Easy Easter Bread

Happy (almost) Easter! I made this beautiful Easter bread last year and did not take pictures of it, so I repeated it this year and took pictures to share with you! We are traveling for Easter, so I will include the recipe for the powdered sugar glaze, although I will not be making mine until Easter morning to the bread travels nicely. Hope you all can celebrate with friends and family!

Ingredients

- 2 3/4 cup flour
- 1 packet rapid rise yeast
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 eggs
- 3 tbsp. butter, divided
- 4-5 dyed eggs

Glaze

- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 2-3 tbsp. milk
- sprinkles

1. Heat your milk and 2 tbsp. butter until butter has melted, allow to cool so it is warm milk.
2. Place 1 cup flour, sugar, salt and yeast in your Kitchenaid mixer with dough hook attachment.
3. Slowly pour your milk in and mix the dough. Add your remaining flour slowly. Add your eggs.
4. Allow dough hook to mix dough into a ball.
5. Grease a large mixing bowl and place your dough ball inside. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place. I heated my oven to 180 degrees and turned it off before placing my bowl inside.
6. Allow bread to rise for an hour.
7. Punch out your dough on a floured surface and divide into two pieces. Make two ropes that are about 2 feet long. tuck the ends together on one side and twist ropes together. Pinch ends together.
8. Place bread on a greased baking sheet.
9. Gently brush your bread with the remaining tbsp. of melted butter.
10. Separate the twist and place your dyed eggs into the dough.
11. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and bake for 30-35 min.
12. Allow bread to cool, once cooled you can pour your glaze and sprinkles on top.

 Bread twist before baking

Easter Bread before the powdered sugar glaze

Easter Bread with icing and sprinkles

Enjoy!

Brittney

Palmer's Superhero 3th Birthday Party

Our little superhero is turning 3 this week! I can't believe it! This year Palmer's actual birthday lands on Easter weekend, so we decided to celebrate early this past weekend. A few semi-homemade touches and a couple of friends, pizza and cake and he had the best time! I had a custom Spiderman shirt and cape made for him to wear at the party from Etsy. I had also ordered each kid a cape and mask to wear at the party. Hope you enjoy what I did!

The Cake - I wanted to make a fun cake that had different colored layers inside and used blue Sixlet candies to decorate the outside bottom of the cake. Found cute little superhero 'star' candles to place on top!

Three different colored cake layers

 Star candles and sixlet candies

Cake!

The Decor - I made a city outline out of black foam board, chalk, and yellow construction paper. Turned out so cute! I bought the comic book birthday banner from Punch Bowl.

City outline and banner

 Table set for pizza and cake

Party Favors - wish I had taken a picture of all the kids wearing their capes but they ran around our house non-stop until it was time for food! Each kid got to pick out their own cape and take home 2 homemade cookies - a spiderman and the number "3."

 Royal icing sugar cookies

"Thanks for coming" tags

Palmer the Superhero!

Enjoy!

Brittney

The Bachelor Party Strawberry Shortcake Trifle

Bachelor fans! I won't disclose who won, but I wanted her to win and so I invited a few ladies over to watch the 3 hour finale! We all put our kids to bed and gathered for some dessert and wine. Not pictured are the delicious brownies one of my friends brought over with a caramel sauce on top. A simple and delicious dessert I made was a strawberry shortcake trifle with my pretty trifle bowl. We had a blast watching and feasting!

Simple Strawberry Shortcake Trifle

- 2 x 8 oz. Cool Whip
- Angel food cake, cut into cubes
- Strawberries, sliced

1. Place a layer of Angel food cake on the bottom of your trifle bowl.
2. Spread a layer of Cool Whip on top of your cake.
3. Stick strawberries slices along the outside of your bowl and on top of your Cool Whip layer.
4. Repeat layers.
5. End with Cool Whip on top with sliced strawberries around the top.

 Strawberry Shortcake Trifle

 Will you accept this Rose?

 The spread

Wine Time

Enjoy!

Brittney

Champagne Cheese Fondue

Happy (late) Valentine's Day! Every year we make fondue - cheese and chocolate for dinner and dessert. This year we tried a new fondue recipe with a champagne base - and it did not disappoint! Delicious! We hope you can make some fondue soon - we will be enjoying some more at the end of the month when we go on vacation to the mountains!

Champagne Cheese Fondue

- 1 1/4 cup Champagne or sparkling wine
- 1 large shallot, minced
- 1 x 8 oz. cream cheese, cut into cubes
- 2 1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- large pinch of nutmeg
- 1 tbsp. flour

1. Heat your champagne in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Add your shallots and allow to simmer for 2-3 minutes.
2. Add your cream cheese and whisk until it is no longer clumpy.
3. Add 1 tbsp. of flour to your gruyere and add it in handfuls as you whisk the mixture together.
4. Add your parmesan cheese and bring cheese to a boil, constantly whisking.
5. Mix in your nutmeg and place cheese in your fondue pot.

*We like to dip French bread pieces, carrots, broccoli and Kielbasa sausage slices into our cheese!

 Champagne, shallots and cream cheese

 Adding Gruyere

Dipping!

