Portland is a mecca for food carts!

One of our favorites is a food cart that just serves grilled cheese.

Grilled cheese and tomato soup is one of our favorite comfort food. I think we grew up on grilled cheese and tomato soup at our house.

The Grilled Cheese Grill is located at 1027 NE Alberta Ave., Portland, 97211 and is open starting at 11:30 each day except for Mondays when they are closed. Check out their website for specific closing hours. They also have a location downtown at the Alder Street food cart pod and over on SE 28th and Ankeny. The Ankeny location is actualy a double decker bus!!

The Grilled Cheese Grill is celebrating their first birthday tomorrow – Tuesday, April 19th so head on down and join the celebration.

The kitchen is run out of a little trailer.

There is outside seating but the best place to sit is in the bus.

They have brought in an old school bus and outfitted it with booths and a nice long counter and stools. Hundreds of old school photos decorate the table top and counter top. Maybe you’ll see someone you know!

The painting on the ceiling is amazing and will keep you entertained for hours!

There are lots of fun grilled cheese combos on the menu or you can make up your own. Any combination you can think of they will make! (as long as the ingredient is listed on the menu)

We went with The Gabby which was a combination of cheddar, colby jack, swiss, mozzarella on white bread. We lived dangerous and added potato chips to it – yes, potato chips. I loved the addition of the salt and the crunch.

Our second choice was The Pops which was a combination of tomato, Havarti and honey mustard on Dave’s Killer Cracked Wheat – so good and my favorite. Of course we added the tomato soup too!

For dessert we couldn’t resist The Jaime especially when it said that “you might need to eat this in private.”

The Jaime was a combination of marscapone, Nutella, and grilled banana on grilled cinnamon swirl. It was amazing and I don’t even like bananas!!!

The food was great and how fun is it to be able to eat lunch in a school bus! Check out The Grilled Cheese Grill!!

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Yes, yum!

I actually can’t believe I’m so excited about something made with tomatoes.  I never ate tomatoes as a kid, as a teenager, as a young adult and even as a not so young adult but as a middle aged adult I have learned to love and appreciate tomatoes.

I think I have a new favorite condiment – sweet tomato relish.  I made a batch of this last week for the bridal shower I hosted.  I served it on  crostini that was spread with a little roasted garlic and cambozola cheese.  I then topped it with the sweet tomato relish and it was delish.

I decided it just might make a nice little condiment on chicken.  I was right.  Now that I’ve had it on chicken I also think it would be mighty fine on beef, pork and fish.  I think it would be fine on just about anything!!

The relish is a combination of  cherry tomatoes, sweet onion, olive oil, sugar and a little seasoning.

Slice up your onion and cut your cherry tomatoes in half and put them in a pan with a little olive oil.

Add in some white sugar, brown sugar and a little dried thyme and let it simmer and thicken.  About 10 minutes or so.  Use the back of your spoon to smash the tomatoes up a bit.

After it has thickens it is ready to eat – by the spoon full or served on just about anything. For dinner this week I served in on some pan fried buttermilk chicken.

I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts and let them marinade in some buttermilk for an hour or two.  I then lightly breaded them with some seasoned flour and pan fried them  in half vegetable oil and half olive oil.

Cook until the chicken is cooked through and serve with sweet tomato relish.

I’ve got one word for you – YUM!

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Every girls deserves to feel like a princess.  Especially a bride or a bride to be.

Of course, a princess needs a crown!

I wanted to make sure bride to be Kara, who I was hosting a bridal shower for last week, felt every bit the princess so I made her a crown.

The crown may have been made out of chicken wire but I think it turned out adorable and worthy of a princess.

My husband thought I was crazy when he found me in the garage cutting up a big roll of chicken wire.  Especially when I told him I was making a crown out of it.  I found the chicken wire up in our attic.  We had bought it for some garden project and I don’t honestly remember where we  bought it but I am pretty sure any farm supply store or hardware store carries it.  You will need some wire cutters or I used my kitchen sheers to cut it.

I measured around my head for an approximate measurement and then some extra to overlap.  You don’t want the crown to fit tight, it should just sit on to the head.

I cut it higher in the front than in the back.

