This evening I decided to whip up another batch of Summer Barley Salad, but I needed to come up with something to go with it. Not thrilled with the idea of driving to the grocery store, I decided to scrounge in my cupboards and throw something together. I found some spinach spaghetti in my freezer (I buy it fresh so it needs to be eaten within a couple of days or be frozen), and decided to make that and throw a little red sauce on it.
Looking through the cupboards revealed approximately zero bottles of marinara sauce (a travesty!), so I thought of my alternatives. I nixed the idea of eating sauceless spaghetti right away, so said a quick prayer and mustered up the courage to try my hand at homemade alfredo sauce. Oh I've made alfredo sauce before, but never with skim milk (all I had on hand). Jumping in with both feet, here's how it went down:
1/4 cup butter
1 cup skim milk
1 T flour
salt and pepper
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
spinach spaghetti
capers (and a little caper juice for fun)
Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. After it is melted, add the milk. Make sure that you watch the milk closely. If it gets too hot, it'll boil over and may burn. After stirring the milk and butter together for about five minutes, it didn't seem to be thickening so I added the flour. This just created clumps of flour in my sauce, but in the long run I do think it helped. After a few more minutes I became impatient and added the cheese. Jackpot! The sauce really thickened up nicely, and after a few more minutes (and the addition of some salt and pepper) I poured it all over my spaghetti (fully cooked and drained). I threw in a few tablespoons of capers (and some of the juice), stirred it all together and called it dinner.
The spaghetti and the barley salad were quite yummy together, but honestly I'm just super thrilled that I was able to make a nice creamy sauce with skim milk.
Yum!!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
inspiration fit for a librarian
Lunch break today left me cruising around the interwebs, and I found a blog post that left me absolutely giddy with excitement. I have lots of books. I accumulate them from everywhere, and even though I've donated boxes of them over the years I still have more than I can handle. But without a library, they sort of just end up in random bookshelves and in piles around the house. So today when I saw Jolie's creation I was in heaven. Just look at what she did with an unused closet in her house: http://shoppingcandy.blogspot.com/2010/06/library-closet-complete.html
Isn't it just beautiful? Those French doors are just the icing on the cake aren't they? If we weren't trying to sell Tom's home (anyone looking for a lovely townhome just north of Atlanta?) I would take on this project in a jiffy (I know the perfect closet thats just waiting to be converted!). But like many of my other projects, they'll just have to be stored away until that glorious moment when I own my own home and am free to make all the renovations I can dream of. Until then, my future to-do list is rapidly expanding!
Have you found a creative way of breathing life into an unused space? Do you have any suggestions for how to store my books? And seriously, is anyone looking to buy a townhome???
Isn't it just beautiful? Those French doors are just the icing on the cake aren't they? If we weren't trying to sell Tom's home (anyone looking for a lovely townhome just north of Atlanta?) I would take on this project in a jiffy (I know the perfect closet thats just waiting to be converted!). But like many of my other projects, they'll just have to be stored away until that glorious moment when I own my own home and am free to make all the renovations I can dream of. Until then, my future to-do list is rapidly expanding!
Have you found a creative way of breathing life into an unused space? Do you have any suggestions for how to store my books? And seriously, is anyone looking to buy a townhome???
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
success, preceeded by a series of failures
Tonight was date night. Not just any date night, but a date night Inside the Perimeter (ITP). Atlanta folks like to divide its citizens into those that live within the city (ITP), and those that live in the burbs (Outside the Perimeter - OTP). I'm an ITP gal, and Tom is an OTP guy. Soon after we got engaged, I moved OTP to be with Tom in the burbs, and I sure do miss my Atlanta time.
I've been looking forward to this date for a while, because Tom's offer to take me on an ITP date was nearly unprecedented. The plan was to go to Taqueria del Sol and the High Museum of Art (where we scored a discount membership a few months ago), and I was thrilled. But when we drove up to Taqueria, the place was closed. We decided sushi would be our backup plan, and just as I started to mentally choose which rolls to order, we saw that Sushi Avenue was also closed. We ended up at Twains, a great little bar in downtown Decatur, where Tom ordered a Reuben and I got a Mediterranean Platter.
