You know you saw that title and had to look at this recipe! I don’t blame you! The folks at McCormick send me some goodies this week and some recipes – this was one of them. I don’t have all the ingredients on hand so I haven’t tried it yet myself but I know I will like it. Perfect if you don’t care for the green beer on St. Patrick’s Day coming up. Cheers!

Peppermint Paddy Martini

• 8 ounces Irish cream liqueur
• 2 ounces crème de cacao liqueur
• 2 ounces vanilla vodka
• 2 ounces heavy cream
• 1/4 teaspoon McCormick® Pure Peppermint Extract
• Peppermint Whipped Cream, recipe follows (optional)

Directions:

Fill cocktail shaker 1/3 full with ice. Add first 5 ingredients; shake until well mixed and chilled. Strain into martini glasses.  Top each with a dollop of Peppermint Whipped Cream, if desired. (yes – trust me that you desire the Peppermint Whipped Cream on top)

Peppermint Whipped Cream: Beat 1 cup heavy cream, 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar and 1/4 teaspoon McCormick® Pure Peppermint Extract in medium bowl with electric mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form. Makes about 2 cups.

Test Kitchen Tip: Wet outside rim of martini glass with McCormick® Pure Peppermint Extract. Dip glass in coarse sugar to lightly coat.

Disclosure: Drink responsibly. McCormick provided this recipe to me. Opinions are my own.

This weekend is the Blissdom Blogging Conference. It is not one I have ever attended, but many of my friends are going and I have to admit it would be nice to be there with all of them. My wonderful friend, Tara, along with myself, Amy, Jessica decided to do a “Found My Bliss” Blogging Party this weekend for everyone else who is staying at home this weekend. Please join in after you read my submission.

You may have read my mentions of my depression the last week or so. I have a lot on my plate, I need to update my meds (I have a doctor’s appointment next week) and it has just been hard to feel “blissful”. When Tara mentioned this blog party I thought it would be a good exercise for me to try and focus on those things that are bliss to me. What I found is that it is the little things that make me happy. My bliss is small, but mighty!

• Bliss is when I start Pandora and Adele is the first song that plays

• Bliss is when my cat, Ozzie, comes up to me every evening and meows until I pick him up to pet him for a few moments and he purrs.
  
  
• Bliss is when my son smiles and shares his dimples with the world.
  
  
• Bliss is when I see snowflakes dancing in the air.
  
  
• Bliss is when I drink any amount of water and I’m proud of myself for doing it.
  
  
• Bliss is laughing over the silliest of anything with my best friend.

• Bliss is when I can talk about social media with others (really)
  
  
• Bliss is when I see baby feet.
  
  
• Bliss is when my cat, Peaches, puts her paw out to me when she is next to me to say “I’m here for you”

• Bliss is an ice cold, perfectly fizzy, Coca-Cola
  
  
• Bliss is flying through the clouds on an airplane and it seems like soft cotton all around.
  
  
• Bliss is thinking about my little moments of bliss!
  

One of the things I really like on Pinterest are the wonderful quotes and motivational words I find, I have my own word board. The only problem is that once I pin them I do not see them again that often unless I’m looking at my own boards. Problem solved – I’m putting my favorites on display around my house. Here is quick tutorial on how I am doing this.

Another fun household tip Mom sent to me. Rubbing a walnut over scratches in your furniture
will disguise dings and scrapes. Suggestion – do not eat the nut when you are done (grin)

Do you all remember that last August I went to the Green Giant Valley? That was such a wonderful trip and really interesting learning about the corn – you would not believe how much goes into making it. While we were there they took several videos of us also talking about the trip, what we had learned, interesting information, and the like. To get a feel of what these trips are like a bit please take a look at these videos. Yes – I am in a few of them, easy to spot. (it’s kind of cool).

Earlier today I watched Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium for the first time. There is a lot of things I liked about the movie, but it didn’t all come together in the right way. Still it is worth watching for those good parts. The best part for me….

Mr. Magorium: 37 seconds.

Mahoney: Great. Well done. Now we wait.

Mr. Magorium: No. We breathe. We pulse. We regenerate. Our hearts beat. Our minds create. Our souls ingest. 37 seconds, well used, is a lifetime.

Now to try and remember this whenever I feel like I am just supposed to be waiting for whatever. No more. Stop waiting. I’ve read so many things about how we, especially women, need to take time for ourselves. Many use the excuse that we do not have time. I’m sure I have 37 seconds here and there and if I can just use that time to breathe, pulse, regenerate, hear beat, mind create, and soul ingest I think that could be amazing!

How will you use your next 37 seconds of waiting?

Thank goodness it is Friday – I need a drink after this week for sure! POM sent me some samples lately and here is a wonderful cocktail using their POM Blueberry juice!

