Celebrate Southern Archives - Page 2 of 7

The Soiree: Whole30 Summer Tomato Salad

April 23, 2015 by Susan 12 Comments

I’m so excited about today guys! Things are changing around this part of the blog! J and I have decided to make a shift in the Celebrate Southern World. Yes, the Monday linkup will still exist but it is going to be fashion focused. You will find that linkup live on Monday mornings at 6AM on J’s fashion blog Bless Her Heart Y’all. I will also continue to post our Celebrate Southern Podcast episodes on Mondays too.

But on Thursdays… y’all, we are having a party! Actually, it’s more than a party, it is a Soiree! Welcome to the first ever Celebrate Southern Soiree! This is a linky party about the party! We want y’all to share recipes, home decor and projects, DIY, home entertaining and party posts! I’m so excited to see what everyone has to share!

We are also doing this linkup a little bit differently than the original Celebrate Southern linkup… for the Celebrate Southern Soiree, each week we will be looking for two other blogs that would like to be party hostesses with us! The more the merrier right? All we ask is that your blog fits the niche of this linkup. Interested? Fill out this form and we will reach out to you with the date you will be a hostess!

Now on with the show!

Today I wanted to share a light and easy, Whole30 compliant Summer Salad that is perfect for any shindig or soiree! It is also perfect to make at the beginning of the week and then munch on as part of your healthy lunch!

2 cats & chloe: Whole30, Healthy Tomato Cucumber Salad The back story behind this salad: My godmother Lou loves her summer, home grown tomatoes. Often times when we are all together at the river, everyone brings a bunch of their garden tomatoes along. We had to get creative in how to eat all these delicious tomatoes. This is her go-to dish. My only problem? I can’t eat the mayo that my fam does. It’s full of crap, sometimes gluten, and it makes me feel bad. So! Let’s make it our own!

The recipe I used for my homemade mayo is straight from the Whole30 site. It always amazes me because it take so few, clean ingredients and just a couple minutes to make your own homemade mayo. Really makes me ponder why I have spent years and years buying Hellman’s…

2 cats & chloe: Homemade Mayo + Lemon 2 cats & chloe: Summer Homegrown Tomato Salad

This post really doesn’t need this many pictures, as it is so easy even a caveman could make it (paleo humor anyone?) but I was having a great time playing with my camera so you just have to deal.

2 cats & chloe: Tomato, Cucumber, Onion Salad

Tomato Cucumber Summer Salad

Prep time

15 mins

Total time

15 mins

Author: Susan {2 cats & chloe.}

Recipe type: Paleo // Gluten Free // Sugar Free // Whole30 // Soy Free // Dairy Free

Ingredients

1-1/4 cup of Light Olive Oil
1 Organic Egg
½ Teaspoon of Mustard Powder
½ Teaspoon of Salt
1 Lemon, Juiced
2 Medium - Large Tomatoes
1 English Cucumber
⅓ of a Large Onion
Salt & Pepper

Instructions

Make your Mayo first: (this is straight from the Whole30 Site) Place the egg, ¼ cup of olive oil, mustard powder and salt in a mixing bowl, blender or food processor. Mix thoroughly. While the blender is running SLOWLY drizzle in the remaining cup of olive oil. After you've added all the oil and the mixture has emulsified, add lemon juice to taste, stirring gently with a spoon to incorporate.
Cut up your tomato and cucumber into bite size pieces.
Chop up your onion.
Mix all ingredients in a bowl with a small dollop of Mayo. A little goes a long way!
Salt and Pepper to taste.

2 cats & chloe: Whole30 Paleo Salad with Homemade Mayo

Use just a “dollop” of mayo. It goes a long way, I promise! The amount of mayo that the Whole30 recipe yields is much more than you will need for this dish. So use the remaining homemade (clean) mayo for chicken salad tomorrow!

2 cats & chloe: Cucumber Tomato Salad 2 cats & chloe: Whole30 Party Dish

So there ya have it! It’s easy peasy! If you have to go to a potluck or picnic, folks will love this dish! I’m in such a summer mood that I’m just pretending it’s June while I munch on this Whole30 Tomato Salad!

Have you ever made your own Mayo? (I am still amazed at how easy it is!) Do you have a favorite salad that you like to take to parties?

