Great weekend.

We had a relaxing weekend after such a fun week.

Friday, we stayed in and relaxed. That morning I meet a close friend, Carley, for coffee in Austin. I wish we lived in the same city but we talk all the time and it feels like we do. Then we stopped at the Gap Outlet and I got some steals on lounging clothes!

Saturday, we woke up and ran some little errands. We came home and I tried a new dessert recipe, mini cheesecakes. I forgot to take a picture but they turned out pretty darn good.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 dozen vanilla wafers
• 2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs

PREPARATION:

Heat oven to 325°.

Line muffin tin with foil liners. Place a vanilla wafer in each liner. In a mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, vanilla, and sugar; beat until well blended. Beat in eggs until blended. Pour cream cheese mixture over wafers, filling each liner about 3/4-full. Bake for 25 minutes.

Top with preserves, fresh sliced fruit, pie filling, sugared pecans, toasted coconut, or shaved chocolate.

I ended up topping them with mini chocolate chips. I also made another batch and mixed the mini chocolate chips in with the blended cream cheese and those were my favorite. They were very easy and quick. (Tasted better the next morning after the chilled in fridge over night)

Well, I made this yummy dessert to take over to our friends house that night. Richard and Julie invited us over for drinks and to grill some venison. I graduated high school with both of them and RB and Richard love to talk about hunting. It was the perfect night.

Sunday, we woke up with a tiny hangover but quickly got over it. We met up with Alex, Morgan and little Mallorie. We went to the Farmers Market to have breakfast then we walked around and picked up a ton of fresh veggies and fruits. We came back to our place and Morgan and I made some fresh salsa with all our goodies. The guys played with the Wii and Morgan I took Mallorie and Cha Chi on a nice walk.

It really was a relaxing weekend with friends...something we had looked forward to when we knew we were moving here to Dallas.

THE Soup

I am not sure if y'all have heard us talk about our New Year's Eve soup before!? If you haven't...let me tell ya something...it is mmm good!

We have a TON of venison from RBs big deer this year (good job, honey) and have been trying all kinds of recipes. Well, we made this soup New Year's day and loved it and said it would be perfect with venison sausage, so here is the recipe that I got from the most amazing website
A Year of Crock Potting. Click on that website if you love your crock pot as much as we do and need a TON of recipes.
Here is the recipe and the stuff in red is the editing we did!

--1 pound dried black eyed peas
--1 pound spicy sausage (we used venison, kinda spicy)
--6 cups chicken broth
--1 yellow onion, diced
--1 cup diced carrots
--1 cup diced celery
--4 cloves garlic, diced (we opted for three but think four would have been better)
--1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
--1 tsp kosher salt
--1/2 tsp black pepper
--Tabasco sauce (no thank you...spicy enough)
--three strips of cooked bacon and their drippings (suggestion from Sofia aka Grandma!)
--three pieces of leftover peppercorn pork tenderloin (we made it Monday and didn't know what to do with leftovers)
The Directions.

Soak your beans overnight. Drain and pick out the undesirables (broken, discolored beans) in the morning.

Use a 5 to 6 quart crock pot. This will serve about 8 people. Dice the veggies, and dump them into your crock pot with the pre-soaked beans. Add sliced sausage. Pour in broth, and stir in Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for about 6. Before serving, use a stick blender to smash up about 1 cup of beans (this is my favorite part of the recipe). If you don't have a stick blender, scoop out 1 cup of beans, blend them in a traditional blender, and add back to the soup. Don't blend too much---just enough to get the broth thicker and creamy-looking.

Ladle into bowls, and add Tabasco sauce to taste.

We did not use Tabasco but when I tasted it I realized it need something so we called the one True Chef we know...Sofia!!! She suggested cooking bacon and chopping it up and putting it up with its drippings in the pot. Perfect!

Verdict...yummy!!!
Picture on the left is of the prep (Chef Sofia aka Grandma also suggested browning the sausage first)
and left is the yummy end result! Notice the bag around the crock pot...it's called SlowCooker Liner by Reynolds! Makes clean up sooo easy!



We started cooking this at noon and need something for lunch so RB fried up some of his seasoned venison backstrap and we made mac n cheese to go with...good stuff!

We stayed in bundled up today because of the ice storm that hit North Texas. RB was in awe of all the ice and cold weather...he is from South Texas and has never seen this before. It was pretty bad this morning but turned out to be a beautiful day and most the ice has melted away.
Cha Chi was definitely not a fan of the grass; that was completely covered in ice. Here are some pictures of the building and road in front of our place. It was weird to see them so empty and to watch the brave drivers drive so carefully on the roads.

No diaper cake today. I helped a friend make one for a shower she is going to this weekend and I will hopefully complete mine tomorrow!