cooking, baking and crafting, oh my!

This past week and weekend, I was able to do some more of my favorite things!  I tried out a new meal of mushroom and orzo which turned out wonderfully!  I also made chocolate banana muffins in a mini muffin pan. They're great for popping them in your mouth for a quick treat.  Alex loved them...He and I also made a great meal of raspberry baked chicken (we used raspberry vinaigrette dressing as a marinade) and sauteed some veggies to go with it.  He does all the chopping for me because, as I'm sure I have mentioned before, I HATE chopping vegetables.  

On that note...I also got to do some crafting! Sarah and I hit up Goodwill and found some neat jars and glasses. we poured some paint inside them to spread around the edges to make the colorful from in the inside with minimal work.  Note: these are not for drinking or storing food; we're using them for storing pencils, makeup brushes and for pretty decoration.  It takes awhile to dry but it turns out pretty cool and they are all different in the end.  I got the idea here but have since seen alternatives with glitter and such.  It's a fun way to jazz up some old mason jars or funky glasses. This jar I'm using for my makeup brushes and I added some ribbon to another one that looks like a lighthouse.  Right now, it's sitting in our living room and we might add some fake flowers to it for some more color!

Update so far on my running plan: 24 miles this month! My new February workout plan starts tomorrow, of course. So I'll have updates on that, too.

Teaser: This weekend I attended a vintage store benefit and fashion show.  Not only did I get to dress up in my favorite 20s attire, but I won a great vintage prize.  I'll tell you more about that soon!

Spring Break Preparation!

Besides wasting lots of time and giving women false fantasies about their weddings and future homes, Pinterest can be somewhat useful for sharing motivating words as well as health and fitness suggestions.  I found some great short workouts specific to legs and abs (I'm on the lookout for arms and shoulders next!) and I plan to put these into action Feb 1st.

Before you start thinking this sounds like an "I'll start tomorrow" thing, I already did the leg workout today to tweak it and I'm doing abs tonight to see if I do like it.  Currently, I am writing up a 'Health & Fitness Calendar' for the month to keep me checking things off.  I've also added a goal of having one meal each day (or more) that is made/eaten specifically because of its health benefits.  I have found and made so many new recipes lately that this won't be hard at all.  The hardest part is keeping the right foods in stock and keeping myself accountable.

This is why I made the calendar.  I can see every day whether or not I have eaten a healthy meal, taken my vitamins and completed my workout.  I can cross it off when I have, and continue the countdown to two consecutive trips to New Orleans and Marco Island! More on this soon.

I hung it up, with some other
workouts in a place I'll see it every day.

In addition to this highly optimistic plan, I have started keeping track of ideas for blogs.  I want to use this place as a way to share great things I find, make, and do.  I want to start adding my fitness and health goals (as seen above) but also my cooking adventures, lifestyle dos (and don'ts) and my fashion finds.  I'd love feedback, suggestions and your own stories! Comment here, email me or find me on Facebook and Pinterest if you haven't already!  For my workouts and progress on my running goal, add me on dailymile.

Creative in the Kitchen

A lot less 'red velvet' and much more chocolate,
but tastes just as amazing.

I had been looking forward to this weekend all week, planning to try some new recipes and enjoy some time in the kitchen.  Friday, I made m'n'm cookies with my friends (just used the normal chocolate chip cookie recipe and swapped out the chips for m'n'ms) before making this Red Velvet Cake Donut dough from my favorite blog.  The dough had to refrigerate overnight, so Sarah and I continued Saturday morning to make the donuts.  We had a slight mishap getting the dough fried because it is important to use vegetable shortening (crisco, etc) NOT vegetable oil...(who knew?). We ran out to get the right stuff and then fried up some delicious donuts.  The shortening starts to overheat and burn so we could only do a few donuts at a time before the donuts would cook too quickly on the outside before they're finished on the inside. Nevertheless, we finished with a plateful of yummy, chocolaty donuts for the weekend. :)

Later in the day, I made caramel and vanilla flavor coffee syrup, again from A Beautiful Mess.  I found two syrup dispensers from Wal-Mart and decorated each with its corresponding letter for fun.  They're not as strong as I had thought they'd be, so I'll have to experiment with how much to put into my coffee...oh darn!

