New Shop Item!

I opened my etsy shop in January of this year and at one point, I had a goal of one new item each week. Sounds easy, no?

No.

Turns out it's a lot more complicated than just having a good idea (with the all of the good ideas that my friends give me ... I would be filling orders all the time if that were the case!). In addition to all of the tiny details that are involved in actually making a new product... the photography and listing phase can also take some time and decisions. Throw in that little thing called "my life" and my once a week goal becomes downright laughable!

So I am extremely excited to finally announce a new product:

Personalized Clear Acrylic Tumblers!

Great for gifts:

Or tailgating:

Or your home/beach house/lake house/ranch/boat:

I have two and use them everyday!

Check out my listing for all of the pertinent information. AND if you read this blog, you're an FOK (Friend of Katie) so use the discount code: FOK2011 for 20% off (works with any item in the shop)! If you're a Houstonian, e-mail me and I'll make sure you don't have to pay shipping.

Hopefully completing this listing will get some momentum going in the craft room and I'll have more items to share soon.

In the meantime, we'll be back to more Maine posts tomorrow!

Family is the Maine Thing

Once we (finally) made it to Maine, I had three days to spend with my brother, his wife and my two nephews.

It had been two years since I saw this arm of my family. A lot has changed with them since they moved to Maine-- including a new baby!

He was a joy to hold and play with:

Here is a rare photo of him sleeping in the car.

I was interested to find out that 10% of babies do not sleep in cars. Turns out, this little guy is one of them. So instead of a little snooze in the carseat, he is usually crying, fussing or SCREAMING. I don't know who to feel more sorry for-- the baby screaming or the parents' ears!

On my first night in Maine, Brian and Christelle suggested we visit a neighboring town for dinner. Here's a shot of the whole gang:

Oh, and just so you know-- the bottle in front of my older nephew? It's root beer, promise.

My brother and Christelle have no fear and expertly brought the baby along with us on all of our adventures. I was impressed with the way they kept him happy at dinner!

I'd also like to point out this this was the end of travel day #4... which might explain the hair situation I've got going on in that photo...

We also visited a charming eatery on Sunday after church:

In fact, everything looked charming in Maine. As if every building, lake, home or person was prepared to be featured in a "photos of Maine" calendar. I'll share some of those photos in a later post.

But for now, I'll leave you with a happy grandpa (Papi Tom, as they call him) enjoying time with his newest grandson:

The Road that Never Ends

I recently returned from a trip to Maine to see my brother, sister-in-law and two nephews.

Stay tuned for stories and photos from that adventure!

To get to Maine, I foolishly decided to drive. In a car. With my parents.
Mercifully, I flew back. Thirty-six hours to get there, six and a half to return.

Although there were some highlights (seeing Appalachian Mountains, stopping outside of NYC to visit my cousin's family and a visit to Amish country for shopping) it isn't a challenge...er... adventure... I plan to take on again.

I only have one photo of the experience that I'm willing to post... but I do have three humorous moments you might enjoy.

First, the photo. This is my dad snoozing in the backseat. It's misleading, because he did 99% of the driving. But it's cute-- notice he's snuggled with a stuffed animal...

My first indication that this might be a mis-adventure was when we stopped for gas. I was sleeping quite well in the backseat and my dad woke me up. "Katie, you have to go use the restroom". "No I don't, I'm sleeping". "Well, just go in and try." Um... I haven't been told to "just try" to use the restroom since I was 7. Dad, an fyi-- I now have full control over my bladder. Thankyouverymuch.

Later, my sister-in-law, Jojo, emailed me to ask about getting stains out of fabric. She knew I was in the car with my parents and my mom has a reputation for restoring stained clothes to their former glory. The conversation went a little like this:
K-- "Mom, Jojo wants to know your secret formula for getting stains out of fabric."
M-- "Ok, one part water..."
D-- "no, Lynn, it's three parts water"
M-- "Tom, that's only if she's doing towels, Katie, is it towels?"
K-- "I have no idea"
M-- "ok, then one part water..."
D-- "Lynn, how do you know it's not towels? Katie, tell her three parts water."
M-- "Tom, it's probably a baby item. Katie, is it a baby item?"
K-- "I still don't know."
M-- "well then, tell her two parts water."
D-- "Lynn, what's that for, you don't even know what the item is!"
M-- "Tom, I'm sure it's baby clothes."
D-- "Lynn, it could be sheets. Katie, is it sheets?"
At that point I stopped listening and e-mailed Jojo an SOS symbol.

We finally made it to my cousin's summer-home outside of NYC. It was nice to have some different human interaction! My cousin has two adorable children who were a joy to play with. Jack, the older, walked into the room with a flower he made out of tissue paper:
 "what a pretty flower" my mom said
"it's for my mom" answered Jack
"oh, thats very sweet"
"it's poison ivy"

Hm.

Maybe he had just endured 36 hours of driving in the car with his parents.