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Celebrate Southern Soiree: New Linkup + Moonshine!

April 16, 2015 by Susan 17 Comments

Gooooood Thursday morning to ya! J and I are really excited to announce that we are teaming up to throw yet another party in Blogland! Welcome to Celebrate Southern: The Soiree! You see, our Monday linkup “Celebrate Southern” seemed to evolve into more of a southern inspired fashion linkup. We didn’t want everyone else who was celebrating all-things-southern to feel intimidated or out of place. So we are throwing two parties!

Celebrate Southern: The Soiree will be all about the party! We are hosting this linkup for bloggers to share their southern-inspired entertaining posts every single Thursday. (And you don’t actually have to be a southerner! We love everyone!) We want to see your home decor, your parties, your recipes and your DIYs. We are going to officially start this linkup NEXT WEEK on 4/23. And we are going to also be looking for a weekly blogger who wants to open up their homes (i.e. your blog!) and be another party hostess!

Since no southern party (or any party for that matter) is complete without a little bit of “bubbly” I thought it would be fun to show you some pictures from the Mother/Daughter Roadtrip I took this past weekend… when we went Moonshine tasting!

After we picked up Jellybean in Knoxville, Tennessee, we drove towards the mountains and camped in Gatlinburg, TN for the night. Since we have NOTHING in our sweet little camper yet, we decided to go into town for dinner. Little did I know that we would end up spending the evening doing a little Moonshine Tasting!

We found ourselves at the Sugarland Distillery right on the main road in Downtown Gatlinburg. These guys were a hoot. They had the crowd going and made sure everyone was enjoying every last drop of our free moonshine samples. Despite the fact that I actually was drinking with my mother, they really made us all feel like we were “drinking with family!”

My mom and I ended up spending our hard earned cash on two jars of Sugarland Moonshine: A jar Butterscotch and a jar of the Apple Pie. I’ve had some great apple pie moonshine in the past… but this stuff is magical! At first sip it tastes like apple, but after you gulp it down and breathe out, you taste the caramel.

Now, before any of you jump all over me… I know that this is real moonshine but it’s not REAL moonshine. While this is delicious and great to sip on, the “real stuff” burns a bit more going down. (Let’s just say that the real stuff is what caused my bachelorette party to come to a quick end. Note to self: never ever drink moonshine from a stranger’s flask ever again. Especially when said stranger looks like a lumber jack and allowed you to cut his hair with a pocket knife.)

So there ya have it! While moonshine may not scream “soiree” it does scream southern shin-dig! If only I wasn’t on Day One of a Whole30, I’d be sipping on this party-in-a-mason-jar right now. Because you know… moonshine + blogging HAS to equal a winning post or two. Am I right?

PS. The deets you need to know about Celebrate Southern: The Soiree! The new linkup will go live Thursdays at 6AM EST. Feel free to dust off older posts but please make sure they some how encompass Southern Entertainment: think lifestyle, foodie, home decor or DIY. If you want to do more than just linkup - we are looking for folks who want to be hostesses! Send me an email if that interests you!

Celebrate Southern Linkup Change Up!

April 13, 2015 by Susan 12 Comments

Hi y’all! I hope you had a great weekend! Mine was pretty darn amazing! My mom and I left Virginia at 5am on Saturday morning for a 7.5 hour drive to Knoxville, TN. It was one of the easiest and prettiest drives I’ve been on in a long time. When we got to Knoxville we went straight to our appointment… to pick up my new baby!

We left Knoxville and visited Gatlinburg… drank some moonshine, did a little camping, then headed onward towards Asheville, NC. Y’all… talk about celebrating southern! We celebrated it all!

More on that trip a little later though! I need to keep today short and sweet because I currently look like this and need a shower worse than Charlie Brown’s good friend Pigpen:

A little bit of business though before I hop in the shower and then go play house in my new camper… The Celebrate Southern Linkup is under-going a few changes. Beginning NEXT WEEK the Monday linkup will be going live at 6AM rather than 8PM on Mondays. We are also going to take a more fashion-forward twist with it… that’s shocking coming from me right?! Don’t fret! All of us lifestyle, foodie, home decor and DIY bloggers will be celebrating all-things-southern-inspired on Thursdays with our Celebrate Southern: The Soiree linkup. Same concept, just more focused on home and entertaining! So hooray for another party! (And if you fit into the “lifestyle” sector of blogland - let me know! We are going to be looking for folks to be co-hosts of our Soiree!)

