Grandmas Famous French Dip Sandwiches

One thing you need to know about my Grandma Helen or Grandma U as I have so lovingly called her my entire life is she is an amazing and natural chef and cooking for her family is her love language. She is so joyful when she is bringing everyone together over a home cooked meal. Special Occasions were no exception. If you have ever been to a birthday celebration or special occasion at her house then you know they often feature one dish in particular, her french dip sandwiches. She always makes them for these occasions because everyone goes nuts over them. My husband was no exception to this rule, after the first time he had them he was hooked just like everyone else.

Well when it was coming close to Evans birthday I thought it would be nice to have his parents over for a family birthday dinner. He loved the idea and we got to work thinking of what kind of dinner he would like me to make for him. Then it suddenly hit me what it needed to be, the French Dip. So I called my Grandma up and asked her for that recipe right away. After it was all said and done I was so pleased with how it came out, it actually was simple to make just time consuming and the taste was as close to Grandmas as I could've hoped for. I'm so excited to know how to make one of her famous dishes myself for family dinners out here in Texas and hope to slowly learn several of her other dishes as well.

Now onto the recipe....

What you Need:

• Rump Roast 
• 2 Onions
• 4 Cans of Beef Consume 
• Sourdough Bread 

• Electric Knife 
• Roasting pan with lid 

What to do: 
1. Preheat the Oven to 350, slice onions

2. Place meat on roaster in pan with 1/2C of water, season with salt and pepper, cover meat with onions

3. Cook in the oven for 2- 2.5 hours
4. Remove from oven and let sit for 15 minutes, then slice with electric knife

5. In the pan add in the 4 cans of consume and 2 cups of water, mix

6. Place sliced meat back in the pan with mixture
7. Return to the oven and cook for an additional 45 minutes
8. Place meat on sourdough bread and use sauce mixture from pan for dipping, enjoy!

Spiraled Sweet Potato with Chicken and Balsalmic Roasted Tomatoes

This little dish is something I randomly through together the first time and have been a huge fan ever since. A few months back I bought a spiralizer and was looking for some new recipes to make with it and here we are.

What you Need- 4 servings:

• Pre- Cooked Chicken Breast (I bake mine for this)
• 3-4 Sweet potatoes
• Cherry tomatoes cut in half
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Seasoning
• Goat Cheese for garnish

What to Do:

Peel your sweet potatoes and spiral them on the largest option, set aside

In a pot, heat some olive oil and throw in cut tomatoes to roast, once they are soft, add in a splash of balsamic and let them caramelize for a minute, remove and set aside

In a large pot or pan, heat up olive oil and garlic, add in your spiraled sweet potatoes, season to your tastes,  toss until they reach desired softness. I cover to allow the steam to cook them more thoroughly 

 

Once everything in cooked plate sweet potatoes and top with chicken, tomatoes and goat cheese, enjoy

This is really easy and healthy meal, especially if you already have some baked chicken on hand! I wanted this post up much sooner but I updated my Mac and could no longer upload pictures to the blog they way I always have so I had to figure that out, I think I've got it now so back to regular posting. 

Stay Tuned!

My Wedding Planning Tips

 

When an old friend asks you to write up a particular blog post you can not say no, so that is why today I am coming at you with my tips for successful and low stress wedding planning. Of course these are the things that I think helped us the most, others may disagree but I think a lot of this is pretty straight forward.

My husband Evan and I planned the whole wedding ourselves for the most part, we did not have a hired wedding planner and our parents helped on certain projects but it was hard for them to do much since we were in different places. Overall it was a lot for us at times to plan a wedding while in a different state and working full time but we made it work and did our best to keep stress down. Now that it is all said and done it was more than worth it, we had the most wonderful day.

#1- Know your budget:

I made this number one because I think you cant really do any planning until you know what you are working with. I think a wedding can be beautiful at any budget and there are lots of creative ways to save money but in order to do the big steps like pick a venue you first have to know your overall budget. So sit down with your fiancé and discuss what you feel comfortable with. In addition to deciding on your actual budget it is really important to agree on the guest count early on because that is going to be what effects the budget the most.

#2- Pick What is Most Important to You

I think this is the big one!! I also think this goes hand in hand with your budget and how you are going to spend your money. Again sit down with your fiancé and make a list of what your most important items and which things aren't as important to you. For us our important items were: We wanted the ceremony and reception to be at the same location, preferably ceremony outside and good photography so we were willing to splurge on those items and cut back in other areas. For us linens, chairs, favors and invitations weren't as important to us so we cut back in those areas (and I bet no one would've guessed) there were also several items that we found ways to save money on so that it could be spent on our more important items.When you complete your budget allocate the majority of the money to those items you feel are most important and the rest will fall into place.

