Foodie Friday: Cheesy Potatoes

Some may call them scalloped, some may call them cheesy taters... I call 'em freaking fantastic! This recipe is one that's been passed down from my Mema, to my mom, and now to me. To be honest, I'm not sure if this is even the exact way they make them, but it's how I remember it and quite frankly, I make them pretty dang good.

PS- I keep it simple. There really is no way to screw these up.

**********

Cheesy Potatoes

Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes

Yields: 10 servings

Ingredients: 

• 2.5 pounds gold potatoes
• 1 bag (2.5 cups) shredded Colby Jack cheese (or whatever kind you prefer)
• 1 cup milk
• 4 Tablespoons butter
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

Peel and cut potatoes into 1 inch cubes. Par-boil potatoes until a knife can be easily inserted through potato without much force. Layer potatoes, cheese, and salt and pepper into a 9x9 dish. Cube butter into single tablespoon portions, and shove each cube into the potatoes.Pour milk over the potatoes. Cook for 45 minutes at 400 degrees. Enjoy!

**********

I Am The Girl...

I've noticed a few new readers looming around here lately, so I thought it'd only be fitting for me to tell you all a little bit more about myself. My "Who We Are"  page can only be hold so much information.

I Am The Girl That...

should be a professional daydreamer

would make cupcakes for a living

will go out of her way to return someone's shopping cart

makes her car overheat by performing preventative maintenance [seriously, it just happened this weekend]

is in search of her faith & is learning to let go and let God

can't stand to see Guero get in trouble

ugly cries while reading anything about weddings

is so lucky for the family she has been blessed with

has fallen in love with softball

is so competitive when it comes to games/sports

has too many irrational fears

needs to learn to stop dwelling on the past

puts family first

whos style changes every other month

who doesn't really even have style

has fallen head over heels in love with the most amazing man

has a wedding board on pinterest, and isn't engaged [admit it, you do too]

gives others the benefit of the doubt more often than not

believes that all people are good & learns the hard way that they're not

cannot stand the word 'epic'

doesn't understand the difficulty in knowing the difference between 'there', 'they're' & 'their'

who hopes that one day she can be as amazing of a mother as hers is

who might just smack someone for an oatmeal cream pie [kidding, but really]

& most importantly

I am the girl that is so thankful you're here reading this blog of mine & I hope that you will stay for a while.

Tell me something about yourself!

Labor Day Family Reunion

As I mentioned before, for the long holiday weekend, we had plans to attend a family reunion. Now while I have heard all about Raymond's family and have met quite a few of them, I met about 100 more this past weekend. Being me, of course I brought my camera but left it in my bag the entire trip. I didn't take a single picture, so I must thank R's sister, Sandra for all of these pictures-- I stole them all from her Facebook. Thanks Chach!

Warning: Prepare for photo dump.

Friday started out with dropping off our puppy (waahh) with my parents and hit the road to Brownwood 3 hours Northwest to pick up R's son (also known as Raymond... we'll call him #3). After swooping him up, another, and another 4 hours in the car, we finally arrived in Uvalde. I tell ya, it never felt better to get out of the dang car! After a quick last-minute dinner around 9:30 p.m. we headed back to our motel. No, not for sleeping... for drinking in the parking lot!


Mother, Brother In Law, Sister, Nephew, Son, Me, Father





Sister, Raymond, Me, Cousin

An early Saturday morning wake up called for a delish breakfast of pancakes and then we headed to run a few errands, and off to the park for a day of hot, sweaty fun. The day was made up of activities including a silent auction (cannot wait to share what we won!), sand volleyball, water relay, obstacle course, and tug-of-war. While it may have been disgustingly hot, the sweat and scorched feet from the sand were absolutely worth it and we had a blast.

Around 4:30 p.m. we all packed up and headed back to the motel to quickly shower and take whatever kind of a nap we could, to be at the hall by 6:00 for dinner, awards, and most importantly the dance.

The night was wonderful and while I wore comfotable shoes, my feet hurt the next day from dancing so much! I am so thankful that Raymond has such a wonderful family. While there may be tons of them, they all do such an amazing job of making me feel comfortable and welcome. I feel like I am already a part of their family and to be honest, there really isn't a much better feeling. The entire time we were there, I found myself thanking God for placing them into my life.

We're Back

...from our little vacay. While it was absolutely fantastic to get away for a few days, it feels even better to be back home.


Beautiful Hill Country

I am slowly catching back up with the world, but still have a lot to do. Because it is a holiday though, I plan to not let the little things (laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping) really have a huge effect on me today. Hopefully we can just spend the day relaxing, and maybe even do a little bit of BBQ-ing.

I am most excited to snuggle up with our little baby boy. Guero spent the weekend with my parents while we were gone, and I cannot say how much we missed him. We would talk about him and how much we missed him as we were laying down to sleep each night.


Saying goodbye :-(

Reunited and it feels so good!


Reunited and it feels SO good!

