LaForce Be With You

Monday, March 28, 2011

Chocolate Whoopie Pies

Just because hubby and I are not eating desserts for Lent, doesn't mean I can't share one with yall right?!

I made these Chocolate Whoopie Pies awhile back (before Lent that is) for one of our weekly dinners with Brooke. I found the recipe on a site called Eat Better America. The BEST part is that each one is only 100 calories!! So you don't feel bad about eating one or two or...

Chocolate Whoopie Pies
from Eat Better America, makes 16 pies

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 egg white
1/2 cup 1% milk
3/4 cup marshmellow creme

Heat oven to 425. In medium bowl combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. In large bowl beat sugar, butter, and egg white for 2 min or until fluffy. Stir in flour mixture. Stir in milk until just blended. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto large ungreased baking sheets. You will need 32 drops of dough. Bake 5 min or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool completely on rack. Spoon marshmellow creme onto bottom of 16 cookies and top with remaining 16.

I actually halved the recipe when I made it... let me tell you I had to get quite creative to use 1/2 an egg white (don't ask). Might be easier to not try to cut it in half. The marshmellow creme applying step is very sticky!

mmm oozing marshmellow

I have tried a few recipes from that website before but never a dessert one so I was pleased with the results. These were quick and easy to make and very light tasting. Everyone enjoyed them! Let me know if you try them out! Next time I might add a few mini chocolate chips around the outside of the marshmellow layer. YUM!

Linking up to these parties:

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Recipe Scrapbook

We did a Recipe Scrapbook for my sister and gave it to her at her Bachelorette Party. I had participated in one of these before for a friend and then I got one as part of my bachelorette party and I LOVE it! It is a wonderful special but low cost {thrifty} gift.

Here is how it can be organized if you are doing this as a group gift for a shower/party.

1. Contact the invitees and let them know you are planning a recipe scrapbook where everyone will decorate a page or 2 with recipe(s). If they don't participate a cooking curse will fall upon their house.

2. Send everyone a piece of cardstock, blank index cards, and specify if the page should be horizontal or vertical so they all match. They can decorate with photos, stickers, magazine clippings, whatever suits their fancy. I told everyone they didn't have to use the cardstock and index cards I sent if they had other paper they wanted to use.

3. Arrange a way to get the pages back from them or have everyone bring them to the event.

4. Buy a scrapbook with enough page protectors. I went with 8 1/2 x 11 size for the paper I sent and the scrapbook because that was the size of mine and it fits well on the shelf.

I wanted to show yall some example pages that I did for my sister and some from my recipe scrapbook.

I made the first/intro page with no recipes on it and made it bride centric since this was for a bachelorette party. The picture of her singing and sweeping is from a school play and it fit well with a marriage/domestic funny line above.

Here are 2 recipe pages I did for her. It's nice to use family favorite type recipes or some of your go-to recipes. One of the recipes I gave my sister is Pumpkin Crunch given to me by my SIL and it's a holiday favorite! The paper, stickers, words, and scrapbook (use a 40% coupon) came from Michael's.

Here are a few more examples from my spectacular recipe scrapbook. My girls did such a great job on mine :)

So as you can see, people can really get creative with it and add their own touches. You could even make one all by yourself for someone as a gift if you have a lot of fun recipes to share but I kinda like it as a group effort. Makes it more diverse :) I know it is something I will keep forever and cherish and hopefully my sister will too!

Linking up to these parties:

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Atlanta Bachelorette Party and baby Taylor

A couple weeks back I threw my sister a bachelorette party in Atlanta (or Hotlanta as many call it). Atlanta is definitely not one of my fave places to go... I think it is too trafficy, crowded and kinda dirty but it was a good location for the party since my sister and most of the people attending live within a couple hours of it and it is a bigger city.

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I am happy to share exactly what I planned with you since I researched like crazy for ideas of a fun and fairly low key bachelorette at my sister's request. Let me tell you that figuring something like this out in a city you don't live in or know much about can be difficult.

