Quick & Delicious Hot Sandwiches Even Your Kids Can Make

Quick and Delicious Hot Sandwiches Even Your Kids Can Make

“Mom! What’s for dinner?” “I’m working. Make a sandwich.” “Not sandwiches again!!” “It’s that or go hungry.” “UGH!!!!” The past two months I have been working as much as I possibly can because my husband lost his job and bills don’t stop just because your income does. On top of all the extra work, my 16 year old is in duel enrollment (taking both high school and college courses) so I have to drive her to the college every Tuesday and Thursday night. Because I’m not available as much as usual, my girls have had to become a lot more self-sufficient. The bulk of our groceries this month have been cold cuts and bread. The girls have been eating so many cold sandwiches in fact, that when I brought home $5 Fav pizzas from Papa …

Boozy Shamrock Shake

Boozy Shamrock Shake – Adults Only St. Patrick’s Day Treat

St. Patrick’s Day is one of my favorite holidays. What’s not to love? It’s a lot of fun! The McDonald’s Shamrock Shake comes out of retirement, it’s a great excuse to have a cocktail or two, there are awesome parades in very Irish cities like Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, (wait Philadelphia? Yes! Philadelphia had it’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1771!) and it doesn’t hurt that I look amazing in green. 😉 I’m lucky enough to be married to a true Irishman. We met 24 years ago, fittingly, in a dive Irish pub in Port Chester, New York. I was joking with the bartender about being Irish–trying to get a free drink–and he pointed to Colm and said “He’s from Ireland, maybe he’ll buy you one”. I started …

Chocolate Irish Crème brûlée

If you have followed me for a while you probably know that my husband will spend the next eight months in Arizona for a job. The girls and I are staying behind in North Carolina. My husband and I decided we just can’t uproot the girls again, especially for a temporary job. Our hope is that once the season is over he will find a job back in our area. So over the past two weeks we have been doing a lot of special things with my husband, like taking him to his favorite Indian restaurant, out to the movies, treating him to surprise lunch with our girls at a great little Mexican place we discovered, and making him many of his favorite foods. Well, crème brûlée happens to be one of my …

Carolina Sweet Tart

Carolina Sweet Tart

After we got engaged Colm and I talked a lot about where to get married. We had no family in Connecticut (we didn’t move to North Carolina until much later) and I really didn’t want to go back to Iowa to get married when most of our friends were out East. Colm joked that we should get married in Belfast (Northern Ireland, where he is from). And I said “Yes, we should! That would be amazing!” We arranged a trip to Ireland that February to make plans. Colm told me he knew the perfect place to have our wedding, Belfast Castle. We would be in Belfast on Valentine’s Day so Colm surprised me with reservations at their wonderfully extravagant prix fixe dinner. A friend of Colm’s worked at the castle and arranged for us to have …

Purple Passion Potion #5

Purple Passion Potion #5

Many moons ago, when I was in college, there was this “totally awesome” drink made out of Everclear called Purple Passion. It came in a 4 pack or a 2 liter bottle, tasted a little like grape soda on steroids and was very popular with college girls (of legal drinking age, of course) because it didn’t have a super strong taste of alcohol. The bonus was you only needed a couple drinks to feel buzzed. It made a resurgence in the mid-90’s and again in 2014, but they changed the recipe and it was never as good as the original. I was feeling very nostalgic for Purple Passion the other day looking through some old photos, so I decided to set out and recreate the recipe. I didn’t have any Everclear …

Pomberry Margarita

When I was in my 20s I could stay out until 4 am closing the bars in NY (crossing the border from CT because the bars there closed at 2 am) and get up at 7:30 every morning for work. We used to take turns being the DD (designated driver) and had a lot of fun getting the “boys” to buy us drinks. NOW that I’m…. ahem [no longer in my 20s], I find it very hard to stay awake past 11 pm, lol. So very sad, I know, but I still enjoy a cocktail every now and then. My favorite drink in the whole world is a margarita. At first, I could only drink a frozen margarita–no one really seemed to know how to make a tasty margarita on the …

Triple-Berry Cheesecake Trifle

Triple-Berry Cheesecake Trifle

Looking for a beautiful & delicious dessert to serve your Valentine? My Triple-Berry Cheesecake Trifle is the perfect dessert to woo her heart (and her sweet-tooth)! This scrumptious trifle is created with home-made lemon pound cake, raspberry jam, fresh strawberries and blueberries, layered with a smooth and creamy cheesecake filling. It’s a can’t miss dessert for your cheesecake lover.

Simply Perfect Prime Rib Roast | Ninja Cow Farm #gottobeNCbeef

Simply Perfect Prime Rib Roast | Ninja Cow Farm

Disclosure: “Simply Perfect Prime Rib Roast | Ninja Cow Farm” is a post sponsored by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Although I was supplied products and/or compensated for writing this post, all thoughts and opinions are my own. I only recommend products or services I believe in and use myself. Growing up in Iowa, in rural Iowa to be more precise, it’s pretty hard NOT to be a carnivore. Iowa is ranked 7th in the states for cattle production and 1st in hog production (North Carolina is 2nd). Although I grew up in town, I was a country girl at heart (still am!). My best friend lived on a farm and I spent as many weekends as I could with her, helping with her chores and riding horses every chance we got. In my …

Copy Cat Chick-fil-A Garden Market Salad

Copycat Chick-fil-A Grilled Market Salad

My favorite salad is a Chick-fil-A Grilled Market Salad. It’s sooo good. The flavors are so yummy together and honestly I could eat one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day and not get tired of it! But I always crave it on Sunday when Chick-fil-A is closed! So now I just make my own (if I can keep berries in the house, my kids can eat them by the pound faster than locusts!) You just have to try it!! Now I tweaked the Chick-fil-A recipe a little bit towards my personal tastes. I don’t like blue cheese so I used goat cheese crumbles, and I like a lot of flavors and textures in my salad so I added some dried cherries. Their tartness goes really well with the sweet strawberries and tangy …

Homemade Almond Flavored Marshmallows

Homemade Almond Flavored Marshmallows

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, my family LOVES hot chocolate. It’s one of our favorite cold weather treats. My girls like to drink their hot chocolate with lots and lots of marshmallows. I mean, who doesn’t, right? Actually, I prefer mine with fresh whipped cream. But that has changed since I tasted homemade marshmallows. A neighbor dropped off a Christmas gift last week with some homemade hot chocolate mix and freshly made peppermint marshmallows. Oh my goodness they are so much better than the store-bought kind. My girls were fighting over who got the last one. To keep the peace I asked my neighbor for the recipe so we could make some ourselves. I can’t believe how simple it was! And there’s no limit to the flavors you can …