I've Moved!

Come see me over at my new blog, Home of Malones.  I decided to start fresh with a new lifestyle blog to document our new life as a married couple, the construction of our new house, and hopefully lots of fun design ideas along the way!

Hope you like it!

xoxo,

Annie

Bananas Foster Upside Down Cake Recipe

 

My husband LOVES banana's foster and I love to bake, so when my Mother-in-Law came across this recipe in Southern Living Magazine, she tore it out for me.  It was great timing because we were heading to Supper Club the following week and it was my responsibility to bring the dessert.  I have spoke about supper club before here and here, but since the move back to Florida from Mississippi, we have had to establish a new group for our dinner club.  We had our first dinner together in the month of September and it was a huge success.  I am looking forward to more dinners in the upcoming Holiday months.  So, for my dessert, I whipped us this delicious bananas foster upside down cake.  It's always nerve-racking to cook something for the first time for an event with other people eating your food, but I lucked out with this one.  It was a huge hit.  We served it hot with vanilla ice cream on the side.

 

 

Recipe from Southern Living Magazine 

Ingredients

• 
  1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup butter, softened and divided
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons rum
• 2 ripe bananas
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose baking mix (Note: this is not regular flour.  Look for Bisquick pancake and baking mix)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

 

Preparation

1. 1. Preheat oven to 350°. Bake pecans in a single layer 8 to 10 minutes or until toasted and fragrant, stirring once.
2. 2. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a lightly greased 10-inch cast-iron skillet or 9-inch round cake pan (with sides that are at least 2 inches high) over low heat. Remove from heat; stir in brown sugar and rum.
3. 3. Cut bananas diagonally into 1/4-inch-thick slices; arrange in concentric circles over brown sugar mixture. Sprinkle pecans over bananas.
4. 4. Beat granulated sugar and remaining 1/4 cup butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Add milk and next 2 ingredients; beat just until blended. Beat in baking mix and cinnamon until blended. (Batter will be slightly lumpy.) Pour batter over mixture in skillet. Place skillet on a foil-lined jelly-roll pan.
5. 5. Bake at 350° for 40 to 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in skillet on a wire rack 10 minutes. Run a knife around edge to loosen. Invert onto a serving plate, spooning any topping in skillet over cake.

 

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!!

Wedding Weekend | Rehearsal Dinner | Arnaud's Restaurant

 

 

We had our Rehearsal Dinner at Arnaud's in the French Quarter of New Orleans.   The menu gave everyone a taste of what great New Orleans food is all about.  The night was filled with incredible food, strong cocktails, good laughs, tear-jerker speeches, beautiful flowers and amazing friends and family.  Oh,  and also a really good surprise.  We had the perfect evening.

 

 

 

 The Arnaud's Ballroom

Great Friends 

 

My Handsome Hubby who had me crying within the first hour of dinner with a very heartfelt speech 

 

 

The Speech 

 and lets raise our glasses for a toast

 

My dear friend Tiffany who was also my excellent photographer for the night! 

The gorgeous flowers and centerpieces done by my incredibly talented friend, Hayden at Geraldine's

 

And I'm a bit teary eyed with my high school girls plus Tiffany 

My brothers and my sister and law and soon to be other sister in law!!!  

And here comes the surprise… the band busts through the doors and we have a surprise 2nd line, a New Orleans tradition, that we take from the restaurant back to the Ritz Carlton hotel

 

 

 

A few people hopped in the rickshaws! 

 

 

The 2nd Line

 

Heading down Canal St with a light rain

 

 

It was such a fun surprise.  We had a blast walking through the streets of the French Quarter and caught a little rain at the end which made it feel so surreal.  We met up with other friends and family at the Davenport Lounge in the Ritz Carlton for an after dinner drink and then called it a night to make sure we got our beauty sleep.

Wedding Weekend | Bridal Luncheon | Galatoire's

I wanted to give a few snapshots of our events during our wedding weekend in New Orleans.  We had a lot of out of town guests that arrived on Thursday evening and met us at the Ritz Carlton for cocktails and appetizers at the courtyard bar.  It was so much fun seeing everyone get into town and ready to kick off the weekend.  We had the bridal luncheon on Friday morning at 11:30 am at Galatoire's to really get the festivities started! 

