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Do One Thing: Second-floor decor

March 11, 2011 by shaggerty

The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.

Day 65: Finally hung up the curtain rod for the long-suffering wall hanging that we’ve owned for years.  It came into our possession when my husband bought a Volkswagen Vanagon back in the late 1990s. (Apparently, it’s traditional to include a gift when you sell a Vanagon  — the husband left a waterbed mattress in one that he sold before we were married.)

Anyway, it doesn’t really go with anything, but it doesn’t really NOT go with anything, either. It’s handmade and unique, and I love the stylized creatures that now brighten the upstairs hallway.

Also this week:

Day 63: Made an epic find at Target. I was planning to buy a duvet and duvet cover for the guest bedroom, since I’ve found that combination imminently easier to care for than a comforter, bedspread or quilt. With the mother-in-law set to arrive later this month, it was finally time to ditch the cat-hair-laden comforter.

Anyway, I found the EXACT items I was looking for in the clearance section for half price. Woot!

Day 64: Attempted, yet again, to move the garage shelf, only to find that there was a HUGE, unwieldy pile of green wire for the robotic mower blocking the way. I spent a good 30 minutes untangling the wire and wrapping it around an empty paper towel tube.

Can it be unwrapped easily without retangling itself? I don’t care.

Day 66: Finally managed to move the garage shelf into its new place without getting hit in the head with the surfboard again or finding another tragic tangle of green wire.

Day 67: Cleared a few things out of the kitchen pantry, including a canister of breadcrumbs that expired in April 2010. It’s rather amazing how things accumulate so quickly in there.

Days 68 and 69: I spent these two days driving to Nashville, hanging out with my brother at work and then hanging out while he had knee surgery, and then driving back. Family trumps home improvement, every time.

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As Pictured Below: Fun with magnets

March 10, 2011 by shaggerty

My niece and I played with this magnetic sand table as we were waiting for my brother to emerge from knee surgery, and all I could think was “magnetic Zen garden.” Somebody get on that.

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An entirely adequate patrol

March 9, 2011 by shaggerty

Today’s regular blog post has been pre-empted by this awesome ride around Nashville in a police car with my brother, Officer Awesome.

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Reconsidering our food sources, again

March 8, 2011 by shaggerty

I saw Food, Inc. at the Huntsville Botanical Garden on Saturday, and I’m still trying to process it.

It showed in vivid detail the conditions that chickens, cows and pigs live and die in, conditions that so many of us are already aware of but choose to ignore. It also revealed that our entire food supply is increasingly under the control of just a handful of companies, and our government’s food safety system is horribly broken.

All in all, it revealed that even a carefully considered family meal plan with fresh, seemingly wholesome ingredients may not be enough.

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Two citrus flavors combine in exceptional quinoa dish

March 7, 2011 by shaggerty

 

Last night, I finally got around to combining two dishes that I knew would taste great together, a la Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups: Citrus Quinoa and Mojo Shrimp.

The Citrus Quinoa recipe, from Coastal Living, was designed to go with a snapper entrée. The Mojo Shrimp recipe is actually a Mojo Chicken recipe that seemed like it would work for shrimp, too. The quinoa has an intense lime flavor, and the shrimp adds a light burst of spicy orange flavor to the mix.

I made a few changes to the original Citrus Quinoa recipe, so I’ve outlined my version below. The original calls for parsley, which I never have around and never seem to miss. I also made a couple of changes to the cooking process, since the original version resulted in mushy quinoa.

Citrus Quinoa

Adapted from Coastal Living’s Citrus Quinoa Recipe

1 1/4 cups uncooked quinoa
2 1/2 cups water
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lime zest
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Rinse quinoa thoroughly. Bring the water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the quinoa and 3/4 teaspoon salt; reduce heat and simmer until the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients.

Mojo Shrimp

1/2 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red chili flakes
1/2 pound medium shrimp

Combine juices, oil, garlic, paprika. oregano, salt and chili flakes in a large zip-top plastic bag. Add the shrimp; seal and marinate in the refrigerator for at least one hour and up to three hours.