For Sunday's dinner, I had bought some asparagus as it might just be my new favorite vegetable.  I found a recipe for garlic sesame asparagus here.  Oh my was it great! On the blog, Carrie (the chef and writer) said she paired it with a fried egg for a simple meal.  I don't like fried eggs but I do love scrambled eggs.  I had some summer sausage in the fridge (thanks Mom!) and a little onion never hurts so I mixed that all in with an egg and I must say, it was the perfect meal.  I have some asparagus left over for dinner tomorrow.  I think I'm going to try to play with a simple spaghetti and meat sauce dinner to vamp it up a bit.  If it goes well, you'll probably see it here.

Happy cooking!

Recipe Journal

If you're like me at all, you probably have had many kinds of notebooks, journals, diaries, etc. for as long as you can remember. I love to write, but I've never been a great journaler (yes, I made up a word). But I still love cute, colorful journals and the optimism and excitement that goes with them. I always tried to keep journals or find something to put in each, but have never successfully kept one going. I have many pretty, partially-filled journals on my shelves at home (sorry Mom).  But over the summer, I won a very shinny and colorful journal from a book club blogger Suzanne Beecher. She's great, check her out.

I love this journal and it is ever signed with a little note from Suzanne, but did I really need yet another journal to sit mostly empty on my shelf? No, I was determined to put this one to use and I found a great way to do it.

This is a recipe for Red Velvet Donuts found on
A Beautiful Mess.

After I started finding great recipes from blogs and friends, I decided I needed to keep them all in one, convenient place. Now I don't have a recipe box like my grandma did, and this was before I discovered Pinterest.  (Plus, I hate having my laptop sit on the counter while I'm mixing and measuring.)  So I started copying down the successful and yummy recipes into this pretty journal! Now I have them all, clearly written without all the fluff. And I don't mind bringing it into the kitchen.  I have left plenty of space for pictures, comments and tweaks, too!

How do you organize your recipes? I hope some day to have this completely full of all my favorite things to make and eat. I think it will be a great way to pass down recipes to future generations! (My sisters' kids, I mean...)

What I lack in sewing abilities...

I make up for in the kitchen!  I have spent a lot of this Christmas break baking and trying new recipes.  A lot of them come from Taste of Home's Simple & Delicious Magazine, but some I found online.  I learned a few things about myself after all this time in the kitchen. 1: I've gotten a lot more comfortable with playing around with recipes.  I can comfortably guess measurements instead of stressing over being exact and I play with different flavors and spices. I used to be extremely recipe-reliant but I'm much more comfortable now.  2. I despise chopping.  Hate it. It's the most tedious, time-consuming and horrible task in any kind of food preparation.  Moving on...

I made a few types of cookies. Creme de Menthe Chocolate Drop cookies were not my favorite, but my dad and niece really liked them. They are simple cookies made with Hershey's cocoa powder and then Andes mints melted on top once they come out of the oven.

My favorite was the Macadamia Coffee Bean Cookies.  Although, the small food processor we have doesn't do a great job of finely chopping coffee beans.  It was more like a light shaving of the chocolate coating, but oh well. The cookies turned out delicious, nonetheless.

My mother found organic Chia seeds that are supposed to provide the same nutrients as fish oil pills (which are gross).  The seeds, however, are quite good.  We added them to chicken and rice onion soup the other night and Mom found a cookie recipe that used them along with dates and bananas.  They were surprisingly delicious and here's the recipe.

Chia Seed and Date Cookies

Ingredients:

-4 Tablespoons of white chia seeds

-4 Tablespoons of plain flour

-Half a small ripe banana

-2 tablespoons of chopped dates

-2 Tablespoons of rolled oats

-1 large egg

-2 tablespoons of honey

-1 and a half teaspoons of baking powder

-1 Tablespoon of water

Method:

-Grind the seeds and the flour together. This makes the seeds grind easier and aerates the flour.

-Put this mixture into a bowl and add the rolled oats.

-Blend together the banana, egg, dates, honey, baking powder and water.

