Beautiful foods to try

Julia Child’s Sole Menuiere

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Good Friday Morning,

I am ready for the weekend. I have not slept well this week. I have been getting to bed two hours past my bedtime! It is catching up with me because I am tired! I am also “itching” to take a day off. I really want to take a day and go look at some beautiful expensive luxury items. I don’t want to buy anything just look. I am trying to plan that day now. 

I also wanted to tell everyone that the accessories sale for the boutique has begun. Everything is 20% off and you don’t need a coupon code. Even the Stella Bow Satchel is 20% off. I only have one ivory and pearl cardigan left and only one Claire midi dress if anyone is interested. I am starting to look at a few items for fall. There are some cardigans that I want to order for the boutique as well as some holiday dresses so we will see. 

Well on to today’s post. I have been craving my dill, lemon, and butter salmon all week and that got me thing about the sole meuniere recipe from Julia Child. Have any of you ever cooked that? I would love to try it. 

 

photo credit: Pinterest

 

I especially love this video from the movie Julie & Julia. 

 

 

I feel like I am eating this with her every time I watch it. My goodness, food should always make you feel this way. We recently went to Culvers for dinner. Now there is nothing wrong with Culvers but after I finished my meal I had this feeling of not being satisfied. And that’s when I knew that I wanted to eat to satiate my palate not eat for the sake of eating. 

Has this ever happen to you before? You ate something and it did not hit the spot? I have been having those feelings more and more lately. I am trying to learn to say no to a meal that I know will not satiate my palate and it is so hard because I have a 16-year-old and my husband eats like a 12-year-old. Wish me luck everyone. I am going to need it!

Have a great weekend!

 

 

Easter Evening at Home

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Morning!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend! I did! The weather was superb and I did some shopping for the home. On Saturday I went to the grocery to get the rest of my items for Easter, took my car to the car wash, and then headed to HomeGoods. I found some wonderful items there for my yard!

 

photo credit: Mrs. Shockley

 

This is a snapshot of my cart! I had some faux flowers, a basket for organizing, a swan for my yard (whom I have named Charlotte), and a gorgeous watering can! I love this watering can. I can’t wait to use it for my porch flowers!

 

 

This is a snapshot from my video. I recorded a small video while I was in the store. Save me from HomeGoods!

 

On Sunday we spent the day at home watching service online and preparing for my in-laws to come by for an early Easter dinner. I decided on meatloaf this year because I wanted something different. Most people have ham (I think) but I wanted something a little more savory so I made my favorite meatloaf recipe from Martha Stewart. 

 

photo credit: Mrs. Shockley 

 

This was so delicious! I have used this recipe twice and both times my meatloaf was sensational! It has carrots, onions, parsley, and celery. I also made roasted greens and tossed them with butter. 

 

 

This was the table setting. I purchased purple stock and baby’s breathe from the grocery store. I also loved using my Johann Haviland china that I purchased from Facebook Marketplace. It looked beautiful! 

 

photo credit: Mrs. Shockley 

 

My mother-in-law made the mashed potatoes. I love her mashed potatoes. They taste so good! Then I put some southern style buttery biscuits in the oven from the Schwann man. He still delivers here in Indiana and I love their biscuits. 

 

 

 

 

 

photo credit: Mrs. Shockley 

 

For dessert, my mother-in-law brought a vanilla whip cream cake with fresh berries in sugary syrup. SOOOOO good!

 

 

 

Oh mercy, it was delicious!

 

photo credit: Mrs. Shockley 

 

The cake was so moist, the cream was delicious, and the berries… oh my! It was superb! All in all, it was a wonderful dinner and a great time with my in-laws. Oh and we also tried a new wine. It was called Oliver Lemon Moscato Wine. Oh, I think I just found my new wine for the summer! It was so refreshing and just sweet enough. It was divine!

It was a wonderful weekend. The weather was great, the food, shopping, and morning worship remembering why we celebrate Easter and why we serve a wonderful God! Have a great Monday!

~ Oh and just in case you are not on Instagram I am having a giveaway that will end today. I will be picking a winner tomorrow. I am giving away my garden tassel pouch to a lucky follower. If you are interested in entering please comment below and I will put your name in. This is for US residents only. Good luck!

AND… my new rose shell purse scarf/scrunchie is ready for purchase! I hope you enjoy it! 