September Supper Club

In September, we moved the Supper Club meeting back to it's original house... ours! I insist on hosting each month (it makes me keep the house clean!) but I acquiesced over the summer because Ashley was house-sitting a fabulous home and our A/C was having a hard time keeping up with the Houston heat (thank goodness Big Case got that fixed!).

Ashley's dish was an appetizer turned salad, Endive with Caramelized Apples and Pears (p. 60):

 The endive was supposed to be a hearty leaf-type vegetable that was able to be rolled up. And the ingredients were to be rolled in it, for an appetizer. But Ashley had a hard time finding the right kind of endive, so we had it "deconstructed" instead!

I took the main dish, Autumn Braised Brisket (p. 199) and Michelle did the side Balsamic Glazed Carrots (p. 213):

Doesn't it look beautiful? Everyone (including Shannon) wanted to snap a photo of it!

It was very, very delicious. The carrots were perfect-- not mushy, but cooked enough to not be crunchy-raw. It was my favorite part of the meal. 

The brisket was quite tasty too. I did make a few changes. The recipe called for a three-pound brisket cooked for 3-3.5 hours. I could only find a five-pound brisket which I cooked for 6 hours. The recipe said it was done when it was "tender and falling apart". I took that to mean falling apart like pulled-pork... so I might have over-cooked it a little. After 6 hours I conferred with everyone else and we all agreed it wasn't supposed to pull apart... just be tender. 

It was a great brisket, and I'm sure I'll make it again. But I have to say, the ready-made (and pre-cut) brisket at HEB kind of wins on this one. I feel like a fake getting my food ready-made... but it tastes SO good and is SO easy! Still, the smells produced from my kitchen for the 6 hours of baking were amazing... so I guess it's a toss-up. 

Last up were Bite-size Bourbon Cakes (p. 246) made by me. 

Easy to make, easy to eat. I only recommend that you not have as heavy as a hand as I did when pouring in the Bourbon. Especially if you're driving home! Oopsie! Also, normally I wouldn't make these as a dessert for a dinner party. Maybe on the dessert table at an appetizer party. Or even packaged as a Christmas hostess gift. 

Again, get these great recipes and more at our official Super Supper Club 2011 cookbook: Peace Meals, by the Houston Junior League. It's my go-to cookbook for fabulous, entertaining meals!

A Shower for Baby Barbara

My sister-in-law, Jojo, is having a baby! You can read about how she announced it here.

The baby (which they call "Barbara")(even though they don't know if it's a boy or girl)(long story) is due at the beginning of November. This past weekend, I co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co hosted a shower for her! That's right-- there were eight co-hostesses.

Jojo had a specific invitation in mind... but when we went to get it... we found out they were discontinued! So I did my best to recreate them for her:

Doesn't it look so cute and simple? Well they are cute... but NOT simple! Those invites were a LABOR of love. Thankfully, Laura helped assemble them during the Patio weekend. But despite the hard work, we were happy to do them. Someday Jojo's baby will see it in a scrapbook and know that Aunt Katie and Aunt Laura worked very hard because we loved it even before it was born!

As an out-of-town co-hostess, I volunteered to do the non-edibles-- invites, plates, cups, etc. I'm not really a fan of plastic/paper plates, utensils, cups, etc... but we were using a house graciously donated by the parents of one of the co-hostesses. So we wanted to make sure we were as little of an intrusion as possible.

I decided to jazz the cups up with a nod to the invite:

Out of all the things I did for the shower, I was most proud of this (and it was the most time-consuming) but wouldn't you know, people barely seemed to notice! I noticed and Jojo noticed-- so that's all that matters. But it made me giggle when someone would comment on the easy stuff I did and not the more intricate stuff!

Speaking of less-intricate... in the background you'll notice the gathered streamers I made:

(From my favorite blog, Made.)

And here were the utensil packs:

I used the colors (and the same ribbon) from the invitation. I was having a hard time getting a bow to look good, so I did a little tuck method and secured them with glue dots. That worked fairly well.

But enough about me... check out what the other co-hostesses brought!

Yummy cupcakes from Dory:

Adorable cookies from Cissy:

Fresh flowers from Laura:

And my favorite... a family tree! (From Laura):

She spray-painted a branch, then hung photos of the parents-to-be from when they were babies. Really cute idea!

The other hostesses really did a lot of work with their food and projects too (and everyone agreed that the food was amazing... ), but I'm running out of photo room... so I'll just show you a shot of the buffet:

And now... the guest of honor!

Jojo got a lot of really cute items for Baby Barbara-- so much so that we had to open gifts in two rounds! We needed a break half-way through!

Jojo's pal is also due around the same time, so here they are with their baby bellies:

Cute, no?

Here is Jojo again with most of the hostesses.

 It was a sweet time of fellowship with the ladies and I'm excited for the day that we can tell the little baby all about it!

A Patio Weekend

We have amazing friends. They are fun, they are creative, they are super talented and they are giving. Very giving.

