Julie Harrell: Photographer

Justine’s baby shower is featured on Life and Baby! Thanks Evelyn for the lovely post! Check out her blog for all kinds of fun parities and raising young ones wisdom.

Cheers,
jewels

Looking through the images brought back great memories, and now Justine’s baby, Ava, is almost 1. What I find kinda neat is that even the name Justine chose for her daughter totally fit the theme of the shower!… so here is an old post, hope you enjoy it the same, even if it should have been posted a year ago.

OK, so I posted about a baby shower my friend Dee and I were planning, and I never shared the results. I did post photos on facebook, but after a few emails, I realized I should have still posted on the blog, since I did share the inspiration for it here!! Ooops! The shower was perfect. Justine, the mom-to-be flew out from Ohio, and since she had very little space in her suitcase home, we asked if people would consider bringing a gift card to any place they thought would be special. We attached these to what we called the “gift card tree.” This tree was composed of 4 feet of blossoming branches that we (aka our dear husbands) cut dow. It was beautiful!! We put silver glittered birds on the branches, and let guests attach their giftcards with mini paperclips. For drinks, a virgin Sangria, with sugar rimmed glasses. For eats, an Italian/Mediterranean spread (Justine’s family is from the beautiful island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples), and nest inspired cupcakes. For party favors, we sent guests home with homemade granola, and yes, we even played a couple games. Most of all we just enjoyed time with our wonderful friend!

Cheers,
jewels

One of Justine’s cousin’s twins… they were only a few days old!

Each water bottle and glass held a numbered silver bird for a prize drawing.

Dee, Justine, Jennie, and myself. I’ve been best friends with these girls since I was 13!! Dee and Justine have known each other since they were barely 2.

Dee and I made clippies for the baby. The frame was one I picked up at goodwill, painted a light grey, framed some cute paper, and attached ribbon on the outside as a home for the clippies. You can see a before photo of the frame in this post!

Homemade granola, I’ll blog the recipe sometime. It makes a huge batch, and kids love it.

The day before the shower, Justine and I headed out to do some maternity photos. Then we printed and framed a few for the shower.

Dee and me, after the shower. We totally planned to wear the same shirt, not really, but this wasn’t the first time we’ve coordinated for parties!

Since I’m still sitting on 50/50 at getting both Clara and Juliet to nap at the same time, I thought I’d make cupcakes while at least Clara slept… It was just that kind of afternoon. And since I rarely make my own cake, I grabbed one of the 12 boxes of cake mix stashed away (ok, fine, completely visible) in the pantry and made a quick batch… and yes I did make big cupcakes too. I do love making a lot of little ones though, because we all know that no matter how many little ones are consumed they will never have as many calories the big ones, assuming that I don’t type it into my calorie counting app.

These ones are my “resourceful” cupcakes… ya know I needed to find a purpose for those butterscotch chips…

And I enjoyed a little bit of her as the cupcakes baked

THEN, I eagerly frosted and consumed two ok, four mini cupcakes!!

And if you want the recipe for the frosting, I don’t have exact measurements but today’s went something like:

1 stick of butter
3 tablespoons cream cheese
2 cups (ish) powdered sugar
1 tablespoon half n half (more or less to achieve desired consistency)
cap full of vanilla extract
juice of 1/4 lime (usually I use lemon, but I only had limes…it keeps everything tasting, perky, for lack of a better word).

Cream room temp. butter and cream cheese together with hand mixer, add in powdered sugar and milk, continue to beat. After everything is well blended, mix in vanilla, and finish off with some lime or lemon juice (about a teaspoon).

Look what I sent Chris to work with…

Yup, I couldn’t have 20 extra bars hanging out at home to eventually make their way to my hips. I saw this recipe originally on Cookies and Cups and fair warning, only go there if you are currently not on a diet, or are prepared to loose your diet all together, her treats are amazing to be honest!! These are very easy to make, when you bite into the butter crust and gooey caramel, and get a burst of that salt crystal…Ok I won’t go on. They are delicious. And if you can, find a really good coarse sea salt or smoked sea salt. I used white silver sea salt from Hawaii that my dear friend Nina brought back for me, so if you are planning a trip to Hawaii it couldn’t hurt to pick up some local salt to pack home, or more for me… I’ll give you my address

Cheers,
jewels

For the Crust:
1 lb. salted butter room temp
1 cup sugar
1½ cups powdered sugar
2 Tbs vanilla
4 cups AP Flour

For the Filling:
1 bag (14 oz.) caramel candies (about 50 individual caramels), unwrapped
⅓ cup milk or cream (I used half & half)
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 T. coarse sea salt

To make the crust:
Preheat oven to 325f

In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugars. Using mixer on medium speed, beat together until creamy. Add the vanilla and beat until combined. Sift the flour into the butter mixture and beat on low speed until a smooth soft dough forms.

Butter a 9×13 inch baking pan. Press one-third of the dough evenly into the pan to form a bottom crust. Put the rest of the dough into the fridge to chill.

Bake until firm and the edges are a pale golden brown approx 20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool about 15 minutes.

While the bottom crust is baking and the remaining dough is chilling, make the caramel filling. Place the unwrapped caramels in a sauce pan over medium/low heat, add cream and stir frequently until caramels are melted. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Pour the caramel filling over the crust, then sprinkle coarse sea salt on caramel layer.

Remove the remaining chilled dough from the refrigerator and crumble it evenly over the caramel.

