Happy Independence Day

I hope all of you are having a lovely day! The hubster and I are both off of work, and besides doing a little gardening earlier this morning, our plan is to do absolutely nothing today...how exciting! :D

We celebrated last night with the neighbors and had a barbeque and set off fireworks. I brought this dessert, and it was gone by the time we left so it must have been good!

I was inspired by this dish on the Food Network, but instead of the recipe for filling I used a recipe I knew for a no bake cream cheese. To make the filling I used

• 16 oz cream cheese
• 8 oz sour cream
• 8 oz cool whip
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp imitation vanilla extract

1. Mix together room temperature cream cheese, sour cream, and sugar until well blended.
   
2. Stir in cool whip and vanilla extract.

For the dish I used 35 mini phyllo dough shells, 30 blueberries, and sliced strawberries.

1. Slice the strawberries, then cut the slices in half and let them sit in with some sugar to make them sweet and juicy.
   
2. Fill the shells with about a teaspoon of the no bake cheesecake, and smooth the top out so it's flat (I used the back of my spoon).
3. Line a 9x13 glass cooking dish (or any other holder) with shells 5 x 7.
   
4. Place blueberries in the top left quarter of the dish for the stars, and place the strawberries in the bottom (or top) of the rest of the shells.
5. Enjoy!

Have a fun and safe holiday! Are you doing anything, or enjoying a nice relaxing day like us?

Surprise Party!

Yesterday I mentioned celebrating the hubsters birthday (which is tomorrow!). Well, I had a surprise golf theme party for him! He was expecting a meal I was making for just the two of us, and thanks to the help of some tricky neighbors he got a party!

party spread

28th hole(how old he is - choc.covered oreos

Arnold Palmer (sweet tea, lemonade, firefly vodka) & Sweet "Tee"

Practice Your "Chipping" (chips, salsa, & queso)

Sand Trap- cupcakes with crushed butterfinger cookies

Hole Markers - choc covered pretzels ~ in the back are Tiger (Woods) Prawns

Water Hazard - blue jello and coconut rum

Bucket of (Meat) Balls - see bottom of post for recipe

His "I'm surprised" smile, and my "OMG I only had one hour to lay all this out and make most of the food" smile. It was fantastic and we had a great time!

Now for the easiest meatball recipe, and everyone seemed to really like them!
1 can Smuckers Grape Jelly
1 can Hormel No Bean Chili
Frozen Bag of Mini-Meatballs (mine was a 60 count bag)

Turn crockpot on high and dump in jelly and chili, stirring occasionally, until the grape jelly and chili kind of dissolve into each other. Dump in the meatballs and cook on high for 2 hours, and low heat for 1, then they're done and delicious!

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