I found all these cute Alpha Gam things I made as a collegian so I decided to show off my Alpha Gam stuff, we all like some squirrely inspiration =)
DSCF8966 DSCF8988DSCF8970DSCF9005   

DSCF8990

DSCF4209Interfacing applique, turned out amazing on this tote bag.
DSCF3915

Ok so she’s not an alpha gam, but she was Salt for her first Halloween, since her name is Pepper.

 
DSCF4210
Traced lettering for Little and Grand Little

DSCF4211
I had some polyvore fun finding cute squirrel stuff at every price point. How perfect would that wall decal be for a lil legacy's room? Plus it's only $10 at Sears of all places?!?!
 Have fun perusing.

 P.S. Rumor has it West Elm has a sequined squirrel in stores, but I couldn't find it online =(


This post is crossposted with The Alpha Gamma Delta Blog Network.
I'm excited to announce the launch of the Alpha Gamma Delta Blog Network, I've had a tremendous time putting together this page and can't wait to see all the amazing blogs written by our talented sisters. Read below to find out about the network and why it has been created.



Our Mission

To connect Alpha Gamma Delta sisters within the blogosphere creating and rekindling friendships.


Who I am?

I'm Kirstin Long a recent alumna of Belmont University in Nashville, Tn and the Theta Tau chapter of Alpha Gamma Delta. An Entrepreneurship and Marketing major and avid blogger I saw the need for a way for Alpha Gams who blog to connect with each other. We develop friendships with the blogs we read and our readers and what better way to get to know sisters from across the country (and Canada =) than to be able to find their blogs.

What Inspired this?

After reading Preppy Pink Crocodile for nearly six months I discovered via one of her posts that she was an Alpha Gam, which of course was very exciting, then I realized how many Alpha Gams I knew who blogged, and thought maybe I'm on to something.

What I hope this will become...

I hope that the Alpha Gamma Delta Blog Network will:
  • Provide a listing of all blogs written by Alpha Gamma Delta sisters.
  • Provide supportive blogging community
  • Offer guest posts highlighting sisters achievements
  • Offer general interest posts relating to Alpha Gamma Delta, Squirrels, Greek Life, & Blogging
  • Develop and grow into what members desire.
Have a idea on ways to make the Alpha Gamma Delta Blog Network even better? Leave us a comment below.

Spread the Word

Help us find Alpha Gamma Delta bloggers by sharing our website AlphaGam.org with your sisters who blog, as well as those who just enjoy reading blogs.

Join by filling out the form here, we may even create a post about your blog.

Excited to hear from you!

Loyally,
Kirstin Long

Compound butters are easy as can be, look and sound very fancy, and are super tasty.

All you do is whip the softened butter in your stand mixer, then add the herbs, whip again, then spoon into a ramekin. Doesn't get easier than that.


Alton's Compound Butter (I didn't make a whole pound)
  • 1 pound butter
  • 3 to 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons fresh chives, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon thyme, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon sage, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon rosemary, chopped
  • 1/2 pound unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons minced fresh chives
  • 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon minced flat-leaf parsley leaves
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • Pinch of cayenne
  • Sticks unsalted butter, softened
  • Chopped garlic
  • Chopped fresh herbs - parsley, basil, thyme, rosemary
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Kirsti's Creation Compound Butter
  • Unsalted Butter
  • Pressed garlic
  • Chopped parsley
  • Chopped chives
  • Splash lemon juice
  • Fresh thyme
It's too hot out, and it's been too hot out, cool off with some sorbet this Fourth of July weekend. The sorbet paired perfectly with our Italian theme and heavy spaghetti dinners.


Lemon Sorbet from Emeril 
Sorbet is one of my new loves, the flavor is so condensed and so natural you cure your sweet tooth's ache with just a little bit. I hope to try to try to make a splenda version soon so it's not so many empty sugar calories.These look great served my baby trifle dishes.