-Add this to the dry ingredients in the bowl. Mix together. The consistency should be similar to a cake batter but not as runny as a pancake mix.

-Drop dessertspoons of the mixture on to an oiled tray. Bake in a medium oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until lightly browned.

Just this afternoon I made French Breakfast Muffins.  My sister shared the recipe with me and I'm so glad she did! What easy and tasty muffins! Just look how pretty they are, too!

There are a few other things that I have made and plan to make in the near future.  I'll keep posting more successful en devours as they come and share the yummy recipes with you! Share your favorites with me on a comment below or on my Facebook page: Facebook.com/mmchrist.

Have a great week!

Domestic? Not so fast.

I finally buckled down today and made that darn apron I've been planning.  A simple pattern made from an old button-down.  I haven't done a lot of sewing in my time, at least not in the last 5-8 years, so I enlisted my mom for some guidance and her sewing machine.  I took a blue shirt I found (might be an old one of my brothers) and cut out the back side of it and then followed this video for instructions.  My Aunt Sue had sent me the idea because she knew my plans to dabble in some sewing.  I used the back of the shirt instead of the front, like the video shows.  And since the shirt I had was short-sleeved, I just used pieces from the front to make my waist straps.
 I won't lie and say it was an easy, fun-filled afternoon of learning to sew.  I got pretty angry after the first few tries and 'gave up'. I went back to reading The Red Tent and ignored the ironing board, sewing machine and thread all over the living room.  Finally, my mom asked if I was done for the day; I assured her I was done forever.  She was kind enough not to laugh at my five-year-old-like attitude but took a few minutes to show me some tricks.

As I kept grunting and slamming things around, she kept explaining "it doesn't have to be perfect!"  Well, that's quite true.  And it is far from perfect.  But I have an apron I made all on my own and I am a little closer to finding my love tolerance for sewing.  Here's my apron. Do you have any fun apron patters or ideas? I'm not sure I'll be starting a new sewing project anytime soon, but I think I'd give it a try when I find some patience.

Right on track

So I've started my New Year Goals this week. I've begun my 300 miles for the year (despite the unbearable cold). I really think I deserve extra credit for running in the snow (OK, flurries). For those of you that know me, there's not much I hate more than cold. Except, perhaps, beeping noises. Anyway, I'm hoping my motivation will continue, especially when I have go back to school and have access to indoor treadmills...

My crafting has been pushed aside since I really need to buckle down on graduate school applications. I have two due by next Sunday and two due in early February.  Because of the immense cold and sudden change in weather around here (as well as some educational/professional reasons) I have looked at a few schools even farther out of my comfort zone down in Miami and Atlanta and I am super excited about these opportunities. Moving to a whole new state farther than a 2 or 3 hour drive kind of scares me but I would love a big change and warmer weather!  Not to mention these schools offer a great program and assistantships.

Another NYG that I have added is under the instruction of my mother.  I need to develop what she calls "virtual buckets".  This is supposed to help me stress a little less, focus on less things at one time and (hopefully) get more sleep throughout the semester. I'm quite a worrier.  My mom says to put certain things in "buckets", things that I can't do right now, or should work on at a later time to keep me from stressing about them all the time.  If I work on putting things into buckets, then I can focus on what needs to be done right away and plan a time to work on other important things later.  Now, please understand this is different from procrastinating.  I am not a procrastinator and that actually causes me to stress about things too early, before they're even due or able to be completed. This is hard for most people to understand, especially my roommates, but I hate getting behind.  Using these buckets, I'll make a date or time to work on things and not think about them until that time to reduce a little unnecessary stress and give my full attention to what CAN be done now.  Please keep me reminded of this...

I do plan on working to make a fun apron this week/weekend.  This will be my craft for the month, my relaxer during application meltdowns and an intro to my sewing lessons.  I will be sure to blog about it along the way!

I hope everyone is enjoying a happy and healthy new year.  Keep up your expectations and excitement from the new year even in this cold weather!

Fun fact: Three sets of twins were born on either side of the New Year. In New York, Minnesota and Florida, mothers gave birth to one child just before midnight on December 31, 2011 and the other joined them just after on January 1, 2012. I just think that is so neat! They get separate birthdays in separate years!