To close it up in the back I just twisted the wires together.  Be sure there aren’t any wires poking out that will hurt when you put the crown on

Next I put the crown in a cardboard box and gave it a nice coating of silver spray paint.

Then I used some silver sparkle puff paint to finish off the pokey ends that were sticking out on top. I just put a little dab of puff paint on each wire.

Now its time to decorate the crown. I used things I already had on hand. I first covered the bottom half with some scrapbook paper and then on top of that some Fringe garland I purchased through Polka Dot Market.

I just used hot glue to attach the paper and garland.
I wanted the crown to have a vintage feel to it so I made a paper rosette and glittered the edges. I also used a few other little paper embellishments I had on hand.

I typed up the word bride using a vintage font and then distressed the edges of the paper a bit.
I also wanted to a picture of a vintage bride to use on the crown. After a bit of searching I found an etsy shop that sells downloadable vintage images and she had the perfect one. Her shop is Ms. Ali’s Emporium and she has lots of beautiful vintage images.

For the finishing touch I added a glittery chipboard K for Princess Kara.

I had so much creating this crown I can’t wait to make another one. Maybe a birthday crown will be next.

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For the bridal shower I hosted last week I decided to create a fabric backdrop that I could use on the wall.

A trip to Home Depot and then to Joanne Fabrics and I was good to go.  The total cost for the backdrop was about $10.00. At Home Depot I picked up two 2 x 1 pieces of wood.  I think they were 8 feet long and less than a dollar a piece.  Before you purchase your wood you will need to decide how big you want your backdrop to be.  I measured the wall space I wanted to fill.  Mine measures 36 x 47 inches.  I had them cut my wood to size right at Home Depot – they do it for free.  Then all you need is a piece of fabric that is big enough to cover your frame, a few nails and a staple gun.

We used nails to put it together.  Jim helped out a bit in this department.  He doesn’t trust me with power tools so he did the drilling.  He predrilled some holes for the nails.

And then he nailed the boards together.

I chose a black and white fabric to keep it fairly neutral.  I wanted a backdrop I could use for lots of different occasions.  I used a staple gun to attach the fabric to the wooden frame.

I did a nice little mitered corner.

Pull the fabric nice and tight so the fabric is pulled taut over the frame.

It is then ready to hang on the wall.  I do recommend hanging it straight though.  Not crooked like mine!

You now have a nice blank canvas on which to create whatever backdrop you’d like.  For the bridal shower I ordered some colored paper fans from Polka Dot Market and just attached them to the backdrop with straight pins.  They are super lightweight and a straight pin worked great to hold them in place.

Such a fun and inexpensive way to add decoration to any party or event.

I think the possibilities are pretty much endless for this backdrop.  Watch for it in upcoming parties to see what I do with it!

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I love bite size  food.  The main reason I like it is that it gives you the opportunity to try more than one thing.  You don’t have to choose just one piece of pie or cake,  you can taste a little bit of everything because each one is only a bite.

For the bridal shower I recently hosted I decided to do a selection of mini bundt cakes.  We did three flavors.  Orange Poppyseed, Chocolate and today’s recipe for White Chocolate Raspberry which was definitely my favorite.  A selection of mini bundt cakes is definitely more fun than just one big bundt cake.

White chocolate and raspberry is one of my favorite flavor combinations.

The flavor of this cake was great.  The addition of pudding mix, applesauce and raspberries to the cake batter makes for a very moist cake.

You also add in melted white chocolate into the batter to give it even more amazing flavor.

A nice little dollop of cream cheese frosting goes on top along with a fresh raspberry and a sprinkle of powdered sugar and you’ve got heaven.  Literally, heaven!  Not only are they delicious but they are so pretty.

The recipe has you freeze the cakes after you have baked them for several days.  I didn’t do this and in fact I forgot to put them into the freezer until just a few hours before the party.  They still tasted amazing.  Not really sure what the freezing for several days is suppose to do because they tasted just delightful with only a few hours of freezing.

The original recipe called for it to be done as one cake in a regular size bundt pan but I used my mini’s instead.  You are layering your cake batter so it is a little tricky to figure out the amounts with the mini bundt pans but don’t stress too much – it will still taste amazing.

Recipe slightly adapted from All Things Thrifty.

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