Taste buds doing the happy dance, we were off to the High. After scoring a perfect parking spot and walking up to the front doors, we learned that the museum had closed up shop at 5pm (we missed it by 20 minutes). I tried to keep a cheery demeanor, but this fail date was really starting to get me down. No Taqueria? No High?
Just as the storm clouds started rolling in and Oscar the Grouch began knocking on my door, I thought back to when Tom and I started dating. Nearly every date that we planned failed. On our second date, Tom tried to take me to four different places for dinner. After driving around for much of the evening together, he dropped me off without us ever getting any dinner. And you know what? That was one of the best dates of my life. We had a blast just driving around and talking and reflecting on our terrible luck (it really doesn't hurt to date a funny guy).
And that wasn't the only 'fail' date. There was the time that I cooked chicken cordon bleu and tried to take Tom to a French film at a museum (French date), but I got horribly lost in Atlanta (embarrassing) and we never made it. Or the time we went to the Braves home opener with a group of friends and the hail (and subsequent flooding) almost killed us. For more on that, view the video below.
Sometimes what we view as failure is really just success in disguise, and I would bet that none of us would be who we are today if we hadn't had some really solid fall-flat-on-face moments along the way. So as much as I want to say that tonight was a failure, I can't. Because when you are able to spend time with the ones you love, when you can put food in your bellies and walk around Ikea for two hours dreaming of your future house (because we knew they would be open), you have only blessings to count, not failures.
Do you try to see the good in a bad situation? Are you a glass half full type of person? Have any advice for the rest of us that tend to get bogged down with whats going wrong instead of with whats going right? Or are you the realist who calmly suggests that we just not go on an Atlanta ITP date on a Tuesday?
I've been looking forward to this date for a while, because Tom's offer to take me on an ITP date was nearly unprecedented. The plan was to go to Taqueria del Sol and the High Museum of Art (where we scored a discount membership a few months ago), and I was thrilled. But when we drove up to Taqueria, the place was closed. We decided sushi would be our backup plan, and just as I started to mentally choose which rolls to order, we saw that Sushi Avenue was also closed. We ended up at Twains, a great little bar in downtown Decatur, where Tom ordered a Reuben and I got a Mediterranean Platter.
Taste buds doing the happy dance, we were off to the High. After scoring a perfect parking spot and walking up to the front doors, we learned that the museum had closed up shop at 5pm (we missed it by 20 minutes). I tried to keep a cheery demeanor, but this fail date was really starting to get me down. No Taqueria? No High?
Just as the storm clouds started rolling in and Oscar the Grouch began knocking on my door, I thought back to when Tom and I started dating. Nearly every date that we planned failed. On our second date, Tom tried to take me to four different places for dinner. After driving around for much of the evening together, he dropped me off without us ever getting any dinner. And you know what? That was one of the best dates of my life. We had a blast just driving around and talking and reflecting on our terrible luck (it really doesn't hurt to date a funny guy).
And that wasn't the only 'fail' date. There was the time that I cooked chicken cordon bleu and tried to take Tom to a French film at a museum (French date), but I got horribly lost in Atlanta (embarrassing) and we never made it. Or the time we went to the Braves home opener with a group of friends and the hail (and subsequent flooding) almost killed us. For more on that, view the video below.
Sometimes what we view as failure is really just success in disguise, and I would bet that none of us would be who we are today if we hadn't had some really solid fall-flat-on-face moments along the way. So as much as I want to say that tonight was a failure, I can't. Because when you are able to spend time with the ones you love, when you can put food in your bellies and walk around Ikea for two hours dreaming of your future house (because we knew they would be open), you have only blessings to count, not failures.
Do you try to see the good in a bad situation? Are you a glass half full type of person? Have any advice for the rest of us that tend to get bogged down with whats going wrong instead of with whats going right? Or are you the realist who calmly suggests that we just not go on an Atlanta ITP date on a Tuesday?
