Calender art

Now that the master bathroom has been painted, it desperately needed some artwork. Naturally, I went through all the amazing photos I've taken on my ridiculously luxurious vacations and picked a few of my favorites to frame.

Bwahahahahahahaha!  Sorry, for a moment there I confused myself with Martha Stewart and her awesome vacations.  My bad.

For really nice pictures of beaches I can only dream of visiting, I got out a calendar.  A 16-month calendar from 2007, to be exact.  

I bought inexpensive 10x10 frames at Michael's. 

Then I tore out my four favorite pictures from the calendar. 

I cut the pictures to fit the frame, inserted the pictures and put the frames back together.

Voila! Quick, easy and frugal art for the bathroom.  Seriously, trying to hang these correctly on the wall was the hardest part about this project. 

The pictures are on the wall over the soaker tub and totally visible from the shower, so I can see them while I'm hosing off.  Sweet!

This type of project works equally well for pretty postcards. 

Of course, I still need to get those off my counter and onto the wall.  It will happen.  Eventually.

Martha Monday--Halloween costumes

Halloween is only three weeks away--is your costume ready?

Yeah, neither is mine.

But that's okay, because we have time.  And there are plenty of great ideas to be found at Martha's Halloween Central.  I am loving her homemade costumes for children and adults.  These superhero costumes look really fun and easy to do:

These costumes are giving me ideas...not only would they be great for Halloween, but they'd also work for a superhero theme party.  And of course I see one of those in the Little Guy's future...maybe for birthday number 6 or 7?

For adults, I really like this beekeeper costume:

If I had any hope of getting the Little Guy and Little Miss in bee costumes, then this would be mine!  I just love coordinated Halloween costumes.

I really like this no-sew jellyfish costume:

BFF Laura did this a few years ago and it was so cute!  I could do this, too, but only if my kids were dressing up as sea creatures.  Again, coordinated costumes just really melt my butter.

At the moment in the TMI Household, we've reached no decision concerning costumes, though we have come close.  For months the Little Guy wanted to be Batman for Halloween.  This was great for me because Little Miss is too young to voice an opinion about the matter and I could therefore put her in a Robin costume and fulfill my dream of having coordinated kids' costumes.  The Big Guy and I would balance these superheroes out by being the villains Joker and Catwoman, and BAM! Mission: Coordinated Family Halloween Costumes 2011 would be accomplished. Victory, and an awesome family picture, would be mine.

Then, the store Halloween displays came out, and the Little Guy wanted to be everything he saw. A ninja! Scooby-Doo! A skeleton!  Just last week, he mentioned the possibility of being Batman again so who knows what we'll end up with.  Thankfully we have three whole weeks to figure it out...Happy costuming!

Three ingredient peach cobbler

This is a super-easy three-ingredient peach cobbler recipe of my uncle's (Hi, Uncle Rich!) that I've modified. And by modify, I mean I've included measurements. You don't necessarily need exact measurements to successfully make this easy peach cobbler, but it is helpful to have a baseline if you want to modify.

You'll need two cans of peaches, white sugar and Bisquick.  Ignore the butternut squash peeking out from behind the peach cobbler ingredients.  Butternut squash is a show-stealing prima donna, and has problems letting go of the spotlight.

Dump the peaches into a shallow greased baking dish, and reserve the liquid.

To the liquid, add 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 cups Bisquick. Mix it up.

Pour the Bisquick mixture over the peaches.

Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes. It's done when the top is golden and the sides are bubbly. 

This easy peach cobbler is great on its own and SUPER with ice cream. It keeps well in the fridge and reheats nicely.  Enjoy!

Happy (belated) cakes

Per my New Year's Resolution, I've only been making cakes from scratch. Lately though, the chocolate-cake-with-buttercream-frosting has gotten a bit old. I branched out with two new cakes just in time for my birthday a few weeks ago.

I'm 512 years old. Thanks for asking!

