Food

There’s nothing worse than losing track of your drink at a party. It happens to me all the time, especially at family gatherings where everyone is milling about and engrossed in conversation. There’s the tried and true permanent marker method, where everyone writes their names or initials on their cup, but let’s be honest – it doesn’t look very polished and sometimes if you don’t have the right kind of marker it rubs right off.

Video: 

New Confetti Containers Video.mp4

Who wants to serve party-goers popcorn out of ordinary bowls? Or give out confetti at parties or weddings in those messy tissue-paper rolls tied at both ends with ribbon? While browsing at StyleMePretty, I recently ran across a novel idea for holding all sorts of goodies in a much more stylish way – funnels. Easy, do-it-yourself, decorative paper funnels or cones. The idea is so simple that it’s genius, and so charming that it’s hard to ignore.  

My family has some of the best cooks. Ever. So, given this, you’d think that I’d want to preserve our top recipes so that I could prepare them in my own kitchen one day. And yet, right now they are all a jumbled mess of scraps of paper, notes written on napkins. They’re not only unusable like this, but they’re in no way preserving our family history of amazing cooks!

Several years ago, grandmother took the time to organize some of her favorites into a book and shared it with me and my three cousins. It’s in a tiny little binder and was a wonderful gift, but sadly doesn’t allow for updating with new favorites or additions from other family members.

My passion for cooking has been passed down for generations. My grandmother would always greet me with a warm baked pie or vegetables picked from her garden. I especially enjoy making recipes from scratch with fresh ingredients, but I often have more leftovers than I can eat in a week. I learned the value of freezing extra food early on and I can’t tell you how great it is to come home after a long work day to a homemade meal.

I recently learned interesting freezing food tips from an article in The New York Times, “Freeze That Thought.” Here are highlights from the article that may you enjoy, too:

It’s that time of the day. The time when you wander over to the office refrigerator to extract a bland-looking plastic container with an even more bland turkey sandwich trapped inside. To make matters worse, it’s Friday and you have had the same turkey sandwich every day this week. The temptation of chain-food restaurants lingers outside your office door, making it even harder to stick to a budget or diet plan. With our New Year’s resolutions in mind, I’ve got some helpful tips below to get you away from that burrito place down the street and back into saving money and eating right!

As a kid, I loved vegetables (I think I told you guys about my love of tomatoes and fresh fruits and veggies in this garden signs post already). But I know I’m not the norm - it can be tough to force those leafy greens on kids! And since we adults are still trying to keep those New Year’s resolutions for healthy eating, what better time to teach our kids and families about healthy eating? ...read more

This is Part Two in a three-part series on celebrating the upcoming Fourth of July holiday in style! Today’s guest blogger, Kelli, is a mom of 3 active boys.  You can find her blogging about homemaking, parenting, and organization at her blog, 3 Boys and a Dog. Be sure to follow Kelli on Twitter to be kept in the loop about everything from product reviews to giveaways!

Are you looking forward to Independence Day? Down here in the south, it is a BIG family day.  We BBQ, swim, eat watermelon, and hang together all day and most of the night.  I have many memories of awesome July Fourth days from my childhood and strive to give my kids memories of their own.

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This is Part One in a three-part series on celebrating the upcoming Fourth of July holiday in style!

The Fourth of July is coming up, which means cookouts and picnics and neighborhood get together. I am in Texas which also means the temperature will be somewhere between 100 and one million degrees outside, depending on the heat index. It is entirely possible I will become stuck walking through melted asphalt at some point during the day.

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