Tomato, Basil & Mozzarella “TBM” Salad

12 Aug

Now, I’m not fully sure “TBM” is a real name for a salad. To be honest, it reminds me of “TPM” from Hoover Elementary. (Time…Place…Manner. Duh. Completely unrelated. Sorry.)

TBM = Tomato…Basil…Mozzarella. The main ingredients in a reasonably simple salad that I never thought about making before I stumbled upon the recipe here. Just another fantastic food blog that I’ve added to my reading library. You should too – Savory Sweet Life. Look it up. (Or click the link.)

This is a GREAT summer salad but it could also be enjoyed in our other three seasons. Fresh basil is the key.

Trust me.

Ingredients:

  • 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved (I like a mix of red and yellow – more colorful.)
  • 8 ounces fresh “mini” mozzarella pearls (These work better and are much prettier next to the cherry tomatoes.)
  • 4 tablespoons olive oil
  • 18 basil leaves, chopped (Go fresh!)
  • 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

How to Make:

This is a hard recipe. Roll up your sleeves. Put on a sweatband. Whatever revs you up.

Ok, ok you caught me. This is probably the easiest recipe on the planet. And you know I don’t exaggerate. Ever.

(Only sometimes.)

Chop the tomatoes….

 

Toss ’em in a bowl…

Drain the mozzarella pearls…maybe eat a few, just to test them out. Then throw ’em in the bowl too…

Roll your basil leaves into a long cylinder…

slice it up…


…throw it in your bowl.

Pour in the olive oil…

Sprinkle in the S&P…

 

Mix it all up.

Drum roll………………………..(it’s a long roll)……

You’re done!

Painless.

This truly is the simplest salad ever but it looks gorgeous and it goes with just about any main dish you can imagine. It’s even a great snack if you’re looking for a little something that falls more in the healthy category and it’s not quite meal time.

Had it with some steak and grilled corn recently. Highly recommend.

I hope you give this one a go – and please let me know if/when you do! I always love your comments and likes if there’s a recipe/post you really enjoy!

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Scrapbooked Letters

5 Aug

This post is bringing in more of the ‘buttons’ part of the blog, a piece I fully admit I’ve been slightly neglecting. I do more cooking than crafting in a normal week so perhaps that’s why the ratio of cooking to crafting isn’t very even.

Regardless, this post is for all you out there that have the crafty urge every now and then and perhaps don’t know what to make. This would be great to do with your initials or even just the first letter of your first or last name.

Maybe it’s the curse of being in a sorority, but we crafted letters all the time. Most every room in the house had a girl’s name on the wall or maybe just a big A X O on a shelf (I was in Alpha Chi Omega for those who aren’t as familiar with the Greek alphabet.) At one point a had a big B E T S Y going down one wall decorated with, what else, buttons. Like I said, perhaps it was a silly sorority girl thing, but I think we had more fun making the letters than really seeing them up on the wall.

(And no, I don’t still have my name spelled out my wall.)

SO, my friend Andrea, whom we recently celebrated at her bachelorette party (where we ate these tasty meatballs), was the one who came up with the idea for this craft. She wanted to make a “MR & MRS” to have up at the head table during her wedding this coming September. I’m not sure yet if she plans to hang these from the table or have them standing upright. Either way, they’ll look great!

You don’t need a whole lot to craft these and you may already have some of the materials.

Materials:

  • Wooden letters
  • Scrapbook paper or any other type of paper you’d like to use (it should be thick though!)
  • Sharp scissors
  • Double-sided adhesive tape (this is the kind we used – really worked!)
  • Modge Podge
  • Pencil
  • Acrylic paint in the colors you’d like to use
  • Foam paintbrush

How to Make:

First decide what paper you’d like to use for which letters. Andrea’s plan was to use one type of paper for the M and R of the MR, a different paper for the M, R and S for the MRS and a different paper for the ampersand in between.

For us, we had a one of the scrapbooks papers that was clear. Thus we needed to paint the letters first, before putting the paper on. She also wanted the edges of all the letters painted. If you’re in the same boat, you’ll want to do any of your painting first.

Here’s the S for the MRS drying:

After the letters have dried enough for you to pick them and touch them (make sure they’re not too tacky) you need to trace the letters onto the appropriate paper. Andrea wanted both sides of the letters to have paper on them, so we traced paper for both sides of all of the letters. You could also chose to paint the backs or perhaps leave them bare. The latter would be if you’re planning on putting them up on a shelf or a wall where no ones sees the back.

If you squint, you’ll see a large ampersand traced in the photo below.

After you’ve traced all the letters, carefully cut them all out. Try to cut inside the lines so you don’t have any pen/pencil marks on the paper. I’d recommend using a pencil so you can easily erase any marks still visible on the paper.

