Cake for the boss

This weekend in the midst of school work I whipped up this....

I was pretty impressed!  Yellow cake "bun", edible Easter grass "lettuce", brownie "hamburger patty", sugar sheet "cheese" and sprinkle "sesame seeds".

Here's hoping the "boss" is as impressed by my baking abilities as Rene and I were when he gets to the office to find this waiting on his desk for his birthday!

Carb Loading

Don't get me wrong I know that eating healthy is a big part of staying healthy, and processed sugars and starches typically don't do much for my waistline but what can I say I have a weakness over carbs!  In particular pizza or anything pizza-like and pasta (hence Rene's purchase of the past maker for me).

As I go into Day 4 of my detox I figured it was time to reminise about my tasty treats from last weekend.  Mainly the carb loaded delights that we aren't eating right now...First up! Fresh pasta and homemade marinara.  Don't get me wrong I am no  Italian so I make the sauce the way Rene and I like it!

The necessary ingredients, oregano, basil, garlic, onion, red pepper flakes, onion powder, garlic powder, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and tomato sauce...

 And then cook low all afternoon.

 Then the pasta dough-2 cups of flour 3 eggs-pretty simple!

 Refrigerate and then roll and cut and allow to dry!

I will say the first batch was pretty good but next time I will have to make the pasta bit thinner.  For those of you who have never worked with fresh pasta when cooked it expands to about 3 times it's natural thickness...so while it wasn't quite right I'll be working on it for the future.

Then we made pizza pull apart bread - Rene even helped out!

 It only takes 5 ingredients! 

Premade pizza crust

Mozzarella cheese cut into little cubes

Garlic (we bought the pre-minced)

Pepperoni 

*optional marinara or ranch for dipping

Roll out small balls of the crust and flatten into a disk

 Next place a pepperoni in the center (folded works best)

 Add cheese

 Roll and secure

 Repeat and then place in a bunt pan and brush with melted garlic butter.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes.  

We learned a couple of lessons from our first try.  As you can see this isn't the ideal turn out.  First we need to press the little pizza bites together more so that they hold a firm shape when removed from the pan.  Second my pan was new and therefore super non-stick and the shape kind of flopped onto the plate and didn't look too pretty and third our oven here at the apartment is awful and it got a little extra crispy.

Nonetheless, it was amazing and we will be making this again for a non-healthy day for sure!

Are you hungry now?

Welcome 2012

Today is a bit of a lazy day here at our house.  We got to sleep in, and have been lounging our PJs all day!  Rene's been enjoying some down time playing with his new Nintendo DS games and I've been crafting away.  Here's hoping you are having a nice relaxing and enjoyable start to your 2012 as well!

 Here's Stitch in his very dapper new collar (made by me)...

He's starting off the year on the right foot looking cute as ever!  Though I may be a little biased!  More crafty pics to come later!

On a side note, I postponed the start to my detox one day to tomorrow.  My family always had pork and sauerkraut for New Years day.  And now I've actually gotten Rene to eat it too!  So we couldn't pass up tradition.  

I looked into the reasoning behind the pork and sauerkraut tradition since in Texas and Florida no one seemed to eat it, and I just figured it was a northern thing.  Down south everyone eats black eyed peas for good luck in the New Year.  So I decided to see where the pork and kraut tradition started and why.

In looking around online I found that the tradition goes back to the Pennsylvania Dutch and New Englanders and it is said that eating this on January 1st would bring luck and prosperity to you in the new year!  

It seems the reasoning for the New Years day foods are pretty much the same.  

So are you a black eyed peas person or pork and kraut person to start off your new year?

To Dos for the Weekend

 I know it's New Years weekend-but lets be honest....between working and school Rene and I really just look forward to lazy weekends and this is just like the rest!  Though we did grab 2 bottles of bubbles to celebrate the new year.  Fun fact--enough New Years Eve back at UCF was really the start of our relationship when we rang in the new year together in 2006! So this marks the 6 year mark of our relationship too!

Anyhow...I've created a bit of a crafty to do list of things that I want to make/try this weekend.

First and foremost if you remember a previous post Pinteresting Thursday on a Friday I had 2 items that I wanted to make. 1. the cape and 2. the little Christmas trees made from holiday cards--both of these will be made this weekend (hopefully)...

