November 24, 2014

Holiday Cards with Minted + GIVEAWAY!!

YOU GUYS.

I am done with my holiday cards!!! Wait. That doesn’t mean I’ve addressed them yet… but anyways this is the first year EVERRRRRR that I am going into December with our holiday cards in MY POSSESSION. Last year was so hectic, I almost sent out New Years cards and then realized I would have thrown off my tradition and wouldn’t have a 2013 card in my collection; I couldn’t let myself do it. The thing is…now that we have a child, it’s been a nice way for us to see how much Cooper has grown over the years. It’s kinda like collecting baseball cards. We’ve been using Minted for our holiday cards since 2011 because I’ve always enjoyed their designs. They appeal to the graphic designer in me and their paper quality pleases me greatly. Totally top notch and the user interface is really fun to work with.

Here are some of our past designs from Minted:

Inspiration

November 23, 2014

And I Quote:

my everyday life, Photography

November 22, 2014

My Everyday Life: Week 47

Here’s what this past week looked like:

We spent an hour in Target taking pics of anything that said JOY on it (there are a lot of things!) and texted each photo to Joy.

It was one of the best scavenger hunts EVER.

It’s been raining. I love my house when it rains. Not when it leaks though.

Working on boozy things. My grandpa’s Christmas cactus is about to bloom. Can’t wait for that!

Surveying the succulents.

November 21, 2014

I love lists, Friday!

This is one of my pump songs and she really gets into it!
After working in the advertising world for 5 years, I know all these terms TOO WELL.
Old school emojis. I think my husband is secretly Nick Offerman.
I’ve been massaging my face this week. It’s super relaxing.
What a beautiful pumpkin pie tart – also dairy free!
These doughnuts are EVERYTHING and OMG look at these doughnuts.
Joy the Baker gives her PIE CRUST TIPS.
Food hacks!! (this made me laugh)
Famous women & their insecurities.
Thanksgiving Budgeting. For this I am thankful.
Congrats on your book, Billy! Can’t wait to see it! xo
I’m gonna make some wrapping paper this Christmas.
These pictures from Buffalo are CRAZY.
This is the cutest Holiday Dress ever!
Some Serial podcast charts to mull over & What It’s Like to Be Adnan. (listen to episode 9 first)
I’ve had this banana oat snack cake opened up on my computer for over a week now…
I want my backyard to look like this.
Hello, dream house.
Leftover Stuffing WAFFLES. I MEAN.
We all should have a jar of magical thinking. I’m starting one for my family!

ALSO! I know that Thanksgiving is next week (AHHHHH!!) Let me suggest some things for you to make if you’re still in the brainstorm process. I haven’t even started making my lists of things to do so….. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER.

APPETIZERS:

SIDES:

SALADS:

DESSERT:

DRINKS!

recipes

November 20, 2014

Pear Goat Cheese Bites

When I started this Thursday Snack (Attack!) series, I didn’t realize how many snacks I like to eat could be served as appetizers. Take this Pear Goat cheese situation for example. A dollop of creamy goat cheese goes on top of a pear slice and gets bejeweled with dried cherries (cranberries are great too!) and roasted/ salted pistachios. This snack could be a great app for your upcoming holiday extravaganza! I also recommend Greek Salad Bites, Caprese Bites, Spicy Salmon Sushi Bites, Avocado Sushi Bites, and how about making your own Savory Snack Mix?? I love how a few simple ingredients can make such an impact.

recipes

November 19, 2014

Roasted Potato Breakfast Nachos

I know we’re supposed to be in Thanksgiving Brainstorm Mode right now but let’s talk about the days after when you have company over at your house and you want to feed them something delicious for breakfast. Besides dipping into your leftover stash, you should make them this showstopper Roasted Potato Breakfast Nacho recipe from Joy the Baker’s Homemade Decadence Cookbook. If you haven’t bought yourself that book WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??! Seriously. I can imagine it would also be good for one of those Sunday football situations as well. My maj knows what’s up when it comes to potatoes and cheese. I’ll bring the runny egg yolk to the situation because that’s how I roll. Teamwork!

As I type out this recipe, I see that it serves 4-6 people. In my house it served two. That happens whenever meat & potatoes are involved. My husband is in heaven whenever the two things are combined and he eats as if his life depends on it. It secretly makes me happy. As you can imagine it’s hard to lose weight in my household when you have a food pushing wife.

Exhibit A:

Can you really blame him? There’s Italian sausage up in that pile of potatoes. And nacho cheese and fried eggs and salsa and ALL THE THINGS.

recipes

November 17, 2014

The Best Creamed Spinach

I’m not quite sure how I did it, but I was low-carb for the last two years of my college life. I know… I constantly ask myself HOW??! During this time, I had short lived tech support job at the campus computer lab. This was over 13 years ago so the internet was a different beast. At that time, I was obsessed with changing my Winamp skins and downloading TV-show theme songs on Napster. While I was sitting in the computer lab, I remember having some weird/random craving for creamed spinach and I spent one of my whole shifts looking for a good recipe online. That was one of the first things I made from the internet. The image of me following directions that I printed OFF THE COMPUTER in my little college apartment is somehow burned into my brain. And here we are now… I have a food blog and have been making this dish for 13+ years.

If you’ve listened to one of our old podcasts, I think I talked about the period of my life where I ate creamed spinach like it was going out of style. THIS IS THE CREAMED SPINACH I WAS TALKING ABOUT. Over the years I’ve made so many versions. I’ve added shrimp and pesto. Sometimes mushrooms make an appearance. I made it with artichoke hearts and that went over well because it was kind of like a warm artichoke spinach dip. I’ve used some as a stuffing for meat dishes and I think there was a time where I mixed in some marinara and served it with chicken parmesan. I have a tendency to make things repeatedly until I get sick of them.

As a result, this creamed spinach recipe has been a once a year dish for Thanksgiving but after making this batch yesterday and it NOT being Thanksgiving (YET) I’m thinking it might need to be added back into the rotation. There’s something about churning out a huge vat of food and making a whole dinner that has the power to turn you off from making/eating something. You know what I’m saying?

For this recipe, I always use frozen chopped spinach because I love the texture and the ease. The creaminess comes from the marriage of cream cheese and Parmesan. I have to say that during the Thanksgiving crunch, the creamed spinach dish sometimes gets left in the oven too long and there’s a nice crispy Parmesan crust that forms. I don’t mind. In fact, I’m 100% into it.