Click here to view more photos and a complete list of the vendors who participated!
Rustic and Romantic Farm to Table Inspired Wedding
Click here to view more photos and a complete list of the vendors who participated!
Click here to view more photos and a complete list of the vendors who participated!
Maedell's Black Eyed Pea Salad Recipe
I will never turn down a home cooked meal from Travis's grandma, Maedell. She is easily one of my favorite cooks and is always entertaining. Her meals are simple and no fuss, just like her. She cooks everything from memory and even if you had one of her recipes, it would never taste as good as when she makes it.
Maedell is almost 90 years old but you would never guess it. She is feisty and says whatever is on her mind, sometimes maybe even when she should not. She grew up in the South so naturally I like the majority of her food. Travis likes to joke that she lives off of Dr.Pepper, Twinkies, salt and butter. If she is 90 years old and only has glaucoma, I am not going to feel bad about drinking an occasional Dr.Pepper and always buttering my biscuit.
If you are eating a meal at Maedell's you can guarantee these things will always be there: veggie/relish tray, biscuits, sugar cookies, ham and/or fried chicken, and black eyed pea salad. I always have a couple helpings of her black eyed pea salad. I love it so much I decided to try my hand at making it and I think I came pretty close, although I know it will never taste exactly like hers.
You can serve this salad with fried chicken and ham, like Maedell, with the pulled pork recipe I shared last week or just eat it by itself as a meal.
Black Eyed Pea Salad Recipe
2 cans black eyed peas rinsed1 c. chopped white onion
1/2 c. (heaping) chopped red pepper
1/2 c. (heaping) chopped celery
2/3 c. red wine vinegar
1/3 c. neutral oil
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
Drain and rinse black eyed peas and place in a bowl. Finely chop onion, red pepper and celery and add to beans. Whisk together vinegar, oil, salt and pepper. Pour over salad and mix all together. Cover with saran wrap and let sit in the fridge overnight. Serve cold.
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| This recipe consists of basically dicing, so it comes together quickly. Make sure you aren't going too quickly though... you do not want to lose a finger! |
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| And then dice the pepper. I love all the colors in this salad! |
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| Red or green onions can also work in a pinch. |
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| Black Eyed Peas...not to be confused with the great millennial band. I really wish they would make a comeback. |
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| I am pretty sure Maedell uses plain white vinegar in her salad. I love red wine vinegar though so that is what I used. |
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| Toss it all together and chill in the fridge overnight. It gets better the longer it sits! |
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| Enjoy! |
Watercolor Wedding Vows
I am a sucker for anything handwritten (go figure). Cards sent to me from friends, old thank you notes, love sticky notes Travis hides in places for me to find, I treasure all of these and have quite a collection of them. I even still have the note cards Travis wrote out to use in case he froze during our proposal, so sweet!
So when we were planning our wedding it was a no brainer that I really wanted to write our own set of vows in addition to the traditional ones we would be saying. I have a weird love of public speaking so I was excited to do this, Travis was not super thrilled about the idea but once again, did it to make me happy. His were obviously way sweeter and lovey than mine (story of our relationship) but we are both so happy we did this.
I kept the papers that we read off of on our wedding day, mine tear stained from my bridesmaids (thanks ladies) and Travis's from himself. This is really making me sound like I'm heartless and unemotional... I just kept telling myself not to cry and mess-up my makeup for photos.
I have been trying to think of a fun way to display these in our house for over three years but have not come up with a great idea yet other than a shadow box which I did not want to do. I decided to keep these in Travis and my memory box and transfer the text to beautiful wall art instead.
I love the way these turned out and am currently looking for the perfect place in our house to display them!
With summer coming up, so will many anniversaries. These would make the perfect anniversary gift. If you are into traditional gifts, paper is for a first year anniversary and cotton (think cotton paper) is for a second year anniversary. Personally I think these would be lovely for any anniversary or as a wedding gift. OR how special would it be to surprise your fiance with a beautiful handwritten marriage proposal *hint, hint, guys*
