Mom and Dad ended up driving as far as Texas that weekend, literally stopping when the gray clouds turned white and the sunshine beamed through the car windows.

That note and the sentiment of spontaneity that came with it has always struck a chord with me. You see… my parents have always been spontaneous. Maybe a little too spontaneous at times (we rarely went car shopping without coming home with a new car!). They had (and still have) a tendency to live in the moment and do what feels right, right then.

I think that deep down I have a spontaneous bone somewhere… it is just buried right now under the weight of parenting and responsibility. I saw a glimpse of my spontaneous self this past week though when I decided to buy a ticket to BlogHer Food and plan a trip to San Francisco with very little time to plan much of anything. And yes… calling this spontaneous might be stretching it to some of you, but a week out is considered spontaneous in my book!

I had a great time at the BlogHer conference in Chicago this summer, but I have a feeling that BlogHer food will be exactly what I’m looking for. A smaller, less overwhelming collection of bloggers, all who have the same keen interest in the culinary world that I do. I can’t wait to meet those of you who will be there!

Shrimp is one of those foods that you can be spontaneous about. It is so quick to make up a delicious meal using shrimp. This BBQ Shrimp recipe from a pullout page in Gourmet Magazine is one of the best shrimp recipes we’ve tasted. It cooks up in just a few minutes, leaving plenty of time for other spontaneous activities in your day.

BBQ Shrimp by Chef Brian D Smith

• 1 t. salt
• 1/8 t. Oregano
• 1/4 t. Garlic Powder
• 1/4 t. Black Pepper
• 1/8 t. Onion Powder
• 1/16 t. White Pepper
• 1/8 t. Paprika
• 1/16 t. Red Pepper
• 1/8 t. Thyme
• 1 T. black pepper
• 1/2 t. rosemary
• 1/4 c. butter
• 4 oz. beer
• 1 T. fresh garlic
• 2 oz. Worcestershire Sauce
• 2 lbs. Large Shrimp (shell on) (I used medium, tail-on shrimp)

Make Seasoning – Mix together all of the dry spices

Make BBQ Shrimp – Heat butter in a large skillet over moderate heat until foam subsides. Add the shrimp, garlic, seasoning mixture, beer, and Worcestershire sauce and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Serve with lots of fresh French bread to soak up all the sauce.

Curious about BlogHer Food? Here are some other posts from food bloggers getting ready to journey to San Francisco:

• Caramel Apple Cookies by my BlogHer Food roomie, goodLife Eats
• Preparing for BlogHer Food ’09 by Anali’s First Amendment
• BlogHer Food ’09 by Pages, Pucks and Pantry
• A great post about straddling the world of mommy blog and food blog by CityMama
• BlogHer Food Weekend Itenierary by Alice Q. Foodie

The post Spontaneity and BlogHer Food (Recipe – BBQ Shrimp) appeared first on Dine and Dish.

We met at a well known restaurant in Chicago called “Greek Islands”. As we all sat together chatting, a rustling began to happen in the room. All of a sudden, most of the women stood up, armed with their cameras, and began clicking away like a mass of paparazzi. I, along with other patrons in the restaurant, all looked perplexed…did Brad and Angelina just walk into the restaurant? Maybe it was Oprah? Craning my neck to see what all the excitement was about, I had to let out a chuckle when it all became clear. Coming near our tables were several of Greek Islands finest, armed with – you guessed it – our first course!

Yes, those of us who food blog may be a bit strange to those of you who just don’t get it, but I have never felt more at ease with a group in my life. For those of you who do “get it” and love the art of food blogging and food photography, I have a new event that is taking place over at Culinary Snapshot called “Through My Lens“. Check it out and I hope you’ll participate!

Did I mention that I met Paula Deen at “the conference that you are probably tired of hearing about?” While she was chatting with all of us, she mentioned a recipe from one of her cookbooks called Black Pepper Shrimp. It sounded so good, I had to make it as soon as I got home! I didn’t have any shelled shrimp. I am sure that would make the recipe all the better, but it was great with what I did have.

For a list of the wonderful food bloggers who I met at the Greek Islands dinner, please jump down below the recipe.

Black Pepper Shrimp, from Paula Deen

20 min | 10 min prep

SERVES 6

1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. Rinse and drain shrimp and place in shallow baking pan.
3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.
4. Add the garlic and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes.
5. Pour the garlic butter mixture over shrimp and toss to coat.
6. Sprinkle about half the pepper over shrimp until they are well covered.
7. Remember–don’t be afraid!
8. Bake until pink (about 5 minutes).
9. Turn shrimp over sprinkle with remaining pepper and bake a few minutes longer.

