On the Menu This Week

I typically make two savory dishes and a dessert per week.  It's generally enough to get my husband and I through the week.  And yes, I go grocery shopping every week.  How about you?  I find that the food I purchase usually goes bad if I buy for two weeks.

Savory meal #1:
Pumpkin Black Bean Soup.  This sounds sooooo yummy!  You can find the recipe at my sister's blog: venetianblond.blogspot.com.

Savory meal #2:

Homemade Calzones & Garlic Parmesan Pull-Apart Bread.  

I LOVE pizza.  Very much.  The Chew (I'll admit it, I love this show!) just did an episode about last meals and I decided that mine would be pizza.  I thought, "Really Nicole??  Pizza?"  And YES.  Pizza.  :)  Aside: I say '...just did an episode...' but that's 'just' to me since I'm catching my episodes on Hulu.  Another aside: I've made Carla's Eggs in Heaven (from The Chew) two weekends in a row...love it!!  Except by the time the whites are done the yolks are overcooked--haven't quite figured out how to solve that problem.  Any suggestions?

AT ANY RATE...back to what I was saying.   

Dessert:

Cranberry Upside Down Cake.  

I bought a huge bag of cranberries a while back and I need to make room in our freezer, so I figured this recipe would be a great one to try.  For the life of me, I cannot remember why I even bought them in the first place.  It's not like I was going to make cranberry sauce or anything.  Oh, I remember...it was for an ice ring for a punch I made.

I bet it'll be a good week.  Happy MLK day everyone!

My new love: my juicer

My sister got me a Black and Decker juicer for my birthday back in November. 

Partially because I was intimidated, partially because I misplaced the owner's manual and couldn't figure out how to disassemble to prewash the darn thing, & partially because I didn't have a juicing recipe book (I know, I'm lame), I didn't juice until this week.

So when Santa Claus brought me The Big Book of Juices, I was ready to try my hand at juicing.

This thing is insanely heavy...must be the type of paper they used.  At any rate, I've made 3 or 4 juices from it and they've all been really good.  Granted, I'm doing the beginner juicer's plan so it's been mostly fruit juices.  Today I made one with 1/4 cucumber...interesting, but still tasty.  Tomorrow calls for 1/2 of a pineapple (I'm just going to use some frozen chunks I have), 1 apple, 1 celery stalk, & 3 carrots.  Definitely a little more adventurous.

The reasons I like this book: tons of recipes, breakdown of what the juices help with (digestion, skin, immunity etc.), information on different fruits/veggies and how they should be prepared (they recommend citrus be pressed rather than juiced), and in the back there's some plans...like the beginner's plan I mentioned, juicing plan if you've been sick a lot lately, weekend fasting plan, etc.  They also list juices that help with lots of different ailments like acne, anemia, etc.  Those are the only two I can think of right now.  :)   

The thing I've been leery about is upping my pesticide consumption.  If I had all the money in the world & lived next to a whole foods grocery store, I'd buy organic.  When I was buying the items for my juices this week I was confronted with my first dilemma: organic cucumber for $3-$4 or the non-organic for mere cents.  I went non-organic. 

Because of my fears, I decided I'd make a fruit & veggie wash I had heard of.  1 cup water, 1 cup white vinegar, 1 tablespoon baking soda, & the juice of half a lemon.  You spray it on, leave it for 5 minutes, and then wash your fruit or vegetable.  I have NO IDEA if it actually works, but it certainly calms my mind a little.

I'll leave with this tip to keep in mind: If you decide to make this wash, remember that vinegar + baking soda = BIG MESS!  I forgot until it was too late. 

A Christmas Story

Many many years ago in a land far far away (aka ~25 years ago and when I lived in Florida) I asked Santa for the Barbie & The Rockers Hot Rockin' Stage after I saw this commercial:



Did you see those moves?!  Oh the colors!  Oh the fun!  My life would never be the same!  I couldn't live and my barbies certainly would be crushed if I didn't get that toy from Santa!!