#3- Tackle One Big Item at a Time

This was the one thing that kept our stress level down and was easy for us since we had such a long period of time to plan from the time we got engaged to our wedding day was almost a year and a half. This may not work as well for some, especially if you are planning on a shorter timeline. How we did this was by using a wedding timeline and making our own lists and completing one big item at a time so we weren't juggling too many things at once. We started with the venue , which gave us our date and once that was picked we moved on to booking our photographer. We slowly worked down the list booking vendors one by one until we were done. We actually had all of our major vendors booked over a year out which kept things low stress.

#4- Let Some of Your Vision Adapt

What the heck does that mean Emily? What that means if you are like most and are coming into wedding planning with a Pinterest board full of ideas you want your wedding to look like then you will likely have to adapt some of that as you realize the costs of things, what's available in your area, what works with your actual venue, etc. In all honestly we adapted parts of our vision more times then I can count through the process, even just in small ways. The one we laugh about the most is how much we thought we "needed" the gold chavari chairs you see in all the pictures to make the reception beautiful, then you find out it will cost you $1000+ for CHAIRS and you realize that is something you can clearly live without and no I don't think anyone missed them lol. This again goes hand in hand with your budget, as expenses start to add up you may find yourself feeling ok about eliminating things you thought you couldn't go without in the beginning, this happened to us alot.

#5- Only DIY if you Like it

This is just a funny bonus tip. Most people know I did a lot of small DIYs for our wedding. However I did this because I really enjoyed the projects, I love an excuse to craft and I love handmade touches at weddings so I knew I would be adding some DIY touches for sure. However a lot of people think they should do it save money, while you definitely can save money on certain items that's not true of all. If you don't like crafting then I wouldn't suggest it, just more stress for you. Also if you are trying to save money and you end up having to start projects over that's probably costing you more in the end. For us there was only one DIY project flop that just didn't work out and we cut it out, other than pretty much everything I worked on we used.

A couple of the projects were the wedding signs: Here and Here

p.s. we clearly have not gotten our professional wedding photos so thank you to all our guests who snapped these included in the post

Wedding Choose a Seat and Welcome Signs

I went back and forth during wedding planning on weather or not I should share projects as I finished them or not and ultimately decided I didn't want to give away too much ahead of time for those who would be attending the wedding. So I wrote out several of these posts on DIY crafts back when I finished them and am ready to share now while we wait for our professional wedding photos.

After finishing up the Chair Signs I knew right away what my next wedding craft would be. I knew there we several signs I wanted to make for the big day, I personally love those personal touches at weddings and I think making them myself just makes them even better. I started first with the Choose a Seat not a Side sign then moved onto the Welcome sign.

"Choose a Seat Not a Side"

First let me say I knew I wanted this sign from early on, I have always liked this wedding trend, encouraging friends and family of both the bride and groom to sit together not on separate sides. So I was excited to make this one really early on.

I started with the a very similar process as the one I used on the chair signs. Here is the process I used to make the sign:

1. Spray painted the frame of the chalkboard gold, I used this chalkboard from Hobby Lobby that I got when they were 50% off for about $7-8

2. Printed out the wording and determined placement on the board

3. Went over the back of the word print outs with a coat of chalk

4. Taped them to board in proper placement

5. Trace over letters with pencil, remove paper and you will be left with a faint chalk outline of your words

6. And finally trace over the chalk with a chalk marker, I used this one. Using a chalk marker gives you much cleaner lines, makes the font bolder and adds staying power.

 7. Cleaned up any dust with a dry cloth and then cleaned up any remaining smudges around the letters with a wet Qtip

I know this seems like a lot of steps but it really doesn't take that long and the extra precision is worth it for signs being used for a big event like a wedding.

"Welcome Sign"

 This was another sign I just thought would be nice as guests enter the reception. I followed the same steps as above to complete this board as well.

Now that the wedding has passed I can say I got more compliments then I could have imagined on these signs and homemade touches. Everyone clearly noticed we put in the extra effort on personal touches and they loved them.

Kauai Honeymoon Part 4

Catch up on Part 1 Here, Part 2 Here, and Part 3 Here

In case you were wondering yes this is the final part to our Honeymoon adventures. Our final full day in Kauai we decided to take a dinner cruise to the Na Pali Coast, something everyone insisted you had to see while in Kauai.

