Tom Kha Gai Soup (Veggie-inspired)

This is a recipe inspired by my love for Thai food and an instructables recipe I found online.  I have modified it for my own meatless purposes (so it's not completely authentic).  This is a great introduction to Thai food and I hope you try it!

Ingredients:

• 1 can coconut milk
• 3 cups water
• 5 packets of "chicken-flavored" bouillon
• A pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 2 stalks fresh lemongrass, washed and chopped in chunks (You can often buy lemongrass pre-chopped in a tube.  If you buy this .. use approx. 5 tbsp.)
• 3 shallots, peeled and chunked
• 1 tbsp ground coriander
• Rooster Sauce/chili garlic sauce (you should add this to taste .. I would start with a healthy squeeze)
• 2 tbsp galanga powder (I couldn't find fresh so I bought the dried version at Williams-Sonoma)
• Juice and zest of 1 lime (Tip:  zest the lime into separate bowl before juicing .. it's just easier)
• 2 cups mushrooms,  coarsely chopped (I used button)
• 2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
• handful fresh cilantro, chopped (optional garnish)
• 1/2 cup grape tomatoes halved, or 2 plum tomatoes coarsely chopped (optional garnish)

Directions:

1. Combine coconut milk, water, bouillon, salt, sugar, lemongrass, shallots, coriander, Rooster Sauce, galanga, and lime juice in a medium saucepan.  Slowly bring to a simmer over medium/med-low heat and simmer for about 15 minutes.
2.  Add mushrooms, soy sauce and lime zest. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

The soup is technically done at this point.  This is one of those recipes where you taste/tweak/taste/tweak depending on your mood or your preference that day. Use the following guideline for flavor: sugar (sweet), lime juice (sour), or soy sauce (salty and tangy). When in doubt .. add a little more lime juice :)

Once the soup is to your liking, garnish with cilantro and tomato.  Serve hot and enjoy!

A Little Laugh

As usual, I was perusing Pinterest and having a good laugh.  I thought I would share some smiles with you.  Happy Weekend!

GIVEAWAY: And the winner is....

I'm sorry I am so late on this!!  Today has been kind of crazy.  Back to the business of giveaways...

THE WINNER IS KATIE!

Thank you to everyone that entered!  I hope to have more of these in the future so keep an eye out.  You guys are awesome so I want to give you perks when I can.  Happy Friday!!

The 10-Minute Quick Clean

Have you ever invited someone over to your house and it wasn't until you hung up the phone that you realized your house is a wreck!?  It happens to the best of us.  Here is my list of things that I do in this exact situation.  Got 10 minutes? Ready, Set, Go!

My focus is primarily on three places:  living room, kitchen and guest bathroom.  When friends/family drop by, these are the three rooms they would most likely frequent. 


Living Room:

• Check to make sure couch cushions are straightened and pillows are placed where they should be.
• Fold any blankets and put away. (I have a storage ottoman I throw them into.)
• Gather magazines, books, etc and either place them in a neat stack or take them to another room.
• Take all cups/dishes/shoes/jackets/etc to the rooms they belong in.  (If the rooms have doors, i.e. the bedroom, just throw the items on the bed and shut the door.)

Do you have a few extra minutes?  Run a dustcloth over sidetables and coffeetable.  You can also do a quick vacuum of the high-traffic areas.


Kitchen:

• Are there dirty dishes on the counter/in the sink?  Quickly load the dishwasher.  If the dishwasher is full, and it would take too much time to unload/reload, then just rinse all the dishes off to remove the food residue and stack neatly in the sink. 
• Wipe counters down to remove crumbs and smudges.
• Clear the kitchen table or stack everything neatly.

Do you have a few extra minutes? A clean sink really makes a world of difference so do this task if you can.  You can also do a quick sweep/vacuum of the floor to remove crumbs and dirt.


Guest Bathroom:

• Check toilet and maybe do a quick swipe with the brush if necessary.  Don't worry about cleaner.  You can sanitize later.
• Wipe down counter surfaces and mirror.
• Straighten towels and floor mats.