Monday, June 21, 2010
jazz up this monday
I've been finding it more and more difficult to focus on my work lately, and though I have tried to diagnose myself as having shift work disorder (without the actual fluctuating shifts, of course), I am thinking its my drab cubicle. I know I'm not the only one who suffers from the brain drain that occurs from sitting in a box, but I am beginning to think that I'm the only one who is seriously considering doing something about it. I keep looking for cubicle decoration ideas online, but the only tips I find are "buy pretty file folders and matching paper clips. Choose a different color stapler for a pop of color." Um, no. Not what I had in mind. And though I like the thought here, its not quite what I was going for either:
So I'm going to blaze a new trail and try to come up with a way to decorate my box in a way that is fun and fresh while still professional and conducive to LOTS of work output. My lucky bamboo, Smithsonian nature calendar and Yoda bobblehead just aren't keeping me motivated anymore.
Does anyone else out there get where I'm coming from? Have any tips or ideas to share? If so, now is not the time to be bashful. I need all the help I can get.
So I'm going to blaze a new trail and try to come up with a way to decorate my box in a way that is fun and fresh while still professional and conducive to LOTS of work output. My lucky bamboo, Smithsonian nature calendar and Yoda bobblehead just aren't keeping me motivated anymore.
Does anyone else out there get where I'm coming from? Have any tips or ideas to share? If so, now is not the time to be bashful. I need all the help I can get.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
happy fathers day
Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads out there, but most especially Happy Fathers Day to my very own Pa. I am thankful for my father every day, but I take this day to reflect on a few of the many things I am thankful for.
Pa's Lessons
1. Budget. When I was young (perhaps 8), Pa explained to me that I could not buy all of the books that I wanted because we must budget our money. This (seemingly) two hour conversation has been fondly referred to as 'The Budget' conversation ever since.
2. Never ever ever give up
3. Appreciate the outdoors
4. Anything is possible. My father always made me believe I could do anything I set my mind to, and he never made me feel that that thought was followed by "even though you're a girl."
5. Fresh tomatoes from the garden will never be matched in quality by anything you can buy from the grocery store.
I just watched the most inspiring Fathers Day video. What a devoted Dad, huh?
What are your favorite Dad/Pa/Father/Grandpa moments?
Pa's Lessons
1. Budget. When I was young (perhaps 8), Pa explained to me that I could not buy all of the books that I wanted because we must budget our money. This (seemingly) two hour conversation has been fondly referred to as 'The Budget' conversation ever since.
2. Never ever ever give up
3. Appreciate the outdoors
4. Anything is possible. My father always made me believe I could do anything I set my mind to, and he never made me feel that that thought was followed by "even though you're a girl."
5. Fresh tomatoes from the garden will never be matched in quality by anything you can buy from the grocery store.
I just watched the most inspiring Fathers Day video. What a devoted Dad, huh?
What are your favorite Dad/Pa/Father/Grandpa moments?
fruit salsa
My friend Carrie just got back from Africa (read about the project she worked on here), and so naturally her and her husband had a party to welcome her back. They provided burgers and potato salad and sangria (yum!), and we all brought a side. I decided to bring fruit salsa and cinnamon sugar tortilla chips, which is kind of the dessert version of chips and salsa. It was a pretty easy dish as long as you don't mind chopping (I used to hate chopping until I got a santoku knife - thanks Mom!!).
Fruit Salsa:
two golden delicious apples, peeled, cored and diced
8 oz raspberries, diced (is it really possible to dice raspberries? no, it is not - do the best you can)
1lb strawberries, diced
2 kiwis, diced
Cinnamon Sugar Tortilla Chips:
10 flour tortillas
cinnamon
sugar
butter flavored cooking spray
Mix all the fruit together. Chop and add the apples last so that you can immediately add them to the other fruit. The juices from the other fruit will keep the apples from turning brown. Chill the fruit in the fridge for 15 minutes or longer, and then enjoy with tortilla chips (keep reading for recipe).