Enjoy!
Brittney

One Pot Lemon Greek Chicken

I can't believe it's February! Where did January go?! We have been really busy with work and school and Kyle's recruiting schedule for Summer internships. Things are looking good for Denver... so we will see!

I've made a few new dishes last month and last night I made this really simple and delicious chicken and rice dish. The rice was so moist like it had been cooked in a crock pot for many hours, when in fact, it had just been in the oven for 30 minutes! Below is the recipe.

One Pot Lemon Greek Chicken

Marinade for Chicken
- Juice and zest from 1 lemon
- 5 chicken thighs, bone-in (I used boneless)
- 1 tbsp. dried oregano
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tsp. salt

Rice
- 1 cup rice
- 1 small onion, diced
- 1 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 tbsp. oregano
- salt and pepper to taste

Garnish
- chopped parsley
- Lemon zest

1. Make marinade and place on chicken in a ziplock bag for at least 20 minutes in the refrigerator.
2. In a deep pan use 1 tbsp of olive oil and brown your chicken thighs. Keep reserve marinade in the ziplock bag to use for later.
3. Remove browned chicken and set aside. Clean out pan. Add 1 tbsp. of olive oil and cook onion until translucent.
4. Add your rice ingredients and reserve marinade and bring to a boil.
5. Place chicken thighs on top and cover pan.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place covered pan in the oven for 30 minutes.
7. Serve with garnish if desired.

One Pot Lemon Greek Chicken

Enjoy!

Brittney

Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagna

Happy New Year's Eve! What a year it has been for us - moving to a new state, starting a new career, starting new schools, making new friends, and finding a new community. It has not been easy, but it has been fun. We look forward to many new memories in 2016! I hope you have a wonderful year!

I hope to find more time to update my blog this year and hope to share a link to purchase my sweet husband's Christmas gift to me - my blog as a published cookbook! I was so surprised and touched he compiled a majority of the recipes on my blog and made a pretty cool cookbook out of it. I'm a book!

I'm a book!

This is a hearty meal that tastes delicious. If you want to add meat, I would recommend some ground turkey or chicken, but it still tastes great without meat! My kids even enjoyed this lasagna. But we did have regular meat and red sauce lasagna a few days later and they seemed to enjoy that a tad bit more - kids!

Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagna

Ingredients

Butternut Squash Filling:
- 2 cups butternut squash, boiled in a pot of water for 14 minutes or until soft
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Spinach Filling
- 8 oz. steamed spinach
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- 1 cup mozzarella cheese
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- pepper to taste

Other
- 9 lasagna noodles, cooked
- 1 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
- Italian seasoning
- Paprika
- Basil

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray your 8" x 11.5" baking dish with non-stick spray.
2. Mix your soft butternut squash, ricotta cheese, milk, salt and nutmeg in your blender to make a puree. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, mix your spinach, mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, garlic, salt and pepper together and set aside.
4. Bring a pot of water to boil and cook your lasagna noodles according to directions on package.
5. To assemble the lasagna spread 1/3 of the butternut squash filling on the bottom of your dish, sprinkle lightly with mozzarella cheese, place 3 x noodles on top and half of the spinach filling on top of the noodles. Top lightly with more mozzarella cheese and 3 x more noodles.
6. Spread 1/3 of the butternut squash filling on top of the noodles, sprinkle some mozzarella cheese and spread the rest of the spinach filling on top. Sprinkle it with some mozzarella cheese.
7. Top with 3 x more noodles and spread the remaining butternut squash filling on top.
8. Sprinkle lasagna with Italian seasoning, paprika, basil and parmesan cheese.
9. Cover lasagna with foil and bake for 35 minutes.

 Spinach Filling

 Butternut Squash filling  before pureed

 Pureed Butternut Squash Filling

 1/3 butternut squash filling on bottom of dish sprinkled with mozzarella cheese

 Noodles and spinach filling on top

 Completed Lasagna prior to being baked

Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagna

Enjoy!

Brittney

Banana-Berry Baked Oatmeal

I was looking for a something different to try out for breakfast that my kids would eat - and Bakerella sent me an email for this "Banana-Berry Baked Oatmeal." Super easy to throw together and bake beforehand. I just cut slices up the next day and re-heated them in the microwave. My kids loved it! I also used Craisins instead of real cranberries. Perfect breakfast for a cold winter morning (or 60 degrees here in Philly...)

Banana-Berry Baked Oatmeal

- 2 cups Quaker Old Fashioned Oats
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
- 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 egg
- 2 cups milk
- 2 tsp. vanilla
- 2 tbsp. maple syrup
- 2 tbsp. melted butter
- 1 cup cranberries, I used Craisins
- 1 large banana, sliced

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8"x8" dish.
2. In a bowl mix oats, brown sugar, pecans, cinnamon, salt and baking powder and pour into dish.
3. Using same bowl, whisk egg, vanilla, milk, and maple syrup together. Add melted butter, mix and set bowl aside.
4. Place cranberries and banana slices in dish and toss to distribute.
5. Pour milk mixture gently over your oats.
6. Bake 35-40 minutes. Serve with a drizzle of maple syrup.

 Dry Ingredients

 Milk Mixture

 Cranberries and Banana added

 Milk mixture added

Banana-Berry Baked Oatmeal

Enjoy!

Brittney