Pruner's Remorse

Today was a beautiful day in my corner of the world.  58 degrees and sunny.  Blue skies with the fluffiest little clouds here and there.  It was time to prune.  It was time to break out Nick's Christmas toy for the first time.

Recipe Re-dos

When I started this little food experiment, my goal was to change what went into my food, rather than what that food was.  I know that certainly hasn't made it the perfect diet, by any means, but it's certainly more wholesome than what I was eating before.

Here are some favorite recipes I re-did this week:

Onion Rings
2 Medium Onions, cut into rings
2 Eggs
1 c. Cultured Buttermilk
~2c. Whole Wheat Bread Crumbs (I used store-bought Italian-style, because I had some around, but it didn't like the seasonings)
Whole Wheat Flour
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne Powder
Spray Olive Oil

Preheat oven to 450.  Slice onions & toss with flour.  Mix eggs, buttermilk, salt, pepper & cayenne.  Dip rings in egg mix then coat in breadcrumbs.  Spray sheet pan, place coated rings on sheet & spray the top of rings.  Bake for 20 min, flipping halfway through.

They were a tad dry but I think any baked ring is gonna be that way.  Much tasty, though!

Bananas Foster

2 tbsp Butter

1/2 c. Agave Nectar

Ground Cinnamon

2 Bananas, sliced

1/4-1/2 c. Dark Spiced Rum

Crepe Thin Pancakes, Waffles or Ice Cream

Melt butter in saucier and add agave.  Once the mixture starts to boil, add cinnamon, bananas & rum.  Cook down with minimal stirring (it will mash the bananas) until the alcohol is cooked off & serve.  I made the mistake of adding the rum too late and stirring too much, so I wound up with mashed bananas and thick sauce but it was still tasty!

A Little of This, A Little of That

So, do ya'll remember that poor kitchen of mine with walls and shelves in primer and paint swatches all over the place.  It's now worse.  And better.  On Tuesday, I decided that the little swatch I had on the kitchen wall wasn't big enough to make a decision from, so I exhausted the whole sample can on the wall.

Ranch Mix (Finally) and Crepes for Dinner

For those of you who don't already know, I'm seriously in love with Ranch Dressing.  Forget ketchup, Ranch is what goes on fries & burgers & steaks & pretzels...etc.  I've made my ranch from hidden valley ranch since I was in High School because it's much better than the stuff in the bottle.  I'd been dying to make my own mix since I started this little experiment, but I had bought my mix at Sam's.  *pout*

Too many Drawers, Not Enough Drawers, Just Right!

3 years ago, my aunt gave us an old set of Ikea dressers.  One was a 3-drawer night stand and the other was a 5-drawer tower dresser.  A couple of weeks ago, Nick cut the tower down so that it matched the night stand and now we have matching night stands instead of my rubbermaid drawers with a Cracker Barrel checkerboard on top.

Nick's Night Stand                My Night Stand

Pretty Close, huh?

The Extra Drawers

Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Eggs Benedict, Julia Style

I have to admit, Eggs Benedict is a totally American invention and not included in the awesome tome that is MtAoFC.   BUT, Eggs Benedict is an English Muffin topped with Canadian Bacon, a Poached Egg & Hollandaise Sauce and Julia does include 2 basic Hollandaise Sauce Recipes (and of course more variations than I care to think about) as well as an awesome tutorial on poaching an egg.

Hollandaise Sauce
Julia gives 2 separate recipes for hollandaise sauce.  One for an electric blender that she describes as "fool-proof" and one by hand.  Why would you make it with a whisk when the blender recipe is so easy? "...we feel it is of great importance that you learn to make hollandaise by hand, for part of every good cook's general knowledge is a thorough familiarity with the vagaries of egg yolks under all conditions."  Yeah Julia, thanks.  Maybe another day, but I've got to get to church on time this morning, I'll just grab the blender.

A blender, mind you, which could have easily been in Julia Child's 1960's kitchen.  Don't hate, it's awesome.  I did have one of those margarita blenders, but I traded my brother for this glass-jarred beauty when he got a place of his own.  Figured he'd get more use out of it.  

Colors!

It's never easy to pick wall colors for your house and I'm particularly bad at it.  Or at least it feels that way.  Most people choose colors so close to white that they're almost indistinguishable, but I have to be an individual, even in my faults.  I have the habit of choosing over-saturated colors.  That habit turned out well for me in the dining room (or so I feel, i'm certainly no design expert) but not so well in our bedroom.  I like the color, but I really think it's too saturated.  Knowing that I have this tendency, I am wary of the upcoming painting of two rooms.  Last winter, I had put two paint samples on the living room wall (Valspar Jekyll Club Veranda Blue and Valspar Montpelier Wedgewood) and I've been staring at them ever since.  The one on the right is definitely lighter, and my preference of the two but I was concerned that it was still too dark.