Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Beef Stew with Rice

I had a roast leftover from Sunday where we had done a crockpot dinner. And we'd done the roast beef sandwiches already for leftovers. So what to do with some yummy roast beef? I just felt like making a yummy fall stew.
Beef Stew with rice....
Beef stew is such a nice fall dish to make when it's raining outside and getting chilly! 
It's just the easiest thing to make with leftover roast beef. I sliced up some carrots, celery, onions and potatoes and then threw in a half cup of rice.  Here is my finished beef stew.

1 1/2 cups leftover roast beef cubed
3-4 sliced carrots
2 large potatoes or 3 medium diced
1 onion diced and sauteed
2 stalks of celery sliced
3/4 cup rice (optional)
2 cups of water (or more if adding rice)
2 beef bouillon cubes
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of tomato paste or sauce
Lawry's seasoning to taste
pepper to taste
I added some ranch rolls with mozzerella and cheddar cheese on top for some yummy bread to eat with our soup....
They were yummy...here is one up close...I just sliced the Ranch Rolls in half and broiled them for 2 minutes....
Finished soup and bread rolls...you could add the rice or leave it out..and just have the potatoes...my hubs loves rice...so I added it in. 
This giant pot of beef stew will surely last us for a few meals....and it's better the next day for a nice leftovers lunch...
It's so easy to just dump it all in a pot and let it simmer for 30 minutes or so. The roast beef adds some beef taste to the soup as the veggies get tender. You can add or take away any veggies you don't prefer. It's all good!

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Garden Party

My neighbor, Linda, had a beautiful garden party last night at her house in the early evening. Everybody was supposed to bring their favorite garden harvest in some kind of yummy dish.

Pretty fall colors in the napkins on the table. 

We had everything from cucumber dip to peach pie to zuchini casserole to homemade strawberry jam and homemade dinner rolls.  (I made the homemade rolls!) It was all so fun and so delicious!
Yummy fruit salad. 

I think this was a peach crisp. 
I took a few of these plums home for the hubs to taste. They were simply incredible! Sooooo sweet! 
Aren't these cucumbers so cute with their curly cuts? 
These carrot cake bars were yummy too. I tried one! 
This fresh, homemade salsa was really yummy! I had some! 
And she has such a lovely yard. I wandered around taking shots of this and that.

This was a pretty pond full of lilly pads and koi surrounded by flowers and plants. It had a waterfall we could hear all night 
Pretty fall pumpkins and fall leaves were the decorations everywhere. 
Here was the garden party all set up behind her house. 
Flowers were lining the horse corral all around. So pretty! 


My grandkids would go nuts in her yard. It is like a wonderful park. She even has horses and a big garden out back.
 Her hubs made a climbing wall for the kids and a zip line too. I would never want to leave if I was 8 years old!
  There was even a giant sand pit for kids and a volleyball court! Why would you want to go anywhere else?

Table decor was really nice. 
 She had pumpkins growing in her garden as well as corn, squash, zuchini, all sorts of tomatoes and other yummy veggies.  She even had a greenhouse. There were 2 acres filled with great things.
I loved this picturesque shot of the back side of her yard with the neighbor's A frame house in the distance. 
She got raspberry bushes from the same neighbor that shared her raspberry bushes with me. 
I got this great picture of their horse grazing in the back field. What a beauty. 
We had a great time eating, talking, and laughing till the sun went down. Then she had some speakers come and talk about gardens.

Baked brie cheese in a puff pastry with raspberry filling. It was to die for! 

I tasted this stuffed zuchini with sausage, tomatoes and cheese too. It was great. 

Gotta have some chili! 
I had some of this veggie dish too. The white sauce was yummy as were the mushrooms. 

Somebody made zuchini bread of course....gotta use those zuchinis up, right?  

