Pioneer Woman's Rosemary Potatoes

When I hosted my book club a few weeks I decided to step up my original menu and make an actual meal. Well, who does one turn to when they want to step up their menu? Of course the Barefoot Contessa is wonderful and Martha never let a girl down, but when you want some tasty, all around American food you turn to The Pioneer Woman. I choose to make her Rosemary Mashed Potatoes out of her cookbook, but you can find an almost identical recipe on Ree's site.
Shopping List:
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
1 cup half-and-half
1 cup heavy cream
5 or 6 medium russet potatoes, sliced thin
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 medium onion, finely diced
One 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons minced rosemary leaves
3 green onions, light green and medium green parts, thinly sliced
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons minced chives (I skipped these)

Now, let's get cooking!

First, you slice your potatoes very thin. I did not have a mandolin so I just did mine by hand and it worked out fine.

Pour half the cream mix over the sliced potatoes and let them soak while you send to the stove.

After melting a stick (yes, one entire stick) of butter in the skillet you add your diced onion and your garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent.

Once your onions are cooked you are ready to start adding the fun things! Cut your cream cheese in half and add both halves to your skillet.

The Pioneer Woman was right when she said you need to keep a watchful eye on the skillet and continuously stir your ingredients. Keep stirring your cream cheese, onions and garlic until they are one, smooth mixture.

Now it is time to add the rest of the half&half/heavy cream to your skillet....YUM, I LOVE anything with heavy cream.

Stir everything together before adding in your rosemary and additional seasoning (ie. salt and pepper).

Once everything is well mixed together turn off the heat and remove the pan and add half your Parmesan in. Stir it is as it melts then put your potatoes in your baking dish and pour the entire decadent mixture from your pan over them.

Finally, top everything with Parmesan before putting it in the oven to bake (visit The Pioneer Woman or pick up a copy of her book for baking times!).

This recipe was a HUGE hit. It was delicious and not extremely time consuming. It would pair well with just about anything and could even be served with just salad; yes, it really is THAT good. This really is a dish that will please just about any guest I think; enjoy!

Gala Season and Votes

After a restful, but fun summer it seems like life is back in full swing for everyone now. School has started, Fall is here (at least for everyone that does not live in Texas where it is again expected to be 100 degrees tomorrow) and calendars are jam packed night after night and each weekend. The social season kicked off in style in Dallas in mid-September with the Dallas Symphony Gala.

I was a very lucky lady indeed and asked to attend this and had the most marvelous evening! I guess you could say that the theme was an evening in Morocco. We were greeted at the valet entrance with dancers and festive tents were set up inside the DSO lobby for the cocktail hour and after party (I neglected to take photos as I was taking it all in). The food was actually one of the best catered meals I have ever had and I opted for the vegetarian entree...that says a lot! While all this was divine, I think the main highlight of the evening was Joshua Bell's performance with the DSO. Is was amazing! His videos and recordings truly do not do him justice. It was nothing short of a wonderful evening spent with marvelous friends in Dallas!

On another note I have entered the GiltCity contest on Facebook. As you veteran readers know I am a huge GiltCity fan and would love to win this! The voting only goes for two more days and is SO close...it is getting pretty hardcore in my opinion. If you have a Facebook account and would feel compelled to vote for me I would be very grateful. You must vote from an actual computer (no iPhones and iPads) and you can vote once every 24 hours. Click here to cast you vote and thank you in advance!

Wordless Wednesday

I found this on Pinterest last week and it is such a great reminder for us all :)

Machine Gun Preacher

Last night, I had the honor of attending a screening for Machine Gun Preacher. I saw the preview for this movie last week and read the synopsis and could hardly wait to attend the film. "Machine Gun Preacher is the inspirational true story of Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing criminal who undergoes an astonishing transformation and finds an unexpected calling as the savior of hundreds of kidnapped and orphaned children." I knew this would be a sad movie to watch and the hardest part about it is that what you are seeing on the big screen is a reality, it is NOT just Hollywood. It is a very heavy movie, but it is SO inspirational. It was so empowering to watch an addict overcome their addiction and it was truly beautiful to see how God has transformed the lives of thousands of orphaned children with the help of said addict.

