Author: Danielle Beerli
Pulled Pork and Cole Slaw – Easiest Recipe Ever!
A few years ago, it seemed like pulled pork became the new dinner craze! I wanted to make it, but wasn’t into the rubs and the full day cooking so I created my own quick, easy and yummy way to make pulled pork using a pork tenderloin.
Ingredients:
Pork tenderloin (can easily find pre-wrapped in grocery store or butcher)
Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce (or any BBQ sauce you love)
Rolls (regular size hard rolls or sliders)
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Olive Oil
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Take Pork Tenderloin out of package and put in a small roasting pan. I use a Pampered Chef Stoneware stone.
2. Drizzle olive oil over the pork and season with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until no longer pink in the middle.
3. Remove from oven and cool slightly.
4. Slice the meat lengthwise so it will fit in the tube of your food processor. Set the food processor up with the shredding blade. Feed the pork in to shred the meat (depending on the size of your processor, you may have to empty shredded meat a few times as you go).
5. Pour shredded meat into a bowl and fold in BBQ sauce. The amount of sauce you use will depend on how you like it. I use enough sauce to make sure all the meat is covered and none of it looks dry.
6. Once BBQ sauce is mixed in, you are ready to serve. I like to serve it on a roll topped with cole slaw (see recipe below).
Cole Slaw
Ingredients:
1 package of cole slaw (any brand you like)
Bottle of Bolthouse Farms Classic Ranch Dressing
1. Pour cole slaw into a bowl.
2. Add Ranch dressing and mix well (I usually use about 1/2 to 3/4 bottle of the dressing)
3. Refrigerate at least two hours to overnight (I think it tastes better when refrigerated on the longer side)
Dollhouse Bookcase
Summer reading! The school assignment that parents have a love-hate relationship with. My ten-year-old son loves to read and religiously reads every night before bed. He’s already knocked off two out of the four chapter books assigned! LOVE it! He does the reading on his own and enjoys it. My eight-year-old daughter, on the other hand, is still on her first book. HATE it! I have to pull every trick out to get her to read. I know what you’re thinking…maybe she struggles with reading. Nope! She is a really good reader, above grade level. So, I decided to involve her in creating a book corner in her room. She has a dollhouse in her room that was mine when I was a kid. She has stopped playing with it so we emptied it of the furniture, pushed it against the wall and used it as a bookshelf. We added a beanbag chair to the corner and Voila! A book corner where she can read or write in journals. She loves it and so far so good with the reading!
Orange Chicken Salad
I have been making this recipe for over 10 years! It is filling enough to serve for dinner or a luncheon. It is very refreshing and makes a great summer meal! It pairs nicely with a light white wine.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
3 large seedless oranges
1 cup long-grain rice
2 cups water
3/4 cup vinaigrette dressing (separate recipe below)
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 pound cooked chicken, diced
3 tablespoons chopped chives
1/2 cup roasted cashews
salt and black pepper
cucumber slices to garnish
1. Thinly peel 1 orange, taking only the colored part of the rind and leaving the white pith
2. Combine the rind, rice and water in a saucepan. Add a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer over very low heat for 15-18 minutes, or until the rice is tender and all the water has been absorbed.
3. Peel the remaining oranges and cut out the segments, reserving the juice. Add the orange juice to the vinaigrette dressing (recipe for dressing below). Add the mustard and sugar and whisk to combine well. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.
4. When the rice is cooked, remove it from the heat and cool slightly, uncovered. Discard the orange rind.
5. Turn the rice into a bowl and add half of the dressing. Toss well and cool completely.
6. Add the chicken, chives, cashews and orange segments to the rice with the remaining dressing. Toss gently. Serve at room temperature, garnished with cucumber.
Vinaigrette Dressing
Makes just over 3/4 cup
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons wine vinegar
salt and pepper
2/3 cup vegetable or olive oil
1. Put vinegar, salt and pepper in a bowl and whisk to dissolve the salt. Gradually add the oil, stirring with the whisk. Taste and adjust seasoning.
This recipe was taken from a Barnes and Noble cookbook titled: The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Chicken
Greek Orzo Salad
A few years back my friend Marie asked me what she could bring to my daughter’s summer birthday party as a side dish to BBQ foods. I wasn’t sure what she should bring and she suggested an Orzo Salad. Since everything she makes is amazing, I said, “Sure!” It was such a huge hit! Everyone loved it and since then it has earned a permanent place on my food table for my daughter’s birthday parties. I am sure there are similar recipes floating around the internet, this one was clipped out of a local newspaper.
