05 July 2010

Could I be a hat person?

I think that, with this hat, I could be.

Anticipation Heels.

I need these shoes.

Plus about nine other pairs from Anthropologie. My, oh my.

Banana Pudding

2 small packages Jello instant vanilla pudding
1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 cups milk
12-16 ounces Cool Whip
3 bananas, sliced
1 box Nilla Wafers (please don’t buy the store brand; it really does make a difference)

Mix together the pudding, the milk, and the condensed milk. Fold in the Cool Whip. In a trifle bowl, layer as follows: Nilla wafers, bananas, pudding. Repeat until you’ve used up all the ingredients. Refrigerate. Easiest pudding ever, but so good. My supervisor at work requests that I make it at least once a month. He’d eat it a lot more often if I’d make it, actually.

Pasta Salad

SCM: Yes, this is the pasta salad you gave me the recipe for ages ago. I make it all the time. It’s so easy, and flexible…one of those great salads you can make out of whatever happens to be in your cupboard.

- 1 pound pasta (whatever kind you want to use; I use whole wheat spirals).
- 2-3 bell peppers, chopped (doesn’t matter what color)
- 1 cucumber, sliced and seeded
- 3-4 green onions, chopped (you can substitute some different sort of onion if you don’t share my love of green onions, or leave it out altogether)
- one bottle Kraft Greek Vinaigrette dressing
- pepper (to taste)
- 1 package Feta cheese, crumbled
- fresh cilantro (to taste)

Mix everything together, and if it still looks dry, add a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add the Feta last, and just sprinkle it over the top. Cilantro wasn’t in the original recipe, but since I add cilantro to everything, I figured, why not? You can also bake chicken breasts and then chop them up and mix them in. I’ve also added in mushrooms and olives at different times, and both were good. Told ya: can’t mess this up (unless you try to use a different salad dressing; that’s the one ingredient that must remain constant!).

Alabama: Monday and Tuesday

Wedding festivities begin!

But not quite yet. The whole family was coming for dinner on Tuesday, but before that Mama had to teach a CPR class in Meridian. I decided to go with her, seeing as how I’d been meaning to get CPR certified for ages, but just never signed up for the class. But, even before that, I woke up and baked a cake. I know. Please, please acknowledge the amount of discipline it took to get me out of bed and conscious enough to bake, and then still get myself showered and dressed in time to leave Butler at 10:00 a.m.

What kind of cake? Italian Cream. My favorite. Ostensibly for dinner the next night, but really because I’d been craving one for ages.

I can report that I passed the test (which was a relief. How embarrassing would it be for the instructor’s daughter to fail?) and am now officially CPR certified (though I still don’t have my card yet).

Up next, a trip to Walmart (UGH) to buy all the groceries for dinner, followed up by a trip to Sam’s (I forget what necessitated this trip, but I think it might have been grapes for the grape salad). My sweet Mama bought me a surprise: the Alice in Wonderland DVD I’d been wanting.

Then, home to get all the tables set up and dressed, and of course, to cook. Tuesday night’s dinner was fantastic! I’ll post the recipes for pasta salad and grape salad. Along with that: Low Country Boil (shrimp, potatoes, corn, sausage), steaks, banana pudding (the best recipe ever, which I’ll also post), 7-layer salad (which I don’t like, and therefore will not post the recipe for) and I can’t even remember what else. OH! The cake!

I’m not sure what everybody talked about after dinner because Malak and I went back to Mama’s room for some peace and quiet. The Hopper was tuckered out, apparently, because he made it through about 20 minutes of Wonder Pets before drifting off to sleep while playing with my hair. Goodness gracious, I love that little boy.