The movie itself was phenomenal but another highlight of this screening was that a VERY special guest made an appearance.

Yes, the REAL Sam Childers was at our screening last night as was the beautiful Michelle Monaghan. They introduced the film together and then after the credits rolled Sam spoke and answered questions (I even asked one!).

He talked about his struggle with drugs and alcohol as well as his relationship with God. He hopes that Christians flock to this movie not to see another Hollywood production, but for the orphaned children of Africa. He did not push his own charity at all (though I do believe it is a wonderful one!) but rather said you need to simply find an organization who you believe in and support it. Stop talking and get doing! Finally, he did let us in on a few of the secrets of the film. The timeline of the movie is short compared to the real life timeline which is 30 years and his best friend in the movie is actually a combination of six real life friends (also he wanted us to know he did not really throw this friend out of the house as is shown in the movie...don't worry, this does not spoil the movie for you).

Machine Gun Preacher is an amazing movie and I highly encourage you all see this. While I have watched numerous movies about the turmoil in the Sudan and surrounding countries, this one definitely stands out and was so well done. However, do be warned that it is not a happy, chick flick. It is a very heavy movie as mentioned, but a true story of war and heartbreak.

Free Bible Verse Printable

For several months I have been wanting to make some little cards with Bible verses on them to carry in my purse. When I am sitting in an office waiting or have some free time I figured I can pull these out and memorize scripture rather than play on my phone or sit idly. Last week, I finally got around to making a set of 12 little cards. I picked more well known verses for this set so you will recognize any of the verses. I hear these all quite often, but I have to be honest and admit I did not know exactly where to find them in the Bible and that is my goal in making these. I made mine pink and green so that they stand out in my purse and well, that is my favorite color combination :) I plan to send these are treats in the mail to close friends with a ribbon around them and they would also make a cute favor at a Bible study I think. These are by no means a perfectly made printable, but I still wanted to share them with you all in the event that you might want to use them too. Enjoy!

Verse Printables

Glamorous Gadabout

This week I am SO thrilled to be featured as a Glamorous Gadabout by the WONDERFUL and very talented Poppy of Project Gadabout. She has a FABULOUS site that you need to check out (if you have not already done so that is). I will be sharing some of my very favorite Monograms and Manicures posts from the archives as well as my go-to online shopping sources. Thank you to Project Gadabout for asking me to participate in this fun project. I hope you enjoy Poppy's delightful posts this week as well as in the weeks and months to come!

The Look for Less: Glasses Necklace

It is so fun when you find a look for less! I was perusing the Kate Spare website (before I went in to the store and had a not-so-happy experience...) last week and came across a necklace I thought I had seen before:

Kate Spade Hang in There Glasses Pendant ($148)

Glasses always stand out to me as I wore then until 10th grade (I had numerous pairs for all my American Girl dolls so we could "match") so I started to rack my brain to figure out where I had come across a glasses charm... Suddenly, I recalled it was from Forever 21. I actually rarely go in Forever 21 as it can be somewhat overwhelming for me, but they really do have GREAT accessories, especially necklaces. Anyhow, they had an almost identical charm:

Forever 21 Rhinestone Glasses Pendant ($4.80)

I have to admit I actually prefer the rhinestone version better and the price speaks for itself compared to the "original."

Which do you prefer or would you snatch up?

I think I might have to go grab this along with the DARLING rhinestone parrot they also have in stock when I hit up NorthPark this weekend!

Three Ingredient Pumpkin Muffins

I had been searching HIGH and LOW for canned pumpkin the past few weeks (who knew Irene caused a pumpkin shortage?!) and after going to three stores I finally got my hands on some last night. However, I did not buy enough cans to last me through the Fall so I will be heading back to WalMart to hoard some more this weekend.