Lydia from The Perfect Pantry, Kalyn from Kalyn’s Kitchen, Elise from Simply Recipes, Kathy from Panini Happy, Kristen from Dine and Dish, Maris from n Good Taste, Cora from Cora Cooks, Deb from Lunch in a Box, Gudrun from Kitchen Gadget Girl, Jennifer from Savor the Thyme, Ree from Pioneer Woman Cooks, Jaden from Steamy Kitchen, Sandie from Inn Cuisine, Alanna from A Veggie Venture, Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy, Kelly from Barbaric Gulp, Stephanie from Iron Stef, Stephanie from A Year of Crockpotting, Anne Marie from This Mama Cooks, Hetal and Anuja from Show Me the Curry, Roni from Green Lite Bites, Jayne from This Week for Dinner, Kim (and Roger) from the Building Blocks Show, and Krista from Londonelicious,

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Leah Meets Paula Deen BlogHer 2009 from Kristen Doyle on Vimeo.

The video above is of Paula Deen chatting with Leah during her appearance at BlogHer. Paula was hilarious, genuine and really an overall neat person! Seeing her was definitely one of the many highlights of BlogHer.

I returned from the BlogHer conference in Chicago yesterday and since that return, so many thoughts and ideas have been swimming around in my head. For those of you who are thinking about attending a BlogHer conference sometime in the future (next year is in NYC!) I highly recommend that you do so. Here are some of my random thoughts about the BlogHer 2009 conference.

• My friend Sandie (from Inn Cuisine) and I were roomies. Sandie and I met through our blogs a couple of years ago and have been fast friends since. It was so nice to get to hang out with her and get to know her better. It has been a very long time since I have laughed as hard as I did (so hard that at one point I spewed water all over our bathroom mirror because she said something hilarious when I was trying to brush my teeth!) Thank you, Sandie, for being such a great friend!
• As you know, I was so nervous about taking Leah with me to BlogHer. It ended up being great having her there. Granted, I was tired because of lugging her around for four days and we didn’t really go to any of the parties (and there are a LOT of parties happening at BlogHer) but she was one extremely popular little chick! She had to have had her picture taken at least 100 times. I met a lot of really nice people simply because they came up and started talking to me about Leah. If you are thinking about bringing your baby to BlogHer in the future, I personally think it is fine to do. There is a crazy amount of controversy surrounding the topic, but I say to go with your gut… overall, BlogHer is very welcoming to babies. As Paula Deen says above, it is wonderful that BlogHer doesn’t make moms of young babies make a choice.
• I have to say, in all honesty, I didn’t learn a ton from the sessions I attended, but I did pick up a few very valuable nuggets of info. By and far the best part about attending BlogHer was getting to connect with so many people with like minded interests (you know…those people who don’t look at you like an alien when you say you blog) and meeting people who I have greatly admired for the past few years. I am now happy to say that some very good friends who I first met online are now friends “in real life”. I also met some wonderful ladies who I did not know before the conference. I would pay for that experience time and time again.
• BlogHer ladies like to party and BlogHer’s love swag. BlogHer had some very generous sponsors this year and we came home with an enormous amount of quality swag. Thank you to all of the sponsors and individuals who provided all the loot. My kids were in heaven going through everything when I got home!

I could go on and on about how great BlogHer was and about how inspirational it was to chat and share ideas with such smart people, but I’m sure you get the drift. As much as I enjoyed my trip to BlogHer, I’m even kind of tired of hearing about it everywhere.  I hope that any of you who haven’t attended a BlogHer conference in the past get to do so in the future!

Now, for those of you who want a great recipe, my Mother-in-Law made these yummy banana bars for the kids while I was gone. I love that this recipe uses only 2 ripe bananas because that seems to be the most common amount of bananas I have when they ripen. Either we gobble them all up, or I’m stuck with two that no one wants to eat.

Love bananas? Dine & Dish has these other recipes you might love!

The post Babies, BlogHer and Banana Bars (Recipe: Frosted Banana Bars) appeared first on Dine and Dish.

How many of you have read the Confessions of a Shopaholic book series? Total brain candy, but laugh out loud hilarious. Do you know the part in the 1st book where she wants to save money, and part of that plan is to stop eating out so often? Since Curry is one of her favorite foods, she makes the decision to start making her own Curry at home? Well, to make her own Curry, she had to go to the perfect store, find all of the right ingredients and of course you can’t make Curry with the right pans, the right utensils and the right clothes to wear when you are making it. In the end, her effort to save money by eating at home instead of going out to a restaurant resulted in her spending hundreds of dollars in “necessities”.