Now time to put the paper on the letters…

Now, this step depends on which type of paper you’re using. If the paper is clear at all, you’ll want to use the double-sided adhesive to adhere the paper to the wooden letters. Or, if your paper is completely opaque, you can use Modge Podge underneath and then again as a top coat on top of the paper. We used both methods with the MRS letters having the clear paper and the ampersand and the MR letters having opaque paper.

That’s all there is to it! And depending on your smoothing-out abilities, the paper should look great on the letters with very few air bubbles. We were amateurs in this skill, so there were a few air bubbles here and there. However, from far away, you can’t see them one bit.

Don’t they look great?!? And the bride-to-be looks pretty great herself!

With a little paint, scrapbook paper, patience and some good company – you too can make some fun letters! I’m considering making a large wooden ‘V’ for our front hallway as my roommate and I both have last names that begin with V. (Really I just want to craft the letter itself, let’s be honest.)

Happy crafting! 🙂

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Spicy Turkey Meatballs

1 Aug

Hola friends. I realize I’ve been a very poor blogger this last month. Boo. Hiss. I know.

But the good news is I have a bunch of wonderful posts to share with you over the next few weeks to make up for the slllooowww posting in July.

Do you forgive me?

I hope so.

To make it up to you, I’m sharing a delectable meatball recipe from one of my favs from the Food Network – the Barefoot Contessa. The woman knows her stuff and you just KNOW her recipes will result in a happy stomach.

Backstory to why I decided to make these babies…a few weekends ago, a bunch of my girlfriends and I were celebrating a very good friend of mine – Andrea – at her bachelorette party. We did a fun-filled cabin weekend with the meals divyed up amongst the group. I volunteered to take on Saturday evening (which meant I was going to do as much prep as possible BEFORE Saturday…c’mon…it was a bachelorette party…prep was needed). The decision was to make it simple and tasty – spaghetti and meatballs, salad and garlic bread. I figured with the spaghetti, garlic bread and salad all needing very little prep (I cheated and bought a few pre-mixed bags from the store. I know what you’re thinking. Lazy. Yes I know. But SMART considering) the meatballs could be the star feature.

I searched through my cookbooks, blogs, magazine clippings. I couldn’t find the right meatball. I was getting frustrated. It was also about 8:00 PM the night before I was to depart for bachelorette party madness and I was recipe less. And grocery item less.

Until Ina.

Thank you Ina.

These are in her “How Easy Is That” cookbook and they’re keepers in my book. I modified her recipe a little bit on purpose and a little bit by accident:

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups (1-inch diced) bread cubes crust removed (I kept the crust on because I felt like it. You can go crustless if you’re into that.)
  • 2/3 cup whole milk (Ina suggest whole milk but I just couldn’t do it and have the rest of the container leftover. I’m not into whole milk. Ish. I went 2%.)
  • 2 pounds ground turkey (85-percent to 92-percent lean <— Ina’s suggestion)
  • 1/2 pound sweet Italian pork sausage (Ina recommends the sweet variety but I couldn’t find it, used normal stuff and it was still delicious.)
  • 4 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, finely chopped
  • 1 cup freshly grated aged Asiago cheese
  • 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley (I forgot to get this…oopie…so used dried parsley. It worked.)
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 tablespoons good olive oil, plus extra for brushing the meatballs
  • 2 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten

How to Make:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees first. Prep your sheet pans (with either Pam or parchment paper) second. Or reverse that. I won’t tell.

In the mixing process, your first task is to assist your bread into becoming crumbs.

Enter in the FOOD PROCESSOR. The crumb making machine.

 

Wow.

Now take those lovely crumbs and put them and your milk into a small bowl. You’re going to let those two ingredients sit and become one for about 5 minutes. Sounds weird, but trust in Ina. She’s a smart cookie.

Now, in a different bowl that’s more in the ‘big’ category, time to mix up everything.

First, in goes the pork sausage…

Then the ground turkey…

…prosciutto (probably my favorite ingredient in these balls of meat)…

then the bread/milk concoction (after it set for its 5 minutes of course)…

 …Asiago cheese…

…parsley (fresh if you’re with it when you’re grocery shopping, unlike me)…

…oregano…

…red pepper flakes (the wonderful KICK part of the recipe)…

AND finally…1 tablespoon salt, and 1 1/2 teaspoons pepper.

Admire your lovely mountain of ingredients. Post admiration, mix everything up. I prefer to use my hands for these type of steps (vs. a fork or spatula) because I personally think it gets mixed more thoroughly. You really want the spices to be as evenly mixed as possible too – you’d hate to get one SUPER spicy meatball and one that’s bland. Not cool.

Once you feel like the whole mixture is lightly but thoroughly mixed together, add in the olive oil and the eggs. NOW you can use a fork or spatula to mix those wet ingredients in. Be gentle, but make sure it’s fully mixed. No skimping.

