Is it March already??

Time flies when you're busy!  I have felt so overwhelmed by the daily to-dos, I've hardly had a moment to think about blogging, and here it's already March!  While life has been consumed with laundry, house cleaning (if only I could keep my house as clean as my mom's), errands, and playdates, I have managed to squeeze in some time for socializing and trying new recipes.

Our last two weekends have consisted of partying at the Mentz's house.  For folks who are "new to the area", Rob and Katie sure do manage to throw a lot of parties.  We have enjoyed hanging out with them, and Tony has taken advantage of the opportunity to stay out late and pretend to be "young" again.  In fact, two weekends ago, I actually kind of freaked out when I woke up at 2am and he wasn't home yet.  It was OK, of course.  He showed up around 230am, and was duly exhausted the next day.

In addition to weekend parties, we also got to celebrate (twice) the birthday of Abbie's friend, Tovia.  She had a Dora-themed party on the 19th, including some AMAZING sticky buns that Andrea made, and then we enjoyed a homemade pizza dinner at their house last Thursday, followed by a delicious cake that Andrea and Tovia made together.  So cute!

Which leads me to my next topic... cooking!  Inspired by Andrea's awesome home cooking and her mention of chicken pot pie last week, I decided to make one myself.  I have always shied away from it because my mom makes a delicious pie crust that I was afraid to try to recreate, for fear of failing.  Well, thanks to Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa- yes, I love Food Network), I managed to make a yummy crust myself.  I tossed in carrots, grean beans, peas, mushrooms, and chicken, and covered with chicken gravy to bake in my homemade crust.  It was pretty good, if I do say so myself.  In fact, I whipped up the leftovers with some extra chicken for Abbie and me to eat for dinner tonight.
 
And, finally, I think I may have discovered a delicious Belgian Waffle Recipe!!  Remember how months ago I had gone on a quest for the perfect recipe?  I toyed with variations of Bisquik recipes, totally-from-scratch recipes, yeast, and other variables.  Then, I gave up for a while.  Nothing was quite working.  Well, this morning, Tony asked for Sweet Potato Pancakes, and for some reason, I got the idea to turn them into waffles instead.  I combined our SPP recipe with the Bisquik Supreme Melt-in-Your-Mouth Pancake recipe, and put the batter in our waffle maker.  Out came some pretty delicious waffles- crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.  Tony claims they aren't perfect, but keep in mind, perfection to him, is a waffle made on the fancy flip-over iron in the University of Richmond DHall, which comes out with a spider imprinted on it.  Sorry, kiddo, but that's just not going to happen at home!  So here's the recipe:

Sweet Potato Belgian Waffles

1 cup Bisquik
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
3/4 to 1 cup buttermilk (depends on fat content of milk)
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix wet ingredients and cinnamon.  Mix dry ingredients separately, then add wet mixture and stir until smooth.  Let the batter sit for several minutes before baking.  For our waffle iron, 3.5 minutes seems to be the perfect baking time.

So, in addition to successful cooking, I feel like I've finally accomplished most of the stuff on my to-do list, hence why I've finally had the time to blog.  I bought our plane tickets to CA for Tara's wedding and made our hotel reservations, finalized travel plans for my youth choir's trip to Greensboro for their choir festival, made reservations for us to vacation at Hilton Head with my parents while Tony is presenting at a medical conference, ran a bagillion errands, and did the laundry 1.5 times over (the rest will have to wait for tomorrow).  I also read a good book, Two Little Girls in Blue- a recommendation from my grandma, and am halfway through another book recommended by Andrea.

With so much accomplished, I think I'll sit back tonight, and watch a little American Idol!  Looking forward to seeing what the Triangle's Scotty McCreery has to offer!