And I really love all of the little links that people post on Facebook so that I may discover lots of goodies that just make my day. Like this. Thanks for posting, Holly.
I’ve never been to Paris, but thanks to Nichole and Evan of Little Brown Pen, I can pretend that I have and live through them vicariously through their video about the making of their ‘Perpetual Paris’ calendar (which is available in their Etsy shop and in their personal shop). I follow Nichole on Twitter, so I don’t know how I missed this.
What they sell is the images and the clear clips to assemble it. Assembled it’s about 3 ft. x 3 ft. and I love that it’s a calendar, but it doesn’t look like a lame little flip calendar. It’s art, and it changes every month! Wwwaaayyy too pretty to mark up with appointments. I think what I like about it is the story behind it (read about it here) and what a project it turned in to for the husband and wife team. Plus it’s a conversation piece that would never get old. And it’s $49 for years of images of Paris. Much cheaper than a plane ticket (but yes, I know it doesn’t have quite the same effect). Someday, right? Right.
I also got excited about this today. Raise your hand if you know who The Pioneer Woman is. She rocks, right? She posts a little status update on Facebook and 273 people will ‘Like’ and comment. She’s on a book tour right now for her cookbook, and in her PW Home and Garden section of the blog (it’s amazing to me how she can keep up with so many sections!) she’s hosting hotel tours of all the nice places she stays on her book tour. Sweet. She stays in places that look like this…
That’s a lot of chocolate-y goodness in one room. Not that I’d notice because I’d probably be asleep as soon as I walk through the door and hit the pillow. It’s the Hotel Ambassador in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve never been to Oklahoma, but if this is what they eat there, I just might have to go.
Glenn and I love sushi. We started going out for it when I was in college, and every time Glenn came to visit me he had to go out for sushi! And we always try to find some when we go out of town. No fun when I was pregnant, but going out for sushi is still fun even if you can’t eat any!! Well…no sushi bars in Likely, or anywhere for 100 miles. Before we moved here, we actually bought a book on making sushi, as well as a nice set, and we haven’t gotten to use any until now!! We saw they had fresh sushi grade tuna at our local grocery store, so we tracked down all the ingredients (we had to go to 2 different stores for all of the pieces!) and decided to have a sushi lunch the other day! It was fun…a lot more prep work than we anticipated, but we weren’t in a hurry and we enjoyed the whole process! Especially eating it!
The mini cookbook that we have is simply called “Sushi” and it’s by Ryuichi Toshii, Brigid Treloar, and Hideo Dekura (find it here). We bought our sushi set at Cost Plus World Market, and our rice cooker was a wedding gift! I really won’t go into details on how to make it, we’re not pros (yet, hee hee!) but I had to share the pictures of our yummy lunch!!
We made some Classic Thin Tuna Rolls (Tekkamaki), but we added some avocado. Mmmm…
Along with some pink lemonade…that’s Japanese, right??
We’re definitely going to have to do this again soon! Maybe we’ll make a night of it with some friends!!
A dinnertime staple around here in Likely is a Christensen family dish called Tater Tot Casserole. Now who doesn’t love tater tots? Tater Tot Casserole is an easy-to-make, quick all-in-one casserole dinner, which happens to have foods from every food group (except fruits!). We have the recipe hand-written in the front of a recipe book, but we actually rarely even look at it because we make it so often. Everyone we know loves it, so I thought I’d share it with all of you!
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef (the leaner, the better, and I’m sure you could substitute whatever type of ground meat you like to use, i.e. turkey, etc.)
1/2 medium white onion (diced)
1 can cut green beans (drained) – we actually use 2 cans sometimes to get some extra veggies in!
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 2-pound bag of frozen tater tots
cheddar cheese (grated) – we’ve also used pepper jack, yum!
Step 1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Brown the ground beef with the onion and sautee until the onions are clear and the beef is browned. Drain the fat from the mixture.
Step 2: Spray a 9″x13″ casserole dish (we use glass ones) with some cooking spray, and then add the ground beef mixture to the bottom of the dish.
Step 3: Add a layer of green beans on top of the meat.
Step 4: In a medium bowl, mix the 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup with a little milk to thin the soup. Add that to the top of the green beans.
Step 5: Lay the tater tots on top of the soup as shown. Pop it in the oven for 35 minutes. During this time, my husband will be busy washing the other dishes as he is a PRO at simultaneously cooking and cleaning!
Step 6: Take the casserole out of the oven. Grate enough cheese to cover the tater tots. Pop it back in the oven for about 10 minutes, until all of the cheese is melted.
Step 7: Enjoy! It’s also great as a leftover for lunch!
Do you have any great (quick, easy and yummy!) recipes you’d like to share? And don’t forget to let me know if you try our tater tot casserole! I promise you it will be a family favorite very soon!
My husband, Glenn, and I did an amazing thing this past weekend – we planned ahead! We found some yummy recipes from marthastewart.com and bought everything to make them, along with our old stand-bys (we make a mean Tater Tot Casserole! Let me know if you want that recipe!). All fresh ingredients and our grocery bill was actually pretty reasonable for everything we picked up.
I'm an interior designer and a draftsperson, but I live in the country. I like it that way. I'm also a firefighter's wife, mom to a 2 year old, and a homeowner and I like that even better. But right after that is a pretty and affordable space...and I mean a REALLY affordable space. Because I believe good design can be for EVERYONE!
.jpg "Paris Calendar")
I think what I like about it is the story behind it (read about it here) and what a project it turned in to for the husband and wife team. Plus it’s a conversation piece that would never get old. And it’s $49 for years of images of Paris. Much cheaper than a plane ticket (but yes, I know it doesn’t have quite the same effect). Someday, right? Right.