 

The ladies did a beautiful job setting up the tables and gave my favorite Tyler Candle in the "Tyler" scent to all the girls as a gift. 

 

Pretty center pieces 

 

Me with the wonderful hosts for the luncheon

 

Bride and MOB

 

The Malone Girls-- My new SIL, Melanie, MIL, Sandy, and niece Kayla

 

My gorgeous and incredibly impressive MOH and cousin :)

 

On the Menu:

 

My childhood BFF's 

 

My DG girls + an adopted one :)

 

Me giving the girls their bridesmaids gifts

So fun!

 

Cousins!

Pretty girls

 

 

Here are the goodies that I gave the bridesmaids for standing by my side on my big day :)

 

1. Mudpie Strapless Cover-Up | 2. Tan Towels | 3. Batiste Dry Shampoo | 4. Lucite Catch all Tray | 5. Kendra Scott Earrings | 6.  The Final Product

 

I would not recommend the Mudpie Cover- Up.  Those were given for all of us to wear while we were getting ready together on Wedding day, but they were quite see-through.  They don't appear that way on the model, but they were.  The tan towels and dry shampoo are two of my most favorite products to use and I had a feeling they would come in handy for the weekend.  The lucite tray is a great for lots of things, but is wonderful to throw jewelry in and put on your vanity.  I loved the Kendra Scott designs because she allows you to choose whatever color combination you would like.  Check out her website and go to the color bar. There is every combination imaginable.  The earrings shown were not the colors I used.  

 

I hope you enjoy and I will be back with more photos from the weekend soon!

Wedding Gift Ideas

 

As wedding season is here and I’m always interested in creative and original ideas to give to the bride and groom for wedding presents, I thought I would share a few neat gifts we received.  We received tons of wonderful gifts and of course lots of things from our registries, but these are a few that did not come from our registries and that I had never seen done before.

 

This is a beautiful tray that has our Save the Date printed on it.  It is so original and I couldn’t get over what I great idea it was.  It is from a company called Marye-Kelley out of Houston.  They decoupage just about anything you can think of and have wonderful gift ideas on their site. 

These are two different lamps we received as gifts.  Again, this was not on our registry;  but who can’t always use another great lamp.  I thought these were beautiful.  The one on the left comes from Orient Expressed in New Orleans and the other from Judy’s at the Rink.

 

This was a really fun idea from Uncommon Goods.  It’s personalized with our names, wedding date, and our first dance song. {Our song was actually Ain’t that A Kick in the Head by Dean Martin}  There are a lot of great personalization gifts and fun ideas on this website too.

 

  We had someone take our wedding invitation which is shown below and send it to Judy’s at the Rink in New Orleans and they engraved it in the Lucite tray that you see below.  I was fascinated by this gift.  You see wedding invitations framed and things like that, but I had never seen one done like this.  I just loved it!  What a great keepsake.

  

I absolutely love this.  My aunt owns an art gallery in New Orleans so we were very lucky to get such a nice gift but it has a lot of meaning too.  This picture was painted of the French Quarter and more specifically, Arnauds Restaurant, where we had our Rehearsal Dinner.  You can find more of Meredith Keith’s work here at my Aunt’s art gallery.

 

Below is a monogrammed door bell! How gorgeous is that???  I love it.  They knew that we would soon be building a house and came up with this thoughtful gift.  I’ve never seen one like it.  Unfortunately, I can not find a website or contact information for the designer of this doorbell.  It is by Rae Rae Miller and it came from Mobile, AL.  Please let me know if you can find any information on them.

 

I love the gorgeous candlestick from Orient Expressed in New Orleans and the painting of a bride by Lynette Collins Walker.  It was so wonderful to get great gifts for around the house.  Things like art, lamps and candles are something I can always use in our home.

I hope some of these gifts gave you some great ideas for your next wedding.  I loved sharing our gifts and wish that I could share them all because they truly were spectacular.  I got so many great entertaining items and am ready to throw my first summer bash with all of my fun new gifts! 

