Five for Friday

I finally remembered to post a Five for Friday!

I've finally gotten around to finishing a few projects in the house

1. Dining room arrangement with new rug and mural. Still needs a low and wide plant near the window, or something, but it's coming together

2. Refinished dining room buffet in antiqued green and added new hardware

3. Bought a new entry cabinet and refinished it in antiqued green. Still need to change out the lamps

4. New rug and pillows help to coordinate living room with dining room

5. Still to do: re-cover dining room chair seats, paint entry shoe cabinet and living room side table yellow, change out entry lamps. Then I will feel like our home is somewhat put together. I would still like to replace our organ with a piano or something not so 70's, but things look civilized for now. 

Five For Friday

Exercise: 4 miles easy run avg pace-9:57, 1 mile walk, moving crap

1. New baby in the blogosphere, Happy Birthday Baby Leo !!!!

2. Music Man moved his studio back home which means tons of moving again. I had just started planning what to do with the extra room; home office, guest room, craft room...nursery? ;) But we really fixed up the studio and it's starting to come together.

3. Music Man and I are starting to plan a little party for renewing our vows on our fifth anniversary, which is about 10 months away. Crazy! I always wanted to get married at my parents house, but unfortunately they were going through a huge remodel (it took 4 years) at the time so Music Man and I decided to just get married in Las Vegas. It was an easy decision because his parents live there. And it was a totally fun wedding. But my parents remodel is finished and they have a beautifully landscaped yard so it seems like a perfect time to do it. There are also some vanity issues at play. Both Music Man and I have lost a ton of weight since our wedding and I'd like to show us off.

4. Before...

After...

5. And because I can't talk about my wedding without talking about our creepy Elvis. I'm pretty sure he was on crack and he was wearing way too much make up, especially for the 110 degree heat. By mid ceremony he started sweating profusely and the makeup started dripping onto his gold jacket. The top of his face was tan and the rest was milky white. SO CREEPY! He sang a song for us after we were married and the only one we could come up with was 'Suspicious Minds'.  Quite the wedding ;)

Total Creeper

Have a great weekend!

No to Running, Yes to Ravioli

Exercise: Both today and yesterday 60 mins elliptical, 20 mins strength. Lots of sumo squats, my thighs and butt are screamin'. I also walked 40 mins with a friend this morning so I'm looking forward to TV time and sitting down.

I started watching Mad Men on Netflix while working out and although I find it totally entertaining I was totally surprised by how dark it is and the amount of smoking...and drinking...and the pregnant ladies smoking and drinking! But the sets and costuming are pretty effin' superb. Sorry for that brief TV tangent.

Little Man has been sleeping fairly well, through the night but sometimes up early. I'm thinking that in the next few weeks I might be able to run regularly again but I need to be fairly certain he'll stay asleep. I would run with him right when he wakes up but my darn jogger tires keep popping. I run around this park and lake in my neighborhood that is known for having a lot of thorns. I wish I knew what plants they came from so I could avoid the suckers. Music Man got some thorn proof tires and even put in a gel barrier but still I get flat tires. Oh well.

Little Man is also eating more these days which is such a relief to me but now I have to be much more careful about the food he eats. I want it to be healthy and nutrient dense but the things he really likes are pizza and pasta. So I've decided to make my own.

I always make my own pizza so he's used to brown rice or whole wheat crusts, rice and light or goat cheese and tons of veggies. But the pasta is a little harder. There are some great whole wheat alternatives for penne and rotini but that's about it. So I made some whole wheat ravioli filled with ricotta, light mozzarella and spinach. He ate them for dinner last night and breakfast and lunch today. I thought it might be overkill to feed him that for dinner again. Instead I gave him some penne with broccoli, ha! not much of a change.

So if you have a pasta maker, awesome, if not, you can still make fresh pasta.

(oops, only pic I took of finished product)

Whole Wheat Ravioli

DOUGH
2 c WW flour
1c AP flour
1t salt
3/4c water
2 eggs ( I used 1/2 c egg whites)
1T evoo

FILLING
2 c fresh spinach
1/2 c ricotta
1/4 t garlic powder
1/4 t nutmeg
s & p to taste

bowl with water for sealing

Mix dry ingredients, make a well, and stir in egg, then slowly add in water until you get a nice firm dough that you can roll in a ball without sticking and is not too dry. If you have a stand mixer throw in all ingredients except the water and mix on low. Slowly add water until you get the consistency you like.

Let the dough rest for 30 minutes and then roll out on parchment paper. If you have a machine you can stop here, if not continue rolling out the dough. If you think it's thin enough, roll it a little more, the thinner the better.