Funny.  My little 4 or 5 year old brain didn't hear that very important phrase at the end...'Dolls each sold separately.'  And this is what I received:
 

Which, I mean, ooooooookay, not bad...that's a bunch of stuff in a box.  But I was expecting a PARTY IN A BOX!  Does that look like a party?  Not to me!  Where were all the barbies?  Where was the dancing??  Where was the music???  Where was the fun????  Oh, I'm supposed to supply that?  Well phooey. 

That said, I would give my right arm something important to be able to pull that out of a box right now, slip some barbie legs into those pink leg holders and then, with the slight movement of a nob, make those barbies turn first to the right and then to the left.  And then to the right again and then to the left.

P.S. In doing research for this post I also found video of another very influential barbie I had.  *Sigh* I so miss my friends.

To Brighten Your Week

Please enjoy this video of my dog snoring.  :)

The Power of Imagination

My sister and I did this whole back and forth thing the other day about the purpose and usefulness of Pinterest.  In a nutshell: I love Pinterest, she does not.  For me, it sparks my creativity...even if that creativity is me copying someone else's pin/project.

Here are some pictures of recent projects I've done--their inspirations immediately follow.

This was pretty time consuming, but worth it...just this once.  I probably wouldn't make it again.  My cousin's son (3 years?) loved it.  Though, he loved playing with it more than eating it.

(source)

I had this great idea to create more cabinet space by moving my spices to tins with magnets on my fridge.  Slight problem...the containers I bought online are WAY to small.  So now I have spices in two places.  :(  I will say, however, that doing it this way (diy) will save you TONS of money.

(source)

This also did not turn out as well as I had hoped, but all in all, I'm glad we did it.  As you can see, the hubs didn't take into consideration the lips on the black measuring cups, but I'm not going to complain...he did what I didn't want to do.  The woman who's website I visited mentioned in the post about her going out right away to buy plastic measuring cups and spoons because she couldn't handle the racket the metal ones made.  I am here to testify...it is incredibly loud and scares the bejeezus outta me most every time I open that cabinet!!  In that open space above her cups she put a really neat conversion graphic.  I'm not that fancy.

(source)

Oddly enough, I could not find cinnamon sticks in bulk in our sleepy town to do this project.  My sister was gracious enough to send me a bag and voila!  I have these beauties to show off.  So simple, festive, and CHEAP!

 

Source unknown

I might try twigs next.

This is something that I'd like to think I came up with on my own, but I probably saw it on tv or something.  I had a bunch of glass frames (from a project I was going to do and never started) so I just picked leaves from the yard, pressed them, and then framed them.  My husband was nice enough to hang them for me.  *Round of applause!*  Again, simple, festive, & cheap!!

This is one of the hurricanes we have left over from our wedding and I just poured hazelnuts from last year into it.  I previously had candy corn in it for Halloween.  (see below)

(source)

 That's it for now.  I hope you enjoyed this little walk through craftyland.

Cake Decorating

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for a cake decorating class at our local community college.  There were some things I didn't like about the class...like that we didn't practice on cakes (or I would've been happy with a cake-like object), just a flat practice board and also that the teacher didn't really explain things well--at least, not to my satisfaction.  But all-in-all I enjoyed the class.  For our last class we brought in a cake we made and decorated it.  I cheated a little bit and got my inspiration from a cake online.

This was the cake I found:

http://www.landolakes.com/recipe/1759/candy-corn-chocolate-cake

I made a vanilla cake since my husband doesn't like chocolate cake very much and also added a chocolate hazelnut filling.  Yum!  Unfortunately, I hadn't set my icing out that morning so my chocolate icing was rock hard and took forever to work to the right consistency.  My teacher ended up helping me out with this.  I think she realized if she didn't help we would be there all night!  I also made my decorating icing too thin and it started to melt.  But really, I'm pretty proud with how it came out!

This is mine:

Ace of Cakes, watch out, here I come!!