St. Patrick's Day Green Beer

With St. Patrick's Day coming up this weekend, I thought I'd share a lovely little "recipe" with you! Now, I'm not Irish, BUT I love a St. Patty's Day celebration as much as the next girl. I've always thought it was so cool how bars serve green beer, I just never knew how easy it is!

Ingredients:
3-5 drops of green food coloring
1 can or bottle of your favorite beer

As most beer is, this is ALWAYS better in a frosty mug so if you have a mug on hand, stick that sucker in the freezer!

There is really only one trick to doing this: pour the food coloring in first. If you put the beer in first you will end up stirring your beer to mix in the food coloring... which will make it flat. Flat beer is gross PURE DISGUSTING. Just drop your food coloring into your mug and then pour in your beer (at an angle so it doesn't get foamy!!).

It doesn't matter if you use light or dark beer, you will just have to use more food coloring for darker beers. I used Leinenkugel's Lemon Berry Shandy since it's pretty much the best beer I have ever had. Seriously, you should try some ASAP. I think it's a Polish beer so if you want to be a little more authentic, you should probably use something Irish (but it's my fav!!!). I also did one with Miller Lite, they both looked the same.

Anyways, here is a picture of your final product.

I didn't have a real mug so I used the one I have from when I visited Harry Potter World at Universal Studios in Florida (hints, the ButterBeer logo). I felt VERY grown up drinking beer out of a Harry Potter cup. :)

These would be great to make at your St. Patty's Day party!

Have a safe and fun St. Patty's Day Celebration!!!

Chocolate Banana Smoothie

Good Thursday Morning! Today I want to show you a little breakfast drink that I discovered on Pinterest the other day. Since I saw the drink, the official taste tester & I have been having it for breakfast every morning!

Four things:
1. I normally don't eat breakfast. I would rather sleep and/or cuddle with my dogs for longer than eat breakfast. Yes, this makes the last 1-2 hours before lunch time fairly brutal, but I usually manage. This recipe changes all that. I still want to stay in bed, but considering it takes about 1 minute to make, I can have both.
2. I LOVE SWEETS. Seriously, I'm addicted. SO, anything that is sweet-ish in the morning, I'm totally in.
3. The official taste tester & I have been growing horizontally since our wedding. It's unfortunate, but true. This recipe is healthy which is great for our endeavor to start shrinking our waist lines!
4. I don't like smoothies. It's not really the taste... it's just that I would rather have a chicken sandwich than a drink that has the same amount of calories and won't fill you up.... seriously, the smoothies at Smoothie King are like 600-700 calories. Good thing about this recipe is, it DOES fill you up and it's not bad on calories. :)

Have I convinced you to try it yet?! I sure hope so! The total calories of this smoothie is 335. Not bad for a well-balanced meal! Yes, it is well-balanced... it has fruit (bananas are a great source of antioxidants and potassium), calcium, protein, and vitamins!

Ingredients:
-1 Banana
-1 Tbsp. Peanut Butter
-1 cup Ice (we have regular ice trays and I ended up using 12 ice cubes)
-1 cup chocolate milk (I use 1%)**

To make your smoothie, simply add all your ingredients in a blender and mix them all together until your ice is chopped. The smoothie makes about 20 oz. which is awesome (could probably even be enough for two)! I have been taking them to work with me and drinking it while I check my emails. It's a great start to my day, and keeps me full until lunch!

**The official taste tester wanted me to alter his smoothie slightly. He has started using this:

The smoothie tastes about the same, but it does increase the calories by about 100 (comes out to 415). The benefit of this is you get A TON more protein, calcium, and vitamins. Considering I'm not trying to be a body builder, I don't really need the extra protein or calories so I opted to not use this. If you do use this, use a cup of regular milk instead of chocolate milk. Also, you could omit the peanut butter to save the extra calories, but this also reduces your protein.

 

Happy Smoothie Making

& Enjoy!

 

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Blue Hawaiian

 

 

TGIF! Let's kick the weekend off right with an adult drink :). This recipe actually came out of an accident I made at the liquor store when I accidentally bought Blue Curacao cordial syrup. It's pretty awesome and I'm glad I made the mistake :)

 

Ingredients:

1 oz. Blue Curacao (I used Blue Curacao cordial syrup)

2 oz. Pina Colada Mix

2 oz. Rum (I only had Malibu Coconut Rum & it worked just as well)

2 oz. Half & Half Cream

 

Pour all your ingredients into a shaker and shake over ice. Next pour into a glass and enjoy! This drink goes down as easy as it is to make, these things are dangerous!

 

Tip: For a frozen Blue Hawaiian, place all the ingredients into a blender with about 6 ice cubes and blend until smooth.

 

 

Happy Drink Making

& Enjoy!!