Mix the filling in a separate bowl, you can just pour them all in at once and mix

I used a small biscuit cutter to form my ravioli rounds but you can use squares and fold over to make triangles or press together to make squares, whatever you wish. Cut out as many pieces as possible and fill with 1 t filling. You can take the leftover dough and re roll it to make more ravioli or be lazy like me and simply cut it to make yourself some fettuccine. Seal ravioli by rubbing water along the edges and then press with fingers or crimp with fork.

Bring water to boiling on high, then reduce to medium high and cook the ravioli for 5-6 minutes. Once they come to the surface they just need a few more minutes to cook.

Drain and munch!

(I mixed the leftover filling with coconut milk and extra spinach for my sauce)

Recipe was adapted from Big Oven

Two for Tuesday

Exercise: 60 Mins elliptical and a 20 minute yoga sesh of sun salutations and warrior poses

The music man and I have been experiencing a bit of stress over the past few months. He was out of town for a month and then he returned just to begin a minor(major) kitchen remodel as well as having to start a new project immediately. I was alone for a month then having to do all my cooking by microwave and grill while chasing a toddler. Things are slowly settling down, but some of the stress still remains.

I am often overwhelmed by all the daily tasks and then there's everything else. Sometimes it's just too much and I shut down. So I've come up with a plan to pare things down. And the last few days have been much easier. It requires a tiny bit of time but is so worth the feeling of productivity. I am actually getting things done as opposed to breaking down. Good news as far as I'm concerned.

So here's the deal, I do all the daily tasks like sweeping, laundry, running after a toddler, play dates, music classes, scooping poop, etc. and then I give myself two tasks a day per area of my life. For instance, today, for home, I organized my kitchen and rehung all the art since the kitchen is finally in a state of normalcy.

For music man, I prepared 3 meals, here are 2:

and baked a gluten free apple sauce cake for him as a treat.

Little man got a trip to the park and 20 minutes of abc's and 123's puzzle time.

The dogs got 2 good walks.

As for me, I got my workout done and after the dishes were done, little man was in bed and everything was prepped for the next day I watched Weeds and painted my nails.

Everything else is gravy.

Perfection

Italian Sausage and Corn Chowder

I haven't been doing a lot of cooking in the past week. When my husband works, he's not home for dinner (actually he's not really home at all) so I don't really cook. Cooking is a big part of my life, but this week has been more about home improvement and eating easy salads.

Instead of cooking, I painted the front porch railing. It had been black and peeling so I did a nice aged bronze kind of finish.
And just so you guys know, painting is a huge part of my life as well. And not just painting canvases. My motto is "I can paint that." And I can and have. We painted every surface of our new house when we moved in. I even painted the kitchen counters and floors. It works pretty well if you have any type of unbearable laminate. So if anything isn't aesthetically pleasing to me, I paint it.

On to food...
I actually did finally prepare something from scratch last night and it was kind of accidental. I initially planned to make turkey burgers but to make them super scrumptious I was going to mix in some hot Italian sausage with the ground turkey. Instead of defrosting the sausage, I cooked it so I had to think of another use for it. I also bought frozen corn at the store without realizing I already had a full bag in the freezer so I found myself with these extra ingredients and thought a corn and sausage chowder would be delicious.
INGREDIENTS:
2 1/2 c frozen corn
2-4 links Italian sausage (depending on how sausagey you want your soup)
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped into small chunks
8 c chicken or vegetable stock
1 sm onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 red pepper, seeded and chopped (I had a frozen bag of chopped peppers from trader Joes, so I used that)
1 c skim milk
1/4 c flour
1 T olive oil
1 T fresh parsley
1T fresh rosemary
1/2 T fresh thyme
1/8 t salt
1/4t pepper
DIRECTIONS:
Heat a dutch oven or large pan with 7 c stock, potatoes and herbs to high heat, allow to boil then reduce heat to medium and cook, covered, for 30 minutes
Heat saute pan to medium high and add 1c stock, olive oil, and sausages, let boil then reduce to medium
Cook sausages until liquid evaporates and sausages are browned, about 10 minutes
Remove sausages, cool
In same pan add onion, garlic and pepper and saute for about 5 minutes, onions should be golden and they should have absorbed some flavor from the sausages
Remove from heat and add the flour to the onion mix and stir to coat
Add corn to stock and cook for 5 minutes
Add milk to stock and cook another 5 minutes
Add all additional ingredients and cook for an additional 10-15 minutes, until theickened
This soup was super yummy. I think it is more appropriate for the cooler seasons, but the vibrant pepper and sausage and sweet corn were a yummy combo. It was a nice accompaniment to the turkey burgers, so I think I may freeze some of this to have the same meal again.