Helping With the Easter Baking

Cute Easter Stuff

Since I'm going to be spending the next couple days getting ready for Easter, I thought I'd share my idea block. We'll be celebrating Easter this weekend with Anthony's family and Greek Easter next weekend with my family. What will I be bringing you ask? Your guess is at good as mine right now, but here's what I have in mind...

Play Date

More pictures are coming but here's one of the best pics of the day:

Picking Out The Perfect Birthday Card

Spring Cleaning Has Commenced

I've slowly, very slowly, been going through our house one area at a time and trying to throw things away. Jaxon's room has taken the most effort because he's grown out of most of the things in his closet. I've been trying to figure out what clothes still fit him and what stuff needs to be packed up for future baby boy #2.

Prior to this sprucing up, I stalked Pinterest for ideas on organization and cleaning tricks (mine are limited to shoving everything in a closet). I found this perfect boy closet that I practically drooled over:



Unfortunately, here's where I am right now:

Atlantic City

Well, it's Wednesday and I haven't written so we didn't come home with tons of cash from Atlantic City. But we did have a good time. Here's a few pics I was actually allowed to take from inside the casino

All Packed Up and Ready for Nono and Nona's this Weekend!

Ant's Rants

Tired of recipes, food, patio plants, and pictures of Jaxon? No, of course you aren't, but if you need a more well rounded diet of reading material check out Anthony's new blog: Ant Rants.

He finally got tired of ranting daily about sports to a semi-disinterested wife and a seven month old who just giggles as he flails around.

Tell him I sent you.

Family Lunch Date

Magic Cookie Bars

It's our weekly Monday family date night. The one night of the entire week that neither Anthony or I work at the bar, have errands to do and can lay around catching up on television without feeling guilty for being lazy.

If time and Jaxon allows it, I love to bake for date night.

Here is tonight's Magic Cookies and I'm even giving you the recipe.

Ingredients:

• Crisco® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray
• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 2 cups (12 oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
• 1 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

HEAT oven to 350°F. Coat 13 x 9-inch baking pan with no-stick cooking spray.

COMBINE graham cracker crumbs and butter in small bowl. Press into bottom of prepared pan. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumb mixture. Layer evenly with chocolate chips, coconut and nuts. Press down firmly with fork.

BAKE 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Loosen from sides of pan while still warm; cool on wire rack. Cut into bars or diamonds.

For perfectly cut cookie bars, line entire pan with foil, extending foil over edge of pan. Coat lightly with no-stick cooking spray. After bars have baked and cooled, lift up with edges of foil to remove from pan. Cut into bars.





recipe borrowed from: EagleBrand.com

Happy St. Patricks Day!

The Green Onion Bounty

Thanks in part to Pinterest, I have become an excellent housewife. Move over Martha, Mama Maria is here.

Anthony teased me about this one, so I'm writing this post to prove how right I was.

Green onions are a typical staple on our weekly grocery list and either I go through them like crazy or they end up turning mushy. Either way, it's almost become an annoying expense. Then I ran across this idea on Pinterest: take the bottoms of the onion, put them in a glass and place it in an area that gets plenty of sunlight.

They grow. 

These little guys were mere stubs earlier in the week. Now they're onions.



Irish Breakfast/Murder Mystery Weekend

It was a busy weekend for the Amato clan. After working my Friday night bar shift, I returned to Foley's a mere three hours later with Anthony and Jaxon to set up for Foley's 2nd Annual Irish Breakfast.

After breakfast ended, it was time to start thinking Vegas and murder. We got a bunch of errands done and then headed to Connecticut where Mimi Martini and Jim Beam dropped off Jaxon at Grandma and Grandpa's and headed to solve a mystery and eat dinner. Here's a couple party pics:

Another Day of Patio Planting

This time JMA helped a little...

57 Degrees and Sunny

Spring is hopefully here to stay. Otherwise I'm pretty sure I'll my patio plants will die because I got too excited and planted them early. Here's a progress report of their current condition:

JMA St. Patty's Day Pics

Jaxon and I spent some time this morning getting St. Patrick's stuff ready for Foley's. This Saturday is our 2nd Annual Irish Breakfast and next weekend is of course, St. Patrick's Day.

Of course there was a photo session.

Of course I am posting pictures from it.

I'm saving the best one for a post this weekend, but these are the ones that almost made the cut.

Weekend Update

Being our last weekend totally free for awhile (We're booked through May, Amato reservations have to be made way ahead of time), we decided to do what we love to do best: bum around and just enjoy some quality family time.

There's nothing better after a long Friday night working at Foley's (or taking care of a baby for that matter) then waking up to freshly made beignets. These phenomenal little treats are a staple on our visits to New Orleans. The Cafe Du Monde serves them with a dark chicory roasted coffee, we served them with freshly brewed Starbucks courtesy of our Keurig machine.

We put in some time today on working on Ma's: a trip to Home Depot for more gardening supplies, some time spent on label making and of course, researching what bottles and canisters we'll be needing.

Our research has also led us back to the kitchen to try out some of our recipes with the products to test flavor profiles.

I just happen to still have the fryer out so fried green peppers were today's test:

Here was from our visit to Home Depot earlier, JMA and all.

Huggies Babies Have Nothing on JMA

It's A Writing All Day Kind Of Day

The First Batch of Cajun Seasoning

The first batch of Cajun seasoning has been bottled and ready for grinding. It took me several days to dry out the onions, peppers, garlic and herbs that make up the flavor combination that we were looking for.

Ideally, the next batch will be made with all home grown patio plants. This particular one contains all store bought ingredients. It will however, be used to season chicken for dinner tonight. So as long as Anthony doesn't gag, it will be all systems go for Ma's Cajun Seasoning.