Easy Meals.
I get asked A LOT about some easy and quick meal ideas. Those two words mean something different to each person because there is no way I could cook you the dinner you might be picturing in the time it takes you to go through a drive-thru. However, clearly if you read my blog you probably cook some, right? So, I thought I’d show you a snapshot of some of my “quickie” meals and snacks over the last couple weeks.
All of the above pictures were taken on instagram…just a quick snap before we ate of the deliciousness.
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(from top right row across)
- local grapefruit for breakfast
- snickerdoodles from Martha Stewart
- organic tomato soup with caramelized fennel
- orange liqueur
- chicken sausage and spinach orecchiette pasta
- cheese plate with pears and honey
- toasted pecans
- brown butter pasta with mizithra cheese (spaghetti factory style)
- meatless tacos with all the fixings
- Suzie’s farm awesome broccoli
- sausage calzones
- strawberries are here!
- chinese vegetable fried rice
- monkey bread
- pea risotto with sautéed garlic mushrooms (From Harvest to Heat)
- pre-dice pickles for tuna
 (linking late but hopefully it’s ok :))
A few things I love, to enjoy with your afternoon tea and maybe even your sweetie on Valentine’s Day:
1. Every cup o’ tea is better with a little of nature’s best sweetener. I get this every time I’m in Napa…so good. Branches range wildflower honey $11, Katzandco.com
2. We love this full leaf tea press from Bodum $129, bodum.com
3. Such lovely flavors in this tea from Extraordinary desserts. Buddha’s Garden $28, extraordinarydesserts.com
4. Brush up on your Shakespeare’s Sonnets $18.95, shopterrain.com
5. Change up your napkin selection. Dinner Setting Paper Napkins $16, anthropologie.com
6. One of my favorite bakeries, Whimsy and Spice. This Brooklyn bakery makes a yummy yet unique selection of cookies, including honey lavender cookies for $8.50/doz., whimsyandspice.com
I want to be at Downton Abbey. I really do. I love so many things about that post WWI era, it’s ridiculous. The clothing, music, and good manners (at least in public) are all enviable. I would love to live in a time when people were expected to be polite and even chivalrous, were hospitable to their friends and family on a regular basis, and the women were in charge of the household (you know like the part where it was actually an important and respected occupation before everyone felt the need to work after the second world war and not stay at home and raise children). I just love the way it was. It would be a wonderful change from the apparently normal belching/farting in public, profanity heard down every sidewalk , and a world where Facebook is a person’s entire community and where they spend their time with friends. I can’t deny that marriages in England were still arranged for a person’s better good in society and there was an intense war going on…just small details really.
If you don’t know what Downton Abbey is, check it out. It’s a period drama from 1916 through the early to mid 1920’s. You can find it on your local PBS channel (Sunday nights, check your local times) or Netflix for season 1 and iTV for what you may have missed in this 2nd season. If you love period dramas, you will adore this series. It is very well made and the costumes are just beautiful. It tells the story of both the downstairs (serving staff and there interactions/love affairs/relationship with the family they serve) and upstairs (family drama and the running of the household).
A few weeks ago (while sick and watching Downton Abbey…naturally), I made this little teapot. I hope to put it on a tea towel soon. Someday. Feel free to use it and PLEASE let me know what you put it on!
If my Downton Abbey obsession bores you, enjoy some tea and biscuits anyway.
You’ll love it.
If you’re tired of pizza, try calzones.
In our house, we love to make pizza. Pizza to us usually means a movie. Our kids don’t really watch TV, so we like to have a family movie night every once in a while to hang out and enjoy a good flick. Lately, we’ve been watching the LIFE series, which sounds super nerdy to do as a family, but we LOVE it. It really solidifies everything we are learning in school. Plus, it is pretty incredible to see the things God has made which we wouldn’t otherwise be able to see. God Rocks! Seriously.
Beats them watching Phineas and what’s his face…just my personal opinion.
Basically, a calzone is a pizza hand pie, so you can fill it with whatever you want. Start with a pizza dough recipe. Here is one if you don’t have a reliable one. If you don’t want to make your own dough (even though it’s super easy and you will be so happy with yourself when you try), there are many stores that sell ready-made pizza dough. Look for the kind with a few ingredients and no preservatives (Trader Joe’s has one) and just try to stay away from anything that pops out of the can like a cinnamon roll.
Divide the dough recipe into 4 parts. If you are making them for kids, you can divide it into 8 parts. Roll each part out into a square until it’s about 1/4 inch thick. If it’s too thin, it will cause leakage. Leakage is no bueno in calzone world.
When it comes to little ones and food, I have learned that they are more likely to eat something if they help to make it themselves. For these calzones, I like to put all the toppings in little bowls and let them pick what they want. Also, if you only offer healthy options, they are more likely to pick a few of them by default. We like chicken or turkey sausage around here. We have a few great local places here in SD, like Da Le Ranch meats and Homegrown Meats. You can find a really tasty Italian chicken one at Trader Joe’s if you don’t have local resources. I had previously used the Jenny-O turkey sausage but I’ve officially scratched them off my list as I think there are better options for us now in the meat department. I think we should try to find the happiest chickens and turkeys possible so they can be the healthiest for our bodies.
Great ingredients are:
zucchini
tomatoes
spinach
chicken/turkey sausage
prosciutto
mushrooms
mozzarella cheese
fontina cheese
red onions
olives
grilled chicken
peppers
 