Return the pan to the oven and bake until the filling is bubbly and the crumbled shortbread topping is firm and lightly golden, about 25 – 30 minutes.

Let cool completely before cutting into squares.

Yesteray, Madeline and I made homemade Chicken Noodle soup, with my mom’s egg noodle recipe. YUM!!! It was so delicious. I used half the noodles for the soup, and froze the other half for another day. I’ll attach my recipe for the soup and for the noodles… and just to give it a kick, I finish off my bowl with nice tablespoon of cream!
Cheers,
jewels

Recipe:

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2-3 cloves minced garlic
1 medium onion
3-4 celery stalks chopped
3 carrots chopped
2 medium skinless/boneless chicken breasts thawed, or cooked and shredded
64 oz chicken stock (or broth)
Dash of red pepper flakes
Dash of oregano (or parsley)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Egg Noodles (recipe to follow)

Optional garnishes:
More red pepper flakes
Green Onion
Chives
Cream

Saute garlic in the olive oil and butter, add onions and saute until soft. Add Celery and carrots, and saute for a few minutes longer. Add chicken breasts, whole if not cooked, and chicken stalk along with seasonings. Let simmer until breasts are cooked through. Remove the breasts and shred with forks, and return to soup. Bring to a boil and add half or more of the noodles to the soup—however many you want. Reduce heat, and simmer at least 45 minutes (or until noodles are tender throughout).

Dish into bowls, garnish with whatever! And enjoy with some warm yeast rolls!

Mom’s egg noodles:

2 1/2 cups flour
2-3 eggs (I like to mix mine first)
1-2 half eggshells of milk
dash of salt (and pepper if you want)

Sift four and spices, make a well inside the flour to hold the eggs and milk, pour eggs (either whole or beaten) into the well. Add 1/2 an eggshell of milk, and mix. It may need more moisture, mine did today, so add another 1/2 shell of milk if needed. Dough should be sticky enough to roll into a ball, but not so much that it cannot be rolled out. Roll the dough into a ball and let sit for 1/2 an hour. Dust the rolling area with a generous amount of flour and roll the dough to 1/8 in thick. Cut your noodles with cookie cutters, or a pizza cutter. I like to let mine dry for a while before adding them to the soup, but you could very well stick them in boiling water right away. They also freeze very well!

Enjoy

Last night, after my sweet memories of Magnolia Bakery, I had a hankerin for Banana Pudding. So, a quick walk next door to Haggen for the ingredients and I was ready for my indulgence. It was early on in my baking when I realized that I bought regular vanilla pudding instead of the instant vanilla pudding. I let the “medium sized bowl” of pudding “set” for 15-20 minutes in the fridge, while Madeline and I hand whisked our heavy cream into soft peaks (yes, we hand whisked it). I scooped a toppling heap of cream onto the white spatula, anticipating the gentle folding into the pudding. Drop, Plop, Splat, WHAT??!!! The pudding was NOT set. I scrambled to remove the box from the recycling, and yes, I realized my dreaded mistake. I figured that the regular pudding would set fine in the fridge after 4 hours, no problem. I continued on, layering my nilla waffers, banana’s and pudding sludge (it looked lumpy with my not-so-nicely-folded-into-pudding-hand-whipped-cream). When it was finished I topped it with crumbs of wafers, gently placed the bowl into the fridge to “set,” and plopped on the sofa to watch “27 Dresses.” Part way through the movie (The part when Jane’s sister Tess meets the illustrious George), I realized, “OH CRUD, regular pudding needs heat to set.” I searched the web for any info I could find, and my worst fear was confirmed by a wonderful woman, Nancy, “Yes, I needed heat to set that darn pudding.” My only hope was to make banana milkshakes. Deciding that I would not let my creation become blender blob, I pulled out my strainer, and let the unset liquid drip into my sauce pan. The rest of the bananas, wafers, and cream looked less than excited, but I just wanted to take a bite of smooth light vanilla pudding with ripe soft bananas and wafers that had been partially softened in the mix. I heated the pudding as directed on the box, let it cool. Meanwhile I whipped some more cream, this time with a real mixer, and folded it into the soft pudding. I stirred in the bananas and wafers in, and topped it once again with shards of nilla wafers. I tucked it into the fridge, and awoke to a beautiful bowl of real banana pudding! Now, it didn’t look as pretty as I would want, but the taste was more beautiful than I could have imagined! So when life gives you regular pudding, don’t make banana blob!

Enjoy the recipe below!

Better Banana Puddin’

2/3 cup INSTANT vanilla pudding
1 1/2 cups cold water
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 box vanilla wafer cookies
3-4 ripe bananas, thinly sliced on the diagonal

Pudding: in medium bowl whisk INSTANT pudding and water until no lumps remain. Whisk in sweetened condensed milk until well combined. Allow pudding to set in fridge for 15-20 minutes. Beat heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Fold it into the pudding.

Cover the bottom of your favorite pudding dish with a layer of wafers. Top with a layer of banana slices, then cover with pudding mixture. Repeat layering until pudding is covering the last layer of wafers and bananas. If desired, break a few cookies into shards and crumbles, and scatter across the top. Let chill in the fridge until ready to serve!

Serves 6-8 people.

I made chocolate chip cookies today. I love to mix those tiny milk- chocolate chips with the Ghirardelli semi-sweet big chocolate chips. They are so delicious! Wish I could share them with you all!

Cheers,
jewels