Having a Blast!

Hey Y'all!

Well, y'all know that my best friend has been visiting over the past few days. We have had lots of fun acting like tourists here in Myrtle Beach. Except for one hiccup yesterday... I missed going to the beach because my downstairs air conditioning unit decided to have a temper tantrum and the big air conditioning guys had to be called and then a check had to be written... We have been having a blast!

Yesterday afternoon we found ourselves walking on the new boardwalk on the boulevard. One of my favorite memories from my childhood involves tons of skee ball games and tons of tickets! I would collect those tickets all summer and turn them in to get the biggest prize I could. Yesterday, I had a flashback moment!

We played a couple of rounds of skee ball and ended our last game in a tie! I had forgotten how much I love skee ball and how much fun it is! It was also nice to throw a ball and not have Pitty Pat take off with it!

Every night we would come home from our daily adventures and put in a movie. We had the best time just chilling out!

Marie left this morning, so now I have turned my thoughts to some cooking and some crafting. I found a fantastic crock pot barbecue chicken recipe that I can't wait to try! This recipe is a two-fer which means you can also make barbecue enchiladas with your left over chicken. I can't wait to try it!

I also have to have my hair cut and colored today. My 20th!!! High School Reunion is next weekend. I can't wait to see everyone. My close friends and I are actually having a get together the night before, so I am really looking forward to that!

Pitty Pat and I also have a wee bit of packing to do. We are taking a 3 day road trip. Hmm... wonder where we will end up????

Tootles!
:) JKP

My Summer Vacation So Far.......

Hey Y'all!

Well I am two days into my summer vacation, and so far it has been great! My best friend and I have a tradition that we follow every year. She always comes and visits the first week that school is out. Yesterday we pretty much pretended that we were tourists!

We went to the beach! We looked for SHARKS! And, they did not disappoint! We saw several shark fins yesterday and we stayed out of the water!

We headed up to Calabash last night for a yummy seafood dinner, shopping and ice cream. Ahhh... SUMMER!

I also found the time to make a new friend! He was very nice, but had a bad habit of mooing while I was talking!

There's no telling what summer vacation will bring today!

Tootles!

:) JKP

Strawberry Summer Pie!

Hey Y'all!

WAHOOO! School is out and I am on summer vacation! Whoop, whoop! I worked my last workday today. And, I will be spending my day on the beach tomorrow! Ahhh.....

I would also like to give a shout out to the fans of Friendship Bread Kitchen on Facebook! The FBK gave a little mention of this blog on their Facebook page tonight. So welcome if you are new here! We are glad to have you! :)

Now, last night I promised a little write up of a recipe that I made yesterday. I was invited to a luncheon at a fellow second grade teacher's house today to help celebrate the retirement of two dear members of our second grade team.  Now, being southern and all, I know that I can't show up empty handed. My baking has become LEGENDARY.. so I knew I had to pull out the WOW factor. So I started to think about summer pies and summer fruits. And then bingo. It hit me. STRAWBERRY! Also, does anything say summer better than strawberries? For this occasion, I just knew that a strawberry pie was needed. But not any ordinary strawberry pie, something with a surprise to it!

Enter the Black Bottom Strawberry Cream Pie. Thanks Pillsbury! :)

To begin with you will need the following ingredients:

 A pint of strawberries (two cups), 8 oz of cream cheese, strawberry pie glaze, hot fudge sundae topping, ready made pie crusts (yes, I CHEATED!), confectioner's sugar (aka powdered sugar), and whipped topping of your choice. You can even whip up some heavy cream. Our humidity right now is hotter than hell, so I opted for the can. :) Also, this is double the ingredients. I made two pies! One for my luncheon and one for my best friend's visit. Yes, I am nice.

The first thing you will need to do is bake the pie shells for about ten minutes. Now, it is confession time here. This is the FIRST pie I have EVER made! A quick video check from You Tube showed me how to flute my pie crust! Watch that video and you will know the secret of all mankind. Not really. But you will feel very empowered! I am WOMAN. See me flute AND bake a PIE CRUST!

While the pie crust(s) are baking, you need to wash and quarter 2 cups of fresh, yummy, juicy, sweet strawberries. I did four cups due to the two pies. :)

You will also need to mix together 1 cup of confectioner's sugar with one 8 oz package of cream cheese. Do not judge my choice of cream cheese. I am a poor teacher who loves to bake and eat. I must budget!

By now, your pie crusts should be done. Let them cool for about 20 to thirty minutes. Then add 2/3 of a cup of the hot fudge sauce to the bottom of the pie crust. I placed the jar in the microwave for about 25 seconds, and it poured right out! Now, put your crust in the fridge for an hour. I also put the strawberries and cream cheese mixture in there too.

Now, go Facebook. For an hour. Especially Friendship Bread Kitchen! Or me!

After about an hour, take out your cream cheese mixture, your strawberries and your pie crust that has the hot fudge on the bottom. Take the cream cheese mixture and spread it carefully over the chocolate sauce.

