famous hashbrown casserrole

First of all, I can't believe I have not posted this recipe on this blog yet.  It is on my other food blog, The Wooden Spoon, if that counts for anything.  But, still, it needs to make an appearance here, cause it's just that good if I do say so myself  :)  One of my oldest college friends is coming into town today for a much needed girls weekend, and I want to cook this for breakfast Saturday morning. I will post more on the weekend fun later, but this post is all about some hashbrown casserole.  It is probably one of my most frequent go-to recipes. I loooove this recipe cause I will pretty much devour the entire casserole in just a few days. I end up eating it breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or just as a quick snack. Yumm! And, it's one of those dishes that actually tastes a little better (in my opinion) as a leftover, cause it thickens up a little once it's had a chance to sit in the fridge for a bit.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cans condensed cream of chicken (or cream of mushroom) soup- sometimes I'll even do one of each
• 1 1/2 cups (12 oz) sour cream
• 4 Tbsp butter (divided in half, and softened) - you will use 2 Tbsp here and 2 Tbsp there
• 1 (2lb) package frozen shredded hashbrowns, thawed
• 8 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• 2 cups corn flakes cereal
• black pepper
• garlic salt
• onion powder

DIRECTIONS:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch casserole dish.
• In a large bowl mix the soup, sour cream, 2 Tbsp butter, and hashbrowns. Sprinkle in some black pepper, garlic salt, and onion powder to the mixture (it's really all just a matter of personal preference, but I have found that more is usually better!)
• Stir in 3/4 of the cheese. Pour the mixture into the dish and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top, as well as enough corn flakes to thinly cover the top. Then pour 2 Tbsp melted butter over the cornflakes.
• Bake for 45mins-1 hour until cheese is melted and bubbly. I have made this many many times, and sometimes it takes even longer than an hour to cook, but I have found that it's very hard to ruin this dish. Unless you just flat out forget about it for 2 hours, I'm pretty sure you can't over cook this. It may still be a tiny bit soupy when you remove it from the oven, but like I said, as it cools (either sitting out on the counter or in the fridge), it will thicken up.

Enjoy!

Prom and pre-engagement photo sessions

Pre-engagement photos? Does that sound silly?  Well, although we haven't had an engagement session yet, I wanted to get some good pics of Greg and me to use on Save-the-Dates.  Even though we haven't picked out any Save-the-Dates yet, I didn't want to be limited to only non-photo options. So, on Friday night we were all going to be at the Botanical Gardens taking pics for Emily's senior prom group shots.  I figured while we were down there, I'd get Katie to do a little mini session with me and Greg so we'd have a few options when it came time to pick out our save-the-dates.  It helped that Katie and Chuck have already done their engagement session, cause they had a lot of ideas and poses to work with from their experiences.  Katie did an amazing job! And Chuck was such a trooper helping carry props and throwing out ideas.  Greg was a trooper too  :)

But first things first. Emily is a senior this year, and so it's the last high-school prom for the Graves family. *Tear*  Her and her boyfriend looked so beautiful and handsome together.  Seriously, all of a sudden Emily went from being the little sister to a gorgeous young lady.  I love her to pieces!  Here's some shots from the prom pictures.

And here's my other sis. The photographer in training :)

And here's some of her beautiful work...

Can you tell we like working with this open frame :)

Calendar project

I'm one of those girls who can't function without a calendar. If I don't write something down, I'm likely to forget it.  This year I bought a calendar from a photographer on Etsy.  Her shop is called "The Light Fantastic."  The one I bought had a photograph for each month with a little calendar on the bottom, and they were each on a 5x7 card.  (Obviously, as you can see, this calendar is purely for looks, not function. I have a different calendar on the fridge for all my writing/appointments).  So I've been trying to come up with a way to hang this calendar.  I wanted a way to display all 12 months at one time.  I considered framing each one, but 12 frames took up way too much space. Then I thought about pinning them into a corkboard, but again, that took up way to much room.  Then while I was at Hobby Lobby I decided to get some ribbon and try to hang each month from it, sorta like a clothesline.  I think it turned out great! Oh, and by the way. That card framed in the shadow box is the "birthday" card Greg gave me during his proposal. For Valentine's Day he had it framed for me. I love it!

I used pushpins on each end of the ribbon to secure it to the wall, and one in the middle of each strand to prevent it from sagging too much.  Then I clipped each month to the ribbon with cute colorful office clips.  Then I bought faux single-stemmed daisies and clipped the stems off. I then safety pinned the flowers to the ends of the ribbon.  Done!

And of course, my favorite month this year! ;)

Also, I got my Easter decor out the other day along with other spring-y items.  Out with the burnt oranges and reds of winter and in with ivory, pinks and yellows.