Guest post: Joy {Loaded potato soup}

*Hello Lovelies! Today Joy from "Confessions from a Southern Socialite" will be here sharing a little bit about her, and how to make loaded potato soup.


Hey y'all, I'm Joy from Confessions from a Southern Socialite and I want to take a minute to tell y'all a little about this Southern chick.

First of all, I'm a Mississippi girl. Born and raised, and i'm making my mark in life here in the good ole south. I'm a social magazine editor by day and southern socialite by night. I attend a lot of events and that's how my "southern socialite" status came to be.

Since today is Friday and weekend is FINALLY here- I would love to tell you what my perfect Saturday would be. The day would start off with homemade pancakes, then snuggling up on the couch with my cozy blanket watching the The Holiday because seriously, who doesn't like to see Jude Law be all romantic and his accent - okay, I think you get the drift!

And since it's fall y'all, that means football!! and not just any kind of football, but SEC FOOTBALL! If we aren't attending a game at Davis Wade Stadium to see our Mississippi State Bulldawgs play, then we are watching them on TV! We love to eat chips and dips while the game is on, which usually ends up being our lunch. I made this dip last Saturday and it was delicious and so easy to make! It's a meal in itself!






If you are wondering who the handsome man in the picture with me is - well, that's my better half Terry. We have been together for two and a half years and our love is true love. We aren't married... We aren't engaged... But what we are is perfect for each other. Our parents want nothing more than a wedding and grand babies from us and they'll get it... One day! =)

Hopefully you now know a little bit about this southern socialite. And, I couldn't leave without giving y'all a southern recipe to try! Now that the weather is turning cooler at night, I'm ready to start eating soups, stews and warm your soul kinda foods. And I'm happy to say, I found a recipe just like O'Charleys loaded potato soup. We will be making this for trick or treat night. Now, if we can just figure out how to make their rolls.

Bacon
3 lbs red potatoes, scrubbed
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup all-purposed flour
4 cups half and half
1 cup milk
1 cup chicken stock
1 lb velveeta chesse melted
white pepper
garlic powder
1 tbs of Tabasco sauce
Shredded cheddar cheese

Dice the bacon and cook in a skillet until all the fat is tendered.  Drain the bacon and set aside until ready to use.  Cut the potatoes into 1/2 inch dice and put them in a pot with water to cover.  Boil for 10 minutes, drain and set aside.  

Melt the butter in a heavy pot and add the flour, whisking constantly until the paste is smooth.  Gradually add the half and half, milk and chicken stock, whisking constantly.  When the sauce begins to thicken, add the Velveeta, whisking frequently.

Add the potatoes to the cheese mixture.  Season to taste with white pepper and garlic powder, and add the Tabasco.  Lower the heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Pour the soup into bowls and garnish with the bacon bits and shredded cheese.

I promise you it tastes just like O'Charleys loaded potato soup!  Y'all enjoy!

Thanks again to Camylla for asking me to guest host on her blog today!  Y'all have an amazing weekend!!  

Guest post: Delfina{My green nest}- En{soy}able rice pudding

*Hey guys!! Today Delfina from My green Nest will be teaching us how to make En{soy}able rice pudding. I can honestly tell you that this is THE BEST rice pudding I have ever had in my LIFE! seriously, I'm no exaggerating. I HATED rice pudding until one day I tried hers, it was love at first bite! If you try this, I'm sure you'll agree with me!



Hello fellow Camylla fans! It's lovely to be here for her fabulous series of guest posts and I'm honored to be featured with such cool gals.

My name is Delfina, I was born in Argentina, grew up in California and have been living in South Florida for 7 years. I've been married to my dream dude for almost 7 years and we have 3 {amazingly awesome} offspring: Anabela, who's 3, Maximo, who's 19 months and Luna who's 2 months. Creating delicious, healthy, beautiful meals for my family, along with keeping a well designed, earth-conscious and entertaining enviroment for us to inhabit, are my passions.

Today, I am sharing with you a recipe for something that my grandmother made for me growing up {it was the first thing she would pull out of the fridge upon my arrivel to her NYC apartment on my summer visits}. Arroz con leche~ a.k.a. rice pudding. I have transformed the recipe into a guilt free, vegan version so that I can have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner and feel completely okay with it. Here it is:

These are all the ingredients you will need:



1 gallon of good quality vanilla soymilk
2 cups of rice {I love to use arborio rice for risotto, it brings about the PERFECT creamy consistency that we need}
2 cups turbinado sugar
1 tbs. Vanilla extract
dash of lemon extract
the zest of one lemon, lime OR orange

First pour the 2 half gallon container of soymilk into a nice, big pot.



