Captain Rodney's

I have a secret I want to share. I've been alluding to this post for a little while now.  There is this incredible sauce that makes this incredible dip, and apparently most people don't know about it.  See picture below:

This stuff is called Captain Rodney's Boucan Glaze.  I did a little research on it:

"'THE GLAZE' to use with the Captain's CHEESEBAKE RECIPE. Centuries ago in the Caribbean, pirates developed a method of preserving wild boar for their long sea voyages, seasoning the meat with French wines and indigineous spices, while cooking it slowly over a pimento (allspice) wood fire. The result was a delicious meat that was called boucan by the French. These pirates became known as boucan-eers, or as we know them today, Buccaneers. The Captain has bottled these spices in a glaze that can be used as a sweet and spicy finishing or dipping sauce great with chicken, pork or beef- even vegetables."

And just so I don't get in trouble for plagiarism, this came from here. 

Now, I don't know who Captain Rodney is, but when David and I went on our honeymoon we stayed at "Rodney Bay."  We got bored one day and went on a hike of Pigeon Island that used to be used as a military fort frequently.  Basically, the strip of land we stayed on now connects Pigeon Island to St. Lucia.  Captain Rodney loved Pigeon Island.  And therefore, Rodney Bay was named after him.  When David and I heard this, we wondered aloud to each other..."I wonder if that's the same Captain Rodney?"  I mean really, how many Captain Rodney's could there be?  This is a pretty picture of Rodney Bay.  We're atop the fort (or what's left of it) at Pigeon Island. You can see our resort with the red roofs.  And in the distance is the island of St. Lucia. Though I guess now all of it is St. Lucia:

Anyway, back to Captain Rodney's cheesebake.  When I was making food this weekend for our tailgate, I decided we didn't have enough for all of the people we had invited.  So, I turned to this trusty recipe because we love it so much and generally have all of the ingredients in our pantry.  Apparently while I was off tailgating elsewhere--or as David refers to my tailgate style--"socializing"--all of the people at our tailgate where trying to figure out who made the dip.  So I told them I'd share the recipe.  And aren't you glad, I'm sharing it with you too! :)

Ingredients:

8 oz cream cheese (softened)

1/2 cup mayo (I use Blue Plate because it's the best)

2 cups grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese

2 green onions finely chopped (except I usually leave those out)

6 Ritz crackers crushed

8 strips bacon cooked and crumbled

1/2 cup Captain Rodneys sauce

Directions:

Mix cream cheese and mayo until smooth. Sometimes I use a whisk. Add cheddar and stir till incorporated. Add green onions.  Smooth mixture into baking pan.  Top with crushed Ritz.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.  Take it out. It will look gooey and bubbly on the outside, but not necessarily in the middle.  Trust me, it's probably done.  Pull it out and add bacon.  Now for the secret ingredient.....Drizzle Rodney's sauce over it.  Serve with chips, crackers, whatever you want.  We use these.... and they are our personal favorite!

This is what you get when your finished....or rather before everyone devours it!

I dropped this off at 10:45am on Saturday and when I got there at 1:00pm, it was all gone.  Now I know that is two hours, but I'm pretty sure that it didn't take near that long for it to disappear!

It's wonderful. It's heaven. But you don't have to take my word for it. Hunt this stuff down and make some.  It's like between $10 and $12.  A few places I've found it: Mak B & Company in Starkville, Traditions in Brandon, Viking in Greenwood (but I'm sure it's at Renaissance too), and I've heard that World Market carries it.  If you know of anywhere else, leave it in the comments because I'm pretty sure everyone reading this wants to try it! :)

 I'll leave y'all with this cute thing!  This is what his night has been like.  Oh the life!  What I wouldn't give to have my days and evenings full of this!  That being said, I'm glad I'm not a cat because you wouldn't be reading about the Adams' Adventures if I was! (for those of y'all who didn't read the last post--we're housesitting...he's not ours!)

MSU Football

Just to clarify, it's Sara again.  In case you missed it, David wrote his first blogland post this week. See here.  He'll be back (or so he says), but for now, you get me.  :)

I probably have taken this same picture like 20 times in my time at Mississippi State.  This is one of my favorite times during the entire pregame festivities.  Cowbells clanging, big flags, football players running out, cheering....there's no way to describe it!  I absolutely LOVE MSU Football.  And Saturday most definitely did not disappoint.  The weekend kicked off with two of our close friends Rusty and Sara Whitten coming to stay!  Since somehow we managed to not take a picture the entire weekend, this is a picture of the four of us from two years ago.  A lot has changed since this picture. We've both gotten engaged and married.  But as we sat up late Friday night talking, it was evident that one thing has remained the same--God's faithfulness.  It was so wonderful to be encouraged by our newlywed friends.  It's fun walking through some of the same battles and mountaintop experiences together. We were so glad our friends came!