 

 

 

Please note: some links are affiliate links and if you make a purchase through this link, I will receive a small commission for referring you to the product. Thank you so much in advance if you decide to make a purchase through my link.

 

Work from Home Lunch ~ My Simple Egg Salad

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Good Friday Afternoon,

We are already in the second week of March and the clocks go forward on Sunday. I hate when the clocks go forward. I always feel like I lose a part of my life. Lol, it’s always hard losing that hour. This weekend I just have normal errands to run, grocery store, Costco, etc. Thank you to those who made a purchase from my Boutique page. I do hope that you enjoy your purchase! Now on with today’s post. 

So we are still working from home and I have a feeling that more days in the office are forthcoming. I have loved working from home this year. This was needed for my soul. I have been able to help my daughter get organized for school and really asked myself what I want out of life. I have also been able to try new ways to create meals. I have been recently eating this wonderful but simple egg salad for lunch at home. 

 

photo credit: Mrs. Shockley 

 

I love this salad mix from Kroger. It is called Taylor Farms Everything Chopped kit. It is one of my favorites! 

 

I love all of the greens that it has. But I think my favorite part is the mini bagel toasts! Oh my, these are so good! It also has shredded broccoli, cabbage, and an everything bagel seasoning packet. So good! 

 

photo credit: Mrs. Shockley

 

After I add my tomatoes, shredded cheese, cucumber, and mini toasts, I get my boiled eggs out of the pot and let them cool for a moment before peeling the shell and slicing them. 

 

 

My eggs have been sliced. I only cook about 2 eggs. That seems to be enough for me. I may add a little bit of salt and then I mix it up a bit. 

 

photo credit: Mrs. Shockley 

 

Now time for the most delicious part. The salad dressing. This could always make or break a salad for me. I am loving this dressing by Simple Truth Organic called French Dressing blended with celery seeds! It is so good! If you are a french dressing kind of person then I would recommend this. It has so much more flavor than the traditional french dressing. 

I hope you found some great salad work from home lunch ideas or inspiration from this. Tell me below what has been your go-to work from home lunch meals? I am curious. Thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend! 

 

New Dinner Recipes ~ Hello Fresh

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Good Afternoon Everyone,

I want to jump right into today’s post. I shared this on my Youtube channel that my family and I were going to be trying HelloFresh! And drum roll please….. it was wonderful! So let’s start with what we ordered.

 

photo credits: Mrs. Shockley 

 

So this is how the order arrived. There is a freezer packet in there and all of the ingredients are packed in their own bag. It is very organized! Also, you are encouraged to recycle everything and we did. 

 

Here are the meal instruction cards. I ordered the creamy chive chicken, creamy chicken & mushroom cavatappi, and the onion crunch chicken. Lots of chicken dishes but each dish was packed with flavor and easy to prepare. 

 

photo credits: Mrs. Shockley 

 

The first meal that I made was the creamy chive chicken dinner. The side dishes were lemony rice and a dijon apple salad. 

 

 

I washed and cut up all of the produce. Put the jasmine rice in our rice cooker with the lemon zest, (oh so good), made the creamy chive sauce, and cooked the chicken. 

 

 

 

Here is the finished product. It was so delicious! The hint of lemon in the jasmine rice was yummy. The sauce on the chicken was out of this world! I love the combination of the chicken stock with the dijon mustard. It was a real treat. The salad was tasty as well. The sweet apples with the lemon, mustard, and chives was wonderful. My husband ATE his salad! Can you believe it? He ate his first salad you guys! I couldn’t believe my eyes! 

 

photo credits: Mrs. Shockley

 

The next meal was the creamy chicken & mushroom cavatappi. 

 

 

I washed and cut up the produce as usual. 

 

While the pasta was cooking, I finished cutting up the scallions and garlic cloves. 

 

 

I placed the chicken in the pan with the mushrooms, cream sauce base, Italian seasoning, and mushroom stock. 

 

 

Once everything was cooked, I combined the chicken with the pasta, and voila. We had another delicious, flavorful meal in about 30 minutes! My husband and daughter ate this too. My husband went back for seconds!  Yay! 

 

And finally, the last meal, which was the onion crunch chicken with mashed sweet potatoes and roasted broccoli with honey dijon dressing. 

 

photo credits: Mrs. Shockley

 

Wash and cut the produce. 

 

 

 

In this photo, I am mixing the crispy fried onions and Monterey jack cheese in a bowl. 

