Tried it Tuesday, Ep. 2: Beach Painting

Hi everyone! I'm excited to show you this week's Tried it Tuesday project! Missed last week's introduction of the Tried it Tuesday series? Click here!

Every other Tuesday is reveal day for the Iron Craft Challenge, so every other Tried it Tuesday post will go along with the theme for each challenge. This week I needed to have my project fall into the theme of Summertime.

I looked at recipes, at wreaths, at hair dos, at outfits, and just wasn't finding anything. And then yesterday I found a pin and it sparked an idea!

 (The picture went to a blank link, so I have no idea who to credit for this photo sadly!)

Sunday Surprise: Low Sodium Quinoa Corn Chowder

Hi Pinstrosipeeps--

Boy, oh boy, it has been a really, really long time since I posted to this here blog. At the risk of just babbling for three paragraphs about everything that's been going on, I'll condense it down to this: typical holiday insanity, combined with really sad family news, and then becoming insanely ill for two weeks in January. I mean seriously, the boyfriend and I each had 103 fevers (yuck!). Result? No Sunday Surprises for a few months.  But, any ol' how,  I've sure missed blogging and even having time to look at Pinterest. But, in the spirit of January's theme (since I technically tried and wrote this post in January)-- A is for Anything-- you know I had to cook something crazy for you.

As I'm sure many of you are doing, since it's the beginning of 2015, Rob (the boyfriend) and I decided that we really wanted to eat healthier. We have been trying to cut out down on eating out, and making more food at home, from scratch. Since, in general, I haven't had a lot of success cutting out one type of food completely (read: carbs, sugars, meats, etc...) because all I'll end up doing is craving that one thing. I've decided to try a new approach: find substitutes for things that I love that are a healthier choice.

Enter: quinoa. Serious biz, have y'all read up on this stuff? I know I'm super late to the quinoa party, but it is pretty amazing. Functions like a rice, but is actually a seed. Bonus? Pinterest is FULL of recipes using this stuff. I figure, limit the rice, replace with quinoa? Maybe? Yeah, gonna give it a try. I'll have to let you know how it goes.

Annnyway... upon searching quinoa on Pinterest, I came across this recipe on The Recipe Rebel for Quinoa Corn Chowder. Can you say yum?!?!

http://i2.wp.com/www.thereciperebel.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/quinoa-corn-chowder-3.jpg?resize=610%2C915

Instantly, I was all in. The Recipe Rebel calls for the following ingredients:

• 1 cup quinoa
• ¼ cup butter
• 1 medium onion, diced
• ¼ cup flour
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 3 cups milk
• 4 cups frozen corn (or fresh)
• 1 can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• ½ tsp dried thyme
• 1½ tsp salt
• Optional: shredded cheese to garnish

I've already mentioned some of Rob's dietary restrictions in terms of needing low sodium meals (you may remember the low sodium sloppy joe post)-- so for this recipe, I went with unsalted butter, sodium free chicken broth (from sodium free chicken bouillon), and used a few dashes of salt substitute instead of salt.

The instructions for the recipe are as follows:

1. In a large pot, toast quinoa over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Remove from the pan.
2. In the same pot, melt butter. Add onion and pepper and saute over medium-high heat for 3-5 minutes, until soft and starting to brown. Add garlic and cook 1 minute.
3. Stir in flour until combined (you don't want to see any white left -- add gradually and if there's a litle left over that's okay). Whisk in broth and then milk one cup at a time, whisking and waiting until the soup has thickened slightly before adding the next cup.
4. Add corn, beans, quinoa, parsley, thyme, and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium (or medium-low) and simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes until quinoa is cooked, stirring often.

Good news, I took some photos (and by "some" I mean, WARNING: this post is gonna be photo heavy!!) of this, so let's kick it off.

Step 1: Toast 1 cup of quinoa in a large pot.

I say be really careful with this, my quinoa went from "wow, that looks nice" to "$%&$*#!!! Almost burnt!" pretty quick. Use caution and pay attention.

Step 2: Remove the nearly burnt toasted quinoa from the pot

Step 3: This is not included in the original recipe, but I had to make the 3 cups of chicken broth, so water into pot, bouillon into water, and go...

Step 4: Cut and melt the butter.

D'OH!!!! But don't burn the butter. I plopped it into the pan without realizing to how hot it was. I then failed to save it because I was completely distracted by the realization that I hadn't chopped the red pepper and the onion yet. So really, I wasn't even ready for the butter. *facepalm*

So.... let's repeat:

Step 4: Chop yo veggies (or, in my case, drop the onion and pepper in the the Ninja Prep Master thing, and just blend it. Knives are for squares. Hehehehe, just kidding)

Step 5: Use the other half of that butter block thing, and don't burn it this time.

