A Few Recipes from Our May Meeting

Everything we had to eat on Monday was delicious, as usual! Here are Sara's recipes for the desserts:

Peanut Butter Mini Muffins ( from thepioneerwoman.com)

1 package of refrigerated peanut butter cookie dough
1 package mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Slice cookie dough into 12 equal slices. Cut each slice into four wedges. Place each wedge into a greased minimuffin tin.

Peel the wrappers from 48 mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Bake the cookie dough muffins at 350 degrees for 6 to 8 minutes - just until they begin to turn golden.

Almost as soon as you remove the muffins from the oven, begin lightly pressing one piece of candy into each cookie muffin. The warmer the cookies, the better. They will grab onto the candy and work their magic, making the candy nice and soft and melty. Carefully remove from muffin tins with a spoon and arrange on a platter.

The Cake (Marilyn calls it something like Texas Southern Pecan Cake)

Choose and mix as directed on the box any cake mix, any brand. Sara used a yellow cake mix.

Add 1 egg and one container of purchased prepared German Chocolate Cake Icing or Coconut Pecan Icing. Mix.

Bake the cake according to box directions in a tube pan or a bundt cake pan.

That's it. That's all. It is the most delicious, moist cake you have ever tasted!

And here is Sandy's recipe:

ITALIAN CHEF SALAD

Romaine lettuce, chopped
1/4 lb. salami, sliced
1/4 lb. Provolone cheese, chopped
Mild pepper rings, a couple of fork fulls
Sliced green olives, 1/4 cup
1 tomato, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
Red wine vinegar, 2-3 Tablespoons
Extra Virgin olive oil, 2-3 T.
Salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients and dress with red wine vinegar and olive oil, salt and pepper, all to your taste.
You can use any other type of cheese (Parmesan, Mozzarella, etc); and you can use ham as an option also.

And here is Marilyn's delicious salad:

Strawberry Spinach Salad

2 Tablespoons sesame seeds
1 Tablespoon poppy seeds
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon minced onion
10 ounces fresh spinach - rinsed, dried and torn into bite sized pieces
1 quart fresh strawberries - cleaned,k hulled and sliced
1/4 cup almonds, blanced and slivered

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sugar, olive oil, vinegar, paprika, Worcestershire sauce and onion. Cover and chill for one hour.

In a large bowl, combine the spinach, strawberries and almonds. Spoon desired amount of dressing on salad. Refrigerate 10-15 minutes before serving.

Sorry no pictures of these recipes :-( All gone.


If you who were there have other recipes, please email them to me and I will post those here.

On May 11, Sara Hector opened her home for the Bell County Quilters.(I think we actually have a quilt guild name, but my memory fails me, so if someone wants to let me know what it was, I will add it to this blog!!) No particular quilting project was planned, so everyone there worked (or didn’t work) on individual projects. But a time of great fellowship accompanied by great food was shared by all who could attend.

Much visiting and sharing occurred…

Sorry that the first image on our blog is blurry (don’t adjust your reading glasses…it is a photographer error).

Sharing of projects is always a part of the day. And we had some magnificent projects.

Margaret shared her finished quilt for the Ronald McDonald House auction.

It is another winner! It is titled “I’m a Rhinestone Cowboy.”

And it bears some closer scrutiny...

What cowboy quilt does not have a Texas boot?

But what it really needs is a Betty Boop boot, right?

Sara helped with the quilt label...

And, of course, it needed a few more rhinestones before it was ready to go. You can never have too much glitz here in Texas, can you?

Margaret also shared her redesign of the baby shopping cart/restaurant high chair cover – a great and simple new design.

Marilyn, our master sharer of the day, shared a “Mommy & Me” gown set she made for her granddaughter and doll.

Marilyn also shared her castle quilt. Definitely a “Wow!”

Last, but not least, she shared a quilt which was a pattern shared at an earlier meeting. It is always so interesting to see each quilter’s interpretation of the pattern and this beautiful example is no exception. Marilyn used black fabric to make the stars in the sashing, and it certainly set off the squares.

Grace shared her interpretation of the same quilt pattern. Beautiful!

Carole shared some more of her beautiful cross stitch work.

She has been working on her own quilt blocks and they are stunning. Her work is always amazing. She was thinking about putting them in a quilt, but we all recommended that she frame them.

The pictures do not do them justice.

We were all amazed at how wonderful they are, as we always are when we see her work.

Joycelyn worked on her huge stack of baby bibs, some for her expected grand-nephews and some for our charity of the day (more about that later).

They are darling, and any new mother will gratefully receive and use them with her new little munchkin.

Grace actually worked on a quilt in progress, but she stopped to enjoy a breakfast snack.

Food is always an important part of the day, and this group of quilters can assemble an absolutely delicious array of choices when we gather together. This day was no exception. The spread was beautiful.

Sandy put the finishing touches on her Italian salad. Scrumcious!

In the spirit of “The Pioneer Woman,” Margaret shared her whole cooking process for making her own version of Waldorf Salad which just had to be shared on this blog.
She gathered what she had on hand, chopped the ingredients...

Mixed them together. The secret ingredient was craisins!

Put them in a bowl and yumm!

Clean up was easy!

Even some leftovers for the chickens outside!

Everything was delicious!

Jeannette Kelley joined us for lunch.

We had gathered donations for Bundle of Joy. Jeannette was gracious enough to come and get what we had gathered.

She will have more coming since Joycelyn will be finishing those bibs and Grace M. was working on another baby quilt. Grace M. has been making baby quilts for Bundle of Joy for about 5 years – a total of about 66. In fact, she shared that she saw one of her quilts at the grocery store one day being put to good use by a momma. What a wonderful feeling that must have been!

And do these babies look lonely? Actually, I can attest to the fact that these machines did do some humming throughout the day. This was actually their lunch break!

A fun day was had by all, and no one went home hungry, that’s for sure!
As usual some laughter and silliness occurred. As evidenced by this tootsie picture of two of our group sporting bright red pedicures – a sure sign of an approaching summer!

Thank you, Sara, for having us visit for the day!

Until we meet again in July, sweet stitching…