Cinnamon Apple Bubble Pie Recipe | Newlywed & Family Recipes

Prep Time: 20 Minutes
Cook Time: 15-23 Minutes
Servings: 6-8

Ingredients

• 1 tube of Pillsbury Grands! Southern Homestyle Original Biscuits

• 3 Handfuls or so of apple chunks (about a 1/2 inch long with no skin)

• 1/4 Cup of Sugar

• 1 Tbsp of Cinnamon

• Lemon Juice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Peel and chop apples into small chunks—about a 1/2 inch long.

3. Add apple chunks to gallon ziplock bag. Should be about 1/4 of the bag.

4. Squirt chunks with lemon juice until all are evenly covered but there isn’t any juice resting in the bottom of the bag.

5. Spray nonstick PAM or similar product to a pie dish. We used a ceramic dish from Crate & Barrel.

6. Open the tube of biscuits and begin cutting into 1/4 chunks (4 triangles per biscuit). As you cut them, add them to the pie dish. Place them almost like puzzle pieces. Be sure to leave some small spaces between them but make sure all are touching in some way. The bottom of the dish should be covered with a biscuit and a half left.

7. Pour 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon into the ziplock with the apples.

8. Shake the bag until all apple pieces are covered evenly in the cinnamon sugar mixture.

9. Pour apples into pie dish, spreading them out across the dough.

10. Using the leftover biscuit and a half, chop into 1/8 chunks (12 small triangles total).

11. Place the additional triangles on top of the apples, none touching.

12. Add pie dish to the oven and set timer for 5 minutes.

13. Pull dish out of the oven and, using the knife you had chopped the dough with, turn over the chunks on the top and push them down so they touch the bottom dough. Also begin pushing apple chunks down into the bottom dough. The dough should be nice and warm at this point so this should be easy to do.

14. Once there is an even consistency of dough and apples at the top of the dish, place it back in the oven and set the timer for 15 minutes. If you want to be on the cautious side (like me), check it every 5 minutes.

15. Check the pie by stabbing the center with a clean knife. If dough is still clinging to the knife, add additional cook time. I believe ours took about 23 minutes. The consistency should be similar to a cinnamon roll where the inside is still a little gooey but is thoroughly cooked.

TIP: Best served warm! Can be eaten straight out of the oven. We thought it tasted best reheated a couple days later! Definitely add some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream!

Simple & Delicious Beer Bread Recipe | Newlywed & Family Recipes

Prep Time: 5 Minutes
Cook Time: 45 Minutes
Servings: About 10

Ingredients

• 1 12oz Can of Beer (We used Bud Light and it was great!)

• 3 Cups of Flour (sifted)

• 1 Tbsp Baking Powder

• 1 Tsp Salt

• 3 Tbsp Sugar

• 1 Tsp Minced Garlic (Optional but I highly recommend it because it really adds to the flavor!)

• 4 Tbsp Butter (melted)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

2. Spray a loaf pan with PAM or other nonstick option.

3. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder & salt.

4. Using a tablespoon, scoop out or chop from a stick of butter the 4 spoonfuls and add to microwaveable bowl/measuring cup. Melt butter and pour into mixing bowl.

5. Add sugar, garlic and beer. Pour the beer slowly because it will foam up quite a bit.

6. Mix the ingredients well and then pour the sticky dough into the loaf pan.

7. Bake for 45 minutes. The bottom of the loaf will most likely look golden brown while the top will remain similar in color to the pre-cooked dough. Color may vary depending on which beer you use.

8. Allow to cool on folded up paper towel to absorb any excess moisture. Do not store in ziplock until fully cool (a few hours after baking).

TIP! Best served warm and with butter on it! Store at room temperature in a ziplock bag. Eat within 5 days for best taste.

Ground Turkey Rollups | Crescent Roll Recipes | Newlywed & Family Recipes

Prep Time: 15 Minutes
Cook Time: 7-8 Minutes
Servings: 8

Ingredients

• Ground Turkey (or other preferred filling)

• 1 Buttery & Flakey Crescent Roll Tube

• Shredded Cheese (we usually use Mexican)

• Seasonings (we use salt, pepper, garlic powder and chili lime)

• Olive Oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Unroll crescent rolls onto nonstick baking sheet.

3. Sprinkle shredded cheese onto the widest part of each triangle.

4. Warm a large pan with olive oil to coat it.

5. Add the ground turkey or other meat option.

6. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and shake other seasonings over the meat.

7. Chop in pan with spatula, stirring frequently until fully cooked.

8. Once the meat is fully cooked, transfer some meat onto the widest part of each triangle.

9. Begin rolling the rolls (widest first). There should only be meat and cheese in the first roll. The remainder of the dough should wrap around alone.

10. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the crescent rolls are a light golden brown. If you’d like to test them, take a fork and poke the top middle of the lightest colored roll. If the fork comes out clean and does not stick, they are done.

    • 12 Minutes is usually the perfect time for us because they’re still a little gooey. If we really stuff a lot of meat into them or use refrigerated meat from the night before, then they are more on the 15 minute side. Keep an eye on them though! You’ll know they’re done but still a little gooey when the corners are golden brown and the center is still pretty light but a fork/toothpick doesn’t stick! When done, the bottoms will be totally golden.

    • We always use a nonstick baking sheet with no spray/greasing since the dough already has a lot of butter in it and they always come off the sheet easily. If your pan usually sticks to things you cook, then I would spray it with a little PAM or the like before laying them out. Wax paper will stick to the bottoms and tear upon removal.

TIP: If you’d like to make more than 8, just grab an extra tube of crescent rolls! You will have plenty of filling leftover that you can use in those!

TIP: If you are planning to make these with leftover ground turkey you have already cooked, you don’t need to heat up the meat! Just add it to the rolls as normal and it will heat through just fine.

DIP TIP: Michael loves pairing his with some Cholula hot sauce while I prefer dipping mine in Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Hot!

Grandma's Sugar Cookie Recipe | Cookie Recipe for Any Holiday | Newlywed & Family Recipes

Prep Time: 15 Minutes
Cook Time: 7-8 Minutes
Servings: Approx. 30

THE ICING

Ingredients

• Lemon Juice

• Powdered Sugar

• Unsalted Butter

• Milk

Directions

1. Add 1 stick of butter and 1 lb of powdered sugar into the bowl and begin mixing slowly.

2. Drizzle in some milk (we prefer 1%) until you have reached the desired thickness.

3. Once smooth, add in lemon juice little by little until you reach the desired taste. The lemon should only be there to bring out the flavors. You will know you have enough once you don’t taste powdered sugar flavor anymore.

4. Allow to sit at room temperature for easy spreading. Freeze any leftover icing in an airtight container.

THE COOKIES

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs Lemon Juice

• 1/2 Tsp Vanilla

• 2 C Flour (Sifted)

• 3/4 C Sugar

• 2/3 C Unsalted Butter

• 1 Egg

• 4 Tsp Milk

• 1 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder

• 1/4 Tsp Salt

Directions

1. Thoroughly cream butter, sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla.

2. Add the egg and beat until fluffy.

3. Stir in milk.

4. Sift dry ingredients in a separate bowl before stirring them into the wet mixture.

5. Blend until all ingredients are mixed fully.

6. Divide into two balls, wrap and chill for 1 hour.

7. On a floured surface, roll half the dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Be sure to add flour to rolling pin and a little sprinkle of flour on top of the ball so it does not stick. Do not over-flour.

8. Using cookie cutters of your choice, cut into shapes. Wiggle the cutter a bit before removing from dough for easy removal.

9. Lay flat on baking sheet covered in wax paper. Leave about a half inch of space between each cookie.

10. Bake at 375 degrees F for 6-8 minutes. 7 to 7.5 minutes will most likely be the perfect amount of time for you. 7 gave us softer results that were more “gooey cookie” like but broke easily while 7.5 was the perfect consistency that did not break and allowed for icing while still being soft.

11. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheets before moving to wire racks to cool completely.

12. Ice and decorate cookies! We find that it’s best to ice and decorate one by one so that the sprinkles stick to the icing. If the cookie is a little warm, it will make for a smoother icing job but can melt the icing if too warm.

Tip! Although we show these cookies used for Christmas, they can be used for any holiday! Just grab some cute cookie cutters and sprinkles and you’re all set!

2018 Year in Review | Indianapolis International Destination Wedding Photographers

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Hello everyone!

Happy 2019! We hope everyone had a safe and fun New Year’s Eve and is settling in with their fresh slates. When making our Christmas card this year, it was hard to fit everything we wanted onto a 5x7 piece of card stock, so we decided to start sharing a recap blog post each year instead! We are so excited to share all of our adventures from 2018 with you just as we are already super excited to share the 2019 adventures before they have even happened! The past year has been one of our favorites yet. It feels like we laughed more than ever—one of our favorite things to do together.
We are still head over heels for our first home! Being able to spend an entire year here, we have gotten to see even more wonderful things about it that make us fall even more in love with it each day. The pond often has huge groups of ducks and geese (even a swan once—pictured below!). In the mix of the standard mallards and Canadian geese, we have found handfuls of other varieties such as buffleheads, Swedish blues and lesser scaups. Along with the beautiful wildlife, we get to enjoy stunning sunrises and sunsets over the pond. During the warmer months, most of our meals are made on the grill—Mike’s become quite the Master Chef! Our home is only five minutes from downtown Noblesville which is filled with antique shops, our favorite coffee spot, delicious restaurants, handmade goods and more. We’ve so enjoyed exploring our new town and finding all of it’s little homegrown gems!
Binks has been even more bouncy and expressive than ever. We didn’t think there was any chance of her becoming even more comfortable with us but apparently there was room to grow because she looks for love and attention at all hours and lets us pet her belly sometimes now! She is officially a free roaming bunny that has no cage and has complete run of our living room. She truly is the best little girl and keeps us entertained even when she is sleeping. Her little personality is outrageously large for such a small being. We believe she was an interior designer in a past life because she is always rearranging her toys, hut, etc. This is how she’s earned the name Martha Stewart Buns!

