Made with love.....an exciting giveaway!

Have you heard of Made with Love products? I hadn't heard of this product until my blogging friend Val of More than Burnt Toast brought it to my attention. Made with Love - Spice Blends & Delectable Edibles offer 9 natural gourmet spice blends that can be used to create natural and healthy dishes. Val and I have been given the opportunity to offer a giveaway in collorboration with Made with Love over a six week period! This means 6 different giveaways each valued at $40 a piece!

For week 1 we are giving away an Earth-friendly Gift Set Trio of Red Pepper, Daring Dill & Country Onion Medi-size SpiceBlends worth $40. To enter the giveaway you need to do the following:

1. Go to www.madewithlove.ca and find the THE KISS.
2. Leave a comment at our gmail account: madewithlovecontest@gmail.com - and tell us where you found THE KISS.

If you win, winners will be required to:

1. Make a dish using the spice blend (Val and I will be doing a round up of the winners dishes).
2. Your recipes may be featured on Made with Love's website!

Made with Love also has recipes on their site that you can use their spice blends in - and this week Val has made Cream of Asparagus Soup using the Daring Dill spice blend. Make sure you check out both Made with Love and Val's blog for their recipes!

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1 year anniversary and a birthday

First Kiss as Husband and Wife

Today there is a birthday and an anniversary! It is my oldest son's 1st year anniversary. Happy Anniversary to Justin & Kristina and I wish you many more! This first year has gone by so quickly. The last I spoke to Justin he wasn't sure what they were doing on their special day....but rest assured, mom is going to be giving them a treat!

I want to share a few of my favorite photos of Justin & Kristina's wedding....ok, I can't help it you know...I am a mom ;-) ....so maybe more than a few! Here we go:

Justin with his brother Christopher waiting for Kristina to come down the aisle. My heart just fills to overflowing with love when I look at these two wonderful young men in my life. I'm such a lucky mom.

My silly son preparing to remove Kristina's garter....

I think this is an awesome photo of my mother with her 1st grandson

Justin knew I was close to crying and he was doing everything he could to be silly so I wouldn't cry. I came close but he succeeded in making me laugh! We danced to Blessed by Elton John.

Ok, so no crying going on here....just a bunch of silliness. Grumpy dancing with Justin :-)

The sunset photos at the end of the day

Looking out over the St. Lawrence River


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When Justin & Kristina set the date for their anniversary, little did they realize they were also going to be getting married on my Aunt Ann's birthday!

Happy Birthday Aunt Ann! The photo above is her with her partner Ron on Justin's wedding day and her birthday!


We had decided that we would go to Cranberry Lake for the day on July 4th this year to spend the day with my My Mom & Dad, Aunt Ann, Aunt Marlene & families. Justin & Kristina had their own plans and my poor little boy Christopher had to work. :-(


My Aunt Ann also loved Nanny's Mayonnaise Cake with Fluffy Frosting....so I decided to make these for her cupcake style and take them to camp. The fluffy frosting is pretty fragile so I decided to go with Dorie's Buttercream frosting we made with the Daring Bakers when we made the Perfect Party Cake. I also used some left over peanut butter frosting I had in the fridge -which turned out pretty awesome on the cupcake and I would make it that way again!


I am also submitting this recipe to the Family Recipes event for the month of July that I co-host with Laura of The Spiced Life. The deadline for submissions this month will be July25, 2009. To read more about this event CLICK HERE.


100 Chocolate Cake (or) Mayonnaise Cake
recipe from Mae Iris Whitton's recipe file

Note: I'm not sure why the cake is called 100 Chocolate cake on her recipe card - but we always called it mayonnaise cake.

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
4 heaping tablespoons cocoa

Sift ingredients into a bowl.

