What's for dinner?!

PIZZA! Tonight I made pizza for dinner and it turned out so yummy (it usually turns out yummy, but tonight it seemed better than usual). I used this Whole-Wheat Pizza Dough recipe (made in the stand mixer) and topped it with caramelized onions, sauteed zucchini, turkey pepperoni, and mozzarella cheese. I was really happy with the dough! It was so easy to make and was not a sticky mess that my other whole wheat dough can be... but this one does have all-purpose flour in it with the whole wheat flour (my other recipe does not).

Oh. So. Good.
I heart my pizza stone!

NOTE: I updated my previous post to include pictures of the ornament wreath I made...

THE Ornament Wreath

UPDATED! Pictures of my wreath added (scroll down)!

It's beginning to look like Christmas... it's snowing and more is coming over the next few days - YAY! I'm glad we were able to get our Christmas tree yesterday before the snow arrived. It's huge (to me) at 10 feet tall and about 4.5 ft in diameter at the base [Update: It's actually 6ft, my hubby measured and wanted me to set the record straight]. It didn't look huge when we picked it out, funny how that works. The guy at the farm stand in a parking lot was really nice and loaded it in the back of their pick up truck and followed us home. Then helped John lug it inside and put it in the tree stand. Which took a while because it's not very stable. I am so thankful because I don't think we could have managed it on our own... but who knows... we are the couple that moved an elliptical machine from a room upstairs, to the main level, to the basement by ourselves. While the entire time I kept telling John "this is not a good idea" and "this has Darwin Award potential". But we did it and survived... I still have bruise marks but John was unharmed. We haven't been able to decorate the tree yet but hopefully tonight or tomorrow. Anyway, getting back to the topic of this post...

So I've been seeing gorgeous ornament wreaths all over the blogasphere...like this one from Thrifty Decor Chick,

And this one on Just a Girl,

They are everywhere really, but those are my favorites. Until I made my own of course! Though I love the warm brown/cream colors, and pastels... I'm such a traditionalist with my Christmas decorations - red and green please! So, you want to see pictures? Like ones of the piles of ornaments, hanger wire half strung, and of the finished wreath?

Too bad. So sorry. I really really want to show you but...

When I tried to download them to my iMac, it told me the memory card files were corrupt and the card needed to be reformatted *cry*. Nevermind that the card had pictures from our old house on it, and ones from my work good-bye lunch and happy hour... My hubby is going to try and save the pictures, my fingers are crossed. I really hope to update this post soon with the pictures! If nothing else, I'll eventually get my hands on my husband's fancy camera and post pictures of it hanging above our mantle.

[Update] So... couldn't save the pictures... :( but here are ones of the mantle with the wreath hanging above. I still haven't figured out a nice way to hide the string. Actually, I kind of forgot about it after my initial attempts didn't work out right.

Anyhoo, the wreath is pretty simple to make though it can be tedious. Here's what you need:

1. Wire hanger
   
2. Hot glue gun with glue sticks that fit into your model of hot glue gun (for example if you get a mini hot glue gun, that means you need the mini size of the sticks - somehow this detail escaped me when I was at the store the first time)...
3. Pliers
   
4. Ornaments - I used about 70 I think... I got them at 50% off at Hobby Lobby when the Dollar Tree failed me.
5. String and Ribbon to hang the wreath

Instructions:

1. Shape wire hanger into a ring first, then untwist the hook to open the hanger.
2. Hot glue ornament toppers to ornaments (trust me, and all who have come before me)
3. String ornaments onto wire hanger
4. Re-twist the ends to close the wreath
5. If you're crafty and gifted, hang wreath with ribbon. If not tie string to hook (that's been closed with pliers) and hang, then try to cover with ribbon

That's it! I do have some useful tips that I got from others or found out the hard way:

1. If you're like me and hate wire hangers and don't have them in the house, go to a local dry cleaners and ask nicely. I got mine for free :).
2. Hot glue the ornament topper thingies to the ornaments first.
   
3. Use pliers to pull the toppers off the ornaments if they are difficult.
4. Use pliers to hold the topper while applying hot glue - this saves your fingers from burns that others talked about in their blogs. I thankfully had a burn free experience!
5. Don't pull too hard on the tops with the pliers - the cheapo ornament top/loop can break easily.
6. Hot glue the toppers to the ornaments.
7. Some of the fancier ornaments have toppers with wire hoop thingies that are inserted through them, that have a spring action to stay inside the ornament... figure out a way to hot glue those to the topper too. Because if you don't, when you string your ornaments and they all get clustered together and you're trying to "randomly" arrange them - the hoop can pull out of the topper. This causes the ornament to fall and break into a million little pieces.
8. Hot glue toppers and topper hoops together and to ornament.
   

