Banana Streusel Muffins and Easy Caprese Salad!

• Banana Streusel Muffins
• 
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
• STREUSEL:
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. In a small bowl, beat eggs, sour cream, butter and bananas; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full.
2. For streusel, combine sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl; cut in butter. Sprinkle over muffins. Bake at 375 degrees F for 20-25 minutes.

TRUST ME, these are amazing! Justin took one to work every morning for a week! I heated them up a bit and spread some butter on them. SO good! 

Also, here is a GREAT recipe for last minute guests! You can use the things in your fridge! And toothpicks!

Easy Caprese Salad (Molly's Way!)

Grape Tomatoes

Mozzarella Balls (find them at Trader Joe's!)

Black Olives (pitted)

Persian Cucumbers (Again, Trader Joe's.  These are just baby cucumbers)

Olive Oil

Balsamic Vinegar

Italian Seasoning

(YOU CAN GET ALL THESE INGREDIENTS AT TRADER JOE'S FOR JUST $12!)

1. Depending on how many people you are serving, put equal amounts of each food ingredient into a mixing bowl. Fold together with a spatula or wooden spoon. To stretch the recipe, I cut the mozzarella balls and black olives in half.

2. Drizzle (eyeball) just maybe a tablespoon of Olive Oil and Balsamic vinegar over the mixture, then season to taste with Italian Seasoning! And Voila! You've got a delicious Caprese Salad!  Serve on Kabobs if you like, or set toothpicks next to the bowl for your guests.

Hope yall enjoy these as much as we do! I am LOVING cooking and baking; learning all the ins and outs. It is so much fun! I am going to be sad when I have to go back to work and don't have all day to experiment! Hope everybody has an amazing weekend!

Molly

We're Married!!

I am finally a married woman! Justin is an incredible husband and we are having such a great time being married. The wedding was incredible, I wish I could relive that day over and over.  Everything went so smoothly and I couldn't be happier about my day.  A special thanks to my photographer Nancy Ray; by far the best wedding pictures I have ever seen!  We cannot wait to see the rest of the pictures.  Here is a link to view a sneak peek if you haven't already!

http://nancyrayblog.com/?p=5913

And, a peek of my bridal portraits! I will put more up soon, and hopefully get some up on facebook.

http://nancyrayblog.com/?p=5785

We spent the most perfect Honeymoon in Playa del Secreto, Mexico, in an all-inclusive resort called the Valentin Imperial Maya.  It is part of the string of resorts that make up the Riviera Maya.  It was PARADISE! We spent 9 nights there and took advantage of all that we could! Seriously, we ate SO much food.  Since it was all-inclusive, we could order as much as we wanted at any meal, so when there were buffets in play, we knew we'd be feeling it later but it was completely worth it!  Justin gained 10 pounds and I gained 6! Thankfully, it has all come back off and we are eating much healthier here at home. Which brings me to my next topic....COOKING!

I have had the most fun time getting our apartment together, gathering gifts and using all that I can to really learn how to cook.  And to my surprise, it has come very easily to me! For our first night here in the apartment, I made Roasted Garlic and Creamy Mushroom Chicken and Risotto. It was a hit! The next night was Asian night...always a big thanks to Trader Joe's for their amazing Orange Chicken and Vegetable fried rice...it's one of our favorites! Definitely a Vidovich staple. Sunday night I tried my Aunt Carol's special Lasagna recipe! My mom has made it for years, so I wanted to give it a try. It is SO simple:

Ingredients:
1 pkg. of Egg noodles
1 lb. of Ground Chuck
Ricotta Cheese (or Cottage Cheese, your choice!)
Mozzarella Cheese
Cheddar Cheese
Pecorino Romano Cheese (we sprinkled some on the top, its Justin's favorite, but not necessary!)
A Jar of your favorite tomato sauce (I use Classico's Roasted Garlic)

Preheat your oven to 400.
1. Brown the hamburger meat in a skillet (I use olive oil) and season with your choice of seasonings.  I used salt, pepper, italian seasoning, Tony Cachere's, and special sandwich seasoning from my grandma.
2. Cook your egg noodles. (this does not take long, read the label for cooking time)
3. Once the hamburger meat is done, strain, and then put back in the skillet with a jar of your spaghetti sauce and turn on low heat.
4. Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray.
5. When egg noodles are done, drain and pour half of them into the casserole dish. You are going to be layering ingredients, so make sure there are more noodles for the top.
6. Make 2 layers. First layer: Noodles, Meat Sauce, Ricotta or Cottage Cheese. Second layer: Noodles, Ricotta Cheese, Meat Sauce, then COVER with Mozzerella and Cheddar Cheese (or whatever else you'd like to add)

Bake in 400 degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until the cheese on top is bubbling and slightly browning. We put parmesan cheese on top of our servings. A must.
Hope you try and enjoy it! I'd post a picture but we ate it so quickly! It makes for great leftovers as well.

Next recipe to come...Banana Streusel Muffins I made yesterday :)

Molly

Single Digits

We are now 9 days away from becoming husband and wife.  I would be typing extatic, crazy nonsense if it weren't for the fact that I am SO exhausted!

It was so funny, Alli Sanderson and I were talking to other day about how I just need to go get a massage before the wedding and relax.  Well, I checked the groupon for charlotte that day and VOILA! Half off an hour swedish massage at Salon Du Monde! How happy was I you ask?!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

there you go. that much.

So I am going to get my sweet swedish massage on thursday before the wedding. couldn't be more thrilled. i love being thrifty.  well, i'm getting ready to move to raleigh this weekend, so i better get back to packing.  can't wait to blog about married life. :)

-m

Since all my other married friends did it....

We are getting married in 19 days! Getting more excited every day.  Thought I'd give the blogging thing a try since I have such wonderful friends spread about who do the same thing!  I may not post again until after the honeymoon because life is CRAZY right now, so we'll see!

Let's see....we've got an apartment, all the gifts are there and put away, thank you cards have been sent, and we are working on so many last minute details before April 10th.  Being long distance doesn't exactly help either!  Good thing we love each other...

I'm beyond excited for the honeymoon! It is still a complete surprise and I have NO idea where we are going!  I will post some pictures when we get back.  I will also try and make this blog a lot cuter and more personal with pictures and stuff....so Kaitlin Jones....HELP! Had to have the birds for now though :)

love
molly