from the kitchen of katie chesnut.

at the recipe party that i blogged about yesterday, i shared two recipes with my friends: chicken and vegetable casserole crunch and Gramma's Banana Pudding. i've provided the recipe below for my Gramma's Banana Pudding. share and indulge :)

Gramma's Banana Pudding-this recipe is dear to my heart, because whenever i visited Gramma and Grampa, or it was my birthday, Gramma would make this for me! it's my favorite treat! about 10 years ago, she shared the recipe with me, and i've kept it close to my heart since then, and still have the paper she put it on! below is the recipe--Enjoy!
What you need:

2 instant vanilla pudding boxes+6 cups of cold milk

1 8oz. sour cream

1 8 oz. cool whip

1 box of vanilla wafers

4 bananas


What to do:

-layer bottom of bowl with wafers, and dot with banana slices


-prepare instant vanilla pudding and milk

-add sour cream and cool whip

-pour half of mix over wafers

-add another layer of vanilla wafers, dotted with bananas

-pour the rest of the mix over layer of cookies

-add remaining wafers and bananas in your choice of design to top of pudding

-serve chilled and enjoy with friends and family!

PREP TIME: 15 minutes

i love my Gramma!

first annual seal beach recipe party.

ever since the wedding, i've had an itch to plan something, anything actually. and katie b. has been wanting to do a recipe party-since forever. so we combined ideas and creativity and threw a really fun, yummy food party! so i've decided to post a blog with all the little details, tips and tricks we learned about planning a recipe party.

invitations: for the invites, we did actual recipe cards. i found them at michaels craft store in the dollar section. i love a great value. to fill out the invite, we put "instructions" for the perfect recipe party--well you can see in the picture below :)

games: since our girlfriends aren't very "gamey" we decided to non-activity games. we chose to do: "cutest apron competition" and asked every attendee to come in their cutest apron-which DeEtt won! we did "best recipe"-obviously. and we did a "how many" buttons game (which ended up being quite the task to count all 1,493 buttons. sorry again to my husband daniel who i nominated to count all of those--oops).
recipe cards:all of the girls invited were asked to bring a copy of their recipe for the other girls--so that we could make the recipe, too! one girl hand-wrote recipe cards for every girl. one girl stamped her recipe for everyone, and the rest of us just did the ol' computer print out :)

prizes: we splurged a little bit and got gifts for all of the winners of the games. which when the girls saw the prizes, said: katie, you set the standards high. which is kinda fun! but little do they know (until they read this) that i got all the prizes at ross!which means=money saved! love that!



drinks: the great thing about having a recipe party is that it means the girls all bring food (their recipe), so all we really had to provide was drinks and eating utensils, plates, etc. so i went to Trader Joes and got some fancy looking drinks, threw some lemons and water in a pitcher, and since we have limited space, i set up a drink station on our bookshelf.



recipes: now the part you're all waiting for--the food!i know you're just dying to know what food was made, well don't worry, i'll show-and-tell you!






one recipe that is not shown, but were delicious, are the yummy peanut butter cookies. but they all look great, right?! all so good-and the girls had a tough time voting for best recipe, but the winner was the chocolate yumminess in the little white ramekin that you see above. thanks to maddie for making that! we had such a fun time planning-can't wait for the next part-ay!

summer reading.

i love the opportunities i get to sit down with a good book and read. which isn't as frequent as i would like--but nevertheless i love it. always have. one issue i have with books is: even if the book is terrible, i can't not finish it. once i start it, i have to finish. even as painful or daunting as it may be.
this summer i've been able to power through a few books. so i thought i would give you a little synopsis on each of them.

Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger: a good girl book. talks about motivation for success and relationships. it was an easy read--and i enjoyed it.

Names My Sisters Call Me by Megan Crane: this book is about sisters (obvi). however, this book shared different "tense" relationships between sisters. something i couldn't relate to--but kinda made me sad for the main character. only because i know how important my sisters are to me.

Mathilda Savitch by Victor Lodato: I'm not gonna lie, i only bought this book because of the cover. however, i should have read the back cover before i took it home. it was kinda "off" and weird. it wasn't a "happy" book--in any sense of the word. moving on.

Whiter than Snow by Sandra Dallas: LOVED this book. not a book i would have chose for myself--it was referred to me by my mother in law. the first chapter was a little hard to get through, but i couldn't put it down after chapter two. it was great, i would lend it to a friend in a heartbeat.

hope you found interest in one of the books above, and i hope you have time to sit down with a good book :)

xoxo

blog them.

it is so hard for me to enjoy being on the computer when i get home from work. which is really the only opportunity when i get to blog. but when i'm not blogging, i like to follow my friend's blogs.

http://closetintheattic.blogspot.com -- this blog belongs to my dear sister maggie. she has a great sense of style and loves to be creative. i really enjoy looking at what she's working on!

http://beckystimeout.blogspot.com/ -- this blog belongs to my sister-in-law becky. she's a new mommy to Carter Grant Moffett, and she's learning the world of blogging. it's fun to anticipate her updates and picures about her new adventure.

http://tylerbranchphoto.com/ -- this blog/site belongs to dear friend/neighbor Tyler (and his wife, Katie). Daniel and i couldn't ask for better friends! it's been awesome watching tyler and katie grow their budding photography business!

http://www.danielchesnut.com/blog/ -- this blog belongs to my awesome hubbie, daniel. i love seeing his new videos and projects. his perseverance and motivation is such a good example to me! love!

http://daveallygarvin.tumblr.com/ -- dear friends and fellow newlyweds Dave and Ally Garvin have set off to Uganda (in the first 6 months of marriage) to work with/for some organizations based out of Orange County, 31 bits and Krochet Kids. It's awesome to read their stories and adventures, and how God is working in their lives. such a great example of trusting in God.

i love writing about people that mean so much to me. i hope that you take the time to read these blogs and pray for these people.

xoxo

Staycation.

pool time? check. Croquet? check. Quelf? check. Delicious Food? check.
a glimpse of stay-cation in San Diego at The Chesnut House.

in honor of the Chesnut siblings--we are on staycation for the fourth of July, and the sibling birthday week. By sibling birthday week I mean that Becky's birthday is the 1st, Daniel and Josh's birthday is 3rd, and Nate's is the 5th.
What a relaxing time spent with family! With all of the babies in the house it sets such a fun dynamic! And of course, to keep everyone occupied we are spending many hours playing the wii fit!
mmm...and i can't help but mention the delicious food! ooo i think dinner's ready: tri-tip, mashed potatoes, green beans and salad.i could live the stay-cation life.