Saturday was spent doing what we love best--tailgating! Complete with lots of football of course.  And what tailgate wouldn't be complete without lots of yummy food?  I promised a post on Captain Rodney's Dip soon, but it will have to wait for another day.  However, I did want to share a special project of mine with you all.

A friend Bethany and I have been painting pottery at Dandy Doodlez a lot lately. It's sort of what we use for a therapeutic session.  Since we go so often, I decided to work on a cute tailgate plate.  Don't get me wrong--I have a bunch of cute tailgate plates, but they are all currently residing in climate controlled storage.  (See post from last month for more info!)  And so began my month long adventure at painting this:

 The above is before glaze and firing.  And the finished product:

 

Please let me know your thoughts! (Hint, hint...the comment section at the bottom!)  It was so hard to work on, and I was really unsure of how it would turn out!  But I love it!  For those non-MSU people, "Wrap it in maroon and white" is a phrase coined by our radio announcer Jack when we win.  And this plate MUST have brought us good luck since we used it yesterday at our tailgate!  Who doesn't love handmade pottery?

Saturday also was a special day because it was the day that we honored Mrs. Mattie at the Chi Omega house.  Mrs. Mattie has been the house cleaner for our house since it first opened in 1986 (I think).  I have such good memories from my days living there with her!  She would always come in my room to smell my candles. And that wonderful woman never tattled to Mama Jones that we burned them all the time upstairs!  I wish she were around to clean my bathroom everyday like she did in those days!  We had some wonderful conversations in my four years as a Chi Omega.

It was such a fun time to reunite with friends I hadn't seen in a long time!  We had such a fun time looking at the renovations on the Chi O house and just visiting.  Makes me miss it.  Those were some fun times!

We decided we needed to pose like we did back in the day during rush on the stairs:

Our house mom and Mrs. Mattie. Such a special time!

Like I said above, it makes me miss it.  BUT, (and this is a really big but!) I wouldn't trade life now for anything (although we all informed Mama Jones we'd be moving back in next week)!  I think David would enjoy it.  KIDDING!  Currently we're housesitting for some friends so he's enjoying a quiet evening with the cat. He may not be happy with me for posting that, but the cat jumped in his lap, and it was too cute NOT to take a picture of. 

 

That's all for tonight!  Hope everyone else had great weekends!

A new beginning

Ok, so that was a cheesy title for my (David's) first blog post. But we just wanted to let the world know that I'm alive and well, and that Sara showed me how to write blog posts.

It's been a while since I wrote a blog post. I'm thinking that my last xanga ( anybody remember xanga? It used to be cool. ) was written in about December 2005. Sara hasn't showed me how to post pictures, so maybe that will be the next step.

No big, earth-shattering thoughts from me today. You know how the first day of class you never talk about anything important? Well this is my "syllabus" post.

Christmas Already!

In honor of our 3 month anniversary this weekend...

Many of you may recognize this picture from our wedding 3 months ago. It was taken by our good friend Rebecca Long and is currently David's facebook picture.  Rebecca did a fabulous job capturing our friends and emotions of the big day.  While she didn't do our professional pictures, she took some really great photos that I know we'll treasure forever.  And, that's not to say that she isn't a professional!  Because let me tell you, she is!  Travel over to her website.  She's based out of Birmingham now, but loves to travel! Rebecca Long Photography

Anyway, here is the wonderful shot she took:

And here's another. This time in color:

Many of you may be wondering where we found such a car.  Well this is a car that was donated to Mississippi State last year.  It was nicknamed the Cowbell Cruiser which is rather appropriate since we left ringing cowbells! It's a 1929 Model A Car, but lucky for us, the standard transmission has been replaced with an automatic.  Thanks to our friend Cari Gaunt, you can see the whole car:

And here we are jumping in it to leave for our St. Lucian honeymoon (photo credit to Rebecca Long again). (Pictures from the honeymoon can be seen in an earlier post.)

Anyway...the other day before the Auburn/MSU game, my friend Brittany Martin stopped by Campus Bookmart.  Brittany and I share a love of all things Mississippi State and all things Chi Omega.  So when she text me Friday morning about a Christmas ornament that was for sale there, I knew we had to have it!  I was out running errands with my mom and asked if we could stop by. After an eventful search around the store, we found what we were looking for!  Is it not THE cutest thing you've EVER seen?

 Let's do a comparison: 

 

I just love how even the groom on the ornament is waving just like David is in our picture.  This is one of my favorite pictures from the wedding. It will for sure be framed in our home.  The only real difference is that I have in a short veil for the picture, and the ornament has a long veil.  But that's okay. I personally love my custom made veil by Molly Gee from MOLLYGEEdesigns. She made it from a lace piece off of the hat my mom's veil was once attached to (I wore my mom's veil in the ceremony).

Won't this make the perfect addition to our Christmas tree this year?  I'm going to have to find somewhere to write on there June 19, 2010.  Thank you Brittany for finding the cutest ornament EVER for David and I!

DIY Attempt #1

I have recently been inspired by a few DIY blogs (that's "do it yourself" in case you were wondering). Well, this month I got a little adventurous.

When we were moving out of David's college bachelor-pad apartment at the end of July, we were trying to decide what to do with some furniture pieces. You see, we got really lucky. David's brother Jesse moved into his our apartment August 1st. This meant we could leave whatever we wanted leaving Jesse to move out what he didn't want. Well, David had this old microwave cart that belonged to his grandparents back in the day. He found it in the attic at his house and brought it to college a few years ago. Upon first consideration, I wanted it to stay at the apartment, leaving it for Jesse and whatever damage they could do to it. But then I began to wonder. Was it possible to salvage this unloved piece of furniture? Could it serve a great place in our home (whenever that may come)?

After getting permission from David's mother to paint the laminate microwave cart, it was after all a family antique, I began researching what I needed. I have to credit Lindsay from "Living With Lindsay." Specific instructions can be found here. I did alter to what I could find at our Lowes, but for the most part, she taught me how to do it.

I forgot to take a really GOOD before picture. We were in the process of sanding it when I realized that I'd committed a crime in blogger world. So this will have to do for the before picture. You can tell a little about it. The doors have been taken off (along with the out-of-date gold pulls that were on them). Also, it once had wheels on all four corners. You know, kind of like the ones you'd see on the bottom of an office chair or something. I decided it would be much cuter without those. I asked David if he could take them off, and we discovered all one had to do was pull them out!

Before:


After lots of thought, I decided I wanted to paint it red. Everything we registered for in our kitchen is red and brown. I thought red would be an excellent accent color. After a primer coat and a couple of red coats followed by a polyurethane coat......

Taaaa daaaa....


My friend Bethany and I went to find new door pulls at Lowe's. I was trying to decide if we should just spray paint the old ones or buy new ones, knowing that buying new ones could get expensive. They usually run around $5-$10, and I didn't really want to pay anywhere in that price range. Well, we walked in and found these. They were on clearance for $1.50 each. So for $3, we got these really cute pulls. They appear black sometimes and bronzy/brown others. I think it just depends on what is near it.

Didn't it turn out great? I must admit, I was a little doubtful after the primer coat. Then I put one coat of red on and it turned out hot pink! (EEK!) But with another coat of red (and a new roller brush from Lowes thanks to my great hubby who went and got it) and the poly coat, it turned out so great! We spent a little on supplies, and it was way less then we would have spent to buy this piece. In the grand scheme of things, it was dang cheap!

Sigh...now it sits in storage. With the rest of our things. Which bothered me two weeks ago, but now I've realized we'll always look back on our time as newlyweds and think how much fun it truly was! We're cherishing it! And again, it is definitely a reality check on what all you need and don't need to survive. Don't get me wrong, we have a fully stocked house complete with beds, couch, table, and kitchen necessities. They just aren't OURS. But who needs all that stuff! As my mom has been reminding me lately, God never lets you go through something that He doesn't intend to use to prepare you for something else. I sure hope it doesn't mean living without our nice wedding presents forever, but whatever He has planned, I want to be ready. I don't want to miss out!

And because there's been no picture of us lately, here's a picture from Miss Mississippi this past July. My sweet hubby was so wonderful to go with me! It was his first time to go (and my fiftieth...well maybe not quite, but I've been a bunch in my lifetime). And if I do say so myself, I think he rather enjoyed himself. Oh how this picture makes me miss my long hair!

It's way shorter now.

Maybe one day I'll be brave and post a picture of it.

It's really not quite as short as I make it sound.

It comes down past my shoulders still.

But when have you EVER known me to not be over dramatic?

But really, it's SO short!

Okay not really. But it's really long in this picture.

And I miss it...

*Note: This was the night the 3rd Mississippi State University Chi Omega young lady won the Miss Mississippi crown in 5, yes that's right FIVE, years! Woo hoo! Or should I say Hootie Hoo! :) Go XO! Go MSU! And Hail State to the fact that of the top 10, none were Ole Miss girls! And as happy as that makes me, I wish that some of my Ole Miss friends had gotten in the top ten. But they simply chose the wrong college to go to!

Hope you all have a fabulous week!

Three Things...

Three things...

1.) It was the pointed end of the cable cord packed in the box that sliced my knuckle open. (ouch!)

2.) Liquid bandaid is the most incredible thing ever invented! No more splint!

3.) David's cowbell has been welded. We are now in the process of sanding and repainting it. Pictures to come!