The first cake was totally new to me:  Chocolate Hazelnut Cake.  I found on Tasty Kitchen, and it's from the blog Eat, Drink and Be Merry.  If you like those Ferrero Rocher candies, then you are going to LOVE this cake.

My only problem with the cake was the cream filling.  If I make it again, I will cut down on the amount of whipping cream and mascarpone cheese. As you can see, filling was all over the place and it was a bit much. 

I did cut back on the amount of Nutella the recipe called for.  I only used one medium-size jar for the whole recipe and it was fine--I didn't feel like I was missing out on any chocolate-hazelnut spread goodness.  As it is, this cake is EXTREMELY rich. Seriously, it should come with a warning.  I am a major dessert-chocolate-sugar-aholic, and this was almost too much for me.  Do yourself a favor, and serve small slices. You can always go back for more!

My second birthday cake was a yummy favorite that I hadn't made in ages. German chocolate cake is almost my favorite cake in the whole world, and this recipe from Hershey's is absolutely amazing.  It's so amazing, in fact, that I ate almost all of it before I got around to taking a picture...

...but that's how life is sometimes.  Happy 512th birthday to me!

Martha Monday--How to screw up a great recipe

My October/November issue of Everyday Food arrived mid-September, and immediately I was drawn to a particular recipe for it's promised flavor and ease: One-pot curried cauliflower and rice. It looked delicious and healthy--I had to make it.

I had my friend and neighbor Yogita check out the recipe before I tried it, so we didn't have a repeat of slow cooker Indian chicken stew.  Yogi declared the recipe legit, and recommended that I add a pinch of garam masala and two bay leaves. Two weeks later, cauliflower went on sale at Jewel and I had my chance. 

I began by browning the cauliflower, just as the recipe said.

Then, I took the cauliflower out and added two cups of basmati rice to the pan.  And that's where I went totally and completely wrong.  I poured 3/4 cup of basmati rice into the measuring cup and then opened up a new bag of basmati rice for the remaining 1 1/4 cup amount.  The problem was that the first bag was white basmati rice and the second bag was brown basmati rice.  See the problem? 

I added the garam masala and bay leaves per Yogi's instructions, and instead of cooking it in the oven as the recipe called for, I kept it on the stove. 

 

I didn't even realize there was a problem until the dish was supposed to be done cooking and it was quite apparent that some, not all, of the rice hadn't cooked completely. I dug through the garbage to find the empty white basmati rice bag and compared it with the brown basmati rice bag. White basmati rice = 12 minutes of cooking time. Brown basmati rice = 30 minutes of cooking time. CRAP.

Originally, when I fell into lust with the recipe and decided to share it with you, I had planned on this being a lovely story of me finding a new favorite fall dish that was easy to prepare, flavorful and healthy.

"This is great!" I thought. "It's easy to make, totally legit Indian food and healthy to boot. Everyone is going to love this!"

And then, I totally screwed it up by not paying attention to the major cooking time difference between white and brown basmati rice. Which is really, really sad, because otherwise this recipe would have turned out perfectly.


Yogi even smelled the finished product and declared it a success--it smelled like true Indian cuisine!  Then, she took a good look at the rice.  "Amanda, what the hell?" she asked. 

Just kidding. Yogita doesn't talk that way. But she did notice immediately that the rice wasn't done.  And I think she was just as disappointed as I was--she really wants me to get the hang of making Indian food, if only so I stop begging her to cook for me all the time.  

As I've stated earlier, I abhor waste so I couldn't bear to throw it out.  Instead, I ate all of the one-pot curried cauliflower and rice.  Every. Crunchy. Bite.  And truly, the crunchiness wasn't that bad, but each bite killed me because I could taste that this would have been a fantastic dish if I hadn't screwed it up.   And I think that speaks to how great this recipe is...I screwed up bigtime, but it was still tasty.

Next time, I'll get it right.  And in the meantime, if you are looking for a new favorite fall side dish, pick up the current issue of Everyday Food and give this a try.  But please, use only one kind of rice to make it.  Trust me on this.