Pie Crust

My grandmother, make that grandmothers, would be so proud. I just made a pie crust using one of these beauties.

Making a pie has been my domestic focus of this entire week. I got the itch while reading a great food blog, smittenkitchen. Definitely check it out. The pictures make me want to quit my wonderful engineering job and cook and bake full time in a tiny quaint perfectly decorated and organized, a touch retro a touch whimsical, kitchen...but for now I'll just stick with trying to make a peach pie that my bf will eat. Hopefully when I'm done it will look like hers.

I'll let you know how it actually turns out...

Steel Cut Oatmeal

My new addiction...steel cut oatmeal. I know I know...I've turned into the cliche middle class turned into Whole Foods trend addict, but seriously it's delicious. It's not the mushy, slimmy stuff that was fed to us as innocent unsuspecting children (which my dad taught me to douse with so much cream and sugar it turned to dessert!) It's nutty, and comforting, and a great hot breakfast. So I've began making a big batch on Sundays and eating it with a smidgen of Almond butter (again with the whole foods business) each mid morning which really has become my favorite part of my work day!

In other news..I got a promotion at work! Hence the busy-ness that has kept me off of here for a while, but don't worry, I have plenty to share...just haven't gotten around to it yet.

More to come..but right now all that I can think about is making marshmallows...like these...

image from http://www.whimsyandspice.com/

Selling it off!

So over the past few weeks I've been selling my life's possessions on Craigslist. I love how easy things are gotten rid of or picked up. It really kind of reminds me of the "Swap Shop" that use to take place on my little tiny town's radio station on Saturday mornings. Anyway, I've gotten over the look of my heavy wood furniture and am trying to make my living space a little more eclectic, modern, reused, decorated...we'll see how that all works out :) For now I've gotten rid of a desk, coffee table and old entertainment center. So this weekend I replaced the coffee table and tv stand. I really had these tiny, simple, inexpensive tables from Ikea in mind

...but since I live no where close to an Ikea and they don't ship them...I had to settle for these.

Not bad, what do you think? I also finally got around to painting the chandelier that I purchased(on the wonderful craigslist) a few weeks ago. I really liked these white chandelier of Martha Stewart's and so with that as my inspiration I set off for some white spray paint. Here's the chandelier now. Sitting in the bf's living room.

Maybe in the next couple of week's he'll help me hang it and I'll post an actual after photo. I'm at a bit of a standstill now in regards to the re-decorating. I think that with my warm sienna paint color some great turquoise accents would do nicely...or light blue. I think I'll know it when I see it. Maybe some of these would do nicely. I'm also thinking about painting the inside of my front door. I saw some great inspiration here which is one of my favorite daily reads make sure to check it out!

Off to a great outdoor bbq!...

Luxury Home Tour

Last weekend the bf and I participated in the Luxury Home Tour. It's an annual event, but the first time that I've actually participated. We were at it from opening 'till close and saw 14 homes. All the homes were lovely....they were all new construction which bothered me on some level and their footprints were not modest. There was a favorite however which did have the distinct recognition of being the only LEED certified home on the tour. The USGBC is doing a great job of promoting and recognizing environmentally friendly construction..I know it's an oxymoron, but there are ways to improve our impacts in every aspect. While the program may not be perfect and people can find loopholes and miss the point of the program, it's still a great start.

Anyway, I digress...

One of my favorite features of this home was a built in, undercounter, stand mixer shelf. I've never seen such an invention and found it absolutely profound. It immediately jumped to the top of my list of wants. I've now had time to rummage the internet and see who came up with this great invention..and if I can order it online. Here is what I found.

Kraftmaid markets a base cabinet that comes with the appliance shelf. It looks like the real deal...unfortunately I'm not in the market for new base cabinets. This is exactly what we saw on the Luxury Home Tour. You can't tell from the pictures that well, but the whole shelf that the mixer is sitting on is on a spring loaded hinge so you just pull up gently on the shelf and the whole thing disappears back into the cabinet! It really is a great idea because the worst part of our wonderful, huge mixers are their size and weight...

Hardware Source sells the mechanism to go in any base cabinet (that meets the size requirements) and at amazon.com you can find Wood Technology's product which doesn't look quite as good in the picture, but the price is right. I may just have to try it out. If I do, I'll let you know how its working and if any of you have seen these modern wonders anywhere else, please fill me in!