Roo is 5!

Sweets and Skating!

Birthday Boy and his candy cake

Candy Bar

Candy Cake



BooBoo's is 1!!!!!

Mommy's Little Monster Turns 1!



Superbowl Sunday

Buffalo Balls and Fried Pickles



Fried Pickles




Buffalo Balls



Ratings:

Me: The yumminess is worth my house stinking

Hubs: If its fried I love it

Kids: "I don't like pickles" "These are too spicey"

Friends: "Where did you find this little peice of Heaven"

Recipe Fried Pickles:

Ingredients:

- 1 jar sliced dill pickles

- 1 small bag white cornmeal with flour mixed in (amount will vary depending on how many pickles you want to fry)

- Lowry's Seasoning Salt (to taste)

- Vegetable Oil (for frying)

Steps:

1. Drain pickles and pat dry with a paper towel

2. Pour 1 cup cornmeal into ziploc bag and Sprinkle Lowry's in, genourously.

3. Dump pickles into bag and shake em up, shake off excess mixture before cooking

4. Heat Oil in a deep pot to 350, but for those of you who don't know to measure the temperature of oil just set your stove top to medium. You will smell the oil heating up.

5. Drop the pickles in and flip after 1 minute, the cornmeal will turn golden when they are done.

6. Drain on to a paper towel

Tips:

* The pickles must be drained and dried off thouroughly otherwise your batter will become gummy

* If you plan to fry anything else with this oil, save these for last, the batter tends to separate from the pickles leaving cornmeal in the oil, you don't want that getting on anything else.

* A great way to test to see if oil is heated is to drop a pinch of flour into the oil, if it sizzles then you're ready to go, if it doesn't do anything give it another couple of minutes.

* To make sure you have enough seasoning in your flour mixture, taste it! That's right taste it! If you can taste the salt, you're good.

Not ready yet....another minute!

Recipe Buffalo Balls:

I can't take all the credit for these amazong little bites, I actually saw these on an episode of Big Daddy's House in my hotel room while on a business trip. I came home and immediatly made them. Then I I kept having Buffalo Chicken Dip at various party's so I decided to merge the 2. If you would like to watch Aaron McCargo's video for his recipe please visit: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aaron-mccargo-jr/buffalo-chicken-cheese-balls-recipe/index.html

Ingredients:

- 1 rotisserie chicken

-1/4 cup Frank's Hot Sauce

-2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

-1 8 oz cream cheese cubed

- garlic salt

-onion powder

- salt

-pepper

-1 cup ap flour

-3 eggs beaten

- 2 T milk

- 1 box Progresso Panko Bread Crumbs

Steps:

1. Remove as much meat as possible from the chicken and dump it in the food processor, blend until chicken is fine chopped

2. Pour chicken into a large bowl and mix with hot sauce, both cheeses, and seasonings. Blend well, mixture will be orange in color.

3. Roll mixture into 1 inch balls and place on a sheet pan.

4. Heat oil in a large pot to 350 degrees or medium to med high

5. Beat eggs and milk together in one bowl, in another bowl pour in flour, and finally put panko into another bowl. So you should have 3 dredging bowls.

6. Roll each ball into the flour first, then egg batter, and finally panko bread crumbs.

7. Drop into hot oil for 3 to 4 minutes each or until golden brown. Filling should ooze out when done.

Drain on paper towels.

Tips:

* Refrigerate the chicken over night before removing it from the bones, it makes it much easier to pull off.

* you can sub canned chicken or chicken breasts for the rotisserie chicken, however you will need to compensate for the flavor you will missing so season the chicken.

Before going into the hot oil

Cook until golden

Yum!

Mo's French Toast~ for the birthday boy

Mo's French Toast

Ratings:

Me: I could eat this every morning

Hubs: He ate 2 pieces before I could put the bacon in the microwave

Kids: The baby was covered in syrup and the birthday boy wanted more sugar and syrup

There were NO leftovers

Ingredients:

- Eggs (1 egg will coat 2 pieces of bread front and back)

- Milk (use 1 TBSP per egg)

-Bread (I usually fix 2 pieces per person)

-Cinnamon

-Butter

- Powdered Sugar

-Syrup

Steps:

1. Beat together eggs, milk and cinnamon in a shallow dish until well blended

2. Heat butter in a skillet, enough to coat the bottom when melted

3. Dip both sides of the bread into the egg batter and place in the skillet

4. Cook bread on both sides until eggs are cooked and toast is no longer mushy

5. Top with Syrup, Powdered Sugar and more cinnamon!





A little more:

* This may seem like a "duh" recipe but surprisingly not a lot of people know how to make french toast.  Plus the secret to making this recipe so special is putting the cinnamon in the egg batter so that it cooks into the bread. My mom used to fix this every birthday when I was little and now I am passing the tradition to my boys.

* If you don't like for your bread to be too eggy add some more milk to the batter, but I love it so I save the eggy pieces for me :)

* If you don't want your powdered sugar to slide off of your bread then put it on before the syrup

* Nothing goes better with Mo's French Toast than some crispy bacon dipped in syrup of course!

Stromboli

(It tastes better than it looks)

Ratings:

Me: I mean its pizza rolled up why would it not be good!

Hubs: "Wow this is pretty good, I wish I hadn't eaten lunch so late"

Kids: "Mommy it tastes just like pizza, I love it"



Ingredients:

1 ball Publix pizza dough

1 package large sliced pepperoni

1 package large sliced salami

1 2 cup bag mozzarella cheese shredded

1 cup ricotta

1/2 cup pizza sauce

1/2 stick melted butter

Garlic Salt

Italian Seasoning

Steps:

1. Let dough rest on counter top for an hour. Sprinkle a little flour on your counter top. Roll out dough flat into the biggest circle/ rectangle you can form. Trust me it won't get very big.

2. Spread pizza sauce evenly over dough leaving about an inch around.

3. Spread the ricotta cheese over the sauce, then sprinkle 1/2 of the mozzarella on top.

4. layer up the meats, but make sure to spread then all over, don't pile them all in the middle.

5. Top with remaining mozzarella and sprinkle Italian seasoning and garlic salt on top.

6. Take one side of the "pizza" and start to roll it towards the other like a jelly roll. Roll it as tight as you can without squeezing out any of the filling. Pinch the ends when finished and transfer to a  sprayed cookie sheet or pizza stone.

7. Melt butter with Garlic Salt and Italian seasoning and brush over dough covering as much as you can.

8. Bake for 30 minutes on 400, then reduce heat to 325 and continue to cook for 15 minutes. The center will still be a little "moist", but as long as its not gummy in texture it will be ready to eat.

Tips:

* I bought the pepperoni and salami at the dollar store! It was the Hormel brand. At Publix it was $4.99!!!!

* I re buttered the Stromboli before I stuck it back in to cook for the last 15 minutes.

Doesn't this look amazing!