Do you have a few extra minutes?  Empty the trashcan and light a candle!


Don't be afraid to ask family members to help!  Even kids can get in on it.  They can certainly take shoes to closets or stack magazines.  Also note that most of the 'dirt' in your home only you can see.  You know what it looks like at its cleanest so that is what you are judging against.  No one is going to care at the end of the day if there was a spare sock you missed or a bowl in the sink.  You live in your house.  It's not a museum.  Relax and enjoy your company.

midweek confessions

- One of my New Year's resolutions was to get healthy.  I've been working on this in different ways and this morning I added another layer to it.  This is sort of a two part confession.  The first part is that I got up at 6:15am this morning. Here's the back story .. Mark gets up at 5:45am everyday for work.  For a couple years I got up with him.  He would leave for work a few minutes after 6:00am and I would watch the news, complete some chores, etc.  I didn't have to be at work until 8:00 but it was a great start to the day.  When I transferred to a different department in my company, my work day was moved back to 8:30.  For some reason that 30 minutes made me think "huh, I should sleep in.." and it all went down hill from there.  Mark and I are "on time" people.  We like to be punctual.  With that being said, ever since I started sleeping in my mornings have been a mess and I have been 5 minutes late almost every day!  It's not necessarily a big deal since it's only 5 minutes but it has bothered me and people lightheartedly pick on me for it.  Not this morning!  I woke up with Mark and got out of bed a little after he left.  I feel amazing and I am going to try to keep this up and get back to my old schedule.  Last time I remember it being no fun for a week or so but once my body got used to it then it was a piece of cake.  I just need to make it through the first two weeks and then I will be back on track.

- The second half of that confession is that I refuse to work out at night.  It just doesn't fit my schedule.  I understand the whole 'sacrifices' thing but I am just not going to force myself into a routine that doesn't suit my current family or future family.  Since after work is off limits (aside from walking the dog which barely counts) I need to exercise in the morning.  What better time to do it then after I wake up?!  So this morning I did 40 minutes of pilates.  I love pilates.  It just clicks with me and whereas certain other things are discouraging to me (like just jumping on a treadmill and running), pilates is fun!  It also kicks.my.butt.  I have no upper body strength and, in certain moves, my core strength is a joke.  Fixing this is the reason for pilates but man I am going to have to work at it.  Now I just need to come up with some sort of cardio I like as much as pilates..... Any suggestions?
- This confession is sort of in limbo.  Mark was told about an amazing opportunity at work.  It's still up in the air though so that's why it's in limbo.  Basically the opportunity would have him gone on a business trip for up to a month and half overseas.  This makes me so anxious.  I am beyond thrilled for him, and he is really excited, but I am also so nervous.  We have not been apart for more than 2 days in the last 10 years.  Seriously.  We will sometimes part ways for "guy weekend trips" and "girl weekend trips" but nothing more than that and I miss him SO MUCH just after 2 days! So IF this pans out and he does leave .. I am going to have to pull up the big girl panties and get it done.  We will adjust but it will be hard since the time zone differences will have us up at opposite times.  I will keep you updated but prayer that he does get to go would be great! 

What are you confessing this week?

Review: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is such a lovely book! I believe it was written for the middle-school age group but the writing easily transcends to adults. Valente certainly had fun with the language and the words sort of envelop you as you read it. It's magical and I definitely recommend this for the imaginative and young at heart.



View all my reviews

Don't Carpe Diem

Below is an article written by Glennon Melton for the Huffington Post.  If you are a parent or ever want to be a parent .. read this.  Hell .. if you just have a lot on your plate in general .. read this. It's inspiring.

Don't Carpe Diem

Happy Monday!

