Holy Ravioli!

After Erin got some much needed rest from running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off (the shower was a little stressful for her), we got together on Sunday to make some tasteful Italian dishes! I’m going to start today with how we made homemade raviolis that were delectable! Definitely worthy of making Grandma Guggino proud. So, let’s begin.

The recipe we use is quite simple to make the homemade pasta:

2 cups of flour

2 eggs

1tsp salt

4 tbs milk

That’s it! You then mix it until all of the ingredients are blended and it looks like this:

Next step is to roll it out!  Since we were a little scarce on counter-space, we rolled it out right on the flat top! Be sure to throw down some flour before hand; this actually worked really well for us. We made it in to a ball and rolled it out from there.

After it was all rolled out, leave it to dry. The best way to do this, as taught by Grandma Guggino, is to lay it on a towel and leave it alone! So, in true Italian style, we put them on the bed in the spare room haha; welcome house guests! Please excuse our fresh pasta drying on your bed. We made 5 batches that day.

In the mean time, we got started on the meat that we were going to put in the raviolis. Here we have a pound of ground chuck with some parsley, garlic, salt and pepper.

We browned the meat and drained the grease. After that, we mixed in some fresh parmesan and some of the parmesan dressing from Carrabbas that we had from the shower the day before. Their house dressing has amazing flavor and it made the meat mixture taste sooo good!

After the pasta dried for about an hour, we laid it across two cutting boards and it was time to cut! We started with this little cutting tool, but we later learned that you could just use a wine glass like you would a cookie cutter. It worked perfectly!

Then, it was time to stuff! A teaspoon of meat was really all that we could stuff into our lil raviolis (with enough space to pinch the sides closed), so we quickly got to work. Well, Erin did most of the stuffing; I was busy getting our wedding invites prepared to send out! Eeek!

We were going to be good girls and wait ‘til dinner to try our little creation, but we were way too excited! So Erin plopped some into an oven safe glass dish, through some mozzarella cheese and some sauce on top, and in the oven it went for 15 minutes. The outcome? Absolutely delicious!!! I wish I had after pictures, but we ate them all… Best part? The boys loved them too. You could cook them in the sauce like we did, or you could boil them like regular pasta. Either way works, the only part you have to cook is the pasta. Next on the list, homemade spaghetti sauce! Stay tuned kiddos!

September Showers!

What a great weekend! I started off Saturday by getting a much needed mani and pedi and then got ready for my bridal shower! I can’t believe we are finally at that point of where the parties start, the invites get sent and the planning comes to an end, where did the time go?!?

My wonderful sister-in-law-to-be, Erin made me feel so special (you can find her blog here, she has some great recipes!). She planned and carried out my bridal shower at her lovely home on the inner coastal. It was adorable! The theme was nautical, and boy did I blend right in! I wore a new dress that I got from Hollister and an anchor necklace, complete with shorts on under my dress (because I don’t trust myself in short skirts/dresses, haha!). Here I am with my friend Bri! You can check out her blog here :)

Here is the invite that my lovely ladies received. Uhhhh-dorable!

Let’s start with the food. Oh. Man. It was amazing! My other lovely sister-in-law-to-be, Megan, was able to get some fabulous food from her work, Carrabbas! We had Italian Salad, Chicken Brian, and pasta with Pomodoro sauce, yummy! My friends also pitched in and made some delicious apps too. Nobody left hungry, that’s for sure.

One of my favorite things about the shower was that the theme was carried throughout everything! From table décor to take-away gifts it was all theme oriented; loved it!

The gifts that everyone received were these awesome totes that Erin had made for each guest. The screen print had an anchor with a piece of rope and a saying that went a lil somethin’ like this, “If love were water, I’d give you the sea.” How cute is that?!?

Now for the gifts that I received… I am so blessed to have such amazing friends and family. I literally got a boat load of gifts!

As I said, the theme was literally carried out into almost every aspect. I got some great stuff for the house too! I spent many hours last night washing and putting away our new dishes, cookware, gadgets and utensils. Check out this cute little sign Brittany got me! It dons my soon-to-be-new-last-name, Dockerty!

The best part? Receiving a pair of Double D’s!!!!!!

Just kidding, they’re only hand towels… But I proudly showed them off! And they're already displayed in our lovely abode! J

Overall, it was a fantastic day! A lot of food was eaten, many gifts were opened, and many fish died in the making of the centerpieces… PETA hates us… Sorry fishies!

