Gift Exchange

Thanks to pinterest.com we all came up with a fairly easy gift. We made gifts for the person above us. Everyone but three, got their idea from pinterest! The person holding the gift received it from the person standing with them. We had a great time in Madison. It was a blast and of course as you reflect back on it, it just gets even funner and funner! I find myself smiling as I remember the weekend. (Like if you want to know how to get free meals, ask Sara!) The two babies with us were almost perfect! The weather couldn't have been nicer either. Shopping was awesome........many thrift stores for the thrifters and a nice big mall for the non-thrifters.

Pampered Chef

My sister Kristin is selling Pampered Chef again. I am doing a catalog show. The October special is 20% off of unglazed stoneware. If anyone needs anything, please let me know this week. You can go on The Pampered Chef website or see me about a catalog. Thanks.

Happy Birthday Matt and Wade

We celebrated Matt and Wade's birthdays yesterday. Wade has his usual Buster Bar Dessert (or as we call it, ice cream dessert) and Matt had Banana Split Cheese Cake. It was suppose to be a diabetic recipe but it did have quite a few carbs in it. It was pretty good though.

Down Syndrome Awareness Month

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Almost Big Boy Slim Jim

My sister Maria gave me this recipe for a Big Boy Slim Jim sauce. I made them last night with left over ham.

1 cup mayo
1 tablespoon finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons dill pickle relish (I chopped up dill pickle)
2 tablespoon dill pickle juice

Mix ahead and let be in fridge awhile if possible. (I often don't.)

Hoagie Buns
Ham
swiss cheese
tomato
lettuce

Brown ham. I prefer regular left over ham, not lunch meat.

I heat a frying pan and liberally grease it with butter. Then put the hoagie bun face down and lightly brown. Flip bun over on frying pan and spread Big Boy sauce on bottom (or both) sides of bun. Layer ham, swiss cheese, tomato and lettuce. Close bun and flatten with spatula. Serve and demolish!

Banana Split Cake

BANANA SPLIT CAKE

1 ½ cup Nilla Wafers, Crushed Finely

1-¼ cup Sugar, Divided

⅓ cups Butter Or Margarine Melted

16 ounces, weight Cream Cheese, Room Temperature

28 ounces, weight Crushed Pineapples, Well Drained

4 whole Bananas

2 cups Cold Milk

5-½ ounces, weight Instant Vanilla Pudding

2 cups Heavy Whipping Cream

¼ cups Powdered Sugar

2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1 cup Chopped Pecans

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together cookie crumbs, 1/4 cup sugar, and melted butter. Press into the bottom of a 9×13 inch pan. Beat together remaining sugar and cream cheese until well mixed. Carefully spread over cookie crust. Top with pineapple. Slice bananas and layer over the pineapple.

In another bowl mix together cold milk and vanilla pudding and set aside. In a large bowl, beat together whipping cream, vanilla and powdered sugar until soft peaks form. Remove 1 cup of whipped cream and mix into the pudding. Layer pudding over the bananas.

Spread remaining whipped cream over the pudding and sprinkle with pecans. Chill for 5 hours before serving.

I made this dessert today at work. I got it from tastykitchen.com. It was so good. I did a few changes. I didn't have vanilla wafers so I used graham crackers instead. I also used only 1 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple. I also used 2% milk instead of cream. Instead of whipping cream and adding powdered sugar and vanilla, I just used Cool Whip.