I had a hard time figuring out how hang this sucker to the wall, and how to hide the hook of the hanger all pretty like. You can't use the hook, like I had so naively thought... I was going to hang it with the hanger hook and cover it with ribbon. Sounds simple, but no of course not. I ended up tying string to the hook and using a drywall S-hook. I tried covering the string with ribbon a few times but couldn't get it to look right. So for now, it's just plan string to a hook. Ideas?! This would be easier if I could show you pictures, right? Right.

This post is linked to:

Household uses for Vinegar

Thought these were some useful tips to pass along.

Powered by Wind - Parking Lot Lights!

On my trip back to Hobby Lobby to pick up the correct size glue sticks (another post about that later)... I snapped a couple of pictures of these neat-o parking lot lights that are wind powered! Again, sorry about the low quality...

I know I'm a dork... but these are kewl.

My 5: Thanksgiving 2009 Edition

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been a while since I've made a "my five" list, and I thought it was a perfect time to blog it since I have so much to be thankful for this year. It's something some friends and I have been doing randomly (not just for Thanksgiving) for years, and I don't even remember who started it... This year I was reminded by another friend - thanks ACQ!

1. My family and friends.
   
2. Living in beautiful, colorful Colorado. What a difference it makes to live in a place you love!
3. Our new house that is becoming home more and more each day.
4. My pupdog Koda, she is my sunshine.
5. My husband - for all his love, patience, and getting a job here so we could move to CO!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day with their families and/or friends!

Note: This was supposed to be published yesterday but somehow I forgot to hit publish... so it's a day late. Oops.

Where is your milk from?

One of the many, many great things about our move, (besides moving to the great state of Colorado!) is that we live close to a Whole Foods now. This could be dangerous...

My hubby and I make an effort to avoid buying foods that are overly packaged, and when available choose glass over plastic. BTW, do you know how hard it is to find ketchup in a glass container?! It's hard, and I bet you can't find it in your local grocery store... we finally did at Whole Foods. So, you can imagine how psyched we were to also find milk in returnable glass jugs from a local dairy - Morning Fresh Dairy Farm. Their products are 100% all natural, and they are in the process of becoming certified organic. They have everything from skim milk to whipping cream, including chocolate milk (from brown chocolate cows of course), seasonal eggnog (sooo yummy), and other dairy products. We tried our first 1/2 gallon last week and it was great. So today I traded in our empty/rinsed glass jug for another, and also picked up a quart of eggnog for my man. We expected it to be expensive (um hello, it comes from Whole Foods) but no, it's only $2.49 for a 1/2 gallon plus a $1.50 refundable deposit for a total price of $3.99! When you return the glass, you get the deposit back. It's not only cheaper than other organic brands of milk, it supports the local community, has a smaller carbon footprint, and I don't have cartons of milk to curb recycle every week. Oh, and did I mention that it tastes better?! I just wish we were on their delivery route...

So anyway, check out your local grocery (it's worth a try), or local farmers market and see if you can find a local dairy! But do your research first, not all are created equal.

*sigh*

OK, off my soap box now.

The not so pretty, yet tasty Rum Cake

This week is John's birthday week! For weeks I asked what kind of cake he wanted me to make for him, and he finally decided on Rum Cake. So here's a picture of the not so great looking, but very moist and tasty Golden Rum Cake I made (minus the nuts). We found the recipe on allrecipes.com. I had a hard time getting it out of the bundt pan. I have no idea what the deal is lately... the last few bundt cakes I've made have not come out well and it doesn't seem to matter how well I grease and flour the darn thing. Oh, and just in case you're wondering this is no where near clean, I made it according to the recipe since I didn't want to experiment with his birthday cake!

Forgive the bad picture... it was taken with my iPhone because it's just handier than digging out the "real" camera.

The Burn of a Poblano Pepper

Peeps, I have a somewhat funny story that I have to share with you. For those that don't know, I'm recently unemployed (my husband was relocated for a new job) and embracing being a job searching house wife for a while... So here's the deal - I unpack/organize/care for the house and take care of preparing meals while my husband works and "brings home the bacon". I have to admit, I like unpacking. I love organizing and putting everything in it's place but the sea of boxes has been somewhat overwhelming!