Next up is a little treat for New Years eve....Pizza Monkey Bread...yes another Pinterest find!

Doesn't it look tasty?

I'll also be trying my hand at homemade pasta tonight compliments of my new pasta maker from Rene!

Get ready for some follow up posts this weekend about all these great little creations!

Happy Friday!

Pinteresting Thursday -- on a Friday

So I am all confused this week as to what day it actually is, and I missed my Pinterest post yesterday...so here are some of my newest finds on Pinterest on a Friday instead of Thursday.

If only I could find some clothes pins!  We keep checking Michael's but they are sold out!  I will make this for next year though.

A DYI Cape?  It looks easy enough, hopefully now that I have some time I can whip it right up

Using old cards for next year's decorations?  Such a cute and eco-friendly idea!

Perfect napkin look for Christmas dinner this year I think!

Have a Great Friday and Weekend!

Re-Invent Thanksgiving Leftovers

Lets be honest you can only have so many turkey sandwiches after turkey day...so I always try to come up with some easy ideas to re-invent and re-use those turkey leftovers!

This year we did a whole lot of reinventing! I must apologize though I forgot to snap pictures of a couple of the items.

First off here was our Thanksgiving Dinner--lots of food = lots of leftovers!Re-invention #1 - Sausage Egg and Cheese "muffins"
First take a muffin pan and put a little of the stuffing in the bottom (we used our apple and sausage stuffing) next pour a little egg white or whole egg onto the top and bake approx. 12 minutes at 350 degrees-top with a little cheese and melt. Quick and easy breakfast/brunch!

Next up? #2 - Turkey and Noodles (no picture sorry)
Take turkey bones, sage, and thyme and create a delish stock-simmer at least 2 hours!
Add in some veggies we used carrots, onion, peas, and corn
Next add in your shredded turkey (light and dark meat)
Simmer and then add in your noodles. The longer you cook the noodles the thicker everything becomes rather than a soup it's like a little turkey and "dumplings"

Re-invention #3- Turkey Nachos!
For anyone who has ever been to an Ale House this is a play on their Chicken Nachos

Super simple! Layer tortilla chips, then cheese, turkey, more cheese, jaleponos (optional) and bake!
Serve with sour cream, salsa, and guacamole!

#4 --Cranberry Almond and White Chocolate Chip Pancakes!
(sorry no picture)
Make a basic pancake mix, add in cranberry almond sauce and some white chocolate chips! Delish!

#5-Spicy Pumpkin Soup
See the pumpkins in the mail photo? We baked our stuffing inside the little pie pumpkins then used them in our soup!
First start with a little chicken stock (about 3 cups) add in onion, and pumpkin flesh. Allow to simmer for at least 30 minutes.
Next add in cayenne pepper, salt, curry, and red pepper flakes to your own taste--continue to simmer another 10 minutes until the pumpkin has started to fall apart.
Next in small batches or large depending on size of your food processor, blend until nice and smooth
Return to stove and add 1 cup of heavy cream, and 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, stir until combined.
Our soup is in the freezer for a nice cold day this winter!

And last but certainly not least! #6 - Turkey and Winter Greens Eggrolls!
We used what remained our our winter greens and mixed them with some shredded light meat turkey and reheated it in a saute pan. Next we then took egg rolls and wrapped the mixture up and brushed with a little melted butter and baked at 400 degrees for about 12 minutes!
Served with a little gravy it was a nice crunchy treat to end out the weekend!


And thankfully we used up almost all of the left overs!

My Next Project

Another of my recruiters has a birthday coming up this Sunday and since I made a wonderful cake for the last one I decided that this time I am going to bake some cookies for her birthday.

And who doesn't love a basic sugar cookie? But I found this on Pinterest and thought that since it's fall why not go with a little theme right?

I'll be making a batch of these this Thursday while Rene is off playing basketball with Deloitte I'll be sure to post how they turn out!

Perfect Gift!

Rene and I have been trying to figure out what to get our "host and hostess" for this coming weekend (Katie and Major) who are nice enough to let us stay with them while we are in Orlando for homecoming.