Anyway, the reason I was needing a can of pumpkin was because I have been yearning to make the two (three for me) ingredient pumpkin muffins I saw on Pinterest a while back. It does not get much easier than this dear readers!

All you need is a boxed cake mix and a can of pumpkin. I LOVE yellow cake mix so I used that, but I think the spiced mix found in stores would actually be AMAZING. In fact, I guess I really used four ingredients because I did add a few dashes of pumpkin pie seasoning to the dry mix to give it more of a Fall flavor.

Simply add the can of pumpkin to the cake mix and blend the two together.

I opted to add chocolate chips as well which I mixed in at the end. They really made all the difference in my muffins as they made them a little bit sweeter.

The mixture is extremely thick as you would guess so the only thing I would do differently next time is fill the baking cups a tad more for more substantial muffins.

Bake your muffins according the the instructions on the back of your mix and voila, you are all done! These are delicious and and easy treat for the Fall!

Wordless Wednesday

Goodbye Summer:

It is time for FALL!

Who Loves You Pretty Baby?

On Friday evening the book club I am in headed up North. Not to Plano or Denton, but just across the border to Oklahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the plain). We went to Winstar Casino for a concert. Who might be playing at a casino in OK you might ask? The one and ONLY Frankie Valli!

I am a HUGE oldies fan and Frankie Valli just so happens to be one of my VERY favorites. I grew up listening to his music and am the proud owner of his Greatest Hits CD so I was well prepared for the concert, not to mention SUPER excited as well! This concert was not a letdown and was actually one of the very best concerts I have ever been to. It was simply fantastic and Frankie sang all my FAVORITE songs...from "Rag Doll" to "What A Night" to "Grease" to "Who Loves You" to "Working my Way Back to You" he covered all the hits! He even ended with my top choice "Let's Hang On!" If Frankie is coming your way you simply MUST go; you can bet I will be "working my way back to" Frankie next time he is in my area! :)

Not only did we get to see Frankie Valli while wearing out "Too Hot to Handle Shirts" which Cassie ordered"

but we also explored Winstar. I had not been to a casino since I was in Vegas over twenty years ago so I did not know what to really expect. The place was HUGE and packed! I did not understand a single slot machine and decided to save my money after losing $20. However, we did enjoy the piano bar as well as the $10 store. They had the BEST custom jewelry, better than Samoon!

All in all we had a splendid evening up at Winstar. Frankie Valli and good company were most certainly the highlights and I am glad I finally got to put my gold cowboy boots to good use!

Showering a Mother-to-be!

This has hands down been one of the very BEST weekend ever! It has been packed full of SO much fun and even some once in a lifetime experiences. I feel so very blessed! I will update on all my fun throughout the week, but wanted to share one of the big perks of the weekend with you all tonight.

Today, four friends and I hosted a shower at Andrea's for our good friend Jessica. We, as well as all the guests, all met one another another through Junior League two years ago and have become great friends. Jessica is having a baby girl in a month so we decided to pull out all the pink and make things extra girly!

I was in charge of flowers, favors, games and decor. Andrea's home is beautiful so little was needed so I just made a few small printables and then floral arrangements. I found some wonderful printables at Lay Baby Lay (they have some darling, framable printables for all you mommies) and made the rest myself. I had originally planned to make an "It's a Girl" sign, however, that just seems too long so I went with "BABY" instead. I was a bit worried this might look dumb, but I think it turned out very cute! We made Jessica take this home as we all thought it would be fun to put on their hospital door next month. Here is our buffet all set up and ready for the guests. Since the shower was from 2pm to 4pm we did not do heavy, heavy food as many people likely would eat before. Cassie made mini fruit kabobs and brought cheese, chicken salad and croissants. Andrea had mini quiches, candied nuts and a vegetable platter with the BEST dip from Central Market (if you are familiar with their dips it was the Love dip which is a favorite of mine). For dessert, another hostess brought petit fours from Tart (they are the BEST in Dallas in my opinion). It was the perfect amount of food for our size crowd and we all enjoyed everything! I made Oreo balls for the favors and then created my own tags which said "Sugar and spice, baby girls are so nice!" I hope they were good as I never tasted one :)

All in all we had a WONDERFUL afternoon celebrating Jessica and Baby C! We cannot wait to meet her in just a few more weeks!