Now, time to make some balls. Ina recommends about 2-inch meatballs. She also suggests you brush the meatballs with olive oil prior to popping them into the oven. I forgot that step. Whoops. BUT you can still have tasty meatballs without it. Trust me!!

Bake these guys for 35 to 40 minutes or, as Ina puts it, “until the tops are browned and the centers are completely cooked.”

Then serve these to a bunch of hungry, sunburned people. At least, that’s what I did.

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Knock You Naked Brownies

19 Jul

Yes, that’s the title of this brownie variety. You wouldn’t be surprised why once you sink your teeth into these. Seriously.

This title I can’t take credit for at all. Though it is pretty perfect. This is a Pioneer Woman recipe and she named these so appropriately.

All you must know is these brownies are excellent. You may lose some socks…your right earring…your Twins hat. Who knows.

A friend of mine made these for a camping trip a few months ago, and they were devoured throughout the weekend. A panful of brownies between three of us girls. Not ashamed. I may have had one for breakfast itself one day.

Ingredients:

  • 1 box (18.5 Ounce) German Chocolate Cake Mix (I Used Betty Crocker as that was literally the only brand of German Chocolate cake mix at my grocery store. I had to scan the shelf for an embarrassing length of time)
  • 1 cup Finely Chopped Pecans
  • 1/3 cup Evaporated Milk
  • 1/2 cup Evaporated Milk (to be added at a separate time)
  • 1/2 cup Butter, Melted
  • 60 whole Caramels, Unwrapped (The bag I found had only 50 in the bag, so I sucked it up and bought 2 bags. 60 is better than 50. Right?)
  • 1/3 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
  • 1/4 cup Powdered Sugar

How to Make:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and  flour a 9 x 9 square pan. My parents taught me, when in doubt, flour the pan. Especially with brownie/cakes. So flour away!

Then grab yourself a big mixing bowl. Mix up the 1/3 cup evaporated milk…

and the cake mix…

…the melted butter…

…and the chopped pecans (I bought the pre-chopped variety…yes…I’m lazy).

The batter will get a little hard to stir and it will be quite tasty. Forewarning.

Now, to make the first layer of the brownies, split up this batter into two equal halves.

Take one half and press that into the bottom of your floured pan. Pop it into the oven for 8-10 minutes. When it’s all done, set it aside to cool for a bit.

Now, time for some double boiler madness! If you’re a double boiler newbie like me, this is setting a glass bowl (or other heatproof bowl) over a saucepan of boiling water. We’re going to melt some caramels.

First though, you get to peel these suckers. Put on some tunes or press play on your favorite show. The unwrapping (which I took at a leisurely pace) took me about 16 minutes.

1 down…

halfway…

DONE.

Once unwrapped, pour the rest of the evaporated milk (the other 1/2 cup) over the caramels in your heatproof bowl. Set it over your saucepan of boiling water and watch the double boiler effect take place. I stirred fairly consistently to get the whole mixture to melt evenly and to avoid burning.

Once it’s liquid gold like, pour that on top of the first baked brownie layer. If needed, help spread out the caramel with a spatula.

Your third layer is going to be the chocolate chips. Sprinkle those over the caramel.

Yes…it’s going to taste good.

And it gets better.

The rest of the brownie batter is now going to go on top of these three layers. The Pioneer Woman suggests flattening out the top brownie layer on a work surface (I used wax paper) into just about the size of the 9×9 pan. Then transfer the batter to the pan.

I’m not a good transfer-er of brownie batter. Not even close.

I transferred pieces of the batter and then kind of made it look normal-ish once it was all in the pan.

I don’t think you can really tell though, right?!? Plus the peek-a-boo caramel is kinda fun, right?? This is what I told myself at least.

Now…this whole concoction is going in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Your kitchen will smell delicious. Try to contain the drool and spend the 20-25 minutes being productive….doing the dishes…eating string cheese…watching ABC Family shows that you can’t share with the world that you watch (Pretty Little Liars…cough, cough). Either way, when it’s ALL cooked through, pull it out of the oven.

You must let this cool before you eat it. Serious. Ideally, cool to room temperature first and then put it into the fridge to harden. I feed a brownie square to my roomie prior to the fridge step and it was kind of a molten pile of goo. It was tasty goo, mind you. But goo. Definitely refrigerate before you cut and serve them.

After a few hours of you pacing in front of your refrigerator…pull ’em out and sprinkle them with powdered sugar. Cut them into squares…serve them to people you really enjoy.

I chose a pool-ful of people who each had two. Didn’t matter that it was hot out and the brownies were a little melty. They were divine.

Now – your turn. Go make yourself some brownies.

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Thin Mint Protein Smoothie

29 Jun

Ok, so you know my feelings about mint and chocolate. I’m for their union. All the time. Even in healthy recipes.

