pizza

Now that I know I can make my own pizza dough, I am all about homemade pizzas. I pinned this recipe a while ago but have been curiously wanting to try it. It just didn't look like something Cam would be down for. But I am ran it by him and he seemed excited about it. Like always, I changed the recipe up a little.

Here's what you need:

Pizza Dough

1 Vidalia Onion (recipe calls for 2, I used 1)

3-4 Yukon Gold Potatoes (depending on size)

All-Purpose Flour

Fresh Thyme

Blue Cheese

2 Garlic Cloves

Olive Oil

Black Pepper

Sea Salt

 1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

2. For the topping, peel the potatoes and slice them about an 1/8 of an inch thick.

3. Toss them in olive oil, covering both sides of each potato and then lay them each on a baking sheet. After making this, I would recommend using cooking spray on the baking sheet because my potatoes really stuck to the sheet. Sprinkle sea salt and black pepper generously over the potatoes. Add sprigs of thyme to the baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until they are cooked through. 

4. Peel and chop almost the entire onion. Saute the onion in a skillet with salt, pepper, and thyme until they are clear and slightly brown. Set them aside in a bowl when they are finished.

5. The potatoes should be ready by now. Take them out of the oven, plate, and let cool. 

6. Now that the toppings are ready, we can work on the dough. Lightly flour a clean counter top. Place your dough in the flour and being to work it out. I used a rolling pin this time because I was trying to get it really thin. That didn't work out for me too well. 

7. Here's where it gets weird. After rolling out your dough into the shape of a pizza, heat a cast iron skillet on top of the stove. Let it get very, very hot. Turn then skillet upside down and place the dough onto the bottom.VERY carefully, use your fingers to spread the dough to the edges. 

8. Put the skillet and dough into the oven under the broiler until it has browned slightly and "set up." I didn't really know what "set up" meant for a pizza dough so this is what my crust looked like. After taking it out of the oven, use a spatula to carefully loosen off of the skillet. Let the crust cool on a wire rack.

9. After it's cooled, put it back on top of the upside down skillet. 

10. Mince or press the garlic and add it to a little bit of olive oil. Brush the mixture onto the center of the crust.

11. Begin topping the pizza by layering the potatoes then sprinkle the onions and cheese on. Top with sea salt and black pepper. 

12. The recipe says to pop the skillet and pizza back under the broiler for a few minutes. I did this and it just wasn't working for me. I decided to transfer in to my pizza pan and bake it on 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Ok, so here's the deal. This pizza was just OK. Everything tasted fine but it wasn't anything special. Here's what I would change:

1. I would not use the cast iron skillet at all. It dictated the size of my pizza and therefore, the thickness. I would have rolled the dough out so thin to almost a flat bread style.

2. It really needed more bold flavors. I think I was scared to go too far on the flavors and scare Cam off. Next time, I think I will try seasoning and browning the potatoes more. Maybe make them a little crispy on the edges. I would definitely add more onions and blue cheese to the pizza.

3. Finally, I think this recipe would be so much better with the addition of a little bacon. 

A little salt, a little crunch = much better

And doesn't adding bacon make everything it better?

I think so. 

what I want

     

Click on the pics to purchase these items!

Hot & Ready

No, this post is not about Little Caesar's pizza. Our air conditioner is slowly dying so that is how I feel: hot & ready for the repairman to get here and fix it. Gus and Rosie agree. They keep panting and staring at me like "hello! we are panting. do something!"

They aren't used to being hot. Poor babies. But anyways! Today's post is going to be short and sweet because I am running away to find a place with a nice A/C. 

Last week, we had our good friends over after a crawfish party. I wanted to have something for them to eat but had no clue what the proper type of food to serve post crawfish party is. I'm from Georgia so we don't have crawfish unless they are flown to us. I talked to my mom and she suggested something sweet, like Chocolate Delight. So I got on Pinterest and found this recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookie Delight. This dessert was quick and easy to make except that it needs to set up in a refrigerator for a while. But it was light and sweet and made the perfect post crawdad meal. 

Here's what you need:

1 Tube of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

1 Package of softened Cream Cheese

1 Cup of Confectioners' Sugar

12 Ounces of Whipped Topping

3 Cups of of Cold 2% Milk

1 Package of Instant Chocolate Pudding Mix

1 Package of Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix

Chopped nuts - optional

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

2. Take the cookie dough and cream cheese out of the refrigerator and let them soften. I opened my cookie dough and squeezed it into an ungreased, 7x11 casserole dish to let it soften.

3. Once the cookie dough is soft, press into the bottom of the casserole dish. Spread the dough out into a crust with your fingers. 

4. Bake at 350 for 14-16 minutes and let it cool in the dish on wire rack.

 5. In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese and confectioners' sugar until they're smooth and combined.

6. Add 1 3/4 cup or 12 ounces of whipped topping to the bowl. Fold the whipped topping in until its smooth. 

7. Spread half of the cream cheese-whipped topping mixture onto the cookie crust that is now cool. 

8. In a large, clean bowl combine the milk and two pudding mixes and whisk for 2 minutes. 

9. Let it set up for a few minutes after whisking.

10. Spread the mixture over the cream cheese layer.

11. Top the pudding layer with the rest of the cream cheese-whipped topping mixture. Feel free to add chopped nuts of chocolate swirls to the finished dish.

I had to do half & half so that Cameron would eat it. 

Simple, easy, and yummy!

My kind of recipe.