GIVEAWAY: 2012 TriView Wall Calendar

I know that we are almost done with January and therefore most of you have gotten a calendar already .. but if not .. this is for you ;)

I am giving away an Avalanche TriView Calendar.  This calendar format is amazing.  I came across it a few years back while browsing the bookstore.  It displays three months at a time which I love. I adore being able to see when big things are coming up and keeping them at the front of my mind versus flipping to a new month and realizing something is happening in less than a week!  I honestly will not go back to a regular calendar.

This giveaway is for one 2012 calendar.  There will be one winner decided by random.org.  To enter, become my follower and post a comment on this post saying "I want to win!".  The giveaway will be open for one week and the winner will be announced next Friday.

Good luck and thanks for participating!!!

Creamy Cornbread

I made this for dinner with our bible study the other day.  They loved it.  This is my regular cornbread.  Sometimes I jazz it up more with a couple additions but this is the basic recipe.  It's not dry at all and super easy. Try it!

Ingredients:
2 boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix
1 can of creamed corn
8 oz of light sour cream
2 eggs

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 375.  Lightly grease a 9x13 dish.
2.  Mix all the ingredients together.
3.  Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

That's it!! SO simple!  I use Jiffy mix and the boxes quotes the 375 temp and the 20-25 minute baking time.  If you use a different brand, just follow the directions on the back of the box.  Basically the adaption is in replacing the milk with creamed corn and sour cream.  Yum ;)

midweek confessions

~ I had Monday off for the holiday and I spent the whole day in bliss while pretending I was a stay-at-home wife/mom.  Of course I had no children to take care of so it wasn't remotely realistic.  Either way, I got to sleep in until 8:45 and spend the whole day cleaning, cooking and being insanely domestic.  I know I would probably get bored with this quickly if it was my real life but a girl can dream, right?

~  We rearranged several rooms in our house and I have spent an exorbitant amount of time just sitting quietly and admiring the change.  Is that a little crazy?

~ I feel like it should be February already.  This has been the longest two weeks ever!  I've never really liked Januarys (err, Januaries?).  February is much better because it houses my birthday (yay!) and our wedding anniversary (double yay!)

~ I bought really expensive laundry detergent to see if it really "cleans better".  I am not sure if it really is cleaning better but it smells amazing and the scent last much longer than the other stuff.  I may or may not have washed clean clothes just so that they smell good.

~ We just bought a used new car and it made me feel very grown up.  Nevermind I'm married and own a home already .. but buying a car ..

What are your midweek confessions?

Baked Mushroom Spinach Ravioli

My Fresh Pea and Chive Ravioli was the result of a newly discovered use of wonton wrappers.  I had read of people using them for raviolis but I, myself, hadn't done it.  Once I realized how easy it was, I knew I would be utilizing the trick more often .. and here you go.

This is another recipe using the same basic skills.  I've switched out the ingredients and the cooking method but it's pretty much the same concept.

Ingredients:
1 pkg of wanton wrappers
2 tbsp veggie oil
1 (10 oz) package of frozen chopped spinach
6 oz of button mushrooms, sliced
1 container of mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, shredded
2 tsp garlic powder, or to taste
1 tsp onion powder, or to taste
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp pepper
1 egg white, lightly beaten

*I used garlic powder and onion powder because, quite frankly, I was too lazy to use the real thing.  I will probably use one clove of garlic and half an onion (diced) next time and add them to the saute.  That's why I put "to taste". 


Directions:
1.  In a large saute pan, heat the oil until it starts to ripple.  Add the mushrooms and cook until nicely browned.
2.  In a microwave safe dish, place the frozen spinach in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes.
3.  Once the mushrooms are deeply browned, add the spinach and cook until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat.
4.  Add the mushroom mixture to a food processor and blend until roughly chopped.
5.  In a mixing bowl, add the cheeses, chopped mushroom mixture and spices. Mix well.
6.  On a dry and clean surface, lay out wanton wrappers.  Place 1-2 tsp of filling in the center of each wrapper.  Do not overfill.
7.  Dip your finger in water and run it around the edge of the wanton wrapper.  Take a second wrapper and place it on top.  Press the edges together firmly to insure they seal.  Make sure to do this one ravioli at a time.  Do not wet all of them at once.  You can use your fingers or a fork to tightly seal them.  Place the finished ravioli to the side while you complete the others.
8.  Preheat the oven to 375.  Lightly spray a baking sheet.
9.  Place the ravioli on the baking sheet.  They can be rather close together but don't let them touch.
10.  In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg white with a touch of water.  Brush all sides of the raviolis.
11.  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until they are golden brown.