From Adams to Malone

I got married since the last time I've posted for you guys!!! We had the most amazing weekend of our lives.  I went from an Adams to a Malone!  Check out our pictures from our incredible photographer at http://creativeimagesproofing.com/gallery/annie-and-matt-engagement-758603

The Perfect Guest Room

Summer is here and lots of people are ready to hit the road for summer vacation or visits with family and friends that live out of town.  I don’t know about you, but I love hosting my friends or family at my home.   I also have a huge appreciation and take notice when I am at someone else’s house and I can tell they made a special effort to make the guest room extra cozy and homey. I came across this adorable water color and blog post from Jess at The Aestate and had to share.  She covers the essentials to a cozy guestroom for your house guests and she hand paints these watercolors.  WOW.

 {Source}

1.  Fresh Flowers- Who doesn’t love a beautiful vase of wonderful smelling flowers next to their bedside?

2.  Luggage Rack- Have you ever noticed that just about every hotel you have ever been to has one of these?  They are great and can be found at Ballard Designs.

3. Waste Bin- Bedroom/Bathroom must have

4. Scented Candle & Matches-  I think for the bedroom this is nice, but definitely a must in the guest bathroom.  One of my favorite candles is the Tyler scent from www.tylercandles.com.

5. Tissues-  You never know when your guest might need them in the middle of the night.  This is a nice bedside touch.

6. Alarm Clock- This is a great back up just in case your friends or family has not joined the rest of the 21st century and does not have an alarm on their phone.

7. Pen & Paper- A hotel always supplies this don’t they?

8. XL Robe-  This is always a nice touch.  Most of your guests will probably not even bother using it, but I still think it is a great idea to supply one.

9. Good Reading Light- Your guests may read every night before they go to bed and you would hate to be the one to break them of their routine :)

10. Magazines- Being a lover of magazines, I always think this is a nice touch.  You probably have some laying around your house already, so just throw a couple recent ones in for leisurely reading.

11. Pitcher & Glass- I am always extremely impressed when I see this on a guest room bed side table.  But it makes so much sense.  Don’t we all bring a glass of water to bed with us every night? This is great if your guests forgot theirs or needs a refill at 2am.

12. Snacks- Any type of snack might be nice, but what I think is really special is an evening sheet turndown with a little bite of chocolate on their pillow. I love it when a hotel does that for me.

13.  Wooden Hangers-  This is a nice touch in the closet for your guest’s clothes. $4 for 8 pack at www.ikea.com.

 

Another nice touch can be placing your guests bath towels, hand towels and wash cloth on the end of their bed.  That works well if it is a one or two night stay.

What do you do for your guests to make them feel more at home? Do you have any special touches?

2011 Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Photo books are the perfect gift for any occasion.

My Brothers Engaged!!

 The Nugget showing off her ring!

 I'm soooo excited! Bryan and Erin got engaged!  They were on top of the black diamond slopes at Vail Mountain and Bryan proposed!!  

I wanted to be out there to celebrate with them so bad.  Bryan completely surprised all of us.  He kept it such a great secret.  Matt and I and my Mom were supposed to be out in Vail with them, but because of all of our wedding stuff we had going on, we decided to skip the ski trip this year.  Boy, was I sad we missed it. 

 

The two of them headed to Kelly Liken in Vail Village to celebrate that night for dinner.

 

Since we couldn't be in Vail to celebrate with them, we had to celebrate in their honor back in Pensacola.  Me, Matt, my Dad and Amy were all having brunch at 5 Sisters on Devilliers St. when I went to take out my phone and I had about 8 missed calls and text messages.  I opened up my phone and read Erin's text and started screaming and crying at the same time to the rest of the table.  I swore I had had a dream the night before thinking it was going to happen on this trip.  It was supposed to be a group trip and then slowly as it got closer to trip time, it ended up just being Bryan and Erin.  

After we finished brunch, my Mom joined us and we all headed back to Matt and I's back porch and opened several bottles of delicious champagne to celebrate the big engagement.  It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and we took advantage of the celebration.  

 

The result of the long afternoon :)

 

I truly could not be more happy for the two of them and am so excited to call Erin my sister in law soon!  She has been such a huge part of our family all ready over the last 5 years and I can't wait to make it official.  Cheers to Bryan and Erin and I am so excited to keep the festivities rolling after Matt and I tie the knot in a few short weeks!!!!!!!