So the day started out slow we got breakfast and spent the morning at the pool relaxing before getting ready for the cruise. Now I am not going to sugar coat this, the cruise was awful for me I didn't enjoy it at all since I was sea sick almost the entire time. I didn't even really get to see and take in all the sights the cruise offered, the waves were huge and scary and there was several moments where I couldn't believe they took this large group of people out on them. However Evan took some amazing pictures so I figured I would still share.

 See that rainbow?? So cool

*** Disclaimer, like I said I was sick for almost this entire cruise and I certainly wasn't the only one I would say about 80% of the people on the ship were as well so I cant say that I would ever recommend this excursion to others.

The day after the cruise was our final day in Kauai and we left that evening so we spent in by the beach soaking in our final moments of sunshine and vacation time. We took the evening flight out and landed back in Dallas the next morning. This actually worked out well because we slept for almost the whole flight and before we knew it we were back home. The travel seemed much shorter on the way back since we spent most of it asleep. Since we landed in the morning we were really tired that day and used it to catch up on stuff and rest before going back to work.

I hope you all enjoyed all the pictures from Kauai, we hope to edit the video soon and share it as well!

Stay tuned for more wedding and non wedding posts coming up soon!

Kauai Honeymoon Part 3

Catch up on Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here

The day after our waterfall excursions we had plans to go to explore during the day and go to a local Luau that night, and that's exactly what we did. First we set out to check off one of the items on my must list, get a real hawaii acai bowl. We found a cute local shop and got some of the best bowls I have ever had. In Hawaii they tend to use bee pollen instead of honey which makes them extra tastey.

After our belly's were fully we headed to check out Waimea canyon. Which was absolutely beautiful but the drive was no fun, super long and windy which I didn't enjoy. We went up to the lookout and walked around for a bit then stopped at several scenic lookouts on the way down as well. So many pretty things to see in the area we were not disappointed.

After the canyon we headed back to the hotel to rest a bit and get ready before the Luau. We knew before the trip that a real Hawaiian Luau was high on our list of things to do and got lots of recommendations that the Smiths Family Luau was the best and most authentic on the island so we went with that one.  We absolutely loved it! We got to the huge plantation where the Luau would be held and we escorted to a small open air train that gave us a tour of the property. We were dropped back off to explore until the ceremony began. Then it was dinner time, the food was amazing, a full buffet of island favorites. We were more than stuffed by the time they came back and said we were free to get seconds, we could hardly believe it. After dinner we headed over to the amphitheater and took our seats for the show. The show consisted of dances from several different heritages and all the dancers were incredible.

 The entire Luau experience was one of our favorites and were glad we can say that we have seen an authentic one at least once, I would recommend it to anyone who visits the island.

The 4th and final part of the honeymoon blog posts coming tomorrow, stay tuned!

Kauai Honeymoon Part 2- Kayaking Wailua River and Hiking Secret Falls

Catch up on Part 1 of our Kauai Honeymoon Here

In my last post I mentioned that the day we were supposed to go on our waterfall excursion was cancelled due to rain. They rescheduled us for the next day and we hoped and prayed the weather would cooperate since we were so excited to do this trip. Well in the end the weather was on our side the next day and we set out on what ended up being our favorite part of the trip. For this excursion you kayak two miles down the Wailua River, then hike a mile or mile and a half up to Secret Falls waterfall.

Coolest experience ever, the entire thing was of course beautiful but also lots of fun. We started our kayak down the river in our double kayak and took in the view.

About two miles later we made it to our end destination, the river bank near the trailhead. We tied up our boats, had a couple snacks and some water and took off on the trail. The trail lead us up the side on a hill and along the side of a stream. Due to the heavy rain from the day prior that cancelled our tour the path was quite muddy and slippery so you had to be careful but we still really enjoyed the hike.

Soon enough we could hear the waterfall and we were so excited, being at the bottom of the waterfall was such a cool experience, but nothing was cooler than actually swimming in the waterfall pool right below the falls. Again due to the rain the day before the waterfall was extra powerful, which was great since it was actually almost dry a few weeks earlier. 

 

Like I said this was pretty much our favorite part of the whole trip and we would highly highly recommend it to anyone who was thinking about it. There is no other way to get to this waterfall other than through the river and a hike so it is a really cool experience, all the other waterfalls we saw on the island we had to view from pretty far away from a lookout or parking lot.

Stay tuned for Part 3 early next week!! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!