Place the ingredients on half of the dough. Try to leave about a 3/4 inch space around the edges when you are filling them. If they get too full, they might explode…just ask my husband. Then, fold the dough over and pull the bottom edge up over the top. Press down the edges to form a seal. Brush the tops with an egg.
Just for effect (and a little extra flavor), I like to sprinkle some dried herbs and graze some parmesan on the top. Bake at 500 degrees for about 15 minutes or until browned on top.
I HIGHLY recommend these family movies if you haven’t seen them:
Secretariat
Dolphin Tale
Tangled
Then, you can eat calzones while you watch your movie.
Also, maybe turn off your phones and try not to play words with friends or check your Facebook for the 25th time that day. I know it’s hard, but Your kids will love you for it. Just try it. You might love it too.
Stick around and find us on:
F a c e b o o k // T w i t t e r // P i n t e r e s t // I n s t a g r a m // E m a i l
Back in the very very beginning of my time of writing posts here, I made vanilla extract. It was a wonderful experience. No, I’m not weird for thinking that. The reason it was so wonderful was because it was SO easy. I love replacing things that I buy at the store with homemade versions, but even more than that, I love it when they are EASY projects. I do have to warn you that you will probably never buy it again if you make it. That’s probably exciting for some of you, but there are others of you who will be doubtful of it. If you were a vanilla snob already and are used to forking over $19 for the big Nielsen-Massey vanilla bottle (although my mom has given some to me in the past that she found cheap somewhere…thanks, mom). If that is you, this will definitely save you some big bucks. If you typically buy the grocery store brand of vanilla that is “imitation” and usually doesn’t contain alcohol, this will not save you money. You should still make it, though, since that imitation stuff is pretty yucky.
The only ingredients are:
Vanilla Beans (2 for every 1/4 c. vodka) & vodka
I followed this site again in their recommended ratio of beans to vodka.
 
I got these perfect size little bottles at The Container Store last year and they would be perfect if you can find them. I went this year (during the annual awesome wrapping paper extravaganza) and they didn’t have any. UGH!! I search all over online and nobody ships this size. The will ship one that is 10X as big, but not this teeny tiny one. So weird. This year I decided to try the cheaper beans from Trader Joe’s which are $4 for 2. Trust me, that’s a deal compared to $14 from McCormick’s at the grocery store or $8.50 for the Nielsen-Massey.
 
Before you start, sterilize the jars in boiling water for 8 minutes. Erica is doing an awesome job showcasing this :).
1. First scrape the beans. If you slice the bean down the middle without going through the bottom layer, you can peel it open and get a good, clean scrape.
 
2. After a the seeds (called caviar…love that!) are removed, cut the beans in about 1 inch pieces. They will not float to the top if they are smaller pieces.
3. Measure your liquid space in the jar by using water first. Once you know how much liquid you need, you will know how many beans to use. For example, I used a cup of vodka in my jars, so I placed 8 beans inside.
4. At first the bottles will just look murky, but as you shake them every day, the fluid will get darker. For the first few days, shake them a few times a day. After that, shake them once a day for 2 weeks. Then, you can shake them only when you think of it.
After 6 months, you can strain the extract. I’ve kept mine in for a year, but I’ve heard the beans go bad after a while. You can also put new beans back in the bottles if you like.
I am aching to make something I tried today at WhiskandLadle. We went to the Scripps La Jolla Aquarium and then over to WhiskandLadle for brunch. To start, I had a piece of butterscotch banana bread with dulce de leche. Yes, it was as good as it sounds and was a perfect comfort food since I wasn’t feeling really great. I really want to make it and this vanilla extract will be perfect in both the banana bread and the dulce de leche.
Now, for some vanilla extract labels…
Craziness! It’s already been a year!
The official time I started my blog was actually back in August of 2010, but I wanted to get things just right on the design end before posting. It’s kind-of a joke when I think of it now because it was FAR from nice and my posts were pretty sad-looking. I knew they were not awesome, but you have to start somewhere, right? I did like my first real banner above, though. I kind-of miss it.
Speaking of design, how do you like my new comfy space? I wanted to go back to my roots with a wood background (my very first wordpress website had a dark wood background) and just step it up a bit. I think it’s pretty cozy. Special thanks to Jay Woolwine for installing the parts I couldn’t and to Erik Weston Homestead for listening to my blubbering about colors, banners, and whether there should be lines separating other lines and other very important details.
1. Be sure to check out the categories to our right which will link you to pages with visual links to all my posts. —————>>>>
It’s SO much easier to use. Yes, it took me a LOOOONG time. If you like it, please let me know. If you don’t like it, keep it to yourself :).
2. <<<<————–I also have a cute new scrabble social bar which you can use to share my page after you read this :).
3. ^^^^Above is my new banner which is hopefully reflecting my handmade style. ^^^^
It’s been a great year for this little space. I started my first month of viewers with just a few of my closest buddies and some obliging family members. Now, I am astonished at grateful at having over 15,000 people visiting in just a single month!! Wow, people! There must be something just a teeny tiny bit likeable goin’ on here.
*blush*
My second year will hopefully bring even better things. A few cool things to come are some useful printables in the name of Valentine’s Day, some embroidery hoop projects and a hoop swap, cool thrifted products remade, some exciting kid’s room redecorating with help from here, a revamped garden with new techniques, things I’ve never canned before are going in those cans, working on a dress for myself, and I’m dragging my friends here to do some of this stuff with me! Sound good?
In honor of this special day, I am sharing a cupcake with you all. Yeah, I kinda thought you would like it too. My sister actually made these back in April for my Miss F’s birthday I just totally forgot to post them. I guess it was meant to be. I saw them on Pinterest and asked my sister to make them and since she’s awesome, she said yes.
Cuties.
I used my neighbor’s freshly cut olive wood firewood for their little perching area.
Thanks for your support and for hanging out with me in this little space.
The community here means a LOT to me.
Thank You, friends!
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