There are probably lots of ways to make these tortilla chips, but here is the method I found easiest: Lay a couple of tortillas on a cookie pan. Spray with the cooking spray. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar all over the tortillas. Spray again with the butter spray. Use a pizza cutter to slice the tortillas into triangles. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 8-10 minutes. Repeat for all tortillas. I used the smaller tortillas (not sure of the size, but the ones for tacos, not 10" burrito tortillas), and could fit three per cookie sheet.
We broke out this dish as a dessert (along with some peanut butter chocolate bars from Kat - yum!), and it was really yummy. I'll definitely make this dish again, especially because its pretty awesome to be able to say you made your own tortilla chips. But if you'd like to save some time (or its just too darned hot to turn the oven on!), you can pick up a bag of cinnamon sugar tortilla chips at the store. I know Trader Joes has some, but I'm not sure if all grocery stores carry these.
If you have leftover fruit, there are lots of other things you can do with it. Tom and I had it over yogurt this morning for breakfast.
What are your favorite summer cookout dishes?
**Pictures to come
Fruit Salsa:
two golden delicious apples, peeled, cored and diced
8 oz raspberries, diced (is it really possible to dice raspberries? no, it is not - do the best you can)
1lb strawberries, diced
2 kiwis, diced
Cinnamon Sugar Tortilla Chips:
10 flour tortillas
cinnamon
sugar
butter flavored cooking spray
Mix all the fruit together. Chop and add the apples last so that you can immediately add them to the other fruit. The juices from the other fruit will keep the apples from turning brown. Chill the fruit in the fridge for 15 minutes or longer, and then enjoy with tortilla chips (keep reading for recipe).
There are probably lots of ways to make these tortilla chips, but here is the method I found easiest: Lay a couple of tortillas on a cookie pan. Spray with the cooking spray. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar all over the tortillas. Spray again with the butter spray. Use a pizza cutter to slice the tortillas into triangles. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 8-10 minutes. Repeat for all tortillas. I used the smaller tortillas (not sure of the size, but the ones for tacos, not 10" burrito tortillas), and could fit three per cookie sheet.
We broke out this dish as a dessert (along with some peanut butter chocolate bars from Kat - yum!), and it was really yummy. I'll definitely make this dish again, especially because its pretty awesome to be able to say you made your own tortilla chips. But if you'd like to save some time (or its just too darned hot to turn the oven on!), you can pick up a bag of cinnamon sugar tortilla chips at the store. I know Trader Joes has some, but I'm not sure if all grocery stores carry these.
If you have leftover fruit, there are lots of other things you can do with it. Tom and I had it over yogurt this morning for breakfast.
What are your favorite summer cookout dishes?
**Pictures to come
Friday, June 18, 2010
hold the lettuce
I absolutely love bacon. I could give up chocolate for the rest of my life, but if someone told me I could never eat bacon again I just might die. I actually contemplated becoming a vegetarian in my early 20's (oh wait, that just made me feel old.....), but bacon was really the thing that kept me from going for the gold. I don't usually keep it in the house because that means I'll eat it (I usually at least try to be healthy). Tom, however, does not try to keep bacon out of the house, so I am given no choice but to eat it.
When considering what to eat for dinner tonight, I spied my fresh-from-the garden tomato and thought of the bacon in the fridge and knew that I needed a BLT (hold the L). I toasted some white bread and added some mayo (on both sides!), three slices of maple bacon and a fat (1/2" thick) slice of tomato.
I'm not even going to pretend that I "forgot" to take a picture of this dish. Tom's camera was sitting right next to my BT, and I decided that y'all could probably envision the dish just fine without a pesky snapshot. My only regret? That I didn't cook more bacon.
When considering what to eat for dinner tonight, I spied my fresh-from-the garden tomato and thought of the bacon in the fridge and knew that I needed a BLT (hold the L). I toasted some white bread and added some mayo (on both sides!), three slices of maple bacon and a fat (1/2" thick) slice of tomato.
I'm not even going to pretend that I "forgot" to take a picture of this dish. Tom's camera was sitting right next to my BT, and I decided that y'all could probably envision the dish just fine without a pesky snapshot. My only regret? That I didn't cook more bacon.
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