Step 6: Dump the veggies into the melted butter

Step 7: Saute the veggies. The smell? Ermehgerd. Delishiz. But strong (my eyes were watering).

Step 8: Add yo' minced garlic.

It's there in the center, I promise. I also added a half a teaspoon more later in this process. Because, no vampires for me.

Note: it was at this point in the process that I realized something important: I really don't like the consistency of cooked onions OR cooked bell peppers, even though I love how they taste. I know, I know, I'm one of those weird texture people, so in a moment of pure spontaneity, I decided to deviate from the recipe, which brings us to step 9.

Step 9: Dump your sauteed veggies back into the Ninja and puree them.

GREATEST IDEA EVAAAAR FOR THIS CHOWDER!

Step 10: Be proud of yourself for thinking to do that. But also, dump the veggies back into the pot after you've reached the desired texture.

Step 11: Look back at the original recipe. Oh, yes, it's time to add the flour (note: I only had whole wheat, and it tasted delish). Add the  flour gradually until no white is visible.

Does anyone else see the chameleon shape here? Or, at least a dino?

Step 12: Whisk the chicken broth into your veggie paste, allowing the soup to thicken slightly as you add the liquid. I wasn't entirely sure what this meant, so, I allowed the soup to sit for a minute or two between each cup of broth that I added.

I forgot to mention this earlier, but do remember to take the chicken broth off of the heat.

Step 12 continued -- now time for the milk. I used Lactaid 1%.

Step 13: Add the quinoa, beans, corn (I used the whole frozen bag), parsley, thyme, and salt substitute into the liquid.

Step 14: Bring it to a boil. Then, reduce the heat, and allow it to simmer for 15-20 minutes (until quinoa is cooked), stirring frequently.

 Step 15: Taste your chow-dah! YUMMO!!! (also, here's a photo of my face, you're welcome!)

Remember when I decked out my fridge? Doesn't it look awesome?! Still totally loving it.

I totally opted to deck this out with grated cheese (especially since it was pretty low sodium, it was a touch bland). Also, add some cracked wheat sourdough toast, and you are good to go!

This recipe was definitely a win. Here's some other stuff I learned:

• This kept in the fridge quite well. It made it a full five days while we worked through the leftovers (this recipe makes a lot!).
• The second and third day of this are the best. The flavors congeal and it becomes more like a casserole than a chowder. That may not be your thing, but I loved it.
• The red pepper flavor ends up coming out more the longer this is in your fridge. It is lightly smokey, but not spicy.
• You really can't add too much cheese to this. Really, you can't. 
• I bet this is still really tasty if you use the ingredients called for in the recipe (no need to make it low sodium if you don't want)
• This is mad filling! No kidding, three bites in, I was like "I dished too much, I can already tell". But, the great thing is, it's one of those stay with you for a few hours kind of foods. Much likey.

I think we can file this under pin win. I'd definitely encourage you to give it a try. if you've tried this already, what did you think?

Love you guys,
Hugs, hugs, hugs,
Rachel

PS: Holy cow! Can we talk about the giveaway-- guys, how freakin' awesome is that?! Thanks to everyone for their comments!

PPS: Can you BELIEVE IT'S FEBRUARY!?!?!? Gahhhhhh.

PPPS: Happy Super Bowl to those of you who dig American Football. I live in Phoenix (where the Super Bowl is being hosted this year), and it's been a mad house. I'm staying in tomorrow and letting the football crazies duke it out on their own.

But, in the spirit of Super Bowl humor, I found you this. I can't stop laughing at it.

Pay it Forward: Peanut Butter Cookies

Next up in our Show and Tell Pay it Forward Day is a scrumptious project from Cathy! We cyber met Cathy and her husband Rob through their amazing Creative Kingdom website. We were so excited to get to be a part of their website launch, and we're loving keeping up with the site. You really should go check it out!

Cathy took the Pay it Forward theme to heart and used something that was given to them in their project to give to others. Check it out:

A friend from Canada sent my husband and me a box full of goodies and gifts that would be very difficult to find in Britain. It wasn't a special occasion or anything, she is just a kind person who does nice things like that. I thought it would be a good idea to use one of the things she sent us to do something nice for someone else and pay it forward (see it all fits perfectly).

One of the things she sent us was a big bag of Reeses Peanut Butter Chips, so I thought I would use them to bake some peanut butter cookies and share them out with people. There are lots of delicious peanut butter chip cookies on Pinterest such as this one:

(source)

but they were all American recipies and I wasn't very confident on making the conversions.

So I cheated and used this triple chocolate cookie recipe from the BBC Food website and substituted half the chocolate chips with peanut butter chips. 