Ingredients
Amount pictured is a double batch

  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup  1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (the comments on this recipe recommended this and it turned to be the perfect amount of tart)
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Directions

Make your sugar water and juice your lemons far in advance to when you want to put it into your ice cream maker, everything must be well chilled to freeze well. (Learn from my mistake, spilling simple syrup in your freezer is a horrible horrible experience, plus the burn isn't fun either.)

Bring the water and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan, remove from the heat, and cool.
Combine the syrup with the lemon and zest and pour into the bowl of an ice cream machine.
Freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions. After the sorbet is made, transfer to an airtight container. Cover tightly and freeze until ready to serves 5


Raspberry Sorbet from Paula Deen

Ingredients

  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 quarts raspberries, hulled and sliced
  • 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
  • 1/2 cup white corn syrup this recipe uses syrup, the lemon one does not.

Directions

Bring the sugar and 2 cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and allow the mixture to simmer, without stirring, until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Set aside to cool completely.
Place the raspberries and lime juice in a food processor and puree. I used my blender successfully without it being a pain like it sometimes is.

Press the raspberry puree through a strainer to remove the seeds. Metal mesh strainer is a must.


When the sugar syrup has cooled completely, combine with the raspberry puree. Add the corn syrup and stir well.

Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. Sorbet is particularly soft after churning but firms up after freezing. Andrew's sweet parents let me borrow their's by Rival  (link is to the updated version).
Each week I pick a blog from collection of 203 Google Reader Subscriptions and showcase a blog I love.

The Blog: The Adventures of Mrs. Smith The Feed:  Feed

Who is she: Mrs.Smith beyond being my Alpha Gamma Delta big sister and my blogging inspiration is a happy newly wed to Mr.Smith with two funny dogs and cat name Oscar. She also obsessed with Tiffany's... If you're planning a wedding be sure to check out her archives as her blog has transitioned from a wedding planning blog to a personal blog. (Her wedding was AMAZING!)

What she talks about: Mrs.Smith writes about a vast variety of things she encounters in life. Everything from her learning to be runner, to Menu Monday where the Smith kitchen tests out new recipes each week and reports back, including lots of vegetarian recipes. Mrs.Smith also does party planning series as well as she loves to host!

Why she's worth reading: Chelsea writes about great stuff that's easy to try yourself, plus she's a pretty funny person =) Plus her tag line is "Did I tell you how divinely and utterly happy I am?" how can you go wrong with some Audrey.
A true sorority girl I went with a themed dinner, settling on Italian since I was cooking for 12 for the first time, pasta sounded like a good intro. Cooking details to come for some of the items,I was a little too busy to photo document as much as I usually do, but for now the items with recipes are linked. Andrew gets lots of best boyfriend ever points for making his famous sangria and Alfredo and all his help in the kitchen.


Antipasta
Fresh Breads
Compound Herb Butters 
Romaine Salad
Assortment of Dressings

Cena
Fettuccine
Chicken
Meatballs
Broccoli

Dolce
Lemon Sorbet
Raspberry Sorbet
Merenda
Guacamole
Mango Salsa
Tortilla Chips

Bere
Champagne Toast

Colazione
Pancakes de Mary
Eggs
Bacon
Milk
Orange Juice

It's been a few weeks, but it's still affecting Nashville, so I think we need to talk about it.
Luckily Andrew and I were not directly affected, thanks to living on a large hill, all the places we almost lived in Bellevue though were under water.

I have plenty of friends who were affected though

Like this lovely couple.


Kelly & Brandon's house was flooded the Sunday before their wedding. An Alpha Gamma Delta alumnae, our chapter stepped up and helped Kelly with her house and continue to do so, we even were able to raise $160 from just one chapter meeting to help them start their lives together.



My other affected friend, had to be boat rescued from their home to have their first child. They made it just fine, and baby Ethan and family are happy and healthy. This was the team that loaded all their stuff to be stored while the bottom half of their house gets rebuilt.

This was the Cumberland river from a family friends deck the Monday it stopped raining. The shore is normally at the first tree line.


