Fall?! Football!!! Long weekend!! YAY!!

Sorry. Had to do it. Don't hate!! LOL

:D

So we plowed right through the most fun summer EVER, our first with Logan, and can not believe tomorrow is the first home game of the season!! WOW!!

I literally missed EVERY SINGLE GAME last year because I had much better stuff to do, as you know, and I'm thrilled to be heading down town tomorrow for some grown-up time, tailgating and foooootball!

I will be doing a feature on tailgating and perfect football food featuring some guest recipes soon, going to be collecting my data (eating it) tomorrow, so stay tuned for that.

In the meanwhile weather it's football or just end-of-summer-long-weekend hanging you've got planned for the next few days - here are some great recipes that might be just what you were lookin for!

Hope you have a FABULOUS WEEKEND!!!!

Summer Potato Salad

Peach Avocado & Heirloom Tomato Salad

Picnic post with 3 recipies

Picnic Steak Samich

Beer Can Chicken

Our Fabulous Ginger Wings

Cheesy Bacon Artichoke Party Dip

Grilled Lamb Pita Pockets

Black & Blue Burgers

Quick n Easy Blueberry Banana Cream Pie

Peach & Apricot Cobbler

Pinteresting Drunk Gummy Bears

If you're on Pinterest, you're guilty of saying to yourself, "Oh! Cool!! I'm SOOO doing that" like a thousand times since joining.
Just like me.

This one. I HAD to try. For the past several years (minus last year when I was a big giant not-going-camping-if-you-paid-me-preggo) we have taken a road trip camping up or down PCH. It's awesome. If I win the lotto we are moving to the coast in Big Sur. I'll write you from there.
Anyhow- not being huge, cranky, hot and pregnant this summer meant the trip was ON, and it also meant first camping/road trip for the little man!!

So of course in preparation I headed straight to my Pinboards and made a few notes on must-try-for-the-trip stuffs.
With so much to do prep wise we only had time for two of my ambitions musts....

#1 The glowing Mountain Dew....
Have you seen that one?? Apparently you add baking soda and peroxide to half a Mountain Dew and it glows like crazy! WOW!!! SO COOL!!!

NOT!!!!!!

I wish I had headed over to The Craft Patch first... (this is their photo below) and that is exactly how it went...

After doing some research when we returned it appears you also have to cut open a glow stick and put that in there. Um, thanks science. PASS. LAME.

#2 Drunk Gummy Bears

Fortunately theses little guys SURPASSED expectation. We didn't read the directions at all and have made them since actually following the directions and they weren't as good- 

for us they worked much better soaking in a ziplock bag. 

Toss gummies in bag, cover (they need to be drownin') in vodka- you can use flavored vodka, but we don't keep that on hand, so didn't.

THEN- let them soak and get nice n drunk for FIVE DAYS- the vodka will be gone, the bears much larger and feistier!!! 

We had an amazing trip- can't wait to go again next year!!!

Crockpot Lime Cilantro Chicken

Since my son is avocado obsessed - we've been buying them like crazy, and I'm ok with that because I love them too!! This was just a what-I-have-on-hand recipe I came up with during am nap so we'd have dinner that night.


What you'll need

2 limes (the juice of both, the zest of one)
1 handful chopped cilantro
1/2 an onion, chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped
2/3 c salsa
1/2 c chicken broth
salt, pepper
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts


Toss all that stuff in the crockpot.
Cook on LOW for 6-7 hours...my crockpot seems to run hot, if I go more than 7 hours whatever I am cooking is dryer than the Sahara. It's easy enough to tell when this recipe is all finished- at about 6 hours lift the lid, try to fork apart the chicken gently, if it shreds easy and is cooked through you are all set, if not let it go another hour for perfection.

We had this with some extra salsa, avocado and a few cold beers on whole wheat tortillas.

YUM

Turkey Teriaki Meatballs

Our son is ONE this week, which is just BLOWING MY MIND. He's such a full-on little PERSON now and I am loving every waking second- hopefully, with the birthday bash (photos & recipies comin' atcha) behind me I will be able to catch up here and get my back logged stuff posted and move forward in some kind of organized fashion- huh? What does that even mean?....

Logan pretty much eats everything we do now- which has been amazing- he eats avocado three meals a day because it's seriously his favorite thing on the planet and recently he got super into meat balls- so I tried a few different ways to keep it interesting. This recipe is more adult-centered because teriyaki and soy sauce are just WAY to salty for my little pirate- so when I made this he did partake in the peas & pasta- but his balls were pretty much plain w/ some herbs and garlic....more on the munchkin menu soon, I hope!

This was a snap

In a large bowl combine

1 lb extra lean ground turkey

1 T soy sauce 

1/4 c teriyaki sauce (we use Trader Joes)

1 egg

1/2 cup bread crumbs (add more if it seems too mush-mush, add a bit more teriyaki sauce if they are way dry for some wacky reason)

3 cloves of garlic chopped

1 small handful of minced onion

a few dashes of sesame seeds

Pre-heat your oven to 350 and form balls- place on a foil lined baking sheet.

Cook for 25-30 minutes, until cooked through.

Drizzle with extra teriyaki sauce.

Serve with rice, pasta, veggies, in a samich, udon noodles, little ones on a kabob stick- go nuts!!