 Before and after shot! Good thing I was making TWO pies! How handy! At this point you want to take  your 2 cups of strawberries (4 if you are making two pies like me) and combine it with 1/2 cup of strawberry pie glaze (1 cup if you are making 2 pies.)  Now my strawberries were sweet, so I didn't add much. Also, if I make this pie again, I plan to make my own glaze. Yes, I am such an overachiever!!

                                          No strawberries were harmed while making this pie!

Finally, add the strawberries on top of the cream cheese layer. This is such a yummy part of making this pie!

Then, if you wish, add your whipped cream or heavy whipped cream. Be decorative or free form. Just put the cream on the pie! Then put the pie in the fridge for about another hour. Then dive in!

In the south we have a saying. I you make something really good you say "I put my foot in it!" Now, of course, your foot DOES NOT GO IN THE PIE. It is just a saying that means something is GOOD!!!!

Y'all, I put my foot in this pie!!!!

There wasn't a spec left at lunch today!

Make this for your next lunch or dinner. You won't be sorry! And, I hope you put your foot in it!

Tootles,

JKP

Recent Reads From the Beach Chair

Hey Y'all!

Well, my last day with kiddies was Friday! I have one more day of work tomorrow, and then I am a FREE woman! This past weekend we celebrated the retirement of my principal. It is very bittersweet, because he is one of the best that I have ever worked for. But, I keep telling myself that change is good! Here's a pic from the event! This is me with my girls from work!

Also, I have been reading A LOT! I spent some time on the beach today just to finish a book. But, it turned out to be quite the adventure and not a lot of reading was done! Believe it or not, the water had to be evacuated due to some rather large SHARKS! After seeing those fins, I knew there was no way my toes were even going to see the water! So, I left about 1:30. Our shark sighting even made the evening news!

Since I blogged last I have read two great books. One book I started and I didn't know if I could make it through due to the topic. But, I kept reading and the story actually turned into a little mystery with some action adventure thrown in! Save Me by Lisa Scottoline is a nail bitter. It starts off with an explosion in an elementary school cafeteria. Immediately a Mom is thrown into a moral choice of saving other children or her own child. I almost didn't make it through this part, but I promise keep reading! It is a good book, but as someone who works with children everyday, that part was hard to read! But, it is a good book! And, none of the main characters dies. Sorry if I just ruined it for you, but I kind of need to know those things up front! So check this out at your local library!

The other book that I have really enjoyed is part of Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilters series,  Cross Country Quilters. You can read these books in order, or not. I started this one because I read a review about it and thought I would enjoy reading it since I am crafty! This book is great. It also made the long dormant cross stitch bug come awake in me again! I have already pulled some DMC thread, Aida cloth and a pattern for a project this week! Wow. This blog may turn into JustJulia knits and cooks, and cross stitches! Anyhoo, this book centers around four women who meet at a week long quilting retreat and how they face obstacles in their lives. This is a great beach read! I have already checked out several more Elm Creek Quilt books from my local library!

I have also been baking, and I will have a recipe up for y'all tomorrow! This is a quick desert that is a nice ending to a great dinner! Let me run... lightening and thunder are right out side my window!

Tootles!
:) JKP

The One Where I Wax on About Baking!!!

Hey Y'all!

Well, I am four days away from FREEDOM! We have four days of school left this week! I have one more work day next Monday and then I am FREE for the SUMMER!!!! Pitty Pat and I are over the moon! AND, could I have used any more exclamation points in those last few sentences?

This weekend was a long weekend for us, which I have thoroughly enjoyed. I spent everyday on the beach with several great books. I took a break from beaching' it today.. I am starting to resemble a coffee bean. And since my best friend is coming next Monday, I will have plenty of time to hit the beach again soon. Today I spent the day hanging with Mr. P, catching up on The Young and the Restless, straightening the house, and organizing my craft room with my projects that I want to work on this summer. Busy day, right? Oh, and I still have to cut the grass tonight when it cools down. Hello!

The other thing that I have been doing a lot of is baking. If you have been hanging around this blog for awhile, y'all know that I love to cook and bake. And trust me, I just might have to rename the blog, justjuliaknits and cooks because, once school is out, I have a ton of recipes that I can't wait to try! I don't know why it is easier for me to cook when school is out, I think I just enjoy it more and I have alot more time.

Anyhoo, onto my recent baking. A few blog posts back, I posted about a book I read, Friendship Bread. So over spring break, I made my own Amish Friendship Bread Starter, and the rest they say is history. I have baked loaves of bread for friends. But, what everyone seems to be clamoring for these days are my cookies! Y'all. They. Are. So. Yummy!!!

This is where all of the goodness starts. With your Amish Friendship Bread Starter! I have had mine going for about a month and a half now. I have given lots away and frozen some of it too. It comes in handy when it is frozen, you can bake on demand! Now my starter has a new home, a nice glass jar. It is very happy!