The photography business has been keeping us EXTREMELY busy! We rarely have time to get together with friends and family so when we do, we try to make a day of it. Whether that be hitting the pool together, hopping from one handmade market to the next or grabbing a meal together, we have enjoyed all of our time spent with loved ones. We have traveled all over Indiana, out of state as well as out of the country to capture love stories and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Our clients have been absolutely awesome and we are so blessed to know each of them. We can’t wait to get to know all of the couples we get to work with this year!

A new year means new goal setting so we’ll let you in on some of ours:
+Spend More Time Unplugged
+Attend Goat Yoga at a Local Farm
+Read Together Before Bed Most Nights
+Make More Time for Dates
+Cook Together More Often

So, that was a little blurb about our past year! It was definitely one for the record books. Without further adieu, here is a short recap on our 2018! We hope you enjoy the look into our life and business the past year!

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Mike held everyone’s bags (and a drink) during a honeymoon session in the Dominican Republic! This was the bride’s only requested photo because she just loved how content Mike looked! Ha!

Oh, the places we went…

Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
Sanibel Island, Florida
Ft. Myers, Florida
Punta Gorda, Florida
Captiva Island, Florida
Miami, Florida
Atlanta, Georgia
Chicago, Illinois
Portage, Indiana
Gary, Indiana
Elkhart, Indiana
Indianapolis, Indiana
Noblesville, Indiana
Carmel, Indiana
Fishers, Indiana
Muncie, Indiana
Bloomington, Indiana
Flora, Indiana
Westfield, Indiana
Terre Haute, Indiana
Greenwood, Indiana
Angola, Indiana
Anderson, Indiana
Coatesville, Indiana
South Bend, Indiana
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Detroit, Michigan
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Charlotte, North Carolina

We should’ve counted how many bags we packed this year!

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Weddings

We had some seriously awesome couples this year! We encountered so many laid back personalities that wanted to laugh together. Our time spent, capturing each of their wedding days was so special to us. We still find ourselves choking up at times, making the memories even that more special to us. In April, we kicked off our season with Christina and Joe’s wedding day in Indy and got to know Christina’s awesome family before we all traveled down to the Dominican Republic for her sister Michaella’s marriage to Javi. We were so thankful to have such wonderful people to work with during both weddings, making our long haul trip together even more fun!

2018 gave us so many chances to capture weddings at venues and locations we had on our bucket list, such as a lakeside wedding with a beautiful boat, our first international destination wedding, a vineyard at sunset, a historic hotel in downtown Indianapolis, an alpaca farm and the Indiana State Museum (a place Kat had grown up visiting and never imagined herself photographing a wedding day at until now). We even returned to our old stomping grounds of Terre Haute, where we met in college, to capture two wedding days for sweet friends of ours! Each wedding day was so unique and offered us some wonderful ways to be creative but being able to check off some of our bucket list locations was a huge bonus to this wonderful year!

We aren’t going to spoil what’s in store for 2019, but we already plan to have a longer list of bucket list locations checked off thanks to some adventurous clients that want us to capture their love stories in beautiful spots all over the world! Our passports are ready and we are excited for our upcoming sessions and weddings!

Kat photographing the bride's dress at the Indiana State Museum.

Mike is always happy to lend a hand! Bottoms up, of course!

Mike and one of our awesome grooms cracking up after the garter toss.

Kat photographing this adorable bride and groom in a custom boat that gave us all the Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again vibes!

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Portraits

We were able to work with so many new and returning clients while capturing these special memories for them! Every so often, when we are out visiting antique shops, we come across old photographs and we remember THIS is why we love what we do. We are giving our clients a way to cherish their memories together. It’s true that not every moment can be captured, it just isn’t possible, but we try to catch them all as they happen around us. One of our goals for 2019 is to capture more of our own memories so we can look back on these moments in our older age, together.

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Babies

Oh, how I love my baby sessions! No matter what mood I’m in, I always end up smiling ear to ear after having babies in our in-home studio for milestone sessions. I adore each one that has come through our door! No two sessions are alike because they are led by baby and what THEY want to do. All of my posing is natural so they are comfortable and stay as happy as possible for us! My favorite photos are always the quirky ones that make me giggle!