Also, big shout out to the awesome photographer, Sarah! Be sure to check out her blog where she enlightens us with her adventures and random trips. And now, I shall leave you with random pictures from the party, hope you enjoy!

P.B.Drool....

So this happened at work yesterday:

Oh. Yes.

The P.B.R. is in town and some of the guys stopped by to do a signing at my work. Working for a construction supply company, we sell a lot of tools, DeWalt being one of our main brands. It just so happens that DeWalt is one of the largest sponsors of the Professional Bull Riders Tour and we also just happened to be having a huge DeWalt tool sale the day before the rodeo! So, the boys conveniently stopped by to draw in a crowd to kiss some hands and shake some babies say hi J

The stud on the left is Douglas Duncan, and boy was he a handsome one. He’s originally from Texas and seemed to be pretty low-key. I asked him what city they were off to next and he had no clue, he was obviously just along for the ride and had regularly scheduled dates to get pummeled by a bull every Friday and Saturday night. But that’s ok; he made my ten hour day go by faster, hehe.

Yummy.

The Brazilian to the right is Silvano Alves, and he barely spoke English haha, but he’s the reigning world champ, so I’m sure being able to speak to us crazy American’s is the least of his worries. He sat there looking bored most of the time and didn’t have much to offer for conversation (for obvious reasons) but he had a nod and smile to offer every-now-and-then. Overall, it was still pretty neat to be able to get the chance to meet these two cowboys!

Now, back to real life; it’s been a great week! I picked up our b-e-a-utiful wedding invitations so I’ve been busy assembling them (there’s like 321,698,413,547 pieces to each invite, ugh) but, none-the-less, they’re gorgeous and I love them! They’re being sent out Monday, which is exactly two months from our big day. Plus, my bridal shower is tomorrow!!! I can’t wait to get all of the wonderful ladies in my life together to celebrate our upcoming nuptials. And I must admit, it’ll be nice to reap some of the benefits of getting married, all this time I feel like I’ve been dishing out the money, but now it’ll come back on us! Woohoo! But enough of being selfish, fact-of-the-matter is that we’re getting married very soon and I hope I don’t lose my marbles trying to get everything together. I think I’ve got everything under control; I just don’t want to miss/leave out any important details. But, that’s all for now, I’ll be sure to check back in Monday to spill the beans on my shower! Can’t wait!



That Joe sure is a sloppy one...

I’m a firm believer in using what you have. Mainly because I worked at a grocery store for over six years and I hate grocery shopping! So, in an effort to not make any unnecessary trips, I threw together dinner last night with the items left over in my fridge. On Friday, I made sloppy joes for the party (which we will not discuss, sorry!) and I ended up having a little over a pound of sloppy joe meat left. Not wanting to have sloppy joes (again) I thought I would make some sort of casserole. So here goes nothin’!

I started out by throwing the leftover meat in a pot and throwing in a can of mixed vegetables, for some extra nutrition.

After heating that for about 10-15 minutes, I then put a small pop can of Butter-Me-Not biscuits on top. I threw that in the oven for 10 minutes at 400*.

After ten minutes in the oven, I pulled it out and put half a bag of Colby Jack cheese on top and popped it in the oven for an additional 5 minutes.

Here is the end result!

Would I make it again? Probably not haha, but you live and you learn! If I were to make it again (for some weird reason), I would tweak the recipe…  I would use Buttermilk biscuits instead of the Butter-Me-Not biscuits because they didn’t exactly cook thoroughly, oops! I think that had something to do with the (insert Paula Deen voice here) "butter in the biscuit." But, because I have a loving and hungry husband to be, he was able to stomach a plate and put a smile on his face along with a very sarcastic “that was… good!” One day I’ll make something that he’ll rave about J

Well hey there punkin!

Holy cannoli it’s hot outside! But, if you’re going by the calendar, next Saturday, the 22^nd of September, is indeed the first day of fall! Fall embraces all of the wonderful things that I look forward to each year, cooler weather, holidays, and good food! One thing that stands out in my mind when it comes to fall is pumpkin.  You can create so many great things with pumpkin puree. I’ve made cakes, cupcakes, but my favorite is pumpkin dip! Sooo good! So, I put my small amount of domestic skills to work last night and made the recipe. This is definitely good for beginners because it only has three ingredients… and involves no cooking… so if you can’t make this, you should just give up. Here’s the ingredient list:

All it includes is an 8 oz tub of Cool Whip, a small can of pumpkin, and one box of vanilla pudding! You can also add a dash of cinnamon for some extra taste J

As for the directions, you just mix everything together! It’s as simple as that!