Katie is a big wine fan so we figured we would go with some Texas wine and do one red and one white. However, I always feel like just putting the bottles in a wine bag isn't very creative or cute.

Don't fret though because I came up with the best idea!! Not only is it cute it's functional too! The gift goes from 2 bottles of wine and now they get 2 bottles of wine, 2 napkins and 2 napkin rings!

The napkin rings are just big enough to put on the neck of the bottle and pull the napkins through to create a cute wrapping and a functional gift.

I would highly suggest trying it for the next hostess gift, or dinner party that you go to!

Coming up on 2 years...

Rene and I are getting close to our second anniversary coming up in less than a month, and it does not feel like it's been almost 2 years at all!

So as of today I've started looking for gifts that I could get for him. There are 2 options for the second year of marriage.

Traditional Gift: Cotton Modern Gift: China

Rene and I decided that we are sticking with the "traditional" gift this year...now I just need to figure out what to get him. It might just me but while I love the idea of specific gifts for each year of marriage it's actually tough to find something.

Last year with "paper" we each just wrote out a really nice card, mainly because we took a little trip to Orlando at the start of December and called our tickets (flight and park) our "paper" item....ok so we stretched the terms a bit....but honestly who uses actual stationary anymore?

Nonetheless, we are trying to stick with the ideas for each other

What do you think are the traditional/modern wedding year gifts outdated? Or do you still like the idea of tradition?

It's Fall

And isn't it fun how a little bit of food coloring, some green candy and a box of rice krispy's can celebrate fall so well? Yum!
Happy Sunday!

Pinteresting Thoughts&Finds for Thursday

So since I spend roughly of say 10-14 hours a day on the computer I often spend hours at a time on Pinterest looking around for fun new ideas. Most recently I turned a find on Pinterest into one of my recruiter's birthday cakes--it was a huge success the office loved it!

Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Icing, surrounded with KitKats and topped with M&Ms...Chocolate Delish if I may say so!

So I figured why not share some of my favorite finds on Thursday's blog, especially since I've been slacking when it comes to my Friday Book Club since I am slllllowly making my way through Freakanomics still.

So here's the official First Ever "Pinteresting Thoughts&Finds for Thursday"

Thanksgiving Ideas!!

A thought for changing up the dining room decor for turkey day!
A little idea of something to make for the office
A new twist on leftovers? I love turkey pot pies and turkey and dumplings...but little springrolls/egg rolls type goodies...why not?

I know it's not even Halloween yet and I'm jumping into Thanksgiving but trust me I'll be updating you soon on our Halloween costumes for this year....Disney themed of course!

Drab to Fab!

So yesterday for some reason the tan/cream color of my little cube here at work was starting to get to me....It was drab and really not "me".

Now yes there are articles out there in every business magazine and publication saying that putting personal touches on your work space is a big No-No...however I see my office as not one of those typical business offices.

The boys have a basketball hoop, at any given time there are stress balls being thrown across the room, and we have a Dallas Mavericks flag still proudly displayed after their victory (that or it's just been forgotten to be taken home).

So this morning I started on my "Cube Re-Vamp" and plan to take my work area from Drab to Fab over the next week or two.

Clutter and papers gone! I'm going for the green feel and going all electronic (or at least trying to) and hopefully adding some light pink hues and green to my little area. Here's my progress thus far....

I'll be sure to post updates as I go. Step one will be just finishing the pink and white draping around the front of my cube and then I plan to get some "girly" (pink and green) trays to keep papers rather than the ugly black plastic stacking thing that I have now.

Rene might laugh at my spending of $12 to change things up but I figure I spend the majority of my time here and have had the same surroundings for 3+ years why not change it up right?

White Sangria - Delish!

The white sangria that I made this weekend for our work picnic turned out great! Rene and I enjoyed it so much I wanted to share the recipe with you.

In a large pitcher combine the following:

1 Sliced Lime

1 Sliced Lemon

1 Pint Raspberries

2 Sliced Granny Smith Apples

3 Tbls. Sugar (or Agave)

3 Tbls. Green Apple Liquor

1 Bottle of Pino Grigio

Allow the mixture to sit for several hours (we made ours the night before).

