If you're looking for a recipe with actual Oreo cookies in them, this isn't it.  But worth a look, I promise! While others are having their Friday night pizza nights, our house is indulging in Friday night pancake night!  Oh yeah!   It all began when my youngest daughter proclaimed that she didn't like pizza.  The rest of the family was a little let down by this, but what came out of that let down was a wonderful family tradition that we've indulged in for the past 3 years. My kids LOVE and look forward to pancake night!!  And I'm not talking about plain ol' pancakes.  Now, don't get me wrong!  We love plain ol' pancakes and do eat them on occasion, but I've made it a quest to seek out fun pancake recipes. Some of those include pumpkin chocolate chip, chocolate chip cookie dough, apple pie pancakes, Kaiserschmarrn (Austrian pancakes), carrot cake, peanut butter chocolate chip, cake batter pancakes, cinnamon streusel and well, you get the picture!  If you're wanting any of these recipes, most of them you'll find pinned on my Pinterest board titled: Pancake Night. Being that it's Autumn, I was seeking out new Autumn inspired pancake recipes when I stumbled upon Oreo Pancakes and I was diverted from Autumn inspiration!  The recipe though wasn't exactly what I was looking for, so I kept on searching.  I decided to adapt my own version from 2 different recipes.  One being this chocolate pancake cake.  My son and I had a little pancake taste test and I knew we were on to something when he thought I was a genius for making these!  Thanks, my little guy! Then, in looking for the cream all the recipes I saw weren't anything close to the actual cream of an Oreo.  I then decided to find a copycat Oreo cookie recipes and decided to use that to give it that true Oreo taste!  It did not disappoint! 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened  1/4 cup vegetable shortening 2 cups confectioner’s sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract To make it thinner you can add splashes of milk until it's to your desired consistency. My pancakes aren't perfect looking in any way, but the taste is what counts. These will give you a sugar high!  After trying them I decided that reducing the sugar in the pancakes might be a good idea if you're going to add the cream.  Or if you just want a really awesome chocolate pancake than these might just be for you!! Let me know if you give these a try!

I truly wish we could have been in the UK for the Diamond Jubilee celebration.

I was telling the kids about it and mentioned that we should have our own Diamond Jubilee party and Reegan proclaimed with an astounding "YES!"

I was looking online to find out how this American girl could throw her family a little Diamond Jubilee party and was so pleasantly surprised by what I found.  I was hoping to find some kind of free bunting and was ecstatic when I came across iChild.  Not only did I find bunting, I also found free printable flags, a hat and crown, place name cards and more!!

























For dinner we ate bangers and mash (if you're not familiar with that term it means sausage and potatoes).
So we really didn't have mashed potatoes.  We did fried potatoes instead and used Nurnbergers, my fave, for our sausages.  I found a recipe that included an onion gravy and it was incredible!!


Hopefully the queen would be pleased with our attempt to join in the festivities of this monumental occasion!

 A famous German rostbratwürst, or as we know it, sausage, from the town of Nürnburg, Germany.
 My little man who is going to turn into a Nürnberger, he loves these things so much!
I have never been a big sausage link fan.  They always smell good, but the taste never appeals to me.  I'm a big bacon eater!  But, I'm always curious to try them thinking I'll like them "this time." 
Soon after arriving in Vienna, we had a brunch with our team and some Nürnbergers were brought.
I took a bite and fell in love!  Ok, a little over dramatic, but it was definitely good!  I couldn't believe I liked them!
I keep thinking they are going to lose their appeal.  So far, they haven't.  And they show up for breakfast about 2-3 times a week!! 
In reading through the link above,  I learned that Nürnbergers are protected by EU law!  Which means the Nürnberger can only be produced in the city of Nürnberg.  Interesting!

So come on over and we'll be sure to serve you up some Nürnbergers.

Paella is a traditional Spanish rice dish.  There are SO many variations out there for paella (pronounced pi-ay-ya).  The great thing I learned.....it's a very versatile dish.  I actually had to do a bit of improvising and you know what? It still turned out great!  You can change up the meat & vegetables easily.  Change out the meats to your liking, add all seafood, or make a vegetarian version adding white beans and carrots to the recipe.

I used my friend and colleague, Mara's recipe as a starting point.  I thought when I had checked the recipe a few days ago that I had most of the ingredients on hand.  Oops! I had the basic ingredients, the spices, the rice & chicken, so I started from there. 

The most traditional way to cook this is with a paella pan.  I have a medium sized paella pan that I recently bought and cooked it on 2 burners.  This could easily be cooked in a large frying pan as well or possibly even a wok.
This was the first time I had used my pan, so I did a little seasoning by boiling some water in it first.

What Tina Came Up With Paella

1 lb chicken breasts, cut up
2 cups of frozen or fresh shrimp (just make sure it's good quality!)
1 cup of chopped fresh green beans
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 small can of green peas
1 or 2 garlic cloves, sliced
1 green or red pepper (or a bit of both), sliced longways
2 cups of rice (1/2 per person)
4 cups of water (possibly more for when it cooks down)
olive oil
saffron (or a paella spice mix)
salt to taste
Lemon wedges (optional)


You may need to add more water before rice is added.  You don't want it to get dry.  Cook for about 20 minutes, until rice is done.  Let it "rest" for a few minutes before serving.  To make it pretty, the vegetables and meats can be arranged in a design in the pan like the picture on Mara's blog.  I didn't bother with that step since it was just Jerry & I eating it.
Squeeze some lemon over the rice if you like (I prefer not to).

