Hi Ya All,
 I hope you are having a good day. Can you believe it is March 1st already. The year is just flying by for me at least. I live in New Orleans and Mardi Gras is finally over and St. Patrick's Day is around the corner.. Lots of great food and great people. My sister visited from Las Vegas for a month and we did everything there is to do for Mardi Gras. We went to Mardi Gras parades, rode on a Mardi Gras float, the Excalibar float. We threw beads and caught beads. We spend several days on Bourbon Street. We ate Bignets at Cafe Dumonde. We rode on the pedicabs, that was an experience, scary but fun. We were too tired to walk back to our car, after a full day in the French Quarter so we took the pedicab. Pretty reasonable too !

We rode on the Mississippi River Ferry. We spent the day at the Audubon zoo. The animals were amazing, our favorites were the giraffes and the elephants. So cool and it was a beautiful sunshiny day. We walked on the levy near my house. We had coffee on the patio and just watched the birds and listened to them sing. It was
 a wonderful experience. If you ever get the chance to visit, please do. It is a fabulous place to live and a
wonderful place to visit.

I wanted to share with you all a recipe that is so simple to make and so delicious. I made it while my sister was here in New Orleans for her visit. Check this out on the website: allrecipes.com The recipe is for Homemade Lemon Icebox Pie. III. We used fresh lemons from my neighbors tree, I hope she doesn't mind, they fell in my yard. It is very simple to make. Just a few ingredients. This would be great to take to a potluch dinner or luncheon. Or just serve it when it is hot outside and you want something cool and sweet. Enjoy!
Come and visit New Orleans, you can be sure of  a great time !

The ingredients you will need are as follows for Lemon Ice Box Pie with Cream cheese

1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust(brown in oven for 5 mins)
2 (8oz) packages of cream cheese, softened
1 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
2 lemons juiced ( about 1/4 of a cup of juice)
1 teaspoon of lemon zest(the peel of the lemon)

Directions to make:

In a medium mixing bowl, beat softened cream cheese until fluffy. Add sweetened
condensed milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Mix until smooth. Pour mixture into
browned graham cracker crust. Refrigerate at least 2 hours, (if you can wait that long)
before serving. Garnish with whipped cream and lemon twists or mint leaves if desired.

Makes 1 pie, double recipe for 2

 P.S. You could make this with lime juice and make like a key lime pie, yummy !