You can serve this with a dipping sauce as an appetizer or drizzle with finishing oil as a side dish.  They are delicious and super easy to make (albeit a tiny bit time-consuming).  I prep these the day before and store (tightly wrapped) in the refrigerator until time to bake.  They might even freeze well although I have not tried it.  Enjoy!!

Office Swap

This past weekend set my makeover-loving heart aflutter when we switched several rooms in our home.  Below is the new office.  It is one of the most-loved and frequently used rooms in our house.  The new set-up makes me a bit gitty.

The first three photos are panoramic "before" shots.  I wanted to give you somewhat of a sense of how the room was laid out.  Please also note that I never got around to decorating this room.  I decorated it with a bunch of cast-off accessories and hand me downs mixed in with some "on purpose" pieces.  Since this is a free makeover though, you will be seeing most of this again (but upstairs).

Can you spot Merlin's photo bomb?  He was keeping an eye on me and that pesky camera.

This camera setting makes the room look pretty small.  Those windows are actually really big.

Once again .. the scene is skewed.  That's a queen bed and a 5-foot dresser.

The following shots are just to more clearly see the things in the room.

Not a single piece of bedding matches. haha. Yay for guest room doors that you can close ;)

That dresser was a hand-me-down to fill the space.  It's not our style (and no longer necessary) so it has since been donated to a local thrift store.  C'est la vie.

This is a gallery wall Mark made.  The theme is "Welcome to Our Home".  It is a series of macro shots of our house.  I.LOVE.IT.  It will be relocated.

And now for the afters.  Like I said, all this stuff we had within the three rooms.  This room is not even close to being done.  I just set everything up to make it functional.  This now serves as the office/future kids playroom/second den.  These pictures will soon become the "befores".

This was the wall with the bed.

Sorry for the bad lighting.  I didn't want to wait until night to shoot so we will just have to deal with the blue tinge.

Once again .. daylight + me refusing to learn how to properly use the camera settings = bad picture quality.

This couch is another hand-me-down from the grandmother.  It's super comfortable but covered in pink flowers.  I don't think the ratty red slipcover will stay but it works for now.

R.O.Y.G.B.I.V anyone?  I heart me some color-coding.

That little TV has been around for years.  It works great and always fits in the tiniest spaces which I love.  The black shelves are actually the two nightstands from the old room.  Mark made them and they were hung on the wall.  When I was rearranging I realized the TV fit perfectly inside one of them.  Insta-mini-entertainment-center :)

Merlin .. the couch opportunist. <3

The Great Switcheroo

I love me a makeover. Nothing beats a good "before and after" and I bet you would agree with me. There is just something about drastic change that gets me excited.

Mark and I constantly toss around ideas of what we want to do with our house. We had never formally written the list down so I attempted to do so recently. It's only been in black-and-white for a week and yet items have been finished, added and removed. I will get to the completed items in a second but here is the newly amended list:

Build a shed
Landscape with mulch and a tree or two
Install a pantry
Install double sinks in the master bath
Frame the mirror in the master bath
Replace the mirror in the hall bath
Add a fan in the kitchen
Move the office into "bedroom 3"
Move the guest room upstairs to make a "guest suite"
Move the 'man room' to "bedroom 2"
Create a second closet in new office
Build better closet organization in office and "future nursery"
Install a back splash in the kitchen
Build outdoor planter boxes/benches to line the patio

As I am sure you can tell, the new/tweaked items are in blue. There are a couple items missing  that had to do with opening up a wall in the living room (and subsequently adjusting our hardwoods). We went up in the attic on Saturday and realized that the wall is very much load-bearing. We know we could add a header and fix the opening structurally but it's just not worth it. We may add it back to the list later but, as of right now, our monies and time are better spent elsewhere. The ones dealing with the mirrors and fan were on the list 'in our head' and I simply forgot to add them. I didn't realize it until after the list was published.

