{February Foodfest} Recipes with a South Carolina flair

For our first anniversary back in 2007, Taylor and I had a weekend away in Charleston, SC.  Thanks to his parents, we stayed at the amazing Two Meeting Street Inn.

How cute is Taylor in this picture?  Love him.

It was all you could dream of when thinking vacation to Charleston and we had a great time - especially eating!  I came away from there with two dynamite recipes that I wanted to share (one being the reason for Monday's inevitable run to Tesco).  (I have to say that I was able to avoid it today - I texted Taylor instead - blessed husband to the rescue).

We would eat our breakfast on the wrap-around porch each morning.  It was divine - the atmosphere and the food!

This first recipe was my favorite thing they served for breakfast.  And I have to say, I can be difficult to please when it comes to breakfast.  I basically stick with oatmeal or pancakes because I am obsessed with carbs am very particular about how I will eat eggs - no cooked yolk thank you very much - which rules out everything, but fried over-easy and that's not fancy enough for Charleston.

Sausage Wellington
serves 24 (great for freezing!)

3 lbs sausage
2 T onion, grated
1/2 t sage
16 oz cream cheese
1 c shredded cheddar
1 can sliced mushrooms, pureed
3 pkg puff pastry sheets, thawed
2 pkg Hollandaise sauce mix
1 c butter
2 c milk
dash of Tabasco
18 slices tomato

1. Brown sausage, add onions, and sage.  Drain fat.  Add cream cheese and mix well.  Add cheddar.
2. Cut each pastry sheet into quarters. Put 1 heaping T of sausage mixture in the center of each square and fold pastry over to form a triangle; seal edges with fork.
3.  Bake pastries for 30 minutes at 400 degrees F.
4. While pastries are baking, in a saucepan, mix Hollandaise sauce mix, butter, milk and tabasco until sauce is thickened.  Pour over cooked pastry.

So yeah, my recipe doesn't say what to do with the mushrooms or tomato.  My guess is that the idea of pureed canned mushrooms grossed me out, so I left them out, and I think the tomato is supposed to be a garnish.  Be creative!:)



When we lived in Charlotte,  my cheerleaders, would beg me to make this second recipe each week for our Bible study lunch meetings.  They are a fun take off of brownies or blondies (the recipe not my cheerleaders).  Oooh, I could really go for a blondie right now actually - please comment with a good recipe if you have one!

Orange Brownies 

From Pillsbury Bake-Off

1 1/2 c flour
2 c sugar
1 t salt
1 c butter, softened
4 eggs
2 t pure orange extract
1 t grated orange zest

Glaze:
1 c powdered sugar
2 T OJ
1 t grated orange zest

Grease a 13x9x2 in pan and reserve.  In a mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, and salt.  Add buter, eggs, extract, and zest, and beat with an electric mixer till well blended.  Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, or till light golden brown and set.  Remove from oven and pierce top of entire cake with fork.  (I actually used a toothpick instead because the fork was pulling up the cake too much).

Glaze:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl.  Stir till smooth.  Pour over hot cake.  Cool cake and cut into small squares.

These are yummy garnished with a single raspberry on each square.  I would take a picture of mine, but they are devoid of raspberries because it's the end of the month though if you've been reading along this month, apparently it wouldn't matter if it was the beginning of the month either!  Plus, I used a pan that was too small, so they came out too tall and thick - more like cake.  Tasted great, but legit Orange Brownies are thin.  I wouldn't want to steer you wrong.

Our first anniversary

This was definitely during that phase of I am a newlywed, so I must chop my hair.  Bad idea jeans, Robin.

As you can see in older posts, I haven't succumbed to that during the fairly new-ish stage of motherhood, maybe because Seth isn't a hair-puller.  Pray that Baby Girl is the same because, wow, that Mom cut doesn't look good on me!

Embracing the Camera (back in 2007) with Emily...