Joyful Abode

Kristina of Maddie and Me creates gorgeous children’s clothing and accessories. Her color choices and fabric combinations are so sweet, and her handiwork looks amazing. She works in an interior design firm and is the wife of a disabled vet. Her four-year-old daughter, Maddie is Kristina’s clothing line’s namesake and inspiration.

Can you imagine your little girl dressed up in these for St. Patrick’s Day?

One of my absolute favorite items in her shop is “Lacey at the Playground,” a versatile outfit with capri pants and an a-line lace-up top, available in sizes 1 through 8.  You can also request different fabrics.

Check out her shop at etsy.com!

 I posted about these amazingly delicious biscuits in September, but the post isn’t very complete, I didn’t give you my actual recipe, and the picture is somewhat lacking. So I decided to take pictures when I made them last weekend and give you a play-by-play with photos.

So here’s the copycat recipe for Cheddar Bay Biscuits (I think that’s what they’re called at Red Lobster, yes?) 

(One note, I doubled the recipe, so the pictures show twice as much stuff as what I’m telling you.)

Set your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and spray a cooking sheet with nonstick spray.

Dump into a bowl: 2 cups of buttermilk biscuit mix (like Bisquick or Jiffy mix), 1/2 a teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1 to 1 1/2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese.

Stir everything together.

Pour in about 2/3 cups of milk. Stir until combined.

It gets pretty thick, and you can add a little more milk if you need to. But don’t add too much, otherwise it’ll get really sticky. See how my spoon is standing up straight by itself? I decided it would be easier to doff my rings…

And get my hands a little dirty. Hey… it works. And my hands were clean, I promise.

OK, now wash your hands and use the two-spoon method to drop lumps of the dough onto your cookie sheet.

Don’t they look nice, all lined up ready to be baked?

Stick them in the oven and set the timer to 10 minutes. Now, melt 2 Tablespoons of butter and stir in 2 teaspoons of oregano and 1 teaspoon of garlic salt.

When the timer goes off (10 minutes, remember?) brush some of the butter mixture over each biscuit. Then, pop them back into the oven for another 5-6 minutes.

Or until they’re lightly browned. If you’d like, you can brush them with the garlic-herb butter again and let it soak in before you serve them.

If you’re having people over, you’d better double the recipe. These will get snatched up like hotcakes. Or, you know, like… cheesy garlic biscuits.

…but for good reason. You see, from the moment I got home from work today, I’ve been frantically getting ready for my show this weekend. My dear friend offered to come over and cook for me and my neighbor-friend (who is sharing a booth with me) since she knew we were so busy tonight. How sweet is that?

So I wrapped baby blankets in cute brown paper bands with satin ribbons adorning them, my sweet husband and friends (and friend’s husband) made price tags for me so that I could re-tag all of my aprons (WHY did I take the tags off after the last show???)

My neighbor-friend put together her portfolio for custom orders, and made cute stamped tags for her items.

I made more fabric tags to go on aprons and baby blankets, and ironed them on everything.

My husband printed up loads of stationery and I packaged it…

And now it’s midnight, and I’m going to BED.

I promise I’ll do an “extra” Friday Feature this week, though it won’t be on a Friday. Forgive me. hehe.

And wish me luck at my second-ever craft show! It’s going to rock.

These delicious and creamy potatoes are totally customizable … you can add cheese, broth, your favorite seasonings, whatever. It’s more of a technique than a recipe, so I’ll walk you through it.

Basically, this came about because I was having a lot of people over, wanted to make a lot of mashed potatoes, but don’t have a big enough bowl to actually mash them in (and I can’t use my metal masher in my nonstick pots). So I tried this out and it was so easy and amazing, I may just declutter my masher unless someone can tell me another great use for potato mashers.

Wash your potatoes. I like to leave the peels on, but if you want to peel yours, go for it.

Cut them in half, then chunk them. Is “chunk” an actual culinary term?

Throw them in a really big pot.

Then cover them with water.

When they’re soft enough to easily sink a fork into, drain them and put them back into the pot. Put in something creamy, like sour cream or plain yogurt or cream cheese or … something. I used sour cream. At this point, your pot should still be on the burner, which is set to low heat.

Pour in something liquid like milk, cream, or broth. Stir everything together with a big spoon.

If you still have a lot of lumps like mine, and you need more creaminess, add some more creamy/liquid stuff. This is also a good time to add seasonings, herbs, and cheese. I added more sour cream, a big splash of milk, garlic salt, and onion powder.

Stir again.

Doesn’t that look amazing? Creamy stirred (not mashed) potatoes! Easy schmeasy! (Oh, and you can turn off your stove’s burner now.)

AND my potato masher is so clean and shiny because I didn’t even have to touch it.

He does such a good job of it!

If I’m vacuuming, I just move the vacuum around furniture in swirly ways. I’ll move chairs, but not much else. In open areas, I’ll do short little zigzaggy lines because I don’t want to walk backward and forward all the time.

If he’s vacuuming, he moves every piece of furniture (except for way heavier stuff) OUT OF THE ROOM. Dining table, chairs, and barstools go into our kitchen. The coffee table goes into the entryway. The guitar and my little trunk go on the couch. Then, he goes back and forth making perfectly parallel vacuuming lines, all the way across the room. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.

The other day when we had friends over, one of my girlfriends said, “Oh, you vacuumed. You didn’t have to vacuum.” I told her the guy did it, and her response was, “Oh, and he does the lines!!!” The guy seemed pretty proud of himself when she praised his vacuuming skills (though now he’s pretending not to remember).

I took a video of him vacuuming (it’s so awesome), but I’m not sure how to upload it and embed it here. I don’t want to use youtube or something where people not reading my blog can see it (I dunno, that just seems odd to me). Any tips?

The blueberries in the store are starting to look so good. They were on sale recently and we bought a bunch.

Sometimes we like to have breakfast for dinner. You know, make all the fantastic breakfast foods that we don’t have time to make (or don’t feel like making) before we go to work in the morning,

Enter Blueberry Pancake. With sidekick, Bacon.

You know how when you stir blueberries into the batter, they break and turn the batter all blue? I didn’t do that. I poured some batter into the pan, then sprinkled blueberries on top. When the batter starts to cook, it puffs up around the berries.

Like so.

And then, like I said… bacon. The sweet blueberries in soft pancakes alongside the salty crunchy bacon? Fantastic.

The man likes this picture better:

And I think this one is nice. So I figured I’d use them both.

Here’s the basic pancake recipe. Mmm.

You will need:

• 3 cups of flour
• 6 Tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons of baking powder

Mix those together. Add:

• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup canola or vegetable oil
• enough milk and/or water to make it the right consistency

Pour it into your pan or on your griddle. Wait until it puffs, flip it, and cook the other side. (Just in case someone is reading this who’s never made pancakes before.)

Enjoy!

And the next morning, I topped my leftover pancakes with sliced strawberries and a drizzle of honey.  Excuse the smear on the fork. I was actually using it to eat with, not just staging a photo with it. hehe.

Country-fried steak is another dish that’s not quite so photogenic. But it’s so amazing. We hadn’t had it in a while, so we were both pretty excited about it. The recipe is so simple, and the meat is so juicy and tender. The gravy is quick and easy, and the entire meal is just… delicious. Can I go on a little more?

The recipe is here.

So, so, so yummy.