(source)

The results were pretty great and plentiful (think the recipe made around thirty) I took them down early to church to share with our worship team during sound check then Rob and Me took a batch each to work on Monday and shared them around the office. There were none left by Monday home time!

I blogged more about the baking here: http://redrosestyle.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/cathys-kitchen-british-peanut-butter-chip-cookies/

-Cathy 

I love how she jumped into the Pay it Forward challenge! Her cookies look soooo yummy. While blog-stalking I learned that these were her first taste of Peanut Butter cookies! How fun is that?! Cathy, if you ever make it to New Mexico (you know, just a hop, skip and a jump from Great Britain), I'll make you a whole big batch of Peanut Butter cookies! They are a favorite in this house. I may have to brave the conversions and try out this BBC recipe, because it looks fantastic. 

Capsule Wardrobe, Kind Of...

Hello! For those of you just tuning in, this is extremely late! I had a midterm last night (my last midterm of my college career!) and I was bushed and my brain was fried. Here I am now, off of work, out of school, and writing a blog for you guys!
Yesterday I saw something on Instagram that caught my eye:

http://mamamandolin.blogspot.com/

 

This picture is from Mama Mandolin's instagram/blog (which I love by the way) and I was curious! She said she had decided to try the capsule wardrobe project, and that's what drew me in. What on earth is a capsule wardrobe? Of course I turned to my trusty Pinterst and found hoards of pins! Hoards I tell you!

So I went onto this fun website, Un-fancy and read up about it. Basically the jist is that you have 4 separate wardrobes, one for each season. For each season you get 37 items for your wardrobe. These 37 pieces include shoes, pants, tops, sweaters, jackets, dresses etc.

 

Why limit yourself I asked??!! The blog goes on to explain that often times when you have too many choices you don't know what to do or where to go, so you go with your go to jeans and white-t and you're out the door and you still feel guilty for not wearing any of your cute stuff, and you don't like what your wearing. This plan helps eliminate that because you only get so many choices, you have to get creative with your pieces! I was in right then and there! She goes on to explain some more reasons and rules and what not which you can read here, but I was already committed. Let's try this out. If I hate it fine, I don't have to keep going, but maybe it could give me the wardrobe revamp I have been needing. Just thinking about it yesterday and today totally got me excited about my clothes again! So tonight, I made a fall capsule wardrobe!!

I made some adjustments for myself which I will explain and got myself semi-set-up(which I will also explain).

This was the original bloggers fall capsule wardrobe:

http://www.un-fancy.com/capsule-wardrobe-101/my-capsule-wardrobe-fall-2014/

 

I felt WAY too restricted with color if I were to go this route. I really like her style, but I need more than oxblood to get my creative color juices flowing. She encourages people to play with the idea and figure out what works for them, so that's what I did!

 

Here is my fall capsule wardrobe journey!!

I decided in my last class today that I wanted to do this, and that I would try to do it with only items I already have seeing as the budget it tight around these parts. The original blogger budgeted herself $1000 to get her fall capsule up to speed. I would love to buy a few new things every season, but that isn't always going to be an option. I thought trying to make do with what I had was kind of fun though, you have to get creative and decide on what you really really love to wear.

(Like my bored at school doodles??)

 

Next I categorized everything to see what I had in mind and then I laid it all out to see if everything meshed well (for mix and match), and make sure I could actually find everything right now lol My room is a mess.

(Bathroom lighting is the best for pictures ;) )

 

Here is everything all laid out! First we have dress/skirts, sweaters/jackets, tops, shoes, and bottoms and my handy list to make sure I got everything I was looking for.

 

 

I tried to do fall-ish colors, mustard ,teal, olive, grey, navy, gold, browns, plums etc. I LOVE color and I love wild and crazy patterns. The original capsule calls for neutral neutral neutral so that everything goes with everything and then you can be crazy with a purse or something. That isn't quite my style, I live for pizazz so I did lots of fun bright colors and prints.

 

Next I hung everything on hangers, and put them in the rearranged closet!

It doesn't look like 40  37 pieces (shh don't tell I just couldn't part with three more), but it is!

 

Here are my special considerations for all this to make it work for me:

-I actually have 40 pieces. I have a few sweaters I wear on the regular and if I didn't wear them in fall they won't get worn and they are great pieces so I went ahead and snuck them in. It's my first time with all this capsule craziness so I will give me a break this time!

-I have 7 different colored undershirts in there too. I am a very modest person when it comes to dress, I prefer to be covered up so an undershirt is mandatory for me almost everyday. I don't wear these shirts just by themselves so I didn't feel like this was cheating.

