It's summer and that means it's vacation time. Yesterday I posted about our weekend get away at the beach and shared some of the pictures from our refurbished camper. Our trip was a lot of fun and we enjoyed a lot of great food. One recipe I wanted to share was Camp Fire Foil Packets.

Ingredients
     2 pounds ground beef
     Sliced Carrots
     Sliced Potatoes
     Sliced Onions
     Salt and pepper

Instructions
     Make a patty of 1/4 of the ground beef

Place sliced potatoes, onions and carrots on the patty. Salt and pepper 

Cover with foil and wrap another sheet around it.

Place on hot coals in the fire pit.

Cook for 20-40 minutes depending on the temperature of the fire.

The potatoes will be rendered when finished.

Carefully unwrap and enjoy!

One of the major perks of being only a few hours away from the beach is getting away for the weekend and this was a much needed weekend get away! Now Jack isn't a huge fan of camping so we usually can only convince him to go for only a few days, but thankfully our 1972 refurbished pop-up camper makes it a little easier on him. The picture below is the few from our camp site, and believe me you can't beat that few. Nothing helps you to relax more than listening to the waves next to a warm fire, hanging out with loved ones with a glass of wine. I know life gets crazy, but its really important to take time re-center yourself so you are more prepared for the next crazy thing. We had a great time this past weekend and are looking forward to our next weekend get away!

Pictures of our camper project!

We have finally entered in to the new age of television! For our birthdays' my parents bought us a new flat screen TV since they felt bad that we were still using our HUGE tube TV from the early 2000's.  I have always known that when we got a flat screen TV that I wanted it to be mounted over our fireplace, but we had a problem we had a HUGE out dated fireplace! I knew it was time for a make over for our fireplace and to wire the wall where the TV would be mounted so we wouldn't have to see ugly electrical cords and wires. The first step that Jack did was to lower the fireplace by two rows of bricks.

The next step was to remove all of the dry wall where the new electrical was going to be installed. Jack has had a lot of experience wiring now so this was a really quick step.

Next he added the new insolation.

Lastly, he put up the new drywall and sanded the edges of the old to have a smoother transitions when he taped the seams. Once the seams were dried he added wall texture to the new drywall and primed and painted the original yellow since we hadn't decided on a new living room color yet!

After the paint dried we installed the mount and the new TV. It has taken some adjusting to look at the TV in a different location, but we totally love it and is looking forward to finishing the fireplace facelift at the end of the year!

Yesterday I shared the anniversary gifts I have given Jack. Today I wanted to share the romantic dinner recipe that we made, Crawfish Etouffee’. It was a lot of work peeling the shells off of a pound of crawfish for this recipe so next time I think I am going to stick with chicken and shrimp. None the less it was delicious and I have had nothing like it before.

Prep 10 minutes
Cook for 45 minutes
Serves 6

Ingredients
     ½ cup butter
     2 stalks celery, chopped
     1 green bell pepper, chopped
     1 onion, chopped
     4 mushrooms, chopped
     1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
     1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chile peppers
     1 pound crawfish tails

Directions
     1.   In a saucepan, melt butter. Add celery, bell pepper, mushrooms, and onion; sauté until  vegetables are tenders, about 10 minutes.
     2.   Stir in mushroom soup and canned tomatoes. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 30 minutes.
     3.   Add the crawfish; cook for another five minutes. Serve over white rice.

Jack and I are celebrating our 7th Wedding Anniversary today. We are planning a nice romantic dinner at home and a piece of Strawberry Shortcake cake from the local bakery, it was the cake we had when we eloped. Since our anniversary falls a few days after his birthday I decided to follow the traditional anniversary gift guide to help make it easier on what to get him. I've had fun trying to find something from the list each year. This years item was copper or wool, I found several cute ideas involving pennies, but didn't think he would find them as cute as I did. I did a little research and  was able to an old magazine ad for his Jeep and framed it in a copper frame. The picture of the jeep was originally red so I had to adjust the color using a basic photo editor. I wasn't able to find a copper frame so I found one that had a photo mount board that I painted copper to go with this years theme.  Thankfully he loved, but of course I know I'm always safe when I buy something Jeep themed! I’ve included below a list of the traditional gifts and what my gifts were to Jack.

Fourth of July is tomorrow and we are busy here preparing for our festivities. I recently shared my Patriotic Trifle, and today I wanted to share some cupcakes I made for work.

To recreate these designs follow these steps:

Divide a batch of frosting into threes and color one red and another blue. The third needs to remain white.

Firework Cupcakes – Using a piping bag with a “grass” tip (#233), pipe a ring of blue frosting on the outer side of the cupcake. Repeat with white frosting just inside of the blue frosting. Lastly, pipe the red frosting into the center of the white ring.

Red, White and Blue Cupcakes – In a piping bag place a 1M tip, fill one side of the bag with white frosting, then on another side fill with red frosting and on the last side fill with blue frosting. Start on the outer side of the cupcake and move towards the center, stop squeezing the back and twist up. Sprinkle with Patriotic sprinkles if desired.

Flag Cupcakes – Using a piping bag with a #3 tip, make a triangle on ¼ of the cupcake with the blue frosting and fill in. Next rotate the red and white frosting using the same #3 tip. Add white star sprinkles or pipe white stars using a #1 tip on the blue area.

Patriotic and Delicious!!!

Nothing is more American than a barbeque and fireworks on the Fourth of July. Every year Amber host our annual Independence Day gathering, it’s filled with family, friends, water fights and great food! As the certified baker I get to bring a tasty dessert. My favorite dessert to bring is a patriotic trifle, it’s sweet, fresh and every bite reminds me summer.

Instructions:
Prep time 30 minutes, Chill Time 1 hour, Make 16 servings  

Ingredients:
1 pkg (3.4 oz) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Fat Free Sugar Free Instant Pudding
1 ½ cup Fat Free Milk
1 tub (8 oz) Cool Whip Lite, Whipped Topping
1 pkg (13 oz) Angel food cake, cut into ½ inch cubes
2 cups Fresh Strawberries, sliced
1 cup Blueberries   

Directions:
Beat pudding mix and milk in medium bowl with whisk 2 min. Stir in 1-1/2 cups Cool Whip. Layer half each of the cake and berries in large serving bowl; cover with pudding mixture. Top with layers of remaining cake, berries and Cool Whip. Refrigerate 1 hour.

Today is Jack's birthday and his favorite birthday treat is my Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Pie. This is a quick and easy dessert perfect for any loved one's birthday!

Prep time 10 minutes, Chill time 6 hours
Serves 8 people  

Ingredients:
      1 Chocolate Pie Crust
      2 Cups Vanilla Ice Cream, melted
      1 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter, melted
      4 pkgs Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups crushed    
      Whipped Cream

Directions:

Mix the melted vanilla ice cream, creamy peanut butter and 3 packages of crushed Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (6 pieces).

Freeze for 6 hours.

Top with the whipped cream and remaining crushed Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups package (2 pieces).