I can’t wait to dig into this dip tonight. I serve mine with ginger snaps; it adds even more flavor and definitely adds a snappy crunch. It’s the perfect fall treat! Be sure to stick it in the fridge when you're all done. This is my idea of a wonderful fall treat!

This is Sean’s idea of a fall/pumpkin treat:

Gotta love him! He and I actually decided to have a party tonight, no occasion, just wanted to get some friends together and have a good time. Pics of that to come soon! J

Goin' to the chapel, and we're....

Getting married in two months?!? My, oh my, how time flies… I’ve said before that planning our wedding has been the most fun I’ve ever had, and I’d be happy to say it again.  The sweet little details, the food, the decorating, it’s all a blast! And, lucky for me, planning has been a breeze. We know a lot of great people in the industry that are helping us create a beautiful wedding and very special day. We’re also doing things a tad bit different. We are not having a bridal party, crazy right? Planning this wedding has been ultimately stress free and I think this is one of the reasons why. Everyone always says how stressed they are and how they want to escape to Vegas to elope. Why? My fiancé and I are forking the bill for practically the whole wedding and we haven’t had any troubles. Maybe it’s because we know so many great people… Whatever it is, I wish I could get married every year haha! (Let the eye rolls begin).

These past couples of weeks have been very progressive as far as planning and preparation goes. We’ve nailed down an awesome menu and décor plan, I paid off my bling (Sean still has to get his ring), I had my hair trial, we scoped out the venue to distinguish exactly where everything will go, my dress is almost completely altered (along with my awesome-future-sister-in-law’s dresses) and last night I sat down with Sean’s cousin Amy and designed all of the stationary! So. Much. Fun. I’m seriously going to miss all of the creative and diy aspects. What on earth am I going to do at work once we get married?!?

Also, in about a week in a half, I’ll be celebrating with all of the beautiful women in my life at my bridal shower! I can’t thank Erin enough for doing this for me. Not having a bridal party has its downsides (Who plans what? Who pays for what?) but, the wonderful females in my life have taken it upon themselves to make sure that all of these celebrations and details are taken care of, and I couldn’t be happier and more thankful about that! Then, next month, we’ll be embarking on a mystery trip! Well, it’s a mystery to me, they all know what’s going on, but I’m in the dark! My bachelorette party weekend has all been planned by my bff Jes and all of my girls are in on it. I can’t wait to escape with these gals and have an awesome trip! They all mean so much to me and I’m so excited that they’ll be with me to celebrate! My only hope is that I pack appropriately since I have no idea what we’ll be doing or where we’re going. My other hope is that everyone gets along; you know how crazy it can get when you get 12 cackling hens together…

My next task is finding a way to properly thank these wonderful girls. They’ll never know how much all of this means to me. Sean and I are definitely blessed to have such amazing people in our lives and I only hope that one day they’ll know exactly how special they are.

Labor Weekend

Labor Day: (as described by the U.S. Department of Labor) is the first Monday in September; a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. But we twenty-somethings know of it as an extra day to sleep in, drink, hang out with friends and eat so much you want to pop. Yes, that is Labor Day. We shouldn't even think of it as a day. It's a weekend event, let's be honest.

Sean and I decided to carry on the tradition of escaping for the weekend and head about 45 minutes east to a little town called Ruskin.  Hiding in the redneck town is an awesome little fishing resort known as Pirates Pointe Resort. You can check it out here. The resort is located right on the Little Manatee River, which makes for some good fishing and kayaking. I cannot say enough about this little slice of paradise. It’s so quaint, cute and perfect for a weekend getaway. Each individual cottage has its own character and stylish décor unique to the surrounding area. I snapped a few pics to show you just how much personality our little bungalow had:

We had such an amazing time. We cooked and ate good food, drank moonshine, sang karaoke, danced to every song imaginable, played poker, hung out with awesome company, and had a water gun fight that lasted about 3 hours. Needless to say, we all slept pretty well that night… Oh! Dad also caught a snook big enough for the Guinness Book of World Records. He’s my hero ;)

We had a much needed awesome getaway. We even had some friends come over and join us from the burg! Thanks Mike, Bri and Phil! As our weekend came to a close, we had some friends over for dinner and noticed that it was a bit toasty in our house, and it wasn’t from the hot wings that we cooked… Our air was broken. In the dead of summer. It was 86* in the house and I was sweating my butt off miserable. Ugh… But, because I’m the luckiest girl in the world, Sean was able to fix the air (we think) and we slept in a cool 74* house. Yay for superhero fiancés!