Turn the heat to high and add the sugar
{mixing well with a wooden spoon to avoid any sugar sticking to the bottom}



Add the 2 cups of rice and keep stirring



Next we add the zest of your favorite citrus {I happened to have lemons this time}



Now we splash in the Vanilla extract and the lemon extract



We must keep stirring our concoction until it begins to boil. At this point be VERY VERY careful because the milk will rise. I normally pull it away from the heat until it's a calm boil and then keep it at medium heat. At this point, we will keep stirring every few minutes until the rice cooks and becomes extremely tender and the milk becomes a creamy, dreamy goodness.

The entire process will take about and hour and a half, so be patient and set some nice quiet time to make it without rushing. Just remember to KEEP STIRRING. The biggest mistake I have made is to forget about it and the rice and sugar stick to the bottom and the damage makes for yucky sadness.

Once the consistency is just where we want it, pour the pudding into a large, rectangle pyrex dish and evenly sprinkle the best cinnamon you can find {One of the things I like to splurge on; nothing will keep a good dessert like cheap cinnamon} right on top in a thin layer. Let it cool, cover it and place this luscious treat in the refrigerator to enjoy in the next couple of hours.





say ahhhhhh

Guest post: Diana- meu pudim {My Pudding}

*Hey yal!! Diana from meu pudim {my pudding} is here to show us a delicious recipe that she calls, slapstick! I hope you enjoy!!



Hi!! It's a pleasure to be here at Camylla's blog!
She is my lovely friend who tolerates talking to me everyday on the phone! hehe
I'm from Brazil, and it's been 4 years since I started living here in the US. It's still a little difficult for me to write in English, but Ca has been very supportive and encouraging me to write English on my blog. It used to be only portuguese and now It's English and Portuguese. But you can see a lot of mispellings. Sorry about that!

Okay, a little bit about me: I'm married for 4 years, I do not have kids (yet). I am a Physical Therapist in Brazil, and am currently studying to get my license here. I love sports!! volleyball, rock climbing, and now I started mountain biking with the hubby, and I'm loving it!! My legs looks so nice! lol... I'm a photographer, like Camylla Take a look at my website here. But i'm here to show you a recipe, and not tell you my whole life story.

I'm really good with desserts, but I wanted to challenge myself to do something different. I'm not the type who cooks everyday, I dont like it too much. 3 times is enough!! lol!!! In Brazil the name of my recipe is called "Pastelao" I tried translating it to English and it said "slapstick" that doesnt sound right to me, so its kinda of like a dough that you can use with anything. . Just trust me when I tell you this... It's GOOD!! and lets stick to "slapstick".

Recipe:

*For the dough:
                                                                   -2 C of flour

-1/2 C of oil

-pinch of salt

-1/2 cup of water.

How to make it:

-Mix all ingredients together.

knead the dough 

-roll it out. Make sure you add butter and flour to the counter so it wont stick.

roll out the dough.. and repeat this process about 5 times.

Now, put the dough in a ziplock bag and put it in the fridge for at least 10 mins. 

Open the dough and put it the filling of your choice. 

close the dough. Pre-heat the oven to 350d and put in the dough, and leave it there for 30 mins. 

Filling:

You can do whatever your little heart desires. Strawberry and chocolate, chicken, apple and cinnamon. I did mines with chick peas, hearts of palm, ricotta, olives, onions and table cream.

Mix it all together...

YUMMMM

My husband loved it, and I hope you do too!!

Mindy {Rindy Mae}- "Sweet Bacon and Pear Pizza"

* Hello Lovelies, Today Mindy from Rindy Mae will be teaching us how to make
 "Sweet Bacon and pear pizza" I hope you enjoy the post, and her delicious recipe!

Hi everyone!  I was so excited and flattered when Camylla asked me to come hang with you guys on her blog today.  I'm really hoping to live up to her expectations.  I can't wait to see what she does in her new place with her time off.

Onto my introduction....I'm Mindy and I run the show over at the blog Rindy Mae.  In my "real life", I'm a wife to The Dad and a stay-at-home mom to The Kid, 5 and The Girl, 3.  In February, we'll be adding The Baby to the mix.  I'm an obsessive gardener, I've constantly got projects going on in our house, and I love all things food.  Which is why I was glad to share a recipe today.

