Liquid Strawberry Shortcake

Here's my inspiration recipe, but I kicked it up a notch.  Mama loves some champagne and I saw an opportunity here.  I am not a sweet cocktail drinker so I wasn't sure how this would fair.  Let me say that it fairs well.  Follow that inspiration recipe but use a champagne flute and top the mixture with some bubbly.  When I'm using champagne for cocktails I use Tott's Brut, the price is right and it tastes fine.  Tip: the fruit makes the champagne really bubble up, so pour with caution. 

Menu Monday

I decided to link up on Rachel's blog for Menu Monday.  I am a faithful reader of her blog, but have never linked up.  Those of you that know me in real life already know that I cook most every night.  I'm just not always thinking about taking pics of what we had, so I will try to be better about that. Some of the things on the menu last week include:

Barbecue Beer Chicken

Since I didn't take a pic of mine, I borrowed this photo from How Sweet it is, the blog that I got the recipe from. I really liked this, but mine was way soupier than I think it was supposed to be.  I remedied that by taking the chicken out of the cooking liquid once it was done and shredding it into a separate dish.  I then just added the amount of sauce needed to make it the right consistency for us.  I didn't cook it quite as long as the recipe called for, so if you will be cooking it all day, you may not run into that.  The leftovers were really good in a salad, I made a dressing using some of the leftover sauce and added some green onion and cilantro and tossed it all with a big bowl of salad greens.  This would also do double duty for you if you wanted to make a BBQ chicken pizza.  I planned to do that, but didn't get around to it before the chicken was all gone.  I will make extra next time. 

I made quiche for dinner one night, I like to make to so I can eat it through the week for breakfast too. I have started using Kate's recipe as the base and then I just add whatever veggies I have on hand.  This week, it was asparagus, spinach, and mushrooms.

Wednesday nights we host an American Idol watch party and I have a couple of girlfriends come over to eat.  This week we had an Asian Chicken Salad, similar to this one from Pioneer Woman. We served it with edamame and plenty of vino, (Wednesdays are fun)!

Thursday and Friday we ate out, but Saturday we had a Cinco de Mayo feast over at some of our dear friends' house.  They have a gorgeous pool and the weather was perfect for sitting outside.  I made these Sour Cream Enchiladas to go along with all the other great food...we always over eat when we visit these particular friends!  I love these enchiladas but they really are pretty hard to do by yourself, you need an extra set of hands.  We set up a little assembly line and I get the hubs to help me!  It's pretty fun because he really doesn't do much cooking and I enjoy having him in the kitchen with me.  We always double, or even triple, this recipe.  I figure if you're going to make the mess, might as well make plenty! They reheat really well from the refrigerator, I haven't ever tried to freeze them though. 

My line cook

Here they are before going into the oven, I didn't get an "after" pic because we took them to over to the party to bake later. I serve these with my home made salsa and fresh guacamole. I also like to sprinkle chopped red onion and cilantro over them before serving, but they are great without that too.

As you can see, I get lots of inspiration from blogs I read, hopefully I can inspire a few of you out there to cook more meals at home!

Weekend Getaway

I had the opportunity to join the hubs on a business trip last weekend.  His company hosted an awards banquet in Kansas City and I was so glad I was able to go. We stayed at the Sheraton Country Club Plaza, and it was perfect.  The location was phenomenal, right on the Plaza so we were able to walk everywhere.  The Plaza makes for great shopping and we spend most of Saturday doing just that.  We had great dinners both Friday and Saturday night.  Friday night we spent some time at a mixer/reception then headed out to eat with the other couple that was there with us.  There were so many choices of places to eat that it was a hard decision, but we ended up at Brio.  My friend and I split the Halibut because we weren't that hungry after snacking at the reception.  It was good, but the real hit for us was the Gimlet(s) we had.  They were so refreshing with all the lime, mint and cucumber muddled right it.  They went down pretty easy.  A bunch of folks were heading to the new casino out there but we were all so tired we skipped that.  As I said, we spent all day Saturday shopping so I was glad we rested up.  The hubs had never eaten at a California Pizza Kitchen so we stopped in for lunch.  He had a pizza that was ON FIRE hot and I got a roasted veg salad.  Overall, it was just ok, but now he can say he's been there. 

The shopping on the plaza is great! I got to go into some stores that we don't have here at home. H&M and Kate Spade were among my faves.  I didn't take many pics at all, but I did snap this with my phone.

I LOVE Tim Gunn, and there he was right in front of Kate Spade; there was a fashion show on the plaza and he was the commentator.  He is just as funny in person as he is on TV. After our marathon shopping day we went back to the hotel to freshen up for the awards banquet.  Here we are waiting on the shuttle to take us to the Intercontinental, which by the way was gorgeous!

Kelly and I both were sporting our white wedges. I probably haven't worn white shoes since my mother dressed me in white patent Mary Janes, but I just loved these.  Kelly's were really cute too and I think I am going to get the same ones in black.

I sure was glad she was there, we kept ourselves pretty well entertained during the ceremony.

We ended Saturday night at a neat Mexican place called Zocalo, the atmosphere was fun and the food was excellent.  The only thing that was a little weird to me was that you had to pay for chips and salsa.  I will say that when you order it, you get a huge serving of several different types of salsas and plenty of chips.  It was a really pretty presentation, but again, I didn't take a pic. We had such a great weekend, I highly recommend that area if you are looking for a low key getaway and live anywhere near KC.  It was about a three and a half hour drive for us, not too bad.  Where are your favorite getaway spots?