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...