-I go to lots of church functions and most functions require nice dress, so I didn't include all the skirts and dresses I will wear to those in my capsule. I have a few skirts and dresses in my capsule for work and school, but Sunday dress I am ok with being a little more lax on the capsule count otherwise I would be wearing the same three pieces 1-2 times a week for the next three months. Poop, not happening.

-Underwear, bras, workout clothes, bathing suits, and pajamas are not included in this count. They are not really wardrobe pieces.

-With that being said accessories are also not in the count, so my scarf collection along with my chest of jewelry, headbands and hats and what not are not included here. Thank heavens for that because I  would not be able to whittle down my jewelry list!

-I probably won't box up my out of season clothes( like the original blog) simply because I don't know where I would put them, so they will sit on the other side of the closet beckoning me to summer until I am ready to swap them out. The original blogger swaps clothes when the seasons change and sometimes uses some items for two seasons which I liked a lot.

- I have one pair of shoes missing, they are my late late late anniversary presents that I had yet to decide on ( I was promised the boots of my choice but hadn't made a decision till now, so I get them now! Yay!), they are these babies...I have to share them with you, I'm way to excited to not to...

 

I have never in my LIFE been an Ugg fan ( I always used to say Ugg stood for Uggly, original right??)...but alas I caved and fell in love. These babies will go just to the right of my black vans on the top shelf.

http://www.uggaustralia.com/classic-cardy-sequins/1006449.html?dwvar_1006449_color=BLK#product-sub-details-anchor

 

And just in case you think I have this whole capsule thing figured out and that I am on top of things I give you this... the rest of my closet right now haha

        

 

 

This was a fun project for me! I will update you all in about a month on how all this is going and if I have any trouble or have figured anything else out. I encourage you all to read the rest of the Un-fancy blog and read up on the capsule wardrobe. I really like this concept and I think it is just the update I need to feel good with my clothes again :) I feel like a new woman already!!

Happy Wednesday all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Late) Sunday Surprise: Shown n Tell, Target Clearance Edition

Wooohooo! Gettin' a post in for y'all under the wire. Nothing really epic has been happening around here lately, haven't been feeling good all weekend, so it's been a whole lot of time spent in bed at my house.

However, in more pleasant news, Target put a bunch of their Back to School items on clearance. Oh the supreme joy of the orange clearance tags!! Seriously, I got a whole slew of awesome stuff for between $1 and $2. And since I feel that most of us are bargain shoppers at our cores, I wanted to show you what I found/see if you had creatively used any of these items yourself.

1. A mini white board - $1. I promptly put this on the fridge where the mister and I can leave each other important notes create artistic masterpieces.

This next purchase was a legitimate (and somewhat unintentional) Pin Spin. Have any of you seen this pin?

I found it a long, long time ago and then kind of forgot about it. I only remembered it when I saw  item #2 on the shelves at Target.

While I love the idea of a decorated fridge, I have two main obstacles standing between me and DIY fridge painting fiesta. First, we're renting, and second, I'm fickle (and would likely tire of the design on the fridge quickly). So, what is the solution, you ask?

2. Locker "Wall Paper": While it's not quite as snappy as the original pin, I am still super liking it right now. For a pack of 3 paper-sized magnets, it was $2.38. I bought 3 packs, I believe. I suppose if I had been really dedicated to the cause, I could have purchased more, but I didn't want to drive the mister out of his mind. For now, one side of the fridge is enough for me.

3. Locker Baskets - $1 each. And, you'd be surprised at the strength of the magnets on these. Now we can always find pens/notepads and extra spices/a small pack of coffee aren't taking up space on the counter.

I hadn't finished the chevron "papering" when I took this picture, whoops. 

And now, the real king of the bargains:

4. Locker Shelves. Repurposed as freezer shelves.

Our poor, barren freezer.

After our landlord graciously upgraded our appliances for free, we lost a ton of freezer space/a handy shelf that was in the old fridge. So, ever since, I've been on a mission for a shelf that could handle the current freezer dimensions. Not nearly as easy as I had anticipated.

Enter: $1.15 locker shelves from Target (skies open, music plays, angels harmonize). Perfect fit. Right height. Right price. Could I be any happier with them? Probably not.

 I haven't attempted to fit a bag of ice in here just yet, but...we shall see. That's the only hiccup I am anticipating.

All in all, I'm pretty impressed with how our kitchen got a spiffy Back to School upgrade. Target had a bunch of different colors/items, hopefully you can get some cool goodies for yourself. Have you done anything crazy like this? What do you think?

Much love to you all! Hope your entries for Pumpkin-tober are going smashingly!
Muah,
Rachel

PS: What this pin didn't tell you about using dollar store baskets in the freezer is that the cold makes them brittle and easy to break. Eeek!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/394768723556894087/