Italian Pasta Salad

Who doesn't love pasta? I'm pretty sure I could eat pasta every day. One of my favorite and simple summer salads to make is this one. It tastes great and it's pretty too! You can add ingredients or take out ingredients according to your taste. I hope you like it!
Ingredients:
1 - 16 ounce package of rotini pasta (I use garden rotini - 3 colors)
1 pint grape tomatoes cut in half
1/2 c calamata olives, pitted and cut in half
1 green bell pepper, diced
4 ounces of turkey pepperoni
3 mini seedless cucumbers, sliced
1 - 8 ounce bottle of your favorite Italian dressing
Sea salt and coarse ground pepper to taste
Cook the pasta in salted water until done, I cooked mine about 10 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir in dressing. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving, I usually refrigerate mine overnight. This makes about 8 servings. It tastes great with some freshly grated cheese over it before serving! Enjoy!

Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

This was the first cookie recipe my Grandma gave to me. We made these cookies every visit and they are still one of my favorites. I have made just one change and that is the coconut oil, Grandma used butter. If you have a stand mixer and you mix them until the batter is a little fluffy, your cookies will be soft, almost cake-like in texture. Otherwise (as long as you don't over bake them) they will be soft and chewy in the middle! I make them both ways, it just depends on what you like. I have a couple of variations listed at the end of the recipe. Yummy!
Ingredients:
1/2 c coconut oil
1/2 c softened butter (not melted though)
3/4 c brown sugar
3/4 c white sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
2 c white flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 bag chocolate chips (12 oz) I use milk chocolate chips
1-2 c oatmeal (you can use the old-fashioned or quick cooking)
Mix the oil, butter and sugars together until they are creamy and rather fluffy. Then add in the vanilla and eggs until fluffy. I mix my dry ingredients together, except for the oatmeal and chips, then add to the other ingredients. Once the ingredients are mixed together, I add my oatmeal and chocolate chips but stir those in with a wooden spoon or spatula.
Preheat your oven to 340F degrees. I use a cookie dough scoop and drop dough onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets and bake 8-10 minutes or until the cookies are set but not brown. When the cookies are done, I let them cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet, then I transfer them to the counter top, parchment paper and all, until I am ready to store them in a sealed container. They also freeze well. 



* Hint - if you store the cookies in a container and after a few days, they are getting a little harder than you'd like, add a slice of white bread to your cookie container, put the cover back on and let them sit overnight. In the morning, you will have soft cookies again.
*Variation: If you don't like oatmeal, you can leave it out but you will need to increase your flour, I usually start with 1/2 cup. The texture of the cookie should be rather smooth but not sticky to the touch. Be careful not to add too much flour. I usually test a few on a cookie sheet before I bake them all just to make sure they are the right consistency.

Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi

Party Punch

This is the best tasting and prettiest punch you will ever drink! I have been making this awesome punch recipe for years and it never fails. It is so good that you will need to plan on running out of punch before your party ends! I make this for every special family event and I have never had leftover punch.
Ingredients:
46 ounces chilled pineapple juice
1/2 quart or 1/2 liter of ginger ale, chilled
1 quart or 1 liter of Sprite or 7up, chilled
1 quart strawberry sherbet, soft but not runny.  Our favorite flavors are pineapple, orange, strawberry or raspberry but you can use any sherbet flavor.
1 quart (sometimes I use 2 quarts if I want a creamier texture) vanilla ice cream, soft but not runny.
The ingredient list is for the entire batch of punch. I have always mixed half of the ingredients together in a punch bowl or large bowl and stir until most of the ice cream and sherbet melt. (You can use a potato masher to help mix in your ice cream and sherbet). I keep the other half of the ingredients in the refrigerator (then your ice cream and sherbet will remain soft) and add them gradually when the punch supply is running low. If you have a much larger punch bowl you could probably make it all at one time.

Creamy and pretty punch - every one's favorite!


Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi

Graduation Party Ideas

We hope you have been blessed with a family filled Memorial Day weekend! Our party was amazing and of course friends and family make it perfect! We wanted to give you an idea of how you could organize a party of your own. Our goal was to keep things simple while offering a nice presentation, without too much clutter. We used our jars with the chalkboard contact paper for our candy and kept that theme by labeling each food item, we just stuck the contact paper to the table linens. We used the paper flowers from a previous post to border the bottom of the graduation banner. We also displayed Shya's artwork with wooden clothespins attached to jute. Hopefully you can get some new ideas and make your party planning a pleasant experience!

Paper flowers

start with plates, napkins and forks

Glass jars with chalkboard contact paper

Gardettos

DIY cupcake stands

Chocolate cupcakes, lemon cupcakes and sugar cookies

Hugs and kisses, skittles and lemonheads, m&m's and raisenettes and vanilla bean cupcakes

Label with chalkboard contact paper on linens

fresh fruit

Serving table

Shya's artwork

Shya's artwork hanging from clothespins on jute

yummy punch

Use cupcake liners for fresh strawberries - cream puffs for chocolate dipping

Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi and Angie