My entrepreneurship professor's daughter was also affected (read his brainy blog here http://www.blogger.com/www.drjeffcornwall.com) a group of students brought the family dinner. I made these lemon bars from my Betty Crocker Baking Basics Cookbook. The crumbled ones were pretty good =)




On Old Hickory Blvd by Percy Warner there are growing mountains of building waste, as cleanup continues across the city.

And these were the lucky one's and there's much more left to do.
I've been a member of Alpha Gamma Delta my entire college experience at Belmont and it has been the most rewarding experience. To celebrate the four years I've spent with the wonderful women of my pledge class I decided to send us off in style with a senior sleepover.

Using a Google Spreadsheet form I collected what days worked best for the most people.

Making each date option a question and offering these options:
  • Perfect =D
  • Works but isn't the greatest =/
  • Can't be there =(
With that we finally settled on a date that worked, the evening of the last day of finals. (Punchbowl has their own date decider I later discovered, so for the easy way use that.)

Then came time to create the invitation.

Facebook offers such limited ways to make an invitation pretty, and with only a small number of people being invited I wanted something a little more personal.

There are tons of options out there. (Pingg, Punchbowl, evite, to name a few)

I'd used Pingg before and wasn't crazy about how much was paid nor the customization options. So I opted to try punchbowl. Overall I'm really happy with punchbowl, they don't make their unpaid version useless, basically you have a few less fonts and designs to choose from, but not so much you can't make something you like.

The Invitation I picked and altered in their web creator.
Easy to use, lots of options

Then you have tons of add-on tools, like a paypal fund guests can contribute to, this potluck list which I used to determine most people wanted to just have me buy and then spilt the cost of, maps, travel suggestions, loads and loads of extra features you control which was awesome.
Punchbowl has loads of options for importing the emails of your guests, and tons of controls to help you get a good count, you can manualy RSVP for a person and even link couples together. The best part though is you can see who looked at the invitation and who didn't and resend the invite to just the people who didn't look at it.

Punchbowl even helps you with your ettiquette, so you can be Emily Post the easy way.

Stay tuned more to come in this HK party series.
One of A's faves I wanted to find something a little lighter. I found this great recipe via my lovely Alpha Gamma Delta Big Sister Mrs.Smith, read her adorable blog here: http://the2Smiths.blogspot.com

 Andrew & I ate about half the 8x8 pan of this for a 'snack' at 4, it's now 9 and we still haven't made dinner, D- for self control, which negates the better for you-ness...




We followed this recipe pretty much completely apart from skipping the water chestnuts and putting some provolone on top.

WW Hot Spinach-Artichoke Dip

2 pts per 1/4 cup

Ingredients


 1 Tbsp light butter   
1 cup(s) onion(s), finely chopped   
2 medium garlic clove(s), minced   
10 oz chopped frozen spinach, thawed, drained and squeezed dry   
8 oz canned water chestnuts, sliced, drained and coarsely chopped  (don't like these)
14 oz canned artichoke hearts, without oil, quartered, drained and coarsely chopped   
8 oz 1/3 less-fat cream cheese, softened   
8 oz reduced-fat sour cream   
1 cup(s) low-fat shredded cheddar cheese, divided   
1 tsp hot pepper sauce   
1/2 tsp table salt   
1/4 tsp black pepper   
1 spray(s) cooking spray   

Instructions


Andrew laid the provolone "tile"
  • Preheat oven to 350°F.
  • Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté 5 minutes or until tender. Add spinach, water chestnuts, and artichokes; sauté 2 minutes. Add cream cheese, sour cream, 1⁄2 cup of Cheddar cheese, hot sauce, salt and pepper.
  • Spoon into an 11 x 7-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Top with remaining 1⁄2 cup of Cheddar cheese. Bake at 350°F for 18 to 20 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Serve with baked tortilla chips (need to count POINTS values for chips). Yields about 1/4 cup of dip per serving.