I can totally relate to that part of the book. Not that I’m a shopaholic (ok…I confess…I may have a tiny little problem there) but we have officially started a budget at our house. Just hearing the word “budget” makes me want to cringe. When I brought it up to my husband that I think we should really start managing our money better, he about fainted. Being the financially savvy guy that he is, he has been nagging me for years about this. I have always resisted having the actual conversation surrounding budgeting, until now.

I recently came across a really cool envelope budgeting system online called Mvelopes. The system is just like the paper envelope money management system that so many people use, but with Mvelopes everything is done electronically. I decided that this was just the tool (because, you know… every non-shopaholic needs to find the perfect tool) I was looking for as I love the envelope system, but didn’t like the idea of actually having the cash around the house. Mvelopes had a free 14 day trial, which I signed up for. Would you like to know what I spent the first 14 days of my Mvelopes membership doing? Shopping! Yes… I decided that before I actually started tracking our spending and became accountable to my husband for all the pennies that came out of my envelopes, I had better buy everything that wasn’t necessary beforehand. Every little thing that was a want versus a need was purchased. I got some new salon shampoo and conditioner, a pedicure, some camera accessories, some new clothes, etc. I hooked myself up completely and then got my envelopes on Mvelopes all set up! (It really is a great system now that I’ve gotten serious about it…you should check it out!)

The cheesy beer bread was part of my “getting serious” about budgeting time. I spent all last week making meals only out of what I had in my pantry, fridge and freezer. One night I made a delicious pasta dish and decided that I needed some homemade beer bread with it, but had only an hour until dinnertime. I opened up my fridge, noticed a can of beer and some cheddar cheese  and decided to make cheesy beer bread. Whatever your reason for eating at home (and if it is not because you are pinching pennies, I am totally jealous), complete your meal with this inexpensive and delicious recipe for Cheesy Beer Bread. No fancy plates, clothes, utensils necessary.

I got this beer bread recipe off of Cate over at Sweetnicks blog who got it from Susan at Farmgirl Fare. I didn’t use the dill…would have meant a trip to the store which would have resulted in me buying more than just dill, I’m sure! I also did not do the optional glaze.

Disclosure: This blog post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

The post Recipe: Cheesy Beer Bread appeared first on Dine and Dish.

I am usually a fairly confident and secure person, but for some reason lately I have been hit with a dose of insecurity. I think part of it is starting the Culinary Snapshot blog. I feel like I have had this idea for a blog for so long now, and I am nervous that it will not turn into the resource for food photographers that I want it to be. It is hard to start over being a “newbie” blogger. Dine & Dish has been around for awhile now, so getting back to the basics of starting over with a new blog brings up all of those original blogging  insecurities…  kind of like being the new kid at school!

I am also heading to the BlogHer conference in Chicago at the end of the month. I am so excited because there will be several food bloggers there that I can’t wait to meet in person. On the other hand, I am nervous because I feel like the food blogger attendees at BlogHer will be waaaaay out numbered by the other blogging venue participants (especially since they have announced there will be a BlogHer food conference in September…soooo wish I was going to that conference!). I read a  lot of Mommy blogs but have never really integrated myself into their tight, niche community.  I feel like I am going to be a little fish in a very, very big sea. I hope that I am able to connect with bloggers in all the different venues and I hope I learn a lot at the conference sessions. If you are heading to BlogHer and read Dine & Dish, shoot me an email so we can meet up! I would love to put a face with a name.

I am not shy, but I have never been the type of person to stand out in a crowd. Trying to draw attention to a new blog  and  attempting to step out of my food blogging comfort zone to mingle with non-food bloggers who have no idea who I am and what I do at Dine & Dish will be a new experience for me. Hopefully both experiences will end up being very successful!

Speaking of not standing out in a crowd, I totally feel that way about Corn Flakes cereal (how is that for a pathetic attempt at a segue?) Corn Flakes are one of those classic cereals that really do not get much attention. I typically only buy Corn Flakes when I need to top a casserole with them and that is how I came to have a half empty box of Corn Flakes in my pantry.  A quick Google search brought me to this recipe for Corn Flake Waffles. Sounds kind of strange, doesn’t it? This recipe actually gives Corn Flakes the star attention they really deserve. You wouldn’t think that adding Corn Flakes to a waffle recipe would make that much difference, but the Corn Flakes in this recipe take center stage giving the waffles a delicious, almost nutty, flavor.  Make Corn Flakes feel a little better about themselves and give them the starring role by trying these waffles. They may be a little different, but I can promise you they are worth getting to know!

Corn Flake Waffles from AllRecipes

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup crushed cornflakes
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

In a bowl, combine flour, cornflakes, baking powder and salt. Beat egg yolks lightly; add milk and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until combined. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form; fold into batter. Bake in a preheated waffle iron according to manufacturer’s directions until golden brown.

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