Guest Room and Master

Last night, when I got home my entire door was blocked by boxes...eight HUGE boxes. Why does one receive eight boxes you might ask? Well, my wonderful mother sent me all the bedding for the guest bedroom! I just purchased the twin beds over Labor Day weekend and they were sitting sad and undressed in the second bedroom until last night. Now, before I show you all the photos I realize that many of you are not into floral fabrics like my mother and I are, but there is no need for you to tell me that. I LOVE how the guest room looks and hopefully all my guests will to!

The shade still needs to be adjusted a bit, but it works perfectly on this door/window (Side note:I really wish that window up top did not exist, but you win some and lose some when house hunting).
Here is a sneak peak of the beds. A full on view will have to wait until I purchase new pillows. The headboards are also still up in Minnesota, but they are done in the purple check fabric and piped in the floral of the curtains/blanket covers.
Mother also included a shower curtain and it has made the bathroom come alive! I need to purchase a second curtain rod to hang the valance that matches, but so far so good. I will be sure to post another photo once that is up!
Finally, I realized that I have never posted a photo of my bedroom anywhere other than Twitter, and it was only in the background of an OOTD post. My bedroom is still a work in progress...ie. the curtains have yet to be ordered (I am thinking of doing balloon shades in the matching pink and white toile) and I need new bedside tables as well. However, everything is certainly coming along and I am thrilled with how things are turning out! You can rest (tee hee) assured everyone will be sleeping soundly in my home!

Wordless Wednesday

I posted this on Pinterest yesterday, but I think it warrants its' own post.

Fashion's Night Out

Last Thursday I headed to my beloved Highland Park Village to celebrate Fashion's Night Out with several friends. They were putting on quite the event for the evening with runway shows and all around participation from their stores. FNO has sure come a LONG way in three years, we can thank Anna Wintour for that :)

Our group met at Chanel, where they were offering mini manicures with their new "Jeans de Chanel" collection, and then headed around the Village.
Christian Louboutin was HOPPING! They were offering retro hair styling with stylists from Frederic Fekkai (see first photo), a photo booth and a lash studio. We opted not to get the lashes as they all had big red bows or feathers on them.

We headed into Hermes where they were offering scarf tying lessons, then popped into Harry Winston and Tory Burch and finally ran into Stella McCartney where they were having a soft opening with a Stella snow cone machine!

We then popped into the new Trina Turk boutique which is just as darling as can be! Even if you are not a fan of Trina you would adore this store. From the huge white door with the decorative handle to lounge set up with greek key pillows it is truly well done. My favorite find of the night were these extremely competitively priced, glitzy seahorse sandals:

I also ran into Jimmy Choo who was serving the most divine cupcakes and handing out copies of D as well as Scoop who was giving out BirchBoxes with your purchase. DvF was a madhouse with their flipbook studio we opted to skip that and enjoyed dinner at Mi Cocina instead.

Did you attend FNO this year? All in all I found it to be a fun evening that I look forward to attending next September!

Glitzy Boots

I recently bought a new pair of true Texas cowboy boots and have left my department store bought boots in the dust. However, after seeing loads of metallic cowboy boots recently I did a little research into painting shoes/boots.

This weekend I decided to go to town and give my old, worn out boots a new life by making them GOLD.
I stuffed the boots to ensure they stood up and then taped the heel so that it would still stand out.
I used a recommended brand of spray paint and covered the boots with just one coat.

The final product is everything I hoped for (the boots are more gold than shown and the wall is more gray then the bright blue it appears here)...bring on the glitz and glam because my boots and I are ready!