This lovely concoction is brought to you today by a wonderful blog I found recently – Rabbit Food For My Bunny Teeth. I posted about it in my Top Five post…in the 2) category. This blog is full of inspiration to eat and just ‘be’ a healthy person. One of my favorites to read everyday.

And yes, I know I just posted a not-so-healthy cookie recipe (though it did include bff’s mint and chocolate), but I actually embrace eating food that’s good for me. You may not believe me. That’s ok. Sometimes I don’t believe me either. Then I eat a cookie.

Back to the smoothie…

This is a great way to jump-start your morning. I didn’t have any coffee today (a rarity) and I was still awake and energized throughout the day. It also is surprisingly sweet (it does taste similar to a Thin Mint!) and extremely filling. All around a win-win.

I didn’t change any part of Catherine’s recipe, so the ingredients list is fully hers. I simply wanted to share it here for you all to also enjoy.

Ingredients:

Smoothie:

  • 1 cup almond milk (never thought I’d be the person buying this…yesterday I was that person)
  • 1 cup frozen spinach (you can also use 2 cups of fresh spinach according to Catherine’s recipe)
  • 1/4 rolled oats
  • 1/8 tsp peppermint extract
  • 2 scoops chocolate protein powder (I used Biggest Loser’s brand, but I think this can be substituted with whatever brand you prefer)

Garnish:

  • 1 Tbsp walnuts
  • 1 Tbsp dark chocolate chips

How to Make:

You can whip this up in about 3 minutes, depending on how close together you store all of the ingredients in your kitchen. I took 5.7 minutes as I had to search for my walnuts in the hall closet. Don’t ask me why I put them there.

First grab your blender and as Catherine recommends for those blenders that are a big challenged (like mine), blend up the milk and frozen spinach first.

Then I dumped in the protein powder…

…and the oats…

and the peppermint extract (the one item that doesn’t really photograph well). Then push the button that says ‘blend’. I let mine go until everything looked fairly smooth, about 23 seconds. Not 22.

Measure out your two ‘garnish’ items and delicately place them on top. They will eventually sink so if you feel the need to photograph your food (who does that?) ensure you have your camera ready to snap a photo of your beautiful beverage.

Dig in with a spoon or sip – either way I think you’ll be surprised how delicious this is and how full you are when you’re finished. At least I was!

Thanks RFFMBT for a great recipe! Now go check out Catherine’s blog for more delicious, healthy recipes!

To print off the recipe for easy reference in the future, click here. 

Thin Mint Protein Smoothie_Recipe Card

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Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

24 Jun

Mint and chocolate may be the best combination possible. Truly. Well, in my opinion at least.

I found this recipe a few years while flipping through a magazine. There was an advertisement for Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix with this little gem included. I ripped it out and made them immediately. And swooned.

Ok, that’s a bit dramatic, but they are pretty dang great. Betty Crocker knows their stuff. (FYI – I do not know/work for/represent Betty Crocker, I just appreciate this recipe and wanted to share it with you all.)

The best part – because you’re using a sugar cookie mix, these are ALWAYS chewy. No crunchy hard cookie nonsense. If you are into that sort of thing, this recipe isn’t for you. But…if you enjoy a wonderfully, chewy cookie…YOU, my friend, are in luck.

Also another bonus, there is a very simple ingredient list.

Ingredients (Makes approximately 36 cookies):

  • 1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) sugar cookie mix (I use Betty Crocker brand, but if you have a different preferred brand I’m sure it’d work just as great.)
  • 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon mint extract (I’ve been told by even those who love mint, error on the side of the 1/4 tsp as these can get a little too minty otherwise.)
  • 6 to 8 drops green food color (I used about 6, which gets them a nice, pale green. If you want a heartier green, be a bit more aggressive with your drop quantities.)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup creme de menthe baking chips (I’ve used Andes mints roughly chopped before and they’re delicious. This time I used mint chocolate chips, which are a bit more subtle. Also tasty.)
  • 1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks (I used semisweet chocolate chips, but as long as there is a chocolate shape of some sort in there, I think you’re ok.)

How to Make: 

Preheat your oven to 350. Then, throw everything except the two types of chocolate chips into a bowl and mix thoroughly.

The green food coloring is the perfect indicator of when you’re done with the ‘thoroughly mixing’ piece.

Very helpful.

Then gently fold in the two types of chips until it looks very consistently ‘chippy’. You know what I mean.

Like this.

You may want to take time at this moment to taste the batter. You know, just in case. And yes, I know there’s raw egg in there. Be a daredevil. (But don’t get sick or I’ll feel terrible.)

I always spray my cookie sheets with Pam, although this recipe recommends using an ungreased cookie sheet. If you’re into that – go for it. Then, using the method you like best, place these guys on a 9×13 cookie sheet. (I think using your hands is always the best method but that’s me.)

I put these in a 3×4 pattern which worked perfectly.