Chris has wanted a patio since we moved into our little bungalow. I believe at one point he told me, "Katie, this is my dream". So even though it was the worst time to be working outside (the middle of a drought in Houston, in the August heat) I couldn't very well stand between my husband and his dream now could I?

You might remember our "Shed Weekend"where Big Case, PD, my dad and even Gma helped build us a wonderful shed for our backyard (by the way, in an update... it now has power and lights!).

Well this was deemed the "Patio Weekend" and Big Case came back... along with Justin, K-Dog, Andrew (and Laura who helped me as the "support team").

The weekend started with a bunch of dirt being delivered to our house:

Ok, actually it was delivered a few weeks before the shed weekend. I'd like to apologize to my neighbors now.

Sorry. Really. Please don't egg our house.

First order of business, get that mound of dirt to the backyard.

Andrew helped with that:

Then they did a bunch of other stuff which resulted in some of this:

And this:

Laura and I were the support team, and that was an adventure in itself!

These boys were working hard and they needed a steady flow of food, water and electrolytes. So we cooked, got ice, made gator-aide... pretty much all day.

I call this "Three Hungry Boys":

 I call this "Two more Hungry Boys":

And I call this, "High-larious"

Casey labeled his plate with, "BIG CASE, THE GREATEST THERE EVER WAS". Love that guy...

After some a lot more of this:

The boys heard a wonderful sound... the ice cream truck!!

Chris got everyone treats and just like that, the tired boys were happy:

Since that weekend, I've heard the ice cream truck a lot more than I used to. And I'm pretty sure he lingers in the front of our house hoping for a repeat order. Again, sorry to my neighbors.

After the boys left on Sunday, Chris laid down some more bricks:

And finally... we have a patio!

Chris has since bought plants and placed chairs and is still "staging" the area... but the hard work is d-o-n-e!!

So obviously a HUGE thank you to our amazing friends who helped Chris realize his dream. But there's another hero in this patio adventure. My cousin, Adam:

He came up the weekend before the patio weekend and helped shovel dirt (which also helped us not get a mean letter from the Home Owners Association about our mound 'o dirt in the front driveway), put down bricks and sweated... a lot. So not only do we have amazing friends... but we have amazing family too!

Green Beans!

At the beginning of the summer, Chris planted forty green bean plants. I couldn't wait to make my favorite green bean recipe with the bounty. And since there were forty of these babies planted, I expected to make a LOT of my favorite green bean recipe.

In related news... remember how we have really cute bunnies running around in our backyard? Apparently, really cute bunnies like to eat green beans...

Here's a photo of our entire green bean bounty:

One. One green bean from the forty that were planted.

Does anyone know a good recipe for rabbit stew?

August Super Supper Club

I realize that we're coming up on October... but I was a slacker at the end of this summer and it's time to catch up.

So... here is our August Super Supper Club report!

The evening started off with an original creation by Mark:

I think it was a deconstructed muffalata sandwich? If that's not what is was called, then let's just call it "Delicious". He made the topping for the French bread. Then took the leftover topping and bottled it up for later. He said he uses it as a spread for sandwiches or a topping for meals. Isn't that a great idea? Instead of throwing away the extra, use it to jazz up your meals for the next week. Probably not a news flash to anyone but me... I thought it was brilliant!

Here is Mark with his wife... who announced she is three months pregnant with their second baby! Congratulations to the Krewe of Brew!

I had the main dish with Spinach and Prosciutto Stuffed Flank Steak (p. 195):

It looked amazing. And it was... ok. The warmed Prosciutto did not smell great to me. I have to say I prefer this rolled flank steak recipe from Williams-Sonoma.

Carrie prepared a great Butter Lettuce, Pomegranate and Walnut Salad (p. 116). Not only did it taste great, but I LOVED the bowl she brought to prepare it in!

Here's an action shot of Stephanie and I putting the final touches on the meal:

She prepared Roasted Cherry Tomatoes (p. 209) and for me, that was the highlight of the meal!

You can tell from the title of the recipe (but not really from the photo) that the tomatoes are roasted just enough to hold their shape in the dish, but pop in your mouth when you eat them. They are served warm and I just couldn't get enough!

Another highlight of the meal was that my sister-in-law, Laura, was in town and was able to experience SSC. Unfortunately someone deemed her photographer and we didn't get any photos of her visit! Doh! (That someone might have been me... but let's not point blame...)

Anyway,  here's a shot of *most* of the Super Club-ers sitting down to enjoy the meal:

The meal was rounded out with Ashley's Cinnamon Custard Tart (p. 234) which was not photographed. Oopsie. 

After the meal and the tart, we broke into shenanigans. I don't really want to re-live this photo:

So instead of writing a caption, I'll just remind Texas homeowners to go heavy on the roach traps during the summer. *Shudder*

In case this is your first visit to my blog, all of our recipes come from the Houston Junior League's award winning cookbook, Peace Meals. I have fallen in love with 95% of the recipes in this book and highly suggest you buy one for you and all of your friends today.