Add:
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

This was all Nanny had written on her recipe card! I mixed the cake together as such:

Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake pan with liners. After sifting together dry ingredients (and I did do this!) add all at once the mayo, water and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Spoon batter into cupcake liners. Bake for approximately 20 -25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. You can also bake this in two 8" round cake pans. I had to make 1-1/2 of the recipe to get 24 cupcakes.
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Red, White and Blue Stars

Wanting to make something I knew the kids would enjoy, and something patriotic to take to camp tomorrow I decided to go with rice krispie treats. Actually, adults enjoy these a lot too! I decided to get a little "fancy" with them and decorate with some red, white and blue candies.


I went to my cupboard for what I thought I had only to find out I was oh so wrong. I've done that a couple of times this week. Guess it is time for list making again!


I decided to pull out the bag of M&M's and sort the red and blue ones. For the white I decided to drizzle some vanilla coating on top of the treats to help make those M&M's stick. Cut them with a star cutter.....and Voila! I have Red, White and Blue Stars!

Stop by in another few days to see what I did with the remaining white chocolate....another treat kids and adults will both love! :-)


Rice Krispie Treats

3 Tablespoons butter
1 -16 oz package marshmallows
6 cups rice krispies

Topping:

White Chocolate candy coating
Red & Blue M&M's

Melt butter, add marshmallows and heat on low until marshmallows are melted, stirring often. Add rice krispies and stir to coat. Pat out onto sheet pan.

Melt candy coating and drizzle over treats. Top with M&M's. Let set until coating has hardened. You can do as I did and cut as stars or just cut into squares!

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Fine Cuisine Chez Heidi

Yes. My brother proved it. My SIL Heidi can cook! ;-) Not that it was ME he was trying to convince....

A little while ago my brother Steve sent photos that he took of my SIL's cooking as proof to her parents that she could cook. Well, I know myself for a fact that she can cook and bake and she actually does it well! While I was visiting at Christmas I really enjoyed her shortbread cookies she had made. Yummy!


I'm also so pleased to know that I am an influence on my brother and SIL! Steve's email said this:

"After getting in a rut and eating the same old thing over and over, Heidi and I decided to switch it up a little. We started by looking at websites influenced by Shelby and her blog. We went to www.tastespotting.com and started looking at all the food pics and here is one example of what we come up with:

Stuffed Filet with Tomato Basil Aurore

Here are the pics of our dinner tonight. It was very good. Heidi did all of the cooking except I threw the meat on the grill. You can compare our pics to the pics in the link above. She varied a little from the original. MMM MMM MMM."

Heidi did a great job as is obvious from my brother's MMMM, MMMMM, MMMM! If I came home to Grumpy having planned and cooked a meal like this I think I would pass out....but I would also be very happy. Yeah. That is a dream for certain.

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Whats for Breakfast in your house?

My mornings (on weekdays) are usually so busy I don't have time to eat at home. I may be up early, but that is the time I blog, read other blogs, watch the Y&R (which I keep threatening to stop watching - but I've watched it since it first came on tv....). I also am known to bake, do laundry, put together Grumpy's lunchbox - and even my own ;o). What time do I wake up you wonder? ha ha. I'm a real early bird. Sometimes I am awake at 3:30....but the norm is between 4 and 4:30 AM.


Even getting up that early I'm not usually ready for food until about 8 or 8:30 which is when I am already at work. Usually I pack up some fruit and yogurt and sometimes I add some granola if I have it on hand. So, when MyBlogSpark asked me if I was interested in trying out and reviewing the new Nature Valley Nut Clusters, of course I said YES!

These came in the mail yesterday and of course I had to open every bag (they sent me 4 different flavors) and try them all. Of course Grumpy got into it. Of course I got after him because he was eating it all up on me and I wanted to make sure I got to try all the flavors again. I even promptly reminded him that he hated crunchy food. lol. Well, obviously this crunchy food he does not hate. He was really enjoying the mixed nut version.



These little clusters are awesome. Perfect to go with my yogurt in the morning. My only problem......it is hard to leave them alone. I could probably eat the whole bag (or 4). Thanks to MyBlogSpark for giving me the opportunity to try them!
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