Southern-Style Sweet Tea

I'm a southern girl, and more importantly, a Texas girl. One thing we Texans are known for is our sweet tea. I know, I know, how hard could it be to make some sweet tea? Wellllllllllllll, northerners have been struggling with this for ages. There is a reason why there isn't any good tea north of the Red River ;). The ratio of tea to sugar is important to get your tea perfect, and I'm here to give you the secrets!

Ingredients:
2 Iced Tea bags
Approximately 1 Gallon of water
1 3/4 cup sugar

Tip: Any type of tea will work, BUT my favorite brand is Tetley. In my opinion, it has the best flavor!

To start off, place about 2 cups of your water into a small pot and boil it. Once your water has come to a rolling boil, drop your tea bags in and turn the burner off. Leave your pan on the burner with the burner off for about 10 minutes.

Next, pour your tea into the pitcher you are using, and add in your sugar and the rest of your water. I never measure out my water, I just have a gallon pitcher, so I add in the tea and sugar and then add enough water to fill it up. Stir until your sugar dissolves and you are ready to go! Here is a picture of this goodness over ice:

Don't you want to just drink it off the screen? Your tea should be good in your fridge for about a week or two.

Happy Cooking

& Enjoy!

Coronarita

After a hard Monday's work you may need a drink at 5 to take the edge off. :) In the Walker house, we are Margarita junkies. We just can't help it, that's our drink of choice. When I stumbled upon this little recipe on Pinterest I knew I was in trouble. You can read the original post here. The first time I made this I followed the recipe exactly and it was OKAY. I tweaked a few things and it was AWESOME. :) Be careful, these are dangerous!

Ingredients:
1 can Frozen limeade concentrate
Tequila (use limeade can to measure)
Sprite
Water
Coronas (I usually use the smaller Corona bottles but if you use a bigger glass you can use the bigger Corona)
Optional: Margarita Salt

In a drink pitcher, add the can of frozen limeade concentrate. Then take your limeade can, fill it up with tequila and add it to the pitcher. Do the same thing with Sprite. Next, take the can and fill it half way with water and add that to the pitcher. Mix everything together until the limeade is thoroughly dissolved.

Take your cup and salt the ring with margarita salt. The way I have found that works best for this is to dip the rim of the cup into the margarita mixture and then into the salt.

Once your cup is salted, fill your cup 1/2-3/4 full of margarita mix. Then open your corona and quickly invert the bottle into your cup of margarita mix. This may take some practice... the first time I did it I had added to much margarita mix and my cup over flowed slightly. Each batch makes about 4 coronaritas.

Next, ENJOY! Like I said, these are dangerous so be careful. Here is a picture of the finished product:

Capital Hot Chocolate

Day 1 of our week long Hunger Games series :) T minus 5 days & counting until the release of the first Hunger Games DVD

Click here and here to see Day 2.
Click here to see Day 3.
Click here to see Day 4.
Click here to see Day 5.

OK guys, I know its August and a million degrees outside BUT hot chocolate is the perfect thing to start off our Hunger Games week! After all, Katniss tried it for the first time when she went to the capital AND if Katniss can volunteer as tribute for her sister, we can drink a little hot chocolate when its hot outside. Besides, once you taste this homemade chocolaty goodness you will never go back to that nasty powdered hot chocolate ever again! This recipe is a slight variation from the Hersey's hot chocolate recipe.

This can be made in a family size version or a single serve version. I'll give you recipes for both. :)

Ingredients (makes 6 servings):
1/4 cup Hersey's Cocoa
1/2 cup sugar
Dash of salt
1/3 cup HOT water
4 cups milk
3/4 tsp vanilla extract

To start off, mix you cocoa, sugar and salt together in a sauce pan (make sure it's big enough to accommodate the rest of your ingredients!). Stir in your water and heat on medium heat until the mixture boils. DO NOT crank up your heat to try and get this step done faster, it will burn your sugar! Once the mixture is boiling, heat it for an additional 2 minutes while stirring it often. It should look something like this while boiling:

Next, stir in your milk. Continue to heat and stir occasionally until hot BUT DO NOT boil your mixture once you add the milk. To know if you milk is hot you can hold your hand about half an inch over the mixture. If you can feel the heat coming off, its hot. You can also tell by looking at it. There should be a white foam on top when it gets hot that looks like this:

Once your cocoa mixture is hot, remove from heat and add in the vanilla. The vanilla is what makes this recipe SOOOOOOO good. Finally, pour hot cocoa into individual cups and enjoy! You won't regret your choice to indulge in one of the capital's signature drinks!

Single serve directions in the microwave:

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp Sugar
2 Tbsp Hersey's Cocoa
Dash of salt
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix sugar, cocoa and salt in a large mug. Add in your milk and stir (your mixture will be very lumpy but stir it up as much as possible. Heat your mixture in the microwave on HIGH for 1 - 1 1/2 minutes (or until hot). Remove from microwave and stir in vanilla.

Happy cooking and may the odds be ever in your favor!

What Hunger Games recipes would you most like to see? What are you most looking forward to about the movie? Let us know in the comments section below!