Pour about a tablespoon of olive oil into a medium skillet and add the shrimp; stir fry for two to three minutes or until shrimp are opaque. Serve over Citrus Quinoa.

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Baking the annual king cake

March 6, 2011 by shaggerty

I made our annual king cake today with a recipe from Southern Plate that called for frozen bread dough. It was a cinch to make compared to my traditional recipe, which calls for making the dough, letting the dough rise, punching down the dough, letting the dough rise yet again, rolling and shaping the dough, letting it rise again, baking the cake, and finally decorating the cake. If it sounds like a ton of work that takes all day, you are correct.

This recipe calls for adding lemon extract to the cream cheese filling; I associate king cakes with a light cinnamon flavor, so I substituted cinnamon for the lemon. How much cinnamon? A few shakes. This was a cooking-by-taste experiment.

If I made it again, I would skip the cream cheese filling altogether and simply coat the dough with butter and cinnamon sugar before rolling it up. Simple is better when it comes to king cakes.

Like Southern Plate’s Christy Jordan, I couldn’t find purple sugar at the grocery store, so I ended up with hot pink. I’m pretty sure the cake glows in the dark; I really need to go downstairs and check before the cat freaks out.

The ring obviously did not maintain its shape during baking, but it didn’t totally stick together in the middle.

The husband’s verdict: It’s OK, but not as good as the make-king-cake-all-day version.

My verdict: It’s definitely got a shot without the cream cheese filling.

Posted in Eats, Photographs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Do One Thing: Accessorizing

March 5, 2011 by shaggerty

The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.

Day 63: I feel weird that purchasing a soap dispenser at Target makes me so happy, but I’m also sort of glad that something so simple and inexpensive can make my day. It’s complicated.

Posted in Do One Thing, Home | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Do One Thing: Conversion of the junk conversion

March 4, 2011 by shaggerty

The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.

Day 62: I think we all saw this coming. I decided that, indeed, I hated the vase/glass pebble look I put together recently. The brown pebbles seemed to be the biggest part of the problem, so I ditched them (hopefully, some lucky shopper at the New Leash on Life Market Place has more love for brown than I do) and replaced most of them with some clear pebbles that were hanging out in the garage. It’s still not one of My Favorite Things, but it’s definitely making me happier.

Previously:

Day 56: Planned to move a small shelving unit to a more effective place in the garage. Got hit in the head with an errant surfboard. Yes, a surfboard.

Day 57: Got the husband to help me pick a spot for the wall hanging, since he’s the one who brought it home as part of a package deal when he bought a Volkswagen bus. We didn’t get to hang it, however, since the neighbor’s dog barked from literally 7 a.m. until we fled the house at around 2 to seek peace and quiet in the movie theater.

Day 58: Hung the toilet paper roller AND the towel holder in the downstairs bathroom. Epic.

Day 59: Tossed a pile of recipes that I had cut out from newspapers and magazines. It seems like all people who like to cook have one of these piles of recipes that they go through a couple of times a year, yet never manage to pull anything out and actually make it. Not anymore. They’re in the recycling guy’s hands now.

Day 60: Swept out the garage, or at least the parts I could get to with a broom.

Day 61: Nada. I did schoolwork and worried about my mom and her sick dog.

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RIP Jay Bear

March 2, 2011 by shaggerty

Mom’s Pomeranian, Jay Bear, died tonight. It’s killing me that I can’t get to her without a seven-hour drive that I don’t have time to make, and no amount of money in the world can get me a direct flight to any nearby airport.

He was an intense little dog who made noises like a cat and was scared of flies. He was the first dog that Mom had sans kids, so he was all hers — no co-owners away at college or spending their early working years in a pet-free apartment.

This is the part that makes people swear they’ll never get another pet. This is the part we sort of forget, lest we never again experience the joy that animals bring us.

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I feel like I’m forgetting something

March 1, 2011 by shaggerty

Midterms. I totally forgot that I even HAD a blog until this very moment.

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