Pop ’em in the oven for 8-10 minutes (These always seem to be done at about that 8 minute mark, so watch carefully!)

Cool them for a bit…



…pour a glass of milk…find hungry people…ENJOY!


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Bacon-Gruyère Meatloaf

18 Jun

Oh baby. Meatloaf. One of God’s gift to man, if you ask me. I mean, a loaf…of meat. If meatloaf is wrong…I don’t want to be right.

You catch my drift. I LOVE meatloaf.

Now, my mama makes killer meatloaf, and I don’t know if this recipe is quite up to the standards that is her magnificent recipe. However, it comes pretty darn close.

What makes this so good?

Bacon.

Delicious, fantastic, bacon goodness.

Yes.

So, I found this recipe in a new cookbook – it’s a compilation of the many recipes my favorite magazine puts out each month: Real Simple. This cookbook features appetizers, main dishes, sides and desserts for every season.

Never mind that this recipe is technically “Fall”.

I wanted meatloaf. AND I had all the ingredients. That happens 2% of the time I decide to make something, so I took that as a sign that I must…make…meatloaf.

Also, this is an incredibly easy recipe, hence the magazine’s title “Real Simple”. Their recipes are always delicious and require very little skill in the kitchen. And no fear if you don’t have access to this fabulous cookbook (though I do highly recommend) you can see the recipe on their website here.

Geniuses they are.

Ok, enough with the rambling, let’s make some meatloaf!

The original recipe has a suggested side of roasted carrots and onions, which I passed on. I had plenty of veggies to make a side salad with, so I went that route. But if you’d prefer the carrot/onion side concoction, check out the original recipe. Looks quite tasty!

Ingredients (I made a 2/3 variation of this as I only had access to 1 lb of meat. But here is the full-fledged version, which serves 4)

  • 1 1/2  pounds ground beef chuck (I used ground turkey instead, but I would imagine ground beef chuck would make this even more delicious)
  • 1/4  cup  bread crumbs
  • 1/4  cup  ketchup (You may also want some extra to have around to dip your meatloaf in, if you’re into that sort of thing.)
  • 1 small red onion, coarsely chopped (Or if you’re extra skilled, the recipe calls for ‘coarsely grated’. I preferred the chopping method)
  • 2  slices bacon, chopped (<— Best part!)
  • 2  cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1  large egg
  • 3/4  cup  grated Gruyère or Cheddar (I had cheddar on hand, so that’s what I used. My imagination tells me Gruyère would be just as, if not more, tasty)
  • Kosher salt and black pepper

How to Make:

This recipe is so easy, you may not even believe it.

First things first…preheat that oven to 400 degrees. Also, heat up a skillet to cook your bacon.

Fry up your bacon first. While it’s sizzling you can start mixing your other ingredients.

In a medium-ish sized bowl, mix up all of your ingredients EXCEPT 1/4 cup of your shredded cheese. Also toss in 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.

Once your bacon is all finished up and you’ve let it cool so you don’t burn your fingertips off, crumble it up and add it to your meatloaf mixture. Don’t try to crumble it before it’s cooled down. Who does that? (Oops.)

While cooking your bacon, you may or may not decide to fry up 3 slices…and consume 1 of those while you’re waiting for your bacon (and fingertips) to cool. I mean, bacon is good. Why not enjoy an extra slice?

Once your bacon is thoroughly mixed in with the rest of your ingredients…

…spoon your meatloaf into a sprayed pan. The recipe recommends a 8″ x 4″ pan. Then, sprinkle that remaining 1/4 cup of cheese on top. Admire how pretty it looks. Sigh.

You must now patiently wait for your loaf of meat to cook. 40-45 minutes to be exact.

You could also use this time to consume that lovely 3rd piece of bacon.

Just trying to help.

As your kitchen starts to smell like glorious bacony-cheesy-meat, perhaps whip up whatever side you are planning on enjoying. For me it was a lighter side salad to balance the rich meatloaf, but roasted veggies (such as the carrots/onions in the original recipe) would be great if this is being made in the Fall or Winter. That’d make for one cozy meal. As it was 90 plus degrees when I made this…didn’t want the ‘cozy, cold weather’ feel for dinner. But that’s just me.

My younger brother likes soup when it’s 90 degrees. Some people just like warm, cozy food at all times of the year. Weird, but that’s life I guess.

Ok, back to meatloaf. Pull that baby out once it’s done. Let it stand for about 10 minutes and try to not cut into it and take a bite. I solemnly swear I did NOT cheat and take a bite. I was very tempted though.

Before you slice this up, pat the top with a paper towel to get the grease off. I had a few little pools on top (as seen in the glow of the picture above), nothing ridiculous. You can also ‘pour’ it off, but I just envisioned my meatloaf landing upside down in the sink. That would happen to me.

Slice this up, serve with your choice of side and enjoy!