I'll be back Wednesday to fill you all in our trip! Until then, tell me: How did you spend the long weekend?

Foodie Friday: Cream Cheese Buffalo Chicken Taquitos

I found a recipe for something along the lines of cream cheese & buffalo bacon and chicken taquitos. Um... can you say yum? I had high hopes for making these little boogers but in the end decided that I wanted to wing it and make a super simple version of them. I wont even reference where I found the inspiration because a) I can't remember and b) they are nothing like the recipe. That being said, these bad boys were stinkin' amazing (and spicy!) and I definitely plan to make them again.

**********

Cream Cheese Buffalo Chicken Taquitos

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes

Yields: 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds chicken breast, shredded
• 1/3 cup Frank's Hot Buffalo sauce
• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 8 tortillas (I used flour)
• Oil for frying (I used vegetable)

Directions:

If you don't use canned chicken, you can do what I did and either boil, or throw your chicken in the crock pot for a few hours and quickly shred with a fork. Combine shredded chicken, buffalo sauce, cream cheese, and s&p into a large bowl and mix together. Spoon mixture into tortillas and wrap, securing with a toothpick. Meanwhile, heat your oil over medium heat. Once hot enough, drop each taquito into oil and fry, turning for an even cook (about 45 seconds-1 minute). Lay on a paper towel to soak excess oil and cool. Serve with desired toppings, dipping sauces and enjoy!

**********

Meet My Celebrity Friends

If you're here from Ruthie or Britt's blogs, hello & thank you so much for stopping by! I do hope that you want to stick around a while because I like to have fun over here... and well from the evidence of this post my family and I are constantly requested to do photo shoots and we have a lot of celebrity friends. And who doesn't want to know someone that knows someone?? Seriously, just let me know and I'll put in a call to my girl Ellen or my main man Leo. But don't even bother trying to get in touch with Gerard... he's mine.

JT, Me, Ellen

Aunt & Uncle w/ Mad Men Cast

Aunt Amy as Sienna Miller

Aunt Chris as Sienna Miller

Gaga, Cousin Allison

Mom as Cinderella

Grandparents as Elvis & Ann

Me, Mom, Aunt Chris, Cousin Allison, Cousin Ryan, Aunt Amy, Brother Lucas

Clair & Brother Lucas

 

Grandma & Leo

Me & Gerard

Dad as Knight

Entire Family in 'Lost' pose

Cousin Allison as Snow White

Alright... so maybe these aren't really our friends. And maybe (just maybe) we don't really get bombarded for photo shoots... but my mom sure can photoshop can't she? A few years ago she and my father spent countless hours cutting out our faces to make an entire book (I'm talkin' magazine thickness) for Christmas. Every picture is either us with/as celebrities, or us in place of whatever celebrity was posing as a Disney character. The entire book was so freaking awesome and I wish I could share the entire thing with you all, but I've already photo dumped the heck out of this post. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed meeting my highly attractive family and our friends. Be sure to stop back by sometime!

Just Call Me Katniss

Hello & happy Monday, friends! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend. Our weekend here was filled with a whole lot of... not a lot.

Friday night was the usual for us-- Raymond's softball game. They beat the team they were playing by quite a bit, which made for a happy boy. One bad thing about games at 9:00 pm? No time for dinner between work and game time, so we ended up hightailing it to get some grub (and drinks) at 10:30 at night. So bad, but so so good.



Saturday was spent running a few errands, doing a few things for the blog, and cleaning out our closet and dresser helping R clean his motorcycle. I wasn't in the mood to sit inside the house, so my crazy self marched downstairs to the oh-so-hot garage and polished away on the chrome of his bike. By the end of it all, I was in desperate need of a shower and water! I don't recommend volunteering to clean anything ever if you don't have to.

In other random news, I posted this picture to Facebook and my grandma said "Katniss Sheridan?" (Sheridan is my last name for those of you that don't know, and Katniss is obviously the main character from The Hunger Games.) I didn't even think about it when I braided my hair that morning, but I wont lie and will admit that I am totally digging the comparison. Just call me Katniss! I also got Tomb Raider from an old friend (Hi Kyndal!). I'll let you all decide for yourselves:

via

via

I am not a big fan of Angelina (Team Jen!), so I'll take Katniss over Lora any day of the week, as if it really matters haha.

Moving forward from my obsession, Sunday was spent grocery shopping, and making phone calls to the surgeon's office. I had my stitches removed over a week ago and I noticed Sunday morning that my wound was starting to re-open. Totally gross, I know, and totally LAME. Now I've got to drive another hour and a a half both ways just to have it looked at. I'm not excited at all and it totally ruined my plans to finally go swimming and get back to working out today.

Luckily my sulking was overshadowed by a Sunday Funday we had planned to meet some of our newer neighbors. We ended up having a blast BBQing, letting the dogs run wild, and chit chatting for hours.

Another great weekend in the books, and now it's time to sail through this short week before we head out of town on Friday for a family reunion!

See you all on Wednesday!