Strawberry Spritzer Punch

Hello Everyone!

Here is another of the promised recipes.

Strawberry Spritzer Punch

1 bottle (24 oz) white grape juice
2 cans (6 oz each) frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
2 bags (1 lb each) frozen whole strawberries, partially thawed
2 cans (12 oz each) lemon-lime carbonated beverage (3 cups), chilled

In blender (I used my food processor), place 1/2 cup of the grape juice, 1 can lemonade and 1 bag strawberries.  Cover; blend on high speed until smooth.  Pour into 4-quart nonmetal container; repeat.  Stir in remaining grape juice.
Cover; freeze at least 4 hours, stirring occasionally.  Remove container from freezer 30 minutes before serving.  Just before serving, stir in carbonated beverage.  Garnish as desired.
*Note:  Because our dinner was postponed, I had this in the freezer for a couple of weeks and it worked just fine.  I stored it in an empty 5 quart ice cream bucket.  Also, once I put it in the freezer, I never stirred it and it was fine.
Very yummy, refreshing drink!

Makes 24 1/2 cup servings.  There is no fat and only 80 calories per serving.

 (Sorry, not the best picture.  In fact, I almost forgot to take one before I drank all of mine.)

As always, if you give it a try, let me know what you think.  So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

A Great Giveaway to Check Out

Hello Everyone!

Just wanted to share a really cool blog The Vintage Bricoleur.  She is doing a giveaway to commemorate her first month.  Go check her out and enter to win.  Don't forget to tell her I sent you!  I'm heading there now myself to enter.  So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

Spinach-Cheese Balls w/ Pasta Sauce

Hello Everyone!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  As promised, I am going to give the recipe and some "in process" pictures for the appetizer I made last week at my Italian Dinner for 11.

This is a pic of the mixture.  It takes a little bit to get all the ingredients incorporated.

Close-up

Made into balls after they've been rolled in the crumb mixture.

Finished product.

Now here is the recipe:

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1 cup (4 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 cup sour cream

2 Tablespoons Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

1 container (15 ounces) ricotta cheese

1 package (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

2 cups all-purpose flour

Oil for deep frying

3/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1 jar your choice pasta sauce, warmed

In a large bowl, combine egg, Parmesan, mozzarella, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, sour cream, olive oil and ricotta; blend well.  Add spinach; mix well.  Stir in flour, 1 cup at a time, until well blended.

In an electric skillet or deep-fat fryer, heat oil to 350 degree.  Place bread crumbs in a small bowl.  Shape spinach mixture into 1 1/2 in. balls; roll in bread crumbs and place on a baking sheet.

Fry balls about 4-6 minutes or until golden brown on all sides.  With a slotted spoon, remove balls from skillet; drain on paper towels.  Cool 2 minutes before serving.  Serve with pasta sauce for dipping.

*Note:  I found the spinach a little stringy even though it was supposedly chopped.  I think next time I will pulse it in the food processor just a bit to get smaller pieces.  I also made these a few hours ahead of time and put them in the fridge until time to fry.  They do have a pretty strong spinach flavor.  If you aren't super fond of spinach, you might be able to cut it down a bit to lesson the flavor.  Otherwise, these are a fun and different appetizer.  Good too!  

Try them out and let me know what you think. So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

Changing my blog look

Hello Everyone!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I am going to change the look of my blog.  I have never been 100% happy with the way it looked.  I think I am going for a more simple look.  Let me know what you think.  I have something that I would like to do but am not sure how to implement it right now.  When I learn how to do it, I will probably change again.  Isn't it a women's prerogative to change her mind? (I swear that is really how you spell prerogative.  I checked it twice.  It wasn't how I would have spelled it but that's what the dictionary says.)  Anyway, think of this as a temporary change.  Of course, temporary is a relative term so who knows how long it will take me to figure it out.  Enough said.  Look for the new temporary design on the next posting.

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

Italian Dinner for 11

Hello Everyone!

As promised, I am going to tell you a little about my Italian dinner for 11 that we had the other night.  I was not as diligent as I could have been with taking pictures of everything so you will just get a little showing.  Actually, I never took any pics of the main course, salad or bread.  You all know what spaghetti looks like though so we'll just pretend I took a picture. ;)  Anyway, we started out with a new appetizer and salad.  The appetizer came from a Taste of Home magazine.  It's called Spinach-Cheese Balls with Pasta Sauce.  I did take pics of some of the process.  I will give the pics and recipe in a separate post as it would take too much time now.  After the first course, we had spaghetti with Italian sausage sauce and a homemade alfredo sauce along with garlic french bread.  To go with it all, I made a refreshing drink called Strawberry Spritzer Punch.  For dessert it was something light and refreshing.  We enjoyed strawberry shortcake.  I had come across some really good strawberries and decided something not too heavy would be in order after such a heavy meal.  My original idea was to make some Dulce de Luche Bars.  These are chocolatey, carmely things and now I'm glad I didn't.  Maybe I'll share that recipe too sometime.  They're yummy!  We all did a little moaning after the meal was over; we were so full.  Well, I say all, I think some of the teenage boys could have gone another round but what do you expect, they're teenagers.