Ahhhh….meatloaf.

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Top Five – Some Saturday Inspiration

16 Jun

It’s been a heck of a long time since I posted anything that wasn’t about food or crafting. You may not care about items not in those two categories and if so, I would encourage you to stop reading now.

Just trying to help.

I thought it would be fun to share some of the OTHER things I do with my life besides obssess over shopping for, cooking and consuming food…and the odd craft here and there.

I know, you thought all I did was cook and eat.

Sorry, not accurate friends.

Thus, thought I’d bring back some Top 5 action, sharing things I’m currently spending lots of time doing and perhaps one of them will spark some motivation or interest in one of you.

1) Triathlon Training. “Um, what?! Haha. You?” YES! Most of my good friends when I told them I was training for a triathlon gave me that little schpeel. Can’t hardly blame them, I’m not a neurotic workout fiend or really into fitness. Don’t get me wrong, I love working out. But until now, it wasn’t a huge part of my life. At all. Since high school two-a-day swim practices. Now, I spend 5-6 days a week training – 1 short and 1 long session devoted to each of the three activities of the tri – swimming, biking and running. I grew up around this crazy event, watching my mama compete in and then direct her own. Thus, I knew what I was getting into when a group of my coworkers and I all got persuaded to do the HyVee triathlon down in Des Moines, IA over Labor Day weekend. I’m 5 weeks into the training for it and I’m REALLY loving it. Who knew I’d end up being one of those weirdos that craves a workout everyday? If there’s some fitness event or goal out there for you, I highly encourage you to give it a go. The only thing holding you back is you. Do it.

2) Blog-Reading. This may be less of a surprise than the share above, but this is one of my favorite ways to stimulate creativity and get a little motivation. I’ve found some fantastic blogs out there – each dedicated to a slightly different cause. I’ve found ones devoted to fitness, ones devoted to cake decorating, ones devoted to fashion and ones devoted to nothing. You can find just about everything out there. My favorites are the ones where bloggers are exceptionally candid. Love that. I TRY to write that way for you all as that’s how I tend to talk in person. So when I read another blog where they too write like I’d imagine them speaking, I like it that much more. Here are a few current favorites of mine that I REALLy encourage you to take a peek at:

  • Spoon Fork Bacon (Delicious food and even better photography. Impossible to not drool reading this blog.)
  • How Sweet It Is (This blog is absolutely hilarious. She has fantastic recipes but is also hysterical with the way she documents her life for her readers.)
  • Rabbit Food for my Bunny Teeth (This is a new find for me, but I love her dedication to healthy eating and her DIY section is great. I’ve already made a few items from her blog…still need to blog about those for you all. Oops.)
  • From My Grey Desk (This blog is written by the sister of The Small Things Blog, one I’ve talked about on here before. Lauren has so many great posts, but my favorites are her posts/pictures of decorating. The girl’s got style.)

There’s no excuse to not be inspired by SOMETHING everyday. In my opinion. Whatever it is that inspires you, do that more. Do it often. 

3) Spotify.  Yes, I’m behind the curve with this one. I know, I know. But what an ingenious idea?!? For those unfamiliar, Spotify is a mix between your personal music library and Facebook. You download this application to your computer and you can then create playlists and listen to music, including ANY song you can think of. It’s like having access to a radio where you can pick every song. It’s a great way to discover new music. This application also shows you what your friends are listening to and different playlists they’ve created. It makes the process of listening to music a social one and one where you are constantly seeing and listening to new music. I am a country music lover (currently can’t get enough of Gloriana and Luke Bryan), so those friends of mine who have exceptional country music playlists are the ones that I usually look for. If you love to discover new music, I really recommend checking this out. Music sets my mood, more than anything else I do in a day. If there’s a simple and free way to find more music, why the heck not check it out?! 

4) Instagram. So long story short, I recently had an epic wedding weekend which resulted in a lost purse and no voice. Totally worth it, but unfortunately the purse contained my phone along with other necessary life items (my driver’s license, debit card, watch and new lipstick). After the initial freakout that I’d lost ALL of that, I set about replacing all items ASAP. First up was the phone. Thankfully an upgrade was due on our family’s account and my mama let me have it (she gets to use my upgrade in August) and an iPhone it was! I’m completely in love with it – pictures are better, it works faster, it’s actually intuitive to use and there are much better applications. One would be Instagram. I started to use this on my old phone – a Droid – but the app and the pictures look SO much better on the iPhone. It’s fun to follow people on Instagram too (it’s similar to Twitter in that regard). I follow a variety of friends and bloggers. Oh and Shawn Johnson. 🙂 This is a FREE app, so you have no excuse to not add it to your phone. It’s a different way to interact with people, solely over pictures. There are also lots of great ways to edit pictures for those of us lacking photography skill. All in all, it’s like getting a new, better, free camera.