This is the acutal Amish Friendship Bread baking. The recipe makes two loaves.

Here is my Snickerdoodle batter. It is kind of sticky, but if you put it in the fridge over night, and then bake on parchment paper or a Silpat, you will have out of this world Snickerdoodles!

Here are the Snickerdoodles ready to go in the oven. Oh my!!!

GOT MILK? 

Here are my other cookies, and in my humble opinion, I prefer these over the Snickerdoodles. These are slap a pig, kick a horse GOOD! They are of course, Chocolate Chip. And they are perfection. Crispy on the outside, chewy and gummy in the middle.

 Paddington says, "Woman, you better bake me some Amish Friendship Bread Bones! I know where you sleep at night!"

I have tried many other recipes with my starter, all thanks to The Friendship Bread Kitchen. Another big hit that I have baked is the Triple Chocolate Amish Friendship Bread. That lasted all of 5 minutes! Luckily I have neighbors and friends at school who are happy recipients of my baking! :)

So that is what I have been up to! Check back tomorrow when I update my Read's From the Beachchair... I have read 4 great books this weekend!

See ya later!

:) JKP

SUMMERTIME!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey Y'all,

Well, we are t-minus 5 days left in the school year. The last day for the children is NEXT Friday, June 3rd. I still have to go in a work Monday, the 6th. But we are SO CLOSE! I am always ready for summer, but this year in particular, I seem to be like a kid on Christmas Eve!

If you have been keeping up with my Twitter feed, you will notice that I have been busy baking and reading! And pondering drinking lots of Margaritas! Right around spring break, I made up my own batch of Amish Friendship Bread starter. Since then, I have made countless loaves and variations of Amish Friendship Bread, and cookies too! My co-workers have been the main recipients of my baked goods, and they are not complaining! As y'all know, I LOVE to bake and cook and having this starter around to feed and bake with has been quite fun! Over the long weekend, I have a post planned with all of my baking. It has been a great stress reliever!

The other thing that I have been doing a lot of is reading! I usually kick up my reading into high gear during the summer, but this year I started a little earlier. Somehow, I have come across a ton of books that I want to read, and they have found their way to me! I haven't updated my GoodReads yet, but I did want to post these on the blog! Also, I think this big reading push has a little something to do with all of my TV shows being on hiatus for the summer. No new Castle, Good Wife or Big Bang Theory. I am ready for my summer shows!

If you want a laugh out loud funny book, then you need to read Tina Fey's BossyPants. Now let me say, this is an "R" rated book, but y'all it is spit out your sweet tea funny. Just warn the folks at the beach that you are not crazy, the book is just funny!

As many of you know, my class mascot is the penguin. And, unless you live in the Antarctic, you probably know that Jim Carey is staring in "Mr. Popper's Penguins" that opens in June. So of course, I have read this book and I am now reading it aloud, a few chapters a day to my very excited second graders. Remember that this book was originally published in 1938... and that is what makes it so charming. I know they have changed the plot to be a bit more modern for the movie, but it is still cute. I am planning a movie date with some of my students so we can all see the movie together!

The weather was so nice when I got home this afternoon, that I picked up another book out of my library stash. The Provence Cure for a Brokenhearted is really great. It is about dealing with grief (which HELLO, I know a lot about) and recovering from loss. But this book is not sad. And, parts of it take place in France, which makes it a perfect summer read. Start it today!

In a pinch, when I want a quick breezy read, I always grab a Danielle Steele novel. However, reading Danielle these days is like reading a cookbook, she definitely has a recipe to writing her books. I checked out 44 Charles Street from the library last week. I finished it in a day sitting on the beach. It was OK, but you could do worse for a vacation read.

I have also picked up a few classics to read again once school gets out for summer. The Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird are just waiting for me on my coffee table. Ahhhh.... SUMMER!

I am also stalking some online reading summer lists for kids. I will admit, I was a big nerd in school and read EVERY book on my summer reading list. I am still like that. Even though I am the teacher now, I still like to read the books on the summer reading list each summer. It's my way of earning a literary gold star!!!!

That's about all that has been going on here. My vertigo is still acting up, so I am drinking lots of water, cutting down on my caffeine and getting lots of rest. Keep your fingers crossed that it stays that way. The summer heat tends to do a number on my vertigo.

Pitty Pat can not wait for summer to start! Only 5 more days!!!
Tootles!
JKP

I'm Ok, You're Ok

Hey Y'all!

I just wanted to let y'all know I am ok. I got hit with the dizzies a little while ago, but I am doing much better. This last attack has not been as bad, but it has left me EXHAUSTED. We have had some major DRAMA going on at school AND my Friendship Bread starter has taken over my life! But all in all, I am good and Pitty Pat is doing a great job of taking care of me. I only have 14 and 1/2 days left of school. I also have a big wedding this weekend for one of my oldest friends. I'll be back in just a bit, I promise!!
Tootles,
JKP