We even had a few dudes who showed up to share garden stories! 
Mostly it was a gals garden party. 
I've done progressive dinner garden parties in the past. That is a lot of fun too because then you get to SEE so many pretty gardens and you get new ideas for your own. Each host gave a little instructional snippet about something they grow or an area of flowers that they've had great success with, or something like that.
She had tons of tall pine trees that blocked out the last of the sun. It was the perfect time of night and perfect weather. 
More pretty decoration....
Here are my homemade dinner rolls in a pretty fall ceramic bowl....
Another pretty bowl....loved it....

Spring greens salad with strawberries 
 Did I mention we had lots of great salads? All kinds of veggie and fruit salads were spread all over the tables. I tried a few and they all were awesome.
Fresh raspberries in this salad with spinach too...
I had fun talking my brains out to all my friends in the neighborhood of course.....under all these great pine trees! 
It was a great evening. And what a great theme party idea it was too! 


Saturday, September 15, 2012

Football Season Fun Snacks

Well, we have the Sunday Night Football going on at my house, and it is going STRONG! My daughter and her husband both have fantasy football teams too. It's another year of my favorite fall sports.
Are YOU going to ROOT for my team? 
This little girl does....Go BYU! GO, FIGHT, WIN! 
 Over the loudspeaker Friday morning at school our principal played the BYU fight song instead of the school song. It was so funny because it took me a few minutes to realize what song was happening. I thought at first it must be a mistake..... it was pretty funny. There are football rivalries that run high in my community!
So in honor of the rivalry game today, I made my husband some football pancakes for breakfast to go along with his sausage and eggs.  Cute right? 
HERE is a cute Football Player Printout. that gave me the idea for these cute football outfits the kids made.

I loved this cute football player out of felt. But it could just as easily be construction paper.  Here are some of the ones we did last year. The paper legs were just out of newsprint. The kids pictures are inside the helmets. And of course, they did their favorite team's jerseys and cheer outfits and then wrote about their favorite teams. But HERE are some of my favorite football snack recipes. Gotta love a good pig in a blanket right?
I made this brie cheese baked in a puff pastry last year during the Super Bowl...it's so easy and yummy!
The recipe is on the Puff Pastry website as well as a video How To Do Puff Pastry.  

And you can't beat a Texas Caviar dip (black bean and corn salsa) . Recipes is  HERE.

What is YOUR favorite football team? Cougars? Utes? 
 Lots of BYU BLUE represented for sure!  Rise and Shout the Cougars are OUT!
Make Your Own Wraps are always a great Party Food Option, especially for those health conscious sports fans....and guys always love any kind of mini sandwich on hogie breads. Or you can make them on white dinner rolls. 
Or make a homemade pizza or two are always appreciated...YUMM......check it out HERE.

Pizzas are always great for a Football Party Snack. You can't go wrong!  Make your own in your little cast iron fry pans! 
The girls had a "pom pom" added to their outfits.....
The boys had a football added to their outfits...... I know, I'm not very PC am I?


Gotta Love some Football chocolate cookies, now don't ya? Get a tablecloth from the dollar store or a party store. I got a bunch of stuff after the Super Bowl last year on clearance, so I'm set!

Ya just gotta love those "cleats" now dontcha? 
 A free printable of the FOOTBALL subway art is below. It's cute at the house for a football party, and it is cute on a bulletin board too! HERE is a Football Printable   Football helmet printables football helmet printables HERE
I hope the Utes don't blow us away! I'm keeping my fingers crossed. 
f_foot.gif (11231 bytes)
Cute Football Player color and cut-out activity great for little kiddos....
One more thing I found that I thought would be a fun thing to do for my grandkids to keep them busy during the games coming up. They love to color and cut out things like paper dolls. So how about a paper football player? Maybe in team colors! Making Friends.com has the download.
Football Subway Art 
Martha Stewart had a few "Football Snacks" that looked kinda delicious to serve at your Football Tailgate Party too ! Check them out at Martha Stewart's website. I love little smokies in a piggy blanket! Yummy. Have fun with the football fanatics at your house! 

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