5) H20 – Hmm…H20 is not an activity. Yes, yes I know. BUT everyday I struggle with trying to drink as much water as possible. I’m finally mastering how to do this and thought I’d share a few things that make drinking the recommended 6-8 glasses a day more possible for you too. 

  • Get a great waterbottle and don’t lose it. The latter is the hard part, but I believe in you. Cart this baby with you everywhere.
  • Find new ways to flavor your water. I LOVE Crystal Light, so I usually use that. The Raspberry Ice flavor is theeee best. Other great options that work well – throwing in lemon or lime wedges, using cucumber or using Mio (Blueberry Lemonade is a pretty fantastic flavor).
  • Cut out the pop. Make that anything that’s going to fill you up with liquid but not help to hydrate you. For me, I can’t function without coffee. So, I drink coffee in the morning and then switch to water for the rest of the day. Compromise.

You may have found this whole post useless (sad, I sure hope not) but perhaps you got an idea or were motivated to try something new. Even if it’s just drinking more water.

I’ll be back with more posts this weekend, ones not dedicated to my rambling ideas and more focused on food.

Happy Saturday!

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A Little Crayon Art

10 Jun


You may have thought crayons were left behind in your 3rd grade desk, but NO…there are still so many wonderful things you can do with these little guys. The basis behind this project is the simple fact that crayons melt. In the process of melting, these make a wonderful art creation that rivals how colors bleed and blend in a watercolor.

This is a very popular pin on pinterest that most who are even infrequent visitors to the site, have stumbled upon and maybe even too, been inspired by.

The original pin on pinterest that inspired me:

From Whatever…

Before I made my own version of this a few months ago, I decided I’d take a slightly different approach. As much as I love the Crayola brand, I preferred to have the wrapper off of the crayons I was using. I also wanted to use only a select few colors on each canvas I made: greens/yellows….blues/purples etc.

I tackled this craft for the first time with a good friend of mine, Katie. She was as intrigued as I was if it would work, so we bought ourselves quite a few of the 64 boxes of Crayola crayons and set to work.

My first attempt turned out pretty cool, far better than I anticipated. The only negative, didn’t realize until after the fact I had created art out of Packer colors. Oops. The deep love I have for Minnesota sports did make me feel a little bad about that. Trust me, this was unintentional!

Because the first canvas turned out so great, I wanted to give it another go and track the craft progress with some photos to share with you all. This is fun no matter what your age, so if you have little kids around that need a good, easy and not-too-messy craft project, this is perfect. This is also an ideal craft if you just want your mind to drift and think about nothing other than how beautiful certain colors are as they merge and trickle down the canvas. Very soothing.

How to Make:

First step, buy yourself some crayons and a canvas (any size will work, but I like the bigger, square ones myself). Depending on how you want your final canvas to look, you may need to buy a few boxes of crayons. To get all the blues/purples that I needed, I bought 3 boxes of 64 Crayola crayons.

Next step is to peel off the paper on all of the crayons. I truly believe this project works better without the wrapping, and it’ll look a lot nicer up on your wall that way too. Give yourself a good chunk of time to unwrap crayons; it does take you a bit longer than you may anticipate. One and a half Disney movies should get you through it. Or 3-4 Brothers & Sisters episodes. (The latter is my current obsession. This is my 3rd time through the series and it still is as great as the 1st time I watched it. If you haven’t watched it before, check it out. All 5 seasons are on Netflix!)

Next, heat up your hot glue gun. Also, figure out how you’d like your colors laid out on the canvas. I wanted a random assortment of blues and purples, so you’ll see I started gluing them on the canvas without much rhyme or reason. But, this could also look great with all one color merging into another (i.e. all blues…fading into all purples). Up to you!

You’ll want these glued along one side of your canvas. Try to keep them as close to one together as you can. Just a few dabs of hot glue will keep each crayon in place.

Keep going until all of your crayons are securely glued. Don’t get discouraged by the weird color of the crayons right now. It’s hard to tell what the actual colors will look like together at this point (cerulean and blue violet may appear to look the same color at this stage, but we know they do NOT when the crayon is used on paper). Have no fear.

I use my bathtub for this next part, because all the mess is then easily contained. I lined the bathtub bottom with leftover grocery bags to catch any of the waxy drips.

You’ll want to aim your canvas with the crayons dripping down. Hold the canvas from the back or the top and tip the canvas to get the type of drips you want.

I use my hairdryer on the hottest setting as well as the lowest setting. This helps keep the crayons from splattering too much.

This is after only about 10 seconds of heat:

I use the method of moving heat over all of the crayons first before focusing heat in on certain sections. This is what it looked like after this first pass over.

Then, after a good chunk of time of melting all of these crayons out, this is what it turned into.