Ingredients:
1 cup Orzo
6 tablespoons olive oil
5 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 small red onion, minced
1 ½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
¼ cup minced parsley
2 large tomatoes, diced
1 English cucumber diced
12 Greek olives, halved and pitted
6 ounces feta cheese
In large saucepan bring 2 quarts water to a vigorous boil. Add orzo and cook until slightly at dente (8 to 10 minutes). Rinse, drain, and place in 2 quart serving dish, toss with 1 tablespoon oil.
Whisk together remaining olive oil, vinegar, onion, salt, pepper, oregano and parsley. Pour over orzo, cover and chill for 2 to 24 hours. Toss remaining ingredients with orzo mixture before serving.
Serves 8
Notes:
It’s important to use fresh parsley rather than dried because the fresh parsley is part of the great flavor.
I have made this recipe the day before by following the instructions above and refrigerating. I also chopped the cucumbers and tomatoes and put them in separate containers in the frig. Right before serving I added the tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and feta. This ensures those ingredients stay fresh and don’t get soggy soaking in the marinade overnight.
Zucchini Quiche
This is a recipe my great aunt used to make and I continue to make for my family. It is fast and easy to make and tastes great! It’s not exactly a “quiche”, it is much fluffier and has no crust. I usually serve it with a side salad. The amount this recipe makes is usually devoured by my family of four in one sitting.
Ingredients:
3-4 cups zucchini
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup oil
4 eggs
1 cup Bisquick
Dash of pepper
Chopped parsley fresh or dried
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Mix together zucchini, cheese, onions and oil
Beat eggs one at a time and then add the four beaten eggs to the mixture
Mix in other ingredients
Put in a greased 13x9x2 pan for 45 mins. When done, should look fluffy and be golden brown on top as pictured.
Notes:
I have used a mixture of both green zucchini and yellow squash and it comes out just as good.
Any oil will work with this recipe, I’ve used olive, vegetable and canola in the past.
There is no salt added in this recipe. I like salt and feel it is a little blah without, so I will add some in the mixture and then on the quiche before I eat it.
Because “Bisquick” is used in this recipe, I did a quick search to make sure I wasn’t plagiarizing a recipe even though this one came out of the family recipe box. I found an extremely similar recipe on the Betty Crocker website. My great aunt probably got it off a Bisquick box long ago, some people on the website commented they have been making it since the 1970’s. Their recipe differs slightly adding more spices, you can find it by clicking this picture: 
Taylor Swift Rockin’ Birthday Party
My daughter wanted a Rock ‘n’ Roll / Taylor Swift themed 8th birthday party. I love to run with a theme and this was one was a lot of fun! We started by sending out ticket invitations that I made on my computer and printed at home. 
Decorations
I didn’t like the paper goods selection for the Rock ‘n’ Roll theme that the party stores sold, so we went with pink, black and zebra stripe patterns on the decorations and paper goods. My daughter and I handmade a lot of the decorations. We made our own glitter paper and used it for mini Hollywood Walk of Fame Stars for each child attending the party and a list of the days events. We hung some of these decorations surrounding a Happy Birthday sign on a silver backdrop.
Some other decorations we used were streamers, balloons, wall stickers to decorate the pool, some fake rocks, a VIP Entrance sign, a VIP guest list and a Happy Birthday sign on the chalkboard in the kitchen.
Cake
We went with chocolate cake and Funfetti cupcakes this year. The cake was in the shape of a guitar, I used a pan I had from one of my son’s previous birthdays. For the cupcakes, I bought a cake stand on Amazon and a lot of records on Ebay. I washed the records and used them as the tiers to hold the cupcakes. The cupcakes looked awesome. To me, the cake looked like a giant bowling pin and, of course, as with chocolate cake, the frosting ended in specks of cake mixed in.
Games and Prizes
We have a pool and had other outdoor games like basketball and volleyball, but I made up a few Taylor Swift themed games as well for the kids to play. I’m done with the piñata days. I also purchased replica Oscar trophies and gold medals for prizes.
- Guess the Song Based on a Lyric
- Taylor Swift Trivia
- Musical Records Played to Taylor Swift songs (Idea of Musical Chairs, except using records on the grass that the kids had to sit on when music stopped)
- Put the Taylor Swift albums in order of release
Goodie Bags
All the goodie bags had Pop Rocks candy, glow sticks and sunglasses. The boys’ bags also contained boy rockstar tattoos while the girls’ bags had a girl tattoo and a microphone lip gloss.