 

 

I topped the chicken with the mixture. The sweet potatoes were boiling and the broccoli was in the oven roasting with olive oil and salt and pepper. 

 

photo credits: Mrs. Shockley

 

This was the meal after cooking. The chicken was tender, the broccoli tasted great, but the mashed sweet potatoes were the best! It had sour cream and butter in them. Oh my goodness, so good! Well after having this for almost a week I would say HelloFresh was wonderful! My favorite meal was the first one. The creamy chive sauce was the best thing I have ever made. My husband loved every meal and our daughter ate most of it. 

The next week I was looking for meal ideas and I told my husband that I wish we had a box of HelloFresh he said he wish we did too! That was so good to hear. Now I have set up our membership for bi-weekly boxes. So we will not be getting our next box until February 12th. I am excited about the next box. If you have been on the fence to try HelloFresh I hope this helped you to give it a second look. You can cancel at any time and their customer service is great! Enjoy your Wednesday!

 

 

 

fyi: This post is not sponsored. 

 

 

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

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Good Wednesday Afternoon,

I am still thinking about the Cake Bake Shop. It was such a nice dinner. It’s been a while since we have had such an enjoyable meal and time. Speaking of food, today I wanted to share one of my favorite veggies to roast…. brussel sprouts! 

I purchased mine at the grocery store in this mesh bag. They are about $2.99 for this small bag. 
I wash them and slice them in halves. 

I then place them in the baking pan that I sprayed with olive oil spray. I pour extra virgin olive oil on them, sprinkle salt, and my new favorite celery salt! 
I love celery salt! Oh my gosh, it adds so much flavor to a dish. 

I place them in the oven for about 25 minutes at 400 degrees and they come out so well. They are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. So good!

I love them with my roasted chicken or salmon. They are so good and compliment my meals well. I hope you get a chance to try them and don’t forget the celery salt! Enjoy!

(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

My Easy Week Day Dinner

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Good Morning Everyone,

I hope you all had a great weekend. Roses were on sale at my local grocery store for $6 a dozen! I had to get a few for home. 

Ahhh September will begin this week. I am hoping for cooler temperatures. I have been so desperate to open some windows but it has been much too hot!  

Today I just wanted to share one of my weekly dinner go-to’s. I love having an easy yet healthy dinner during the week. I really don’t like eating out so I try to have meals planned to stop my husband! 

One of my favorite meals is my roasted chicken, veggies, and steam rice meal. It is so easy and is ready in less than an hour. 


So I always buy chicken breast tenderloins. I noticed that they are much smaller and cook faster. I use to buy chicken breasts but I noticed that they were getting bigger and I didn’t like that. Also, they took longer to cook. 

I place the tenderloins in a baking pan but I do spray it with some Pam Olive Oil cooking spray. I love it. After that, I pour on some extra virgin olive oil, Montreal chicken seasoning, and some Lawry’s seasoned salt on both sides of the chicken tenderloin. 

It’s then placed in the oven at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes.

This is how it comes out. I also roast broccoli, carrots, or whatever vegetables we have. I buy a lot of frozen bag veggies. They roast great in the oven. We also have a rice steamer that cooks our rice in minutes. This is a family favorite and works well. 


I hope you all enjoyed this quick meal idea and try some of those seasonings. You might be pleasantly surprised! 

Have a great Monday!
(photos via Mrs. Shockley)

Homemade Meatloaf

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Good Morning Everyone,

I hope everyone is well. I have been in the office all this week filling in for my friend and co-worker. It has been pleasant so far. Very quiet and I have been able to get quite a bit of work done. I hope it continues….
In my post today I wanted to share this quick family-friendly recipe that I decided to try. Now I have made meatloaf in the past but not like this. I have never put veggies in my meatloaf. This tasted so good!

This is the classic meatloaf recipe from Martha Stewart. It was very simple to make and did not take much time at all. I used my Vitamix to cut all of the veggies down to small chunks. It worked perfectly. 

I put in carrots, onions, parsley, garlic, wheat bread, and seasonings. It was the best meatloaf I have ever made! Also, the ketchup with the brown sugar was so delish!

The meatloaf was complemented by homemade mashed potatoes and green beans. It was a wonderful Sunday meal and a great way to spend the evening. You should definitely try it! Your family will remember it.  Have a great evening! 




(photos via Mrs. Shockley)