POM Blueberry Smash Cocktail Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3/4 oz POM Blueberry 100% juice
• 1 1/2 oz bourbon
• 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice (sue me, I used the squeeze bottle)
• 3/4 oz honey syrup (mix 2 parts honey with 1 part hot water and stir, then cool)
• Mint and blueberries for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Shake all the ingredients (except garnish) well with crushed ice. Garnish. Serve.

This recipe, as is, makes a drink that’s about a 1/2 cup (not including ice) total. You may wish to double, triple, heck quadruple this recipe! Also, to make it weaker just increase the juices and syrups more so there is less total bourbon in the drink. I find with most cocktails I prefer to start out light with the alcohol – you can always add more if it is too weak. You could also use this over shaved ice, like a grown up sno-cone, instead of crushed ice. And of course, leave out the bourbon altogether if you do not imbibe.

Disclosure: As mentioned POM sent me samples of their projects to try. This recipe is from them as well. The extra ideas and opinions are my own.

Last Saturday night was our monthly birthday celebration and game night with my extended family. We get together and have dinner and then cake and presents to celebrate that month’s birthday people, and then we all play cards and board games together. This time it was my Fairy Godfather – Uncle Gary, and my cousin Ben. My husband insisted that they both really wanted gift cards from Bass Pro Shops so that’s what we got for them.

After dinner and presents we decided to try out this new game I was sent, Chaotic Connections. The game is fairly simple, you have to make a road that connects 4 cities you are dealt. Just glancing at the game we thought there would be trivia on the states, but nope, no trivia. That is okay to not have it, but we all thought that for playing with kids (for fun, for homeschooling, in classrooms) it might be nice to add some of your own geography questions based on the United States. Anyway, you just take a card on your turn and follow the instructions which may have you lay down pieces of road, pick up other players’ roads, place detours, etc. The game says 9+ but we all thought that kids a bit younger than that, playing with the family, could enjoy this game also.

After we got the game setup (the first time always takes the longest), the game went quickly. That initial setup including punching out all the little squares that are pieces of road that you place on the board. This was actually are biggest negative of the game, those little squares. You put your colored squares on top of the printed squares on the board to make your roads. They do not really fit well on the board though and if you bump the board – which happens a lot in our family it seems – they will move and be out of place. They are not easy to manage with your fingers either. Our suggestion would be that the board have little holes in it and use pegs maybe as the road. Of course, we do understand that this would probably not have been cost effective.

Overall a nice fun family game. Nothing to difficult. Great for a wide age range and not too long. You can have up to 6 players – we had 2 people team up since we had a total of 7. The retail price is $29.99 which I think is reasonable. This is not part of a giant game company so generally the prices have to be a bit higher and I am willing to pay for that to get unique games. You can find out more and order online at http://www.chaoticconnections.com/

Does this look like a game your family might enjoy?

Disclosure: I was sent a sample of the game to facilitate this review. The opinions are my own (and my families).

Yummy! I found this recipe on Pinterest and it sounded good and tonight I finally gave it a try. I was surprised at how much it actually does taste like chicken parmesan!

The recipe is simple enough and you can use shortcut items as much or as little as you like. For instance the original recipe calls for crushed garlic – you could use garlic paste (that’s what I used), or the pre-chopped garlic, or even garlic powder I think since it is mixed with a little oil. The original recipe calls for fresh basil – it’s winter and I don’t have any and was going to use dried but I forgot it altogether. Oops. It still tasted great though. I used store bought sauce. You could use pre-shredded cheese if you want – I opted for fresh mozzarella that I grated and freshly grated Parmesan myself because when you grate your own cheese it is SO much better (try it if you don’t believe me). Croutons you could make fresh, but I just bought premade.

Again, the idea of this recipe is to keep it simple so that you get the taste of chicken parmesan without all the fuss. I make homemade chicken parmesan – the real way – a few times a year, including fresh sauce. It is definitely better than this recipe, but this recipe I would probably make much more regularly.

My original pin of the recipe, and here is the direct link to the starting blog, foodwishes. They have the ingredients listed, but you watch the video for the instruction (short)

Do you think you will try this?

I had not given a lot of thought to the differences in the ground cinnamon I buy at the store before but after trying this McCormick Roasted Saigon Cinnamon I now know there are differences. My husband was the first one to use this cinnamon and he noticed how much more flavorful it was. Then I tried it and I was equally impressed.

I love cinnamon anything to start with, but this really is cinnamon x10! It is not just that it tastes like you might have used more, the flavor itself is deeper and more intense. I have used it now when baking, cooking, and just sprinkling it on top of things and in all applications it was superior. I highly recommend you spend the little extra this will cost you. I promise it is worth it!

Disclosure: While I have worked with McCormick on projects in the past, this was just an item I bought on my own that I wanted to share with my readers. Opinions are my own.