We decided on the Buckhead area of Atlanta. I booked a 2 bedroom/2 bath suite at the Holiday Inn Express which was no Ritz but a very good value and had a living room/kitchen area. I thought it was just fine for our puposes. I decorated the suite with some fun bachelorette decor!

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There were bead necklaces for the girls attending to wear.

All the girls arrived around 5pm or so to get ready to go out for dinner. My sister picked one of those family run dirt cheap mexican places.... a girl after my own heart!

the bachelorette

Here we all are at El Azteca. Remembering back to my spanish class days I was pretty sure it should be La Azteca but may be I have spent too much time away from spanish... anyway.... the fajita quesadilla is delish.

Then we went back to the hotel for a bit where we presented my sister with a gift. A RECIPE SCRAPBOOK! I'll do a seperate post on that baby. Then we made sure we were all ready to go out to a few bars.

I had looked these up ahead of time and knew we were within 1/2 mile of a couple of bars... Moondogs, Peachtree Tavern (you won't get out of Atlanta without running across something named Peachtree), and some other place. My plan was for us to walk to the bars but Hotlanta was not so hot and was rather cool and rainy so I was the driver. I parked us at the Trader Joes (grocery store right near the bars) for $10 but there was no cover charge at the bars at least.

The girls had a great time at the bars... we pretty much spent the whole time at Moondogs dancing and such and the music was like top hits... great for getting your dance on for hours!

Everyone made it back in one piece and only 1 person fell down in the bar but who's counting? So I consider that a SUCCESS!

Then on my drive back to Charlotte the next day, I stopped in Greenville to see baby Taylor! My friend Brooke H. had a baby girl in December and I had yet to see her new little family. I previously posted about her homemade baby gift.

Brooke and Taylor

Taylor had gotten so big and it was so fun to see her making faces and taking in her surroundings. I can't wait to visit them again and see her grow!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

baby Jovie and her gift

Our friends Jeremy and Holly had baby #2 - a little baby girl a few weeks ago! And by little I mean she was only 4 lbs 13 oz and about 1 month early but thank the Lord everything was fine and she did not go to the NICU or anything.

We went by to see her last weekend when she was just 2 weeks old. I had never seen or held a baby so tiny and she was just so sweet! She didn't really open her eyes much yet so I am excited for the next time we visit to see how much she changes in just a short amount of time.

How precious is she? I love her little polka dot sleeper :)

Another purpose of our visit was to give them Jovie's gift. I got a sewing machine for Christmas and so during that time, my mom and I made a bib and shoes for Jovie. I know this sounds quite ambitious for a first time sewer but my mom has mad skills so she helped with some of the harder parts. I found the patterns for free online and knew that was exactly what I wanted to make... the bib was from Homemade by Jill and I cannot remember where I found the shoes but if you google kimono baby shoes free pattern then I'm sure you will find them.

The inside of the shoes matches the back of the bib and the button on the bib is just for looks - it really closes using velcro. I think they turned out pretty darn cute!

I also made Jovie 2 onesies using my Silhouette heat transfer material in purple and in pink. And 1 onesie using the freezer paper stenciling technique using paint- the cupcake one.

My favorite one is the owl because if Jovie is anything like her dad, she is going to be quite hilarious. If you knew Jeremy then you would know exactly what I mean.

I just love doing homemade gifts!! Oh and it was all wrapped up in this adorable cupcake gift bag from the good ole Target dollar aisle.

We also gave them 2 loaves of Friendship Bread (also called amish bread or friendship chain bread)! I love that stuff and it always makes great gifts. I would give you the recipe but you have to have the "starter" in a ziploc bag given to you - hence the friendship chain name. Sounds strange but if you know anyone that makes this stuff you should get a starter from them and try it!

Congrats to Jeremy and Holly!!