Mama Nancy's Sweet Potato Casserole

We all know what sweet potato casserole is: sweet potatoes with a puffy marshmallow topping, right? Well, as much as I love big white puffy puffs of sugar, I really have never been a fan of the sweet potato casserole made this way. I grew up with my mother's sweet potato casserole. It's SO sweet but SO delicious!

Meat Buns Anyone?

So I don't know about you all, but one of my favourite things to do with leftover turkey, or even chopped up chicky boob is to make stew and after a meal or two of stew I find everyone is getting a bit bored of that...  So then I take that stew and turn it into meat buns!!! I LOVE meat buns! Who doesn't? They are fast, easy, a full meal in the palm of your hand.  (hehe).

So here is a quickie "how to" on making meat buns.

First thing I do in the morning is set a batch of dough off in the bread maker, I use my usual bread recipe by the way. Just be sure you set it on the dough cycle!

Chicky Stew!

Friday is our normal day to spotlight another blog or person.  However, we also know  things happen.  What happened this Friday?  Well our featured blogger has been ill for the last week and was unable to be spotlighted today.  So instead we offer this recipe for some nutritious soup that's bound to make anyone feel at least a little better.



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Recipe: Campfire Cone Crunchy Munchies

I don't go on many road trips.  In fact, I hate road trips.  I get car sick, my kids scream the whole time, my butt hurts and all I end up doing is stuffing my face with food I don't really like just to pass the time.  With that said, we're headed on a nice 12 hour road trip soon.  Yay!  Woo Hoo! and FART!  I am not looking forward to it.  I will get sick, my butt will hurt and there's NOTHING I can do about the kids.  They just hate the car THAT much.  It seems the only thing I am able to change is what I stuff into my face as we drive with the music of the tantrums filling our ears.  I was looking through my cupboard at all of the junk food we don't have in there and started dreaming.  This is what I came up with:

Small FRY-Day Spotlight: Gramma Lollie's Broccoli Casserole

Hey everyone!  This month's Small FRY-day theme is "Family Favorites" although I'm still partial to "Thanksgiving Noms".  Anyway...what better way to start off that by posting a recipe from MY family?  My wonderful mother-in-law is a fantastic cook and always makes me gain like 15 lbs when she comes to stay with us.  I can not help but eat all of everything that she makes.  It's a sickness caused by witchcraft, I tell you.  Please enjoy this recipe by one of my favorite Culinary Queens.
-Crystal-

Tricks or Treats? It's a party!

Sometimes I'm lazy, sometimes I'm really lazy and sometimes I'm just a little lazy.  When it comes to parties I vow to not be lazy.  I try my hardest to come up with awesome ideas and work hard to make sure everything pans out.  There are those heavenly times, though, that I can mix lazy and not lazy and still seem really cool.  That's what happened for the husband's 31st birthday.  Dan's birthday is exceptionally close to Halloween and Halloween also happens to be his favorite Holiday.  It didn't take much to summon the lazy bones out of the grave and combine the two occasions.  Then there was the phone call to the spirits of Martha Stewart and Monica Geller to pull it all together.  I decided to have a "Tricks or Treats Halloween Party" and this is what happened

Quick Chicken Pot Pie

My family loves chicken pot pie.  It's a winner with both kids, comes together quickly, and we typically have leftovers so we can eat it for two nights so it's a winner in my book too.  This particular recipe started off in The America's Test Kichen: Quick Family Cookbook and I've adjusted it to be a little more to our liking.  Usually I make up the filling during nap time as shredding the chicken can be a bit of a mess and then pop it into the toaster oven shortly before dinner but even if I have to make it all at once I love that it doesn't take an hour in the oven after having to cook everything together.  Quick dinner= AWESOME!

Vegan Dumpling Dessert

Hey all! This is Jenn here and today I want to share with you my easy go to fall dessert! and it is vegan so - win! (especially if you are an allergy family or if you ran out of milk and eggs but need something sweet in a hurry). If you don't want to eat it vegan go ahead and use regular milk and margarine.



I am going to put the recipe at the start, since I hate scrolling to the end for the recipe and then back up to get hints for steps.  Hopefully this order is ok for all you readers. So without further dawdling here is the recipe for Vegan Caramel Pear Dumplings!

Wanted: Small Fries and a Cherry Coke!

Ok, maybe not a cherry coke, but if you have one...

This is Crystal and I'm putting this call out there to all of you culinary HEs & SHEs!  We need some of you to spotlight in our Small FRY-day posts for November and our theme is "Thanksgiving Nomming" (Well, THEY'RE calling it "Family Favorite Recipes", but I like Nomming).  If you have a favorite fall recipe that you think would be the bomb diggity on the Thanksgiving table, we want to feature you!  Fill out the form here and let us know what recipe you'd like to share with us.  If we pick you, we'll let you know all the deets (that's details in the language of "awesome") as far as due date and content.  We want to spotlight you and your kitchen couture...kitchen calamity...whatever!  Thanks for letting us show you off.

Nom Nom Nom,

Crystal

P.S. You do not HAVE to have a blog to contribute.  We want to hear from all of the lovely & creative folks out there!

A Pixie Birthday Party

My little girl V is turning one on the 13th of this month.  It's so hard to believe that she's been with us a year while at the same time it feels like she's aways been with us.  At the end of last month we used part of Mr. Viever's paternity leave to travel to see friends and family and at that time through her birthday party celebrating her first year among our family members in Arizona at my in law's home.  We did the same for S when he turned one and it was so nice spending time with family and being with those who loved us most to celebrate the life of our child so we had to do it again for V.

V is a bit on the small side and I call her a little pixie, so a party theme was born! Now some random background, I'm not a fan of Tinkerbell.  Just plain don't care for her, her sass, or the fact that Pixie Hollow took over what used to be Ariel's Grotto at Disneyland- I know I'm a bit of a freak but Ariel's my favorite!  So when I was on my search for decorations, I wanted fairies but not of the Disney sort.  I found the perfect little cupcake toppers and matching garland on Amazon and suddenly two days before we were to leave for Boston for a week, (we're a little on the nutty side and planned travel to Boston for a week, one day at home, then drive to AZ for the weekend of party fun and a relay triathlon) I was struck with a NEED to make V a party dress to match the fairy decor.