At first, I felt that I wanted all of the white spots gone. But as I’ve left it sitting perched on my tub all week, every time I walk by or in the bathroom I took a second to think if it looked ‘done’ or not. I kind of like the imperfection, so I think I’m taking this as ‘done’. 🙂

You can go for as long as you’d like until the canvas looks like your idea of ‘finished’.

For easy cleanup, just toss your grocery bag ‘dropcloths’ into the trash. Any other stray drips that ended up hitting the tub can be picked off once the wax cools (I just filled the tub with cold water and then picked them off) and then scrub over any colored waxy stains with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser for a few seconds. You won’t have a single stain on the tub that way.

This looks great anywhere you need a pop of color. I have both the green/yellow canvas and the blue/purple canvas up on either side of the mirror in my bedroom. It’s perfect.

I’ve seen other versions of this (also on pinterest) that could be fun to try as well:

From Light&Spoon

From an Etsy shop: JKCreate

From Dilly-Dali Art

May have to make a ‘V’ for the next version of this (perhaps oranges/reds/pinks?) for our living room. (Both my roommate and I have ‘V’ last names). We’ll see if I can make that happen.

I hope this inspires you to dig up your old crayon collection and get a little artsy. 🙂

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Strawberry Pie

27 May

Before I dive into strawberry pie (take that literally or figuratively, either would be accurate) I want to let you know some crafting posts are coming up!

Yes, I know. “What? Crafting? You haven’t posted much of anything in that department, I thought you forgot.”

No, I didn’t forget.

I’ve just been very bad at posting about it. So, for those of you reading this blog for more than just the food, crafts are coming! For those not interested in the crafts…crafts are coming anyway. 🙂

Now…back to food. Pie.

Easy as pie has new meaning. This pie recipe is truly simple but doesn’t appear that it would be. Excellent. My kind of recipe!

Found this guy on pinterest, just like the other 83% of the recipes I post on here. I’m sorry, I may be obsessed with that website a wee bit. It’s a great place to stumble on blogs, recipes etc. Really, just about anything that has an image attached to it can be found on that site. Which is why I love it so very much.

The pin took me to a fantastic, new blog I haven’t read before: Mother Thyme. I’m looking forward to trying out some of the other recipes on her site, especially the Avocado Deviled Eggs. YUM.

But we’re focused on strawberry pie here.

Ingredients:

1 frozen pie crust (or you can be a big shot and make your own. I have yet to attempt homemade pie crust…someday.)

Filling:

1 1/2 quarts strawberries, sliced
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons corn starch
2 tablespoons water

Garnish:

I gave Doug the choice between ice cream or whipped cream. Whipped cream it was for us! But the strawberry pie could go with anything, or, even nothing at all. (I’m sad for you if you chose nothing. Just sayin.)

That is all the ingredients you need to amaze people with your pie skills. I know. It seems TOO simple.

Trust me.

You must make this.

How to Make:

First, bake your pie crust according to the directions on the package. Mine had me prick it all over with a fork before popping it in the oven to pre-bake before filling it with strawberry goodness. Since we’re not baking the entire pie once assembled, your frozen pie crust instructions will most likely also be telling you to bake your pie crust first.

I have a solid hunch on that one.

Set your crust aside to cool while you work on the strawberry filling.

First, slice up your strawberries. All of them.

Then, take 2 cups from the sliced pile and pop them into a blender. Pulse/blend for a enough time to get a mashed pile of strawberries.

Next, grab a small bowl and combine the water and cornstarch. Stir until the cornstarch is dissolved. It’ll look a little like glue at this point. Do not worry – it will not make the pie taste like glue.

Now, grab a small saucepan and combine your cornstarch/water concoction, the strawberry pulp and your cup of sugar. Stir it up over medium-high heat until it “becomes thick and transparent” according to the original recipe on Mother Thyme. You can see if it’s transparent by picking up a spoonful and watching it dribble back into the pan. Sounds weird, but it works.

Once you get to that point of “thick and transparent”, remove it from the heat and let it cool a little bit.

Once it’s cooled down for a few minutes, add in the remaining sliced strawberries. Stir it all up so everything is thoroughly coated. Then, pour into your awaiting pie crust.

You can see from the above picture that we had a rather fragile pie crust and a non-careful cook (guess who). Ah well, we were able to enjoy the pie crust crumbles before we were able to enjoy the real-deal.

Now that your pie is all put together, it needs to chill out for a bit. Since we made this before starting in on the main parts of dinner – parmesan knots and steakhouse pizza – we had our pie chilling for about 2 hours or so. I’m sure you could eat it after 30 minutes or so, but it’ll be best if the whole pie is cool.

Throw on the garnish that makes you smile most. For us, it was whipped cream.

Doug was excited about the upcoming consumption of pie. As were Laura and I. As you will be once you have a pie slice sitting in front of your face.


Now, if this doesn’t make your day/night/life a little bit better, I don’t know what will.


Enjoy!!

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