family feature: grandmother battle's chocolate fudge pie

hello! i hope you are all having a great week and what more fun than to see a new family feature recipe for the week!:) i am excited to share reed's grandmother's chocolate fudge pie recipe. oh my goodness, it is dangerous and wonderful ha! i have been asked about 13 times in the last two weeks to make it (from reed of course) and i thought it was the perfect time to share. 

the next three family feature's coming up in the next few weeks are all coming from my three grandma's. i am so excited to share their wonderful recipes with you all. i started with reed's grandmother Carolyn Battle. As most of you know, i grew up eating good home cooking. from my mother, grandma's, great aunt, great grandma, aunts, and cousins. they are all wonderful cooks! now, i married into a wonderful family of good southern cooking. i think that means reed and i are doomed to be pleasantly plump and happy ha!

anyways, i couldn't be more excited to feature my three lovely grandmother's. this recipe is so easy and absolutely delightful. if you like chocolate like we do, you will be in for a treat.

here is the recipe

ingredients:

-1 stick of butter

-1/4 cup of cocoa

-1 cup of sugar

-2 eggs

-1/4 cup of flour (self-rising)

-1 tsp of vanilla 

- 1 unbaked pie crust shell

details:

-start by melting your butter first and then let it cool

-beat eggs and mix all ingredients together

-pour the mixture in the unbaked pie shell

-bake at 325 for 20-25 minutes or until slightly firm 

-the filling will become firmer as it cools

-let cool completely before cutting and serving

-serve with whipped cream or ice cream on the side  

-serve and smile :)

here is a picture of grandmother 

as always, thank you for stopping by!

diy: word pillows

i was feeling crafty today and wanted to try and make my own "word" pillows. these were obviously so easy to make as you can see. with a trip to hobby lobby for supplies and reed and paw napping, i was ready to start my project. 

i purchased large stencils from hobby lobby as well as white fabric paint and two regular sized pillow covers. i used two older pillows i had from my old apartment that i wasn't using in the house and covered those with the two pillow covers. you can obviously choose any color of pillow cover or fabric if you want to make your own. i chose two linen covers because i wanted the natural color to blend in with my other existing  pillows in our house. the teal pillow i already had and decided to use that for the decorative stencil. hobby lobby has all kinds of stencils to choose from. 

next, after i had my supplies i placed the stencils on the pillows and used a small paint brush to paint with. the key to holding down the stencils to the fabric is using tape. be sure to tape down all sides of the stencil and then begin to paint. after the stenciling is done, set the pillows aside for the paint to dry and then you can decorate! again, this is super easy and a great craft to work on. i placed the two word pillows in our living room and the teal pillow was placed in my chair in my craft room.

as always, thank you for visiting and taking a look at my blog. i hope you enjoy reading and following along. i hope you enjoy this diy project and hope you all have a wonderful week. almost the weekend, woo hoo!

recipe: valentine's Day sugar cookies & royal icing

yum! sugar cookies and icing, there is nothing better to eat for valentines day :) after a long week of bronchitis i was finally starting to feel better and wanted to make my co-workers valentines cookies. i also have been wanting to try royal icing. i haven't used a royal icing recipe before; therefore, this was going to be a new experiment for me. 

i used my mother-in-law's sugar cookie recipe and just like my aunt carri's, this is another great sugar cookie recipe. for the royal icing, i watched a few videos and read some information online about how to use royal icing and how to apply different techniques. i found that royal icing is actually tough to use and work with. because of the "secret" ingredient (meringue powder), this allows the icing to become tough and thick to work with. see the recipe below to see how to make royal icing and also for the sugar cookie recipe!

royal icing ingredients:

-3 level tablespoons of meringue powder

-4 cups of confectioners sugar 

-6 tablespoons of water 

details:

-mix all of the ingredients together for 7-12 minutes until icing forms in peaks (this will make about 3 cups)

-i mixed this by hand but you can also mix in your mixer as well

-add food coloring for the color of your choice and mix well

-to make the icing smoother just add more water to get it to the consistency that you want

sugar cookie ingredients:

-1 cup of butter (2 sticks)

-1 cup of sugar

-1 large egg

-1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

-2 teaspoons of baking powder 

-2 3/4 cups of all purpose flour

details:

-preheat your oven to 350 degrees 

-in a large bowl with mixer at medium speed beat the butter and sugar until smooth

-beat in the egg and vanilla

-next, add baking powder and mix well

-then, add your flour and mix well

-the dough will be very stiff and be sure to not chill the dough

-divide the dough into two balls

-on a floured surface, with a rolling pin, roll each ball approximately 1/4 inch thick

-dip your cookie cutters in flour before each use

-bake the cookies on the top rack of the oven and bake them for exactly 8 minutes on a timer 

-cool before decorating the cookies with your royal icing 

-this recipe will make about 3 dozen cookies

-decorate and serve with a smile :)

i hope you all have a wonderful valentines day and enjoy your time with your special loved ones. have a great week!

thank you for stopping by :)

travel: new york city trip

my goodness, it has been awhile since i have posted and i hate that! don't worry, this was my last work trip for awhile and i am back to my regular posting. this new york trip was another long one (7 days). the first part of the trip was great and i really enjoyed myself with my co-worker allie as we made the best of the trip and did some sightseeing and touristy activities. the last part of the trip however; was not fun at all. i think a combination of traveling a ton in the month of january plus millions of people and their germs got to me and it resulted in bronchitis and a fever that has lasted almost 6 days now.  but enough about that and hopefully it will go away soon!

if you followed along on social media, you could see that we definitely ate very well while in new york. between the famous new york pizza and bagels that was enough for us. here is a list of some of the fun things allie and i did while in new york:

food:

-best bagel and coffee (this is actually the name, i promise ha)

-john's pizza (i visit every time while I'm in nyc)

-gelso & grand (in little italy)

-carlos bakery (for cannoli's)

-the bread company

entertainment:

-finding neverland broadway show

-times square

-shopping at macy's 34th st

these are just a few of the exciting things we did while visiting. even though we were there for work, we really did as much as we could to enjoy the city for the week. i wanted to share our fun week with you and tell you that i am finally home and i will be back to my regular posting. i am so excited to share some new posts with you this week as we prepare for the fun month of february. i am hoping to feel my normal self soon and i hope you all have a wonderful week. :) as always, thank you for visiting my lovely dots & details.