Happy Sweethearts day

Hope everyone had a nice day today with their family or friends. We kept our day low key. Hubby and I decided after our first daughter was born we would celebrate the day as a family instead of a couple. (I just feel it's one of those made up holidays that seem to prey on the single people. Or put undue pressure on married couples. Who needs that pressure??) We always tried to make the kids feel just as special on this day and teach them they don't have to be a couple to enjoy the day. We I cook a nice dinner at home and buy the kids trinkets( Gifts. I have always called it that. Not sure why.)

 Today I tried a different recipe. This morning a put a chicken roaster in one crock pot and cheesy potatoes in another crock pot. While half of dinner was cooking Bubby and I ran out to get some last minute trinkets that I forgot last week. I treated myself to a frappe on the way home. And some fries. It smelled so good coming home to the chicken cooking. Yum! We delivered the Valentines that Bubby made for the neighborhood kids. We actually made a Valentine with a bag of treats for our good friend's dog. Bubby isn't in school and doesn't get a chance to hand out Valentines to other kids. He had a ball. He was practically running to the houses. I'm actually not sure if schools do Valentine cards/parties anymore. I know they stopped doing Halloween parties and parades. We came home and ate our lunch. Hubby came home early and spent most of the afternoon with us. Cheerleader had school and then went over to her boyfriend's house. Foo had work right after school. We only had two kids for dinner. The chicken was extremely tender. It just fell off the bone and melted in your mouth. The cheesy potatoes are no fail recipe. A veggie mix and corn followed by cornbread made up the meal tonight. Dessert. Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. I think I gained 10 pounds tonight. I highly recommend doing a crock pot meal for special dinners. No pressure around 5 o'clock trying to get everything done. I think this is the first dinner I could relax. Trust me when I say that doesn't happen to often.

Happy Valentine's day!

Leftover Stromboli

I thought with the holiday season in full swing I would share a really easy recipe with you. I had seen this recipe on line before and a few weeks ago I decided to make it. My kids and Hubby loved it. I call it leftovers your family will actually eat. You can basically clean out your fridge with this one. I decided to make a pepperoni Stromboli. The first thing to do is put foil in a baking sheet and spray it with Pam or any non stick cooking spray.

I used French bread for my crust. It might be the one ingredient you will have to buy. We hardly ever have any of this left over. Take the French bread out of the tube and unroll it. Stretch the dough so it fits the whole pan.

Fill in any umm..holes. I confess I had a heck of a time not tearing the dough. HA! Next step fill it with whatever you want. Since I was doing a pepperoni Stromboli my next step was sauce. In our house we always have left over sauce in the fridge.

I then layered shredded cheese. We eat an insane amount of cheese.

I followed the cheese with Pepperoni. I grew up in an Italian family,can you tell? HA!

This is what it looks like put together.

Now start jelly rolling one end until it reaches other end and fold side ends under roll.

I brushed mine with melted butter and sprinkled it with this. Bake at 400. 20-25 minutes. I would check it after 20 minutes. That's it. I told you it was easy.  I made it a second time and omitted the sauce. Pepperoni bread. You could do lunch meat and cheese in one. Maybe a taco themed one. You are only limited by your imagination.
Enjoy......
P.S. Does anyone happen to have a really good Red Velvet cake recipe? I'm looking for a southern based one.