A New Giveaway and a Birthday dinner

The winner for last weeks giveaway for the homemade box is: Rainbow River Send me your info and I will ship it right out. This week Teddy is giving away a very cute vintage porcelain box.


It is about 4X4 inches and is a great little ring box or trinket box.


It is covered with dainty little porcelain flowers. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and sign on to follow if you haven't already. The winner will be announced next Saturday and a new giveaway will be posted at that time.

Yesterday was my husbands birthday and I made him his favorite dinner. He is picky about potato salad but loves it if it is prepared according to his tastes. He has a "thing" about mayonnaise. He says he hates it though we know he eats it all the time. It has to be disguised and this recipe does just that. For this potato salad, I use small baby potatoes boiled in salted water. I par boil about a pound of green beans and cut them into 2 inch long pieces. (If you have never used green beans in potato salad you should give it a try!) I add a sliced medium onion and about three stalks of diced celery. I also added about 8 hard boiled eggs cut into cubes.


Then I poured about a cup of buttermilk over the top.


I added about 3/4 cup of plain yogurt and some mayonnaise. These last three ingredients can be proportioned to your own taste. If you want a thicker salad, add less buttermilk and more mayo.




I chopped up a bunch of chives fresh from the garden and added them.


Then salt and freshly ground pepper.


Stir it all to blend and refrigerated it overnight. This is fantastic. The combination of the buttermilk, yogurt and mayo with the chives is super good! My kids are not big potato salad eaters and they gobbled this. So did Mr. birthday...haha...we fed him mayo again!


Next up I made soft shelled crabs. We LOVE soft shells and this is the season for them. But wow...they are expensive. 8.00 each and these guys were not very big. I like to squeeze the mustard out before cooking because most people don't like the taste and it tends to make them mushy when cooked. You just squeeze the edges and it comes right out.


Then dry them on paper towels. I fold their claws in to hold their shape and make them manageable when cooking.


Melt a combo of butter and olive oil in a heavy pan.


Dust them lightly with seasoned flour. Soft shells have such a delicate flavor that you don't want to overpower them with heavy breading. You also don't want to deep fry them. Pan frying with butter and oil brings out their flavor perfectly.


In they go over med/high heat top side facing down. Let them go until they are very crisp and then turn them over for an equal amount of time. CAUTION!!! These things spit like crazy! I was covered with grease and was standing as far away from the stove as possible. They go down fighting!


Mmmmmm...


I also made another favorite...little neck clams. These happen to be Teddy's favorite treat.


I steamed a small portion in clam juice for Teddy. She downed them in seconds and then drank the clam juice.


I steamed a large portion for the rest of us in salted clam juice. We gobbled these in seconds too.


My daughter made a peanut butter pie in a chocolate cookie crust.


She even found a cute little baseball themed candle.


She made a chocolate ganache to top the pie. Needless to say this was a huge hit. Dinner was a success and then the Blog Tech and his birthday dad headed out to a major league ballgame. A happy birthday indeed!