So y’all know the drill! Join J and myself in our fun-filled Monday linkup. I will be back later this week with all the deets on my new baby, our mother/daughter road trip and of course the moonshine.

Did you listen to the last episode of the Celebrate Southern Podcast about rocking a full time job AND working a successful blog? You can catch up here!

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CELEBRATE SOUTHERN PODCAST + Giveaway + Linkup: Blog Layout Must-Haves!

March 23, 2015 by Susan 6 Comments

So let’s be real… I could ramble about boring things like blog layout, design and whitespace for hours and hours. But we try to keep our podcasts to a 30-ish minute max, so don’t fret.

I think my favorite part of my day-job is taking pieces of sales copy, playing devil’s advocate, cranking creative juices then tearing them apart. As nicely as possible, of course. Maybe it sounds odd, but I passionately love looking at websites, blogs, sales flyers, business cards, and even clients’ restaurant menus (yup, even restaurants need marketing tips!) and trying to find a way to do them a wee bit differently, using a creative twist.

Okay, maybe I simply love this week’s podcast because I’m a nerd. Or maybe it’s because it’s chalked full of good content! Whether you are a blog-expert or a newbie, isn’t it always so much fun to talk about our blog design?? Mine is never the way I want it. It’s an ever-changing monster that I adore! My layout to-do list is typically longer than my post to-do list! And I’m okay with that.

Why is this topic so important? Personally, I feel like your blog design says a lot about you and your “product” (i.e. your blog.) It’s the first impression that your current readers and future readers get of you. So, again, in my personal opinion, your blog design can be just as important as your content in most cases!

This week the Celebrate Southern Gals are bringing you a triple whammy! A podcast! A linkup! And a giveaway! It doesn’t get much cooler than that y’all!

I am THRILLED to announce that I have added “Let’s Talk Blog” to my list of services! I’m a marketing professional with a passion for helping small businesses and blogs “think outside of the box” when it comes to their branding and social media. So to kick off this new service - I’m giving away one free session! Let’s have some tea, or a glass of wine together over a skype or google hangout sesh - and talk blog! Oh, I will als0 send you a questionnaire and will then do a review of your site and/or social media prior to our session to so we can make the most of our blog-date! (For more details on the “Let’s Talk” service - check out my Advertise page.)

I’d love to hear what y’all think! Would you be interested in a Blog Consult? What would you want to chat about? Go enter to win (below) and then let’s get our blog-date on the calendar!

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CELEBRATE SOUTHERN PODCAST: How to work with brands as a blogger!

March 9, 2015 by Susan 10 Comments

It’s that time of the week again! Time for the Celebrate Southern Linkup and Podcast! I really love this episode and hope you do too! J and I spent a little time recently discussing the in’s and out’s of working with brands! As a lifestyle blogger, I am really doubtful to ever have a huge stream of brands chasing after me… but when they do, it’s good to know what to do and say! We pulled my expertise in marketing with J‘s experience with tons of brands to bring you this podcast episode: How to work with brands as a blogger!

For notes on this Celebrate Southern Episode 006 click here!

And since I am still on vacation in Europe… I hope you don’t mind that I’m keeping this post short and sweet. If you are following along on instagram you will see our vacation hashtag #SuzAndRuthGoToSwitzerland. I haven’t taken too many pictures yet because my suitcase got lost on the way here. After 5 days in the same clothes, I am happy to report that my suitcase arrived tonight! (Unfortunately it was right after I went out and spent $200 on new clothes! Make note: NEVER EVER wear leggings on a flight. While it seems smart and comfy… jeans are really your best bet. I spent the last few days galavanting in cheap target “wear-only-at-home” leggings! I’m so grateful to have real pants!)

Join the weekly fun and link up below! While it’s called “Celebrate Southern” you do not actually have to be a southern blogger! Not sure what to share? Link up with a new post or an old post, about anything southern inspired: think crafts, decor, vacations, fashion, food, pets, anything!

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