Yesterday, I finally felt like I made a breakthrough since the kitchen was almost entirely unpacked and put together, so I decided to cook my first meal in our new house. I had been dying to try the Three Bean Chili Con Turkey recipe from the Clean Eating Magazine email newsletter I got last month. So I'm making the chili - chopping, dicing, measuring like the engineer that I am - and I think it's a little odd that the recipe calls for 1 cup each of dried black, pinto, and kidney beans but does not require them to be cooked. I even mentioned this to John the day before (once I set out the dried beans to soak overnight) and said I thought it was going to take a lot longer than 45 minutes to cook the beans. Well, I get to the point where I think I'm done and decide to check the recipe again because I didn't think there was enough liquid to cook the beans, when I see this at the top of the email I kept for the recipe:

We apologize for any inconvenience but we have an update to yesterday’s Three-Bean Chili Con Turkey recipe. We assumed that readers would know to soak their dried beans overnight, but it should be clarified. If you have the time, soak your dried beans in water overnight, or for at least one hour. Boil the beans, according to package directions, then add them to the saucepan. In a real hurry? No problem. Although we encourage readers to choose dried beans over canned whenever possible, canned are fine in a pinch – just rinse them well before using.

AUGHHH!!!!! Are you kidding me?! I just thought the text at the top was newsletter chatter and just scrolled down the page to the recipe. Really, I should have known better. I do know better, but I am such a recipe follower... not trusting of my own cooking skills. So what to do what to do... everything was mixed together. The garlic, onions, celery, poblano pepper, spices, turkey, and dried beans... Well. I cried a little. Then I sucked it up and started picking out the beans a spoonful at a time. 20 minutes later I took my pots (the chili pot and pot for beans), sat at the kitchen table so I could sit and watch/listen to TV, and continued to separate the beans from the chili... for 2 hours.

Yes. I. DID.

Then I cooked the beans and added them back into the chili and cooked it according to the recipe. Which ended up drying out. So I had to add more broth, then once John was home and started helping we added more broth, water, tomato sauce, and tomato paste. By this time I was swearing and just sick of looking at this chili. I didn't even taste it. By this time it was ~8:30 PM (I started at 3:30 PM) and I realize that my middle, ring, and pinky fingers of my right hand were really burning, along with my right thumb under the finger nail. I couldn't remember burning myself and it started out as a mild discomfort and got worse and worse. I put my thumb in my mouth for something and when my mouth started burning I figured out that I had gotten pepper stuff under my nail. I washed my hands really well with soap and put some aloe on my fingers. It did not help, in fact it got worse. What the heck, it was just a Poblano Pepper! They're supposed to be fairly mild, it didn't even occur to me to wear gloves though I was careful with how much I touched it and had washed my hands right after handling the pepper. Desperate I googled hot pepper burns and found this treatment on ehow.

How to Treat a Hot Pepper Burn
Instructions:

1. Wear rubber gloves the oil can seep through latex gloves.

2. Wash your hands thoroughly with dish soap to get all the oil off your hands. Use a fingernail brush to scrub nails with dish soap.
   
   
3. Take an over the counter pain killer as directed
   
   
4. Soak fingers/hands in a bowl of cold milk. The fat in the milk helps soothe hands better than ice water.
   
   
5. Apply an ointment to treat and soothe burns such as aloe vera or hydro cortisone cream.

6. Repeat the milk soak as needed. It will not harm your hands, so do not hesitate to soak as often as necessary

7. Put on gloves to clean the area where you cut the peppers. Use a cleanser with bleach to rid your counter tops, cutting boards and knives of any residual oil.

The only milk in the house we have is skim and 1% so I did the soak in the 1% which felt good while my hand was in it, but as soon as it was out it was burning again. Then I tried lowfat yogurt with the same result. Now it's after 10PM and I'm cursing the chili again and debating running to the store to get either full fat milk or burn cream or both. Finally it dawned on me to try butter... 30 minutes later the burning completely stopped. Butter - thank you thank you, I love you, and will never talk badly about you again!

I had a bowl of the chili for lunch. To my surprise it turned out great! Which makes me feel a teeny bit better about yesterday's ordeal. I topped it with colby jack cheese and had yellow corn chips for dipping. Yum-O!

The recipe instructions and ingredient amounts were way off... but I was able to pull it off. I used 2 1/2 cups of tomato sauce, 2 tbsp tomato paste, 2 1/2 cups of chicken broth, and probably a cup of water or more. Hopefully if you try this recipe (which I do recommend) you will have a better experience than mine!