The Great Switcheroo actually began on Thursday night. (Leave it to me to start a huge project on a work night .. poor Mark.) The original plan was to simply flip the old office and guest room. They are right across the hall from each other so I figured it would be easy. I should have known better.

We spent Thursday night swapping all the furniture and I quickly realized that making the old office the new guest room was just not going to work. The furniture was just too big and the room felt cramped. I had to rethink the situation. On Friday night, while organizing the new office, I contemplated how to remedy the guest room conundrum.

Upstairs we have a bedroom, full bath and walk-in closet.  When we moved in, since the room is separated from the main part of the house, we deemed this the "man room".  Over the years it has become a catch-all for Mark's various projects and not the 'getaway' originally planned.  When thinking about the guest room situation, it dawned on me that upstairs would make a fantastic "guest suite" because guests would have complete privacy and quiet.

I wanted to be fair to Mark and so I approached the subject carefully.  Once I explained my idea to him he agreed.  So on Saturday, the guest room furniture moved upstairs and the beer fridge and lounge chair moved downstairs.  By Saturday night we were exhausted and thrilled.  I just can't get over the changes.  I feel like we have doubled our square footage and the flow is so much better.  I just wish we had done this four years ago.

All of the rooms are in various stages of progress and it will be a long time until they are totally finished.  I will post "before and after" pictures based on the original switch.  We spent $10 on sheer window panels for the new office and that was it.  So for $10 we got three brand new rooms.  Not too shabby :)

Each room will get its own post (the better for referencing) so keep an eye out.  First up is the new office....

Have you done any room switching lately?  Do you start projects on weeknights knowing you have to get up early in the morning?  Do you love makeovers as much as I do?

Have You?

The Other Wish List

Looking ahead into 2012 led me to creating a personal Resolutions List.  It can be summed up as this:

be healthier

be braver

be quieter

All that is well and good but sort of incomplete.  Those goals only encompassed what I wanted for myself but left off my little "to do list" for other things .. namely .. my house.

Mark and I live in a great house but have come to the conclusion that our little Five-Year-Starter-Home is going to end up being our Ten-Year-Establish-A-Family-Home.  I like my house so that doesn't completely disappoint me but there are some things that are missing.  It's the kinds of things you don't realize you need/want until living with it a while.

The whole house has four bedrooms and three full baths.  It goes something like this: 

~ Bedroom 1 + Bath 1:  Master Suite

~ Bedroom 2:  Office                        

~ Bedroom 3: Guest room                 

~ Bath 2: Hall Bath/Guest Bath         

~ Bedroom 4 + Bath 3: "Man Room"   

This configuration has worked well for us over the past four years but things are a-brewin' in 2012 which means changes are on the way.  Below, in no particular order, is the list of updates/changes/etc that we want to make to our house in 2012/2013.  It seems like a lot but we have been slowly preparing for this for a while now.  I will, of course, be telling you about each step of the process so let's see how much we will actually get done!!
*Note: the ones with (??) are the ones that we are still mulling over.

1. Build a shed
2. Landscape with mulch and a tree or two
3. Install a pantry
4. Install double sinks in the master bath (??)
5. Open up the wall between living room and stairs (??)
6. If #5 happens then: extend the hardwoods to the edge of the stairs. (??)
7. Move the office into "bedroom 3"
8. Temporarily make "bedroom 2" the guest room (until it becomes the permanent home of our first born)
9. Create a second closet in "bedroom 3"
10. Build better closet organization in "bedroom 2" and "bedroom 3"
11. Install a back splash in the kitchen
12. Build outdoor planter boxes/benches to line the patio

Whew!  Some of the items are easily completed (as in #7 and #8) and some will take a lot more planning (as in #1 and #11).  As we tackle each project I will get before, during, and after pics to share. I am sure many of you who are friends with me on pinterest are not surprised by the items on my list (given my pins lately).