 Dessert strawberries.  Don't they look luscious?

 Strawberry Spritzer Punch (The pic is a little blurry.  Sorry!  I almost forgot to take the pic before it was all finished.)

This is the Spinach-Cheese Balls after they have been fried.  (Show process & recipe later)

So there you have a very simplified telling of our dinner.  Sorry I wasn't a little better with the pics.  I am planning to do recipes for the Spinach-Cheese Balls, Strawberry Spritzer Punch and the Alfredo Sauce over the next couple of days.  If you give them a try, comment back and let me know what you think!  So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

Homemade B-day Gifts (finally)

Hello Everyone!

You all haven't been holding your breath, I hope, waiting for me to show you the birthday gifts I made.  Things have been a little crazy around here.  We finally had our "big" dinner.  We ended up with 11 instead of 14 people but that is still a crowd.  I will hopefully get a post done tomorrow to show you a little about that.  Now, on to b-day gifts.

This necklace I made for one of my sister-in-law's (H).  Her daughter told me to go neutral so I went through my bead stash and found some in brown, cream, black and silver.  I also gave her a Sonic Gift Card, lotion and some Bath & Body antibacterial soap.  I think she liked it all.  (Hoping)  For my other sister-in-law (B) I made these two things.

She is "into" computers so I thought a pretty mouse pad would be fun. And, she is "into" chocolate (what women in her right mind isn't?) so I made her this candy dish.  Made?  you say.  I'll now show you the before.

Basically, I bought the candle stick at the Dollar Tree and then the candy dish at Salvation Army and then glued them together.  Now it is a much prettier candy dish. :)  I also gave her a gift card to Hobby Lobby. 

So, there you have the b-day gifts.  I did finish the baby gift too but haven't given it to the new momma yet so that will be upcoming as well as my Italian dinner for 11!

As a side note, the mouse pad idea came from someone out there in blogland.  I saw it a long time ago but now I can't find where I got the idea from.  The candy dish idea came from, I believe, a blog called Drab to Fab but once again, it has been a while and I can't find that post.  They just recently changed up their blog and don't have it completed yet so searching for older posts is kind of hard.  I am not 100% sure it was there that I found the idea but they have some other neat things so I'll give them credit for that anyway.  So until next time,

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

Extra Spaghetti Sauce - What to do?

Hello Everyone!

I've heard it said that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.  Well, what if life hands you an abundance of spaghetti sauce?  This is what happened to me the other day.  We were planning on having about 14 people for dinner so I decided to make spaghetti.  I was very diligent and made my sauce two days ahead of time only to have the dinner canceled due to illness.  Our company asked for a rain check so we planned for the next week. (Then we got sick and have yet to do the dinner.  Maybe this week.)  Anyway, I decided to go ahead and freeze my sauce so I could pull it out whenever we got around to doing the dinner.  Now remember, we are talking 14 people here so that means a lot of sauce.  I had the perfect container to freeze it in; an empty 5 quart ice cream bucket.  It almost fit perfectly.  I just had a little sauce in the bottom of my pot and I didn't want it wasted.  (We must be frugal ya know.)  So, what to do, what to do.  Aaa ha!  I've got it!  It was about lunch time so I checked around in the fridge to make sure I had everything else I needed and made these.

English Muffin Pizzas.  Have ya ever had them?  They're rather yummy.  For me, it was perfect because I always struggle trying to figure out what to feed my kids at lunch.  You can only eat so many sandwiches in a week.  For some reason, I often forget about these.  They really are not expensive to make as it doesn't take very much in toppings.  My kids loved it and asked if there was more.  Unfortunately, I only had enough leftover sauce to make two per person.  I'll have to plan for more next time since I know they like them so much.  I've noticed that my 11 year old boy is already starting that teenage, "I want more food" syndrome.  Scary!  Anyway, I thought I would share this for you other moms out there who just might have a little leftover spaghetti sauce and are wondering what to do with it.  Make Pizza!  Or more specifically, make English Muffin Pizzas! So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane