New Blog!

So obviously I have done a poor job of updating lately, and most of that owes to the fact that I recently MARRIED MY BEST FRIEND! I am now Mrs. Eric Pozzo, and to mark this new chapter in my life I have created a new blog to be geared toward our lives as newlyweds! You can now keep up with us at Love Grace and Food . Looking forward to sharing new recipes, musings, and married life lessons with all of you!
Love,
Maddie and Eric

Traditions and Miracles

Well, at least I didn’t completely skip the month of November! I promise, to you and to myself, that I won’t go a whole month without posting again. It has, however, been a busy month! Wedding planning, nannying, Georbama commuting (if they can call the junction between TX, AR, and LA Texarkana, then I’m calling the commute from Birmingham to Atlanta Georbama… or maybe Atlantingham…)… and on top of those we have now arrived in the holiday season!

My Thanksgiving break was great. It was made up of everything the holiday is famous for: Turkey (my parents make the best turkey on the planet), family (minus a few married and foreign cousins), a highly competitive board game (We are now on the Catan bandwagon…my family just keeps getting nerdier… I love it), and the unusually stressful construction of our 12 foot Christmas tree. The only thing missing from one of my favorite days of the year was my favorite person, my fiancé! I’m only reminded, however, that this is the last time we have to spend our holidays apart. I can’t wait to start our own traditions!

With the holidays come a plethora of family traditions. I never thought my family had that many, but after talking with some of my friends I realized we have more than I thought.

     We always play a board game when our family is together for the holidays. It started with Balderdash and has ranged from everything from Monopoly to Risk (and now Settlers of Catan).

  My cousins and I must take a couch picture, in other words a picture of all of us sitting on a couch in approximately age order. It started when it was against our will and the number of people we can now cram on a couch when we are all present is impressive.

Driving around to see Christmas lights happens nearly every week, whether it is our whole family or just my mom and I. We have to keep an eye out for wandering grannies though…

The most extreme Christmas light display in Marietta, GA

We watch dozens of Christmas movies (the whole Lifetime library in my mother’s case), but on Christmas Eve we always watch Holiday Inn with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. I don’t know if you can get more classic than those guys…

Santa did not wrap our presents. Eric and I have argued over this because Santa wrapped his presents. I think Santa might have gotten lazy for my house every year… I told Eric that Santa is going to be lazy for our kids too because I’m certainly not wrapping his presents.

     And finally, we eat sausage casserole for breakfast on Christmas morning. 

      My favorite Christmas morning memory was actually 2 years ago. It wasn’t my favorite because I got a really cool gift or anything; it was my favorite because it snowed. Now this wasn’t my first white Christmas, when you live in Minnesota its rarer to have a green Christmas. What made the snow special was the fact that it had not snowed on Christmas in Georgia in over 100 years. 

       It did well to remind me that Christmas is not about presents under a tree but about a miracle. Jesus was a miracle to a very dark world that Christmas day. The holidays serve to remind us that God sent us the very best gift, His complete and unending love. Therefore we should turn around and give that love to others just as it was given to us. Snow in Georgia on Christmas may seem like a miracle, but the biggest miracle of all is the magnitude of God’s love.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 

When Life Hands you Apples

I apologize to my loyal readers (mom, Eric) for not posting recently. It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, but the good kind of hectic! I’ve been to Georgia and back three times in the past two weeks! All for good reasons though: wedding planning, a photography gig (see Madison Claire Photography on Facebook, shameless plug), and to pick up Eric from the airport after an interview in Boston!  

        

This past trip I was able to spend a few extra days in Georgia while Eric made me jealous with pictures of Boston in full fall color. I planned to counter this with a trip to North Georgia to go apple picking when he returned. North Georgia is famous for it beautiful mountains, small town charm, and delicious apples. I decided there was no better time to go pick apples in Ellijay, GA than a crisp October Saturday.

Turns out there was a much better time, but I’ll get to that.

My mother is a fan of cute towns and fall colors, so I asked her and my dad to come along with us. I figured they could drop us off at a roadside orchard and then through town and sight see. It was such a perfect plan to me… silly me.

The first sign of the line of cars drew a collective groan from the car. I should have realized that everyone else in the state of Georgia would have derived the same perfect plan as me on that beautiful October Saturday. The cheerful car ride soon turned into a sauna of impatience as we inched our way up the highway. Well, half the car was impatient… luckily for my dad and me, Mom and Eric have seemingly unending patience.

My perfect plan was sinking quickly, so I decided to just find some apples to buy so we could get on the southbound road as quickly as possible. We headed for downtown Ellijay and discovered the source of the traffic. Leave it to me to pick Apple Festival weekend, Ellijay’s biggest festival, to plan to pick apples.

Well, the mood in the car turned around when we found a prime spot near the Apple Art walk downtown, a spot that turned out to be right next to crates of fresh picked pecks of apples. We purchased apple pastries and enjoyed a quick walk through the tents. On the way out of Ellijay we passed the fairgrounds for the apple festival and saw more tents than at a SEC football game. Once again, leave it to me to pick Ellijay’s busiest weekend.

Thanks to some good apple turnovers and a large cup of boiled peanuts, our trip to the beautiful North Georgia Mountains wasn’t spoiled by bad traffic. And, thanks to half a peck of apples, I was able to make my mom’s famous apple dip. So I guess the lesson is, when life hands you apples, make something sweet!

Pam's Apple Dip 

A great dip for a snack or an appetizer for a party! Delicious on apples, or even by itself (ask Eric).

Ingredients:

8 oz package of cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup of sugar

1 pkg of bits of brickle toffee (optional, but I love it)

1 can of pineapple or lemon juice

2-3 Apples

Directions:

Combine softened cream cheese, brown sugar, sugar, and toffee in a mixer or large mixing bowl and mix until well blended

Slice apples thinly and dip in pineapple or lemon juice to prevent browning, blot dry, and set on serving plate

ENJOY!

My lifetime love of the Atlanta Braves

Today marks a unique (and potentially dangerous) point in Eric’s and my relationship. Today he goes against an old and faithful love of mine. Today we put my beloved against his.

Today my Braves play his Cardinals in the National League wildcard game.

Let me explain to you just how serious I am about Braves baseball. I have been a fan since I was born…. the early years I was a fan by family default. History making Braves players such as Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Chipper Jones started playing right around the time I was born. Even after my family moved away from Atlanta, I knew that there was no other team I could cheer for but the Braves.

When I was in the 8^th grade we lived in the suburbs of Chicago. My science teacher was one of the biggest Cubs fans I knew. It happened to be that the playoffs that year would see the Cubs playing my Braves. Mr. J. knew I was a Braves fan and made a little wager with me: if the Braves beat the Cubs he would make a cake with the Brave’s logo on it and bring it to class, but if the Cubs won I had to make a cake with the Cubs logo.

Unfortunately the Cubs won, but as a good sport I surprised my teacher and made the cake (I don’t think he thought I really would).

The year my family moved back to Atlanta was the year the Braves acquired some of the best rookies since Chipper Jones. Jeff Francoeur, Ryan Langerhans, and Brian McCann brought the team out of a slump and got everybody watching. I personally am a huge fan of Brian McCann.

Last year I was a little bitter that the Cards beat out the Braves for the wildcard, so this year I’m hoping the roles get reversed. I’ll always be a Braves fan no matter what, but today for Chipper’s sake, for Atlanta’s sake, and for my relationship’s sake (haha, kidding…sort of) I am hoping to be chopping tonight.

Happy Choptober everyone!

Crockpot Soup for the Soul

In psychology I remember learning a child's behavior is primarily based off of two things, the child's genetics and the environment he's brought up in. The whole nature vs. nurture concept. You with me? Well I think this concept combats itself when it comes to my sense of seasonal temperature.

Genetically I'm Southern, completely Southern. Which makes sense because I love that warm sunshine on my face.
My environment growing up was the North, the frozen North. Like I lived in Minnesota (and I'm not exaggerating, they drive on lakes). So when the first cool day rolls around a part of me is giddy with excitement with the thought of pulling on my patagonia to go grocery shopping (the part of me that isn't genetically predisposed to love warm sunshine).

Today was one of those days. The second day of my favorite month was a delightful 60 degrees when I woke up this morning. It was cloudy and misting outside. While some of you might say this sounds like the worst, most miserable kind of weather, I disagree. This is what my mother would term "Home Alone weather" (the first cold, dreary day of the fall my mom starts her Christmas season by popping in Home Alone and lighting the fire place).


I call it Baked Potato Soup weather. So that's exactly what I decided to make today. My all time favorite crockpot soup.
It ended up being the perfect thing to warm me up, especially considering my hot water went out today...again.

But that's a problem for the maintenance guys in the morning, for now let's get to the soup!








Crockpot Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients:

4 large baking potatoes, peeled and chopped into cubes

1 large onion chopped

4 cups chicken broth (32 oz)

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup of butter (half a stick)

2 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 cup half and half

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

10 slices of bacon, crumbled

cheese, sour cream to top

Directions:

Combine potatoes, onion, chicken broth, garlic, butter, salt and pepper in crockpot. Cook on high for 5 hrs.

After 5 hrs add half and half, cheese, crumbled bacon pieces.

Top with cheese and sour cream before serving!

good to the last drop...

And after, why not enjoy a good ole pumpkin spice latte? It is October after all... :)

Ode to October

My favorite month is HERE! 

October, the month when the holiday spirit starts brewing along with warms soups and hot cups of pumpkin spiced coffee. The month where nature’s color scheme heats up while autumn chills down. Lorelei on Gilmore Girls (warning: I reference Gilmore Girls frequently) claims she could write a sonnet to her beloved snow, that’s how I am about October.

Don’t worry. You’re safe from my attempts to emulate Shakespeare.

So instead of making you read all my musings about this glorious month, I’m going to share with you some of my favorite photos that I’ve taken in Octobers past. 

Taken at Samford University

Railroad park Birmingham, AL

At my high school's football game

A shot of my sister

October is a photographer's dream. There is never a lack of beautiful lighting! Just one of the reasons I love it so much. There's also the cute kids running around in Halloween costumes, Homecoming football games, pumpkin pie, and sweatshirt weather. As you can tell, I'm kind of an October junkie.

It probably helps that my birthday is in October too... :)

Happy October everyone!

Delicious Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Today's delicious baked good was whipped up on a whim. When I came up with the idea I was in the middle of a delightfully lazy rainy Sunday evening. I had spent half the day in my pajamas after a very busy morning.

Eric and I stayed up late Saturday night so we could welcome my best friend and her husband into our apartments after they went to the Alabama football game (she's a brave soul, because she married a Bama fan and because she was an Auburn fan in Bama territory). They got in at about 2:30 AM, long past my poor fiancé's usual 10:30 bedtime. We let the guys crash at Eric's and my friend and I headed back to my place, and - because we're of the female gender and stayed up talking- didn't get to sleep until about 4 AM.

Sunday morning rolled around faster than I would have liked and we rose early to get breakfast before church. The sermon this morning was excellent. The part of the sermon I was really 100% focusing during at least. I felt as though I was back in my 7 AM business class senior year, as much as I tried I could not keep my eyelids open. Don't worry, I never fell asleep. I bet there were some fellow members of the congregation that thought I was in deep prayer though.

This is all great, Maddie. But I thought this post was about banana bread...

Yes! Back to my point. After church I had the luxury of taking a 2 hour nap and basically got to hang around watching shows on Netflix while the rain steadily poured all afternoon. Eric, however, has to use every free minute he has (when he isn't spending them with me) to do online classwork and grad school applications. I wanted to make him a special treat because he had stayed up so late so our friends could stay with us (not that it was a huge problem, they're some of our favorite people). My problem was, I didn't exactly have cookie batter ingredients or frankly anything resembling a treat.

All I could find in my kitchen was a couple boxes of gluten free mixes (from my gluten-free diet a few months ago), eggs, butter, some packets of Sweet'n low, and a couple of brown bananas.

Bingo

The bananas made me remember a recipe I had discovered when I was on a gluten-free kick a few months back that involved gluten-free yellow cake mix. Lucky for me, I had some cake mix and two perfectly brown bananas (if you didn't know, the best bananas to use when making banana bread are overly ripe ones - and since I only eat green/yellow bananas I found this the perfect way to rid myself of a couple brown ones). I added chocolate chips because growing up my mom always put chocolate chips in her banana bread, and let's face it, chocolate makes everything better.

So here's the recipe! Eric and I absolutely loved it. Eat it fresh out of the oven so the warm and gooey chocolate chips melt in your mouth!


Chocolate Chip Banana Bread (Gluten-free)

Ingredients:

1 box of Betty Crocker Gluten Free yellow cake mix

2 very ripe bananas, mashed

3 eggs

1 stick of butter softened (1/2 cup)

1 cup of chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Grease your 8x5 or 9x4 loaf pan

Beat together your cake mix, bananas, butter and eggs with an electric mixer on low-medium for 2 minutes

Slowly add chocolate chips while mixing

Pour into loaf pan, cover pan with aluminum foil to prevent the top from burning and bake for 50-55 minutes in 9" pan or 55-60 in an 8" pan

Let cool for 20 minutes before slicing!

Enjoy!

Note: I apologize for the photos, my only current means of photography is my phone. I'll get some better images once I have a real camera again!