I've been sort of a Debbie downer with all this fab hubbub goin' on in blog world lately. I'm an Oregonian and our summer just barely got started and it's already winding down. But the one thing I really look forward to with the change of the weather is the food. I'm in love with fall food. So I decided to share a recipe that says fall to me. Sweet Bacon and Pear Pizza.

I've been making this pizza for years. The first time I ever made it, it was love at first bite. I've always done it as an appetizer, but we had it for dinner this time around and it was deeeelicious.

Here's the recipe:

Sweet Bacon and Pear Pizza


Nonstick cooking spray
5 slices of bacon
1/4 C packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp chili powder (more if you like the heat)
1 pear, cored and sliced
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 an 8-oz tub of cream cheese
1 12-inch thin pizza crust, such as Boboli
1/3 C chopped pecans
1/3 C feta, crumbled
1/4 C chopped fresh basil
Honey

Preheat oven to 400.

Line bottom of rimmed baking pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.  

Arrange bacon slices on pan; set aside.

In a small bowl, stir together brown sugar and chili powder.  

Sprinkle brown sugar mixture on bacon slices. 

Bake for 15 minutes or until browned; remove and set aside.

Increase oven temperature to 450.

In a small bowl toss together pear slices and lemon juice; set aside.

Place pizza crust on a baking sheet or pizza pan.

Spread cream cheese on crust.

Season with black pepper.

Chop bacon and evenly sprinkle on cheese mixture.

Arrange pear slices on bacon.

Top with pecans and feta.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until cheese begins to brown.

Sprinkle with basil and drizzle with honey.

Here's dinner on my plate:

There ya go guys.  One of my favorite recipes EVER.  Thanks for puttin' up with me today.  I'd love for you to pop on over to Rindy Mae and say hi.

Thanks for having me Camylla!  Good luck with the big move!

Guest Post- Henning Love {Shortcut Lasagna}

* Hello Lovelies! Today Meg from Henning Love will be sharing a little bit about her, and teaching us how to make "Shortcut Lasagna" I hope you enjoy her post, and the delicious recipe!

 

Hi everyone, I'm Meg from henning love and happy to be guest posting for Camylla today. She is just one of the sweetest girls and I love the series she asked me to write about, From My Home to Yours, isn't that a great series title? Anyways, I always look forward to her posts and the nice comments she always leaves :-)

Here is a little taste of my life in CA with my husband and our two dogs. While my husband watches football, and yes I join him from time to time especially to catch up on my fantasy teams. This is a little dish that I created this afternoon, to use up some frozen raviolis, tomatoes and Italian sausage we had. I call it shortcut lasagna.

First I made a really basic tomato sauce. I sauteed some onions and garlic together in my Dutch oven, if you don't have one of these awesome pots, get yourself one seriously it is the greatest!







Once the onions and garlic have softened, I added the Italian sausage and let it brown.



Then I added the 2 1/2 chopped large tomatoes, a can of tomato paste then some pepper, salt,
dried basil and oregano.
While I am chopping and cooking, Kip is always in the kitchen next to me, in the same spot every time, just looking up at me hoping I will "accidentally" drop something to him.





Ok the cuteness is over, back to cooking!



I let the tomato mixture cook on simmer for about an hour.
In the meantime, I sauteed some sliced mushrooms as well.





Once the tomato sauce had cooked enough I added the sauteed mushrooms.



 Then I added the frozen raviolis to the sauce, and then poured everything into a baking dish. I cut up a ball of mozzarella for some extra cheesy goodness and sprinkled the pieces throughout the baking dish and topped it off with a final layer of shredded mozzarella.





Heat up the oven to 350, and pop in the raviolis so the cheese will melt, first top the dish with a layer of tinfoil, then in the last 10 minutes of cooking, remove the tin foil. You can have this meal for dinner that night or reheat the dish for the next day. Add some garlic bread, a side salad and some extra steamed veggies for a yummy meal!
Then after I cooked this dish, I came upstairs to find Kip and Kimbia playing tug-of-war on a new rope I have bought them earlier in the day, very cute!






That is a little glimpse into my life as a wife, mom to Kip and Kimbia and a blogger who is trying to spread some love, food and happiness! Thank you again Camylla for allowing me to take over your blog today, I'd be happy to do it again for you anytime :-)