Performance
Finally “Taylor Swift and her Swifties”performed Shake It Off. You will have to excuse a few technical difficulties with the music in the beginning, but was still fun!!!
Links to Amazon Purchases for the Party
Birthday Gift Ideas for Kids
Among our family friends, there are a lot of kids who have a summer birthday. As they get older, it’s always a challenge to pick the right gift because they seem to have everything and also because I try to get something with meaning. I feel like every girl ages 7-9 at this point has a ton of bracelet making kits and painting projects. But some of these crafts that I bought I thought were more appropriate for girls of this age who may want to start making their own memories or put meaning behind their projects. I love to shop online and purchased these gifts on Amazon. Every picture has a link directly to the item on Amazon.
This gift is for a boy turning 7 who is now into Pokemon. I know from when my son was into Pokemon trading in third grade that the cards add up fast. I liked this binder because it came with the pages ready to fill.
This gift is for a girl turning 9 who my daughter is good friends with, but doesn’t see too often. I never saw this sign before, but since purchasing it, I have seen it in two stores. Both that I have seen are more glittery, but I like the traditional wood block of this sign. Can’t outgrow this style!
This gift is for another friend of my daughter’s who is turning 8 and loves ballet. Eight is an age where girls start to keep momentos from events they attend and I think making their own scrapbook would be a really fun activity to display their memories! It’s also a good age to purchase a piece of jewelry and luckily there is a lot out there to represent current interests.
This gift is for a family friend turning 7 who is having her first small sleepover party (she is also a Red Sox fan!) I tried to tie together the sleepover theme of her party with the Nancy Drew Sleepover Sleuths book and the pillow pet and then tied in her love of the Red Sox with the pillow pet and Ballpark Mystery book The Fenway Foul-Up.
Boyfriend to Husband Upgrade
I received this in an email. This is cute/funny. If you are married, you will certainly relate. If yo are not married yet, it is a preview of what’s to come. It certainly explains to me the question I always ask my husband about why he was so romantic before we got married.
The (Imperfect) Craft of Cake Baking
By no means am I going to be the next contestant on Cake Boss, in fact I really loathe baking. If you go on Pinterest and search Kids Cakes, I am put to shame here, but, I love my kids and a good themed party, so I have taken on the task of cake baking and I do it with the best intentions! I know it’s boxed cake mix and canned frosting, but every year this task comes with tons of frustration and I always swear I will buy next years cake. Some aren’t great photos because I always forget to take a picture before I serve the cake so I cropped the best I could. Also, I think I am the world’s worst froster. I would always get cake bits mixed in even if I froze the cake a bit first. I found buying whipped frosting helps with that. Here is a small gallery of some cakes of the past.
Caterpillar Invasion
It’s early June and the leaves are out and green and flowers are blooming! Our house and yard is surrounded by a heavily wooded area so there are your usual concerns in the summer like ticks, poison ivy and mosquitos.
But this year, there was a new concern. As I got out to start working in my garden weeding and planting, I noticed something strange. When I was anywhere near the woods surrounding my house, I would hear what sounded like light raindrops on the leaves of the trees. So I would look up and the sky was clear. Then I noticed my awesome rose bushes that survive being buried under feet of plowed snow every winter weren’t doing well. Something was eating them, but I didn’t know what.
So I went on Amazon and searched for an organic product to kill whatever it was eating my roses. I am a Prime member so I had my Organic Fungicide in two days.
I went out to the roses to start spraying and I found the culprit. Three different kinds of caterpillars! It was like I was living inside Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar book. The kids got a bucket and as we started collecting the caterpillars, the bucket quickly filled up. We must have collected at least 50 caterpillars off of 4 bushes.
Then it hit me, the sound in the woods was the munching! There are so many caterpillars eating their way through everything that you can actually hear a chorus of chomping. The small fuzzy black ones like the trees, roses, and to be on the house. The green ones were parachuting from trees and would be dangling mid air; so many at one point you had to be careful not to walk into them. Then there are the blue ones that I remember collecting as a child because I though they were so pretty, but now I am not liking them so much. I found all varieties on my rose bushes and from what I read, they are into fruit trees as well.
I did some research and think part of the problem is the Winter Moth population was high in November and December and were successful mating which in turn hatched these wonderful creatures this spring. And, I also read that they like to go for the buds of plants/trees which then seems to destroy the branch. (Click on the picture of the article for more info.)
Within two days after spraying the rose bushes with the fungicide, my rose buses were producing new growth and there were new blooms and 99% of the caterpillars were gone and after four days two of them were in full bloom!
The Well Organized Mom 