I know some of those items might sound confusing but bare with me.  I simply wanted to get the list out there and I will explain as we go.  So that is our Wish List (on behalf of our dear house) for 2012 ..and perhaps a little of 2013. ;)

What's on your wishlist?  Do you have any planned project for the place you call home?  Have you done anything on the list and can give us any advice?  I would love to hear from you.

midweek confessions

~  I haven't confessed anything in the last two weeks because I didn't feel like I had anything "good enough".  Somehow it doesn't seem right that I feel the need to apologize for not doing something that compels me to confess.

~ We have an automatic gate at work surrounding our parking lot.  To enter, you swipe your badge.  To exit, you just pull up to the line and it detects your car.  At least twice a week I press my home garage door opener when attempting to exit the parking lot.  Then I look around to see if anyone saw me.

~ I simply do not care at all about politics.  I used to be passionate about it when I was 18 but instead of getting more knowledgeable and more fired up .. I've completely stopped caring.  To me they are all the same.  They may have different sales speeches and packaging but in the end you are getting the same product. Its going to be a long year.

~ I watched "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" and it was really motivating.  I would love to try to do a green juice cleanse.  I would love to detox and see how different I feel.  Mark wants to do it, too.  It wouldn't be for that long and it's totally healthy but I am still a little nervous about failing.

~ I constantly fall prey to the "if only" game.  If only I had done this .. if only I had done that.  I know logically that there is no point dwelling.  There is a saying that "the grass may be greener on the other side but it's because you've stopped watering your own."  I haven't stopped watering my own grass but I may skip a day or two here and there.  I need to put up a privacy fence so that I can't even compare.

What are your midweek confessions?

HeyTell

 If you are facebook friends with me then you might have seen where I posted about HeyTell over the weekend.  I had several ask me what it was so I thought I would provide further clarification.  I was just introduced to this last week so I am definitely no expert but so far it has been really handy.

HeyTell is a free app available for Droids and iPhones.  It's basically an auditory text service.  You just speak into your phone like normal and it sends the audio file to your contact.  They can listen to the message and then record their own and send it back to you.  It's a delayed walkie talkie and it's awesome.

Some benefits I forsee:

1.)  It's a lot faster than texting .. unless you have some insane ability to text faster than you speak ;)

2.)  It's great for those of us that refuse to use bluetooth headsets (no offense if you do).  It's not exactly handsfree but there is a huge orange button (practically a third of the phone's screen) and you just have to touch somewhere within that button and talk.  You certainly can do it without taking your eyes of the road.  (OK OK before you freak out on me .. I do not condone texting while driving because it's dangerous.  However, some people are just stubborn and continue to do it so this would be a compromise.  This would still constitute using your phone while driving so if that's banned where you are .. just take that into consideration.)

3.)  Have you ever typed something sarcastic and it was completely taken out of context because they couldn't hear your tone of voice? Well here you go.


You obviously can only send messages to those that have the program so here is my official shout out.  If you choose to get it, send me a message so I can add you to my list.  It's fun :)

BTW - when you receive a message, you get a notification in your message bar like any other text message.  Personally, my phone also flashes a little yellow light (vs a green one with text and a blue one with facebook) so that's cool too.

The barcode is below so you can just scan it and download.  Happy texting!

TV/Netflix Recommendations

When it comes to TV, my taste generally fall within three broad categories: documentaries, comedies and live concerts.  Those are fairly broad categories though and so sometimes I feel like I am all over the place.  Here's a taste of some of my top pics. 

By no means do I limit myself this much.  Like I said, I'm all over the place.  These are just some of the ones that make the "must watch" list:

Documentaries

Sitcoms

 

Live Concerts