This made about 4-6 servings.

Don't hesitate to ask if you have questions and let me know if you try it!!  Enjoy!

I'm linking up with Kelly again and we are sharing desserts. Welcome to any who are here for the first time. 

I LOVE to bake, but I haven't been doing as much of it lately.  Our lives are a bit crazy right now.

I had to share a favorite.  Some may think this is more of a Fall dessert, but I really like it any time of the year.



If you'd like to see a picture (unfortunately I have not blogged about this one), you can check out Joy of Baking.  She's got a beautiful picture there!

Let me know if you decide to try it!

Last week I mentioned our weekend visitor, Moli.  But I forgot to explain who he is and why he was visiting for the weekend.  In the Fall I wrote about Karis' weekend visitor, Aris, a mascot (for lack of a better word) for her class.  Moli is the mascot for Brennan & Reegan's class. 
Reegan had her turn with Moli last weekend and this weekend was Brennan's turn.
After school on Friday we went to the park by our house.
My kids would love to go after school every day and some moms take their kids every day.  I just can't do that.  I have too many other things to do. 

Saturday we had a picnic with some colleagues and the students from the Baptist seminary.  It was a beautiful day!
I was asked to bring a potato salad and decided on one of my favorites.  Salad Olviet, a Russian potato salad.
On Sunday we headed to church where Brennan forgot Moli in the car, oops!  But we remembered him
for eats at Taco Bell, our Sunday after church meal!
Fun times in the Barnwell household!

And if you were waiting for it, here's the Salad Oliviet recipe.  Some of the ingredients may sound strange, but trust me, it's good!

In a large bowl, combine the chicken, potato, carrot, peas, apple, pickle, eggs, and dill.
Mix thoroughly and season with salt and pepper.
To prepare the dressing, combine all the ingredients in a small bowl, and mix thoroughly.
Add the dressing to the salad and toss gently, careful not to mash the ingredients.  If it looks a bit dry, just make up another batch of the dressing.

I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner and we're sharing main dish recipes.  I kind of threw this post together, so I don't have photos.  But, I've got three recipes to share!

First is a recipe I found at Our Best Bites for Crispy Coconut Chicken Fingers with Pineapple Dipping Sauce.  I even entered it into my bloggy friend, Jenn's recipe giveaway and won!  You can take a look at her site to see a great step by step process with pictures!!
Here's the recipe:

It's fun to learn new things in a different culture.  I was waiting for my kids to get out of school when a mom, who I've had coffee with a few times, of one of the boys in Brennan & Reegan's class handed me a packet.
I've now been introduced to Torrijas.  A traditional pastry eaten during the Lent season.  I couldn't wait to give it a try and do a little research.

Torrijas are similar to French Toast.  Bread, milk, egg, vanilla, cinnamon.  The only difference is they are deep fried in olive oil, which does give it a slightly different flavor and a bit more oily.  But they are good!  I plan to make them myself sometime!
 Do you like trying new foods?

This has quickly become one of my favorite snacks.  Apples with dulce de leche.


Are you familiar with dulce de leche?  It is a type of caramel made from cooking down sweetened condensed milk.  I have to agree with Joy the Baker that it is perfectly acceptable to bathe in.  It's that good!  Yum!

My kids are hooked on it too!

Some people make their own dulce de leche by boiling an un-open can of sweetened condensed milk in water.  I've never been brave enough to do it myself!  I'm so glad I can buy it in the little squeezy bottle at the store!

You should be able to find it in the US at specialty stores like Whole Food are Central Market.  Or if you're brave, do some Googling and make it at home!  Let me know if you try making it or have tried it!

You may learn, if you haven't noticed already, that I am not a mom that is always on top of things or with it.  I tend to do thing a tad late, but hey, at least I do it eventually.  Ok, not always.  Like the Thanksgiving project I've been meaning to do for the last 2 Thanksgiving without it getting done YET!  Well, that's another story.  But we are talking about Lovebug Cookies today that I had planned to do over the weekend that instead was replaced by a large Tex-Mex feast, which was good, by the way (I'll mention that a little more at the end of this post).

I was exhausted on Monday (by the Tex-Mex feast and good company), so the Lovebug cookies were put off until Tuesday.  We got them cut out and baked. (I used a recipe from Bake at 350).  The kids helped me a bit with the cutting out.


What do you tend to do with the left over bit of cookie dough that is too small to role out?  Do you eat it? Throw it away?  Stick it on the baking sheet to cook up as a blob to eat as a "casualty cookie?"  What is a casualty cookie??  The ugly and broken ones, of course!  You know casualty cookies have no calories, right?!  At least that's what a friend and I choose to believe!  Ha!
Well, maybe ALL of you have been doing this for a long time and I finally got smart and figured it out. I came up with this little trick to take that small, last little bit of dough and press it down into the cookie cutter, like this!