Service topped with a little bit of club soda and a few pieces of fruit.

Enjoy!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas -- Decorating Time!

OK so no the decorations won't be hanging up anytime soon -- I'll wait until the day after Thanksgiving....but I have completed my inspiration board for decorations this year. We will be going with a red and green classic theme. Now it is time to start crafting, I might even break out the sewing machine this year!

Dreaming of a White Christmas in November?

OK well maybe not a "white Christmas" but as of the start of November I have been trying to figure out what or rather how to decorate this Christmas (which will happen the day after Thanksgiving at the Blanco Home).

While I love our tree and how it is a collection of ornaments that we have received over the years my collection of Christmas decor is a bit of a mix and match group.

This year with the nice changes around the apartment in terms of decorating I have decided that I want to leave the tree as is but look to make a more uniformed decorating style.

So this week I have made it my goal to create some inspiration boards and layouts as to what I want to do around the apartment...then of course what craft projects I need to get started on!

New Stationary!

A little while before Rene and I got married a friend of mine Krys had posted a great find on her blog Double Strand Pearls about a company called Petite Prints which creates custom stationary with silhouettes. I fell in LOVE with how cute they were...and I wanted them ASAP!

The downfall of course was that I couldn't bring myself to pay the $40 for just the set up and then also the cost of the notepads or cards which were around $40-$50 each set....*tear*.

Then last week I came upon a great store on Esty! I love looking through the creative ideas that people have and also love finding deals on items that could/would cost much more elsewhere. My wondering around the site took me to BlueClara Paper Goods. The seller was a pleasure to work with and produced a great PDF file so that I am able to print out our wonderful silhouettes as many times as I want! She was even kind enough to create images that I can use to frame in 8x10 frames and also a group of the images so that I can use them to create my very own stationary all for only $60! A great deal and also a super cute idea for friends and family as a gift if you are looking for something "semi-handmade".

Why didn't I think of that?!

I could not help wish sharing and I wish I had thought about this! Such a cute idea from Mrs Meatball's Recap on Weddingbee .

She had all of her ladies sign the bottom of her wedding shoes so that she would be "surefooted through the day"
Love it!

Recap #9- Paparazzi!

Ok well maybe not to that extent, but the next thing up on our wonderful wedding day it was time for the Bride/Groom portraits. I of course had been stalking different photographer’s websites and searching through 100’s of different photos to get my inspirations.

Before the wedding I had no idea what Jenn would have in mind after seeing the “palate” that she had to work with on the ship, and it had been so long since I had been on board one of Disney’s ships that even I was having a hard time trying to think of great photo locations.

None the less, I had provided Jenn with these photo inspiration boards during our planning time all created at Style Me Pretty

As you can see from the first sets of pictures I have posted from getting ready and the first look Jenn completely went above and beyond my expectations! You can see from my boards a few of my photo ideas had been captured already--but what was yet to come for these bride/groom portraits were much more than I had ever expected!

These two are some of my favorite close ups, the way the wind was blowing around worked out just great when it came to getting some amazing photos!

I can not say enough about what a beautiful day we had while in port, it made for such amazing backdrops and vibrant colors!!

As if these are not gorgeous enough, check out what Jenn did in terms of effects on a couple of the pictures--I am generally not much for altering pictures or changing the color from anything but color/B&W/Sepia but I fell in love with these!

After this we headed down towards a spiral staircase to grab some cute shots, again with the amazing background and just a side note the fish eye lens has become me new fave photography trend!

Next up it was time to head over to the smoke stakes on the ship to get some Disney themed bright shots, along the way Jenn just kept on snapping pictures along the way.

Here is where we got some fun shots with the smoke stacks, the best part is there was no one around when we were getting these which made for some perfect images.

I loved out portraits of just us as you can see, and these are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we have to choose from! I can't wait to see what they look like in print around our apartment!

Next up, photo time with the wedding party.



Need to catch up?

Day 6 The First Look
Day 6 Becoming the Bride
Day 6 Getting Ready to Say I DO
Day 5 Our Last "Single" Night
Day 4 The Civil Ceremony
Day 3 We board the Wonder
Day 2 Orlando and Cocoa
Day 1 in Orlando