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Boudoirs

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Boudoirs have quickly become a favorite of mine because it is usually a one on one session where we can just girl-out! What I mean by that is listen to old Britney Spears, talk about life, weddings and babies! One of my awesome clients had done a boudoir maternity session with me last year and wanted to do a boudoir session of her and her daughter at nine months and it was literally the most beautiful session ever! I loved seeing their connection through snuggles and breastfeeding. I also had a wonderful time working with a handful of brides that wanted to gift their groom with this special session!

One of our grooms seeing his bride’s special boudoir gift right before the first look on their wedding day! He was over the moon!

One of our favorite mamas during her lifestyle boudoir maternity session in 2017!

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Overall, 2018 was a fabulous year! We are so blessed by our loved ones and our clients. We cannot wait to see if 2019 can top this awesome year! We invite you to keep an eye on our blog and Instagram for the latest updates on our life and business. We hope everyone has a safe, spectacular year! We also hope we get to share in some memories with you!

Love,
Kat, Mike and Binks

Our Special Place | A Look Into Why Sanibel Island Holds Such a Special Place in Our Hearts

This morning, I got on Facebook to check notifications and post to my business page when I saw an "anniversary" from Facebook on the top of my newsfeed. It informed me that Michael (my husband) and I had been friends on Facebook for 4 years today. A smile broke out across my face and I began cracking up because of our little inside joke on how this "friendship" occurred.

A little background, I met Michael at the Ballyhoo, a popular bar in Terre Haute nearby the Indiana State campus, just days after I turned 21 (yes, you really can happen upon love at a bar haha). He wasn't too pleased to find out I was leaving just days after our introduction so he made the most of it by asking what my plans were for the next day. Our first date was that next morning when we met at the humane society since I had planned to volunteer and say goodbye to the little sweeties before leaving for two weeks. The next day, I left a little later than planned because he came by my apartment to spend some time with me before I disappeared. We texted and snapchatted on and off while I was gone, but I wanted to creep on him, obviously. So I started searching for him on Facebook and this guy was INVISIBLE. To this day, I don't know how I did it, but I finally found him. I didn't know his middle name at the time but somehow I found him and was able to creep on his adorable attempts at "cool" selfies from years back--he doesn't post much. He was impressed I had been able to find him since his middle name throws off the search. I'm sure he also found it creepy but we still laugh about this so it was all worth it!

I cannot believe it was 4 years ago today that this (still) inside joke happened. That was the day I was packing up my bags to head to Sanibel with my family. A place that has been our go-to family vacation spot since my childhood. I would have never guessed that just 1 year later, Michael and I would be engaged and packing up our bags for the Sanibel trip together and I would get to show him my favorite place on Earth. Who knew it would become his favorite place on Earth also and we would be packing up our car full of wedding decor, his tux and my wedding gown to return to Sanibel to get married in front of the lighthouse a year after that? I'll never forget that first year we met when I was playing Euchre (as is tradition) with my cousin and our neighbors and I kept getting distracted by the cute guy that was texting me...costing us the games. I won't forget telling my cousin all about him in the kitchen of our condo while we mixed up new drinkgs and then watching Michael ask him to be a groomsmen in our wedding in that very kitchen the following year.

Today, I am looking up rental cars for our very short trip to Sanibel next week. Only one family member will be in attendance (we usually have around 10) and we will only be there a few days due to back to back wedding weekends. But we knew we couldn't miss at least having a single day on the island together during this special week. It holds too many memories for the two of us and we always happen to create more. Now I'm getting emotional as I write this!

I can't wait to begin the crossing over the causeway to the island and get choked up when the lighthouse comes into view, indicating that we're finally home.

I can't wait to walk the sandbars with Michael at low tide, collecting empty shells.

I can't wait to re-read our vows to one another through crocodile tears next to the lighthouse.

I can't wait to relax in the refreshing pool while we watch the palms sway in the breeze.

I can't wait to drink our morning coffee on the screened in porch while we watch the waves roll in.

I can't wait to visit our favorite restaurants and eat the fish sandwiches we have been dreaming of for the past year.

I can't wait to capture a beautiful styled bridal shoot at one of the top wedding venues in SWFL, designed by one of the top wedding planners in the area, hoping this one shoot will get us one step closer to our ultimate dream/goal for the business.

I can't wait for all of this and so much more.

I'm sure there is much more I could add but I currently need to go wipe the tears from my face. Overall, I CANNOT WAIT to be back to the sandy, shell-strewn beaches of Sanibel Island, Florida, where the emerald Gulf of Mexico kisses our toes as the wildlife feeds in the surf around us. Stay tuned for a post about our trip as well as a preview from the gorgeous styled shoot we have been collaborating with other wedding professionals on!