A Decade Later

I am posting this several days early as I think we all need to take a few moments this weekend to reflect on the past decade. I know that people all over the world are reading this, but I hope that each of you that is an American knows how great this country we live in. There are men and women that are fighting the war on terror abroad, away from their families, so we can wake up in our own beds each morning. Though our lives have changed immensely in the past decade our flag still stands for freedom and we are beyond blessed to live in this GREAT nation. 9.11 was a monumental day in our nation's history and it is one we can never forget.

It is really hard to believe that on Sunday it will be an entire decade since our country was attacked. My past ten years I have traveled the world and been blessed with an abundant life, but I will never forget exactly where I was when I first heard the news. I remember sitting in assembly and getting the news that a plane had hit one of the towers in New York and being shocked. I then remember watching The Today Show and NO one had any idea what was going on; we literally thought a small plane had accidentally lost control. Then, out of nowhere, the second tower was hit, then the Pentagon was and a plane went down in Pennsylvania. Finally, all before lunchtime, we watched as an iconic,unbreakable human structure crumbled to the ground with thousands of people still inside. It was then that we finally realized that America had been attacked. Life as we knew it would never be the same.
September 11, 2001 was a normal sunny day like any other as we awoke, picked out our outfits, ran to Starbucks and rushed in to work. However, by days end the skies were black and a country was broken. Lives were lost and families were torn apart as the country many of us call home was attacked. This weekend and on Sunday, we remember the fallen and honor the heroes. September 11th serves to remind us that FREEDOM IS NOT FREE! I am SO proud to be an American and am blessed to lead the life I do. I am thankful for the men and women that put or have put their lives on the line for me every single day so I can live this life. They are heroes!

My thoughts and prayer go out to all who lost loved ones on 9.11.2001 and all those who are fighting, and stand by those that fight, to protect this great nation.

O! say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

A ROARING Good Time!

Last night I hosted book club at my new condo. Each month we rotate to a different member's home and September was my turn to invite everyone in. Our book for the month was The Great Gatsby.

My dress is Elizabeth McKay and the belt is Lilly.

I love when a good theme is carried out so I decided to play up on parts of the Roaring 20's...

When friends arrived they were told to "put on their pearls!" I stocked up on pearl, mardi gras beads (sadly the parentals are no longer in India so real pearls could not be found at a decent price) and made the following sign which I cut down and put out:

I also made various quote cards that I placed around for people to read and, you know, ponder. :)

I decided on a black and gold/yellow theme for the evening. Black is always a safe choice and paired with the gold it seemed perfect like an appropriate combination that Gatsby and Daisy would have approved of. Since I have no china and linens in these colors I opted to use all paper and plastic goods. It worked out perfectly and was less mess in the end which was an added benefit. I used a greek key and polka dot fabric on the table (which were not pinned up as I ran out of time, oops, good thing it was only good friends coming over) and used sunflowers in my centerpiece.

Originally, I had wanted to serve taco-in-a-bag since I do not have the space to seat ten at a table (my table seats eight max with two leaves and that is even a bit tight). However, when giving it a bit more thought I decided I should live it up in the style of Jay Gatsby and put a bit more effort into the meal.

I finally decided on chicken picatta, rosemary potatoes and asparagus and then added biscuits at the last minute:

I was a bit worried about the chicken picatta cooking all the way through (I always worry about chicken cooking through) so I babied it in the kitchen as all my friends arrived. Thankfully, no one ended up with a pink breast of "Prohibition Chicken" so the time spent by the stove was well worth it!

For dessert we enjoyed a DIVINE cake for Aston's Bakery and champagne as it was Cassie's birthday. The cake was massive (see here for photos!), but so tasty and delicious!

Each guest left with a pack of candy cigarettes as their favor of which I neglected to take a photo as I was busy running around. Thankfully, Melissa has photos of those too!

All in all it was a WONDERFUL evening and so much fun to put together! I am already looking forward to hosting my next event in 2012!!