just like Kermit

As in, it’s not easy being green.  I have yet to successfully keep a plant around, so here’s to hoping that this endeavor goes better than all previous attempts.

Yesterday we got started on another one of my 2012 bucket list items: grow something.

Due to our current apartment dwelling situation, we decided to go pretty minimal with our “garden” this year – just some tomatoes, herbs, and an aloe plant.  We got everything purchased and planted yesterday and sat it out on our patio with hopes that it will receive enough sun each day to thrive.  Fingers crossed.

our supplies

better boy tomatoes

cherry or grape tomatoes (I’m not sure which, or really even how to tell the difference)

oregano, sweet basil, chives, and parsley

sweet mint, rosemary, and lemon thyme (plus room for one more – I’d like some dill but haven’t been able to find any yet)

plus an aloe plant that is hanging out in the kitchen waiting for a pot

Now let’s hope I can complete my bucket list item and actually get my plants to grow…

Wilton cake decorating {Works for Me Wednesday}

I know, I know, you’re tired of all my cake decorating posts.  But this is my last big one, promise!  Tonight was the last class for the Wilton cake decorating Course 2 so I wanted to share what I did and do a little wrap up post.

First, here’s a recap:

I’ve been wanting to take cake decorating classes (taught at places like Hobby Lobby, Michael’s, and Jo Ann’s) since last summer but wasn’t able to until recently because of the move.  I finally signed up to take the Wilton Course 1 in March and then once that was finished I decided to take Course 2 in April.

Course 1 Week 1 we learned how to make buttercream icing, some tips for baking cake, how to tint icing, and how to use the star tip on our piping bags

Course 1 Week 2 we had to bring our baked cakes with us.  We then learned how to level the cakes, fill them, and ice the cake.  Then we learned a few more tips to use to decorate the cake.

Course 1 Week 3 we learned how to ice cupcakes, make leaves, make shaggy mums, and flowers

Thanks to Pinterest I learned a fantastic icing tip that I used to make these semi-healthy chocolate cupcakes

I used my new skills to make a Fly Guy cake for Tedd Arnold’s author visit

Course 1 Week 4 we learned how to make roses and how to write on cakes

Course 2 Week 1 we learned how to use gum paste and fondant to make flowers

Course 2 Week 2 we learned how to use royal icing to make various flowers – primrose, apple blossoms, and rose buds

Course 2 Week 3 we learned more royal icing flowers – another rose, daffodil, violet, and lilies

And finally, this week… (Course 2 Week 4)

Tonight we learned how to do basket weave and used the flowers we made the last two weeks to decorate our cake.  I actually really liked the basket weave – I thought it was hard at first but I got the hang of it pretty fast.  I didn’t have the tip they suggested so my weave was quite a bit fatter than it should have been if I had used the right tip.  Also, basket weave uses a lot of icing and I ran out, so…

only half of the cake had basket weave and the other half was decorated with swirls and flowers – not exactly the prettiest thing ever but it was good to practice different methods

After tonight, I’m done with the cake decorating classes (at least for now).  I’ll definitely continue using what I’ve learned to make cakes and cupcakes and things, but I’m not interested in learning more about fondant (which is what Courses 3 and 4 cover).

I definitely recommend taking Course 1.  I had a blast during my classes and I think Course 1 covers the essential that will get you started making beautiful cakes, even if you only ever plan to make cakes for your own family.  Prior to this class the only “decorating” I did was to messily spread store-bought icing on crumbly cakes – I’ve come a long way from that!

Course 2 was only so-so for me.  I had fun, but the things we learned were not things that I will probably use much.  I doubt I will have much use for royal icing flowers (you never know, though) but I did enjoy learning how to make them.  I do think the basket weave was a useful skill, so I’m glad I got to learn that.  But my recommendation would be to take Course 1 but not worry about the other courses unless you are really serious about it (or just really enjoy it, of course!).

And there you have it.  Thanks for taking this cake decorating journey with me.

These cake decorating classes have definitely worked for me!

Linking up to Works for Me Wednesday.

cake decorating course 2 week 3

This week we learned how to make some more flowers out of royal icing.  (please pardon the pictures – I have no idea why they all turned out so bad!!)

Rose – this is the second rose we learned (you can see the first one here) and I think like this one better.  It’s much prettier and more realistic than the first rose we learned!  However, I don’t know if it would hold up being made out of buttercream or would only work using royal icing.

daffodil – love this!

violet – pretty similar to the apple blossom

and finally, the lily – this was the hardest flower for me to master, but after several tries I think it turned out pretty good.

all four flowers from this week’s class

Next week we put it all together by making and icing cake and then using the flowers we’ve made to decorate the cake.  So I went ahead and organized all my little flowers (using my deviled egg container) so they’ll be ready for next week.

I probably won’t use my fondant flowers on my cake next week but I’m hanging on to them just in case.

Something that I learned this week was that even though the royal icing hardens really fast, you need to leave the flowers uncovered in order for them to completely dry.  I stored my flowers from last week in a tupperwear container with the lid on and the flowers were somewhat dry/hard but they weren’t completely hardened and kept sticking to each other.  My instructor said that you should leave the royal icing flowers completely uncovered so they’ll harden.  I did and it worked!  Now they are much easier to handle.

High Five for Friday

Yay for Friday!  Here are some things I’m excited about:

1. After reading my post from last Friday about loving my Sharpie pens, my sweet husband went out and bought me a pack that had more colors: purple, orange, and green.  He had them laying on my placemat as a surprise when I got home from Cookeville on Saturday.  What a sweetheart!  I’ve been putting them to work take notes at church this week and I’m still just so amazed that they don’t bleed!

2. Tonight we are having a scrapbook night at church.  If you only know me through my blog (and not in real life) then you probably don’t know that I love to scrapbook.  I’ve been scrapbooking since middle school and I usually stay pretty current, but I actually haven’t scrapbooked anything since I started this blog (and thus haven’t talked about it much on here) – partly because I’m posting my pictures and memories here, but also because at our house in Lexington, I had a table in the office where my scrapbook stuff could stay laid out all the time, so anytime I had some spare time or we were watching some tv at night, I could work on a page or two.  Now that we’ve moved to a townhouse there is no room to leave my stuff out, and I just haven’t felt like hauling it all out then having to pack it all right back up as soon as we want to use the kitchen table again.  So, I haven’t scrapbooked anything from July to now (which for me is very behind).  I’ve printed out pictures from July to Christmas and I hope to get a bunch of that knocked out tonight.

3. Then tomorrow we are going to Lexington for my friend Amanda’s baby shower.  I’m excited to see everyone!

4. Every once and a while I get tired of the same ole turkey bacon and egg routine that I’ve eaten for breakfast the majority of the days since I started being concerned about my health 6 years ago, so I’ll get on a cereal or oatmeal kick for a while.  I decided this week that I was ready for a breakfast variation so I tried out this blueberry, banana, and walnut baked oatmeal.  It’s just a tad too banana-y for me, but other than that I love it!  I have two other flavors of baked oatmeal that I’m looking forward to trying after I finish up this pan.

5. Listening to audiobooks: I love audiobooks and think they are a great way to “read” a book while still doing other things.  The summer after we bought our house in Lexington, I spent days cleaning every inch of that place, including wiping down every last blind on the windows, and while I cleaned I listened to audiobooks.  I was able to read and be productive!  I also always download one to listen to when I have to drive somewhere (like 2 hours or longer) by myself.  In preparation for my trip to Cookeville I downloaded a book to read.  I then realized that I could also listen to my book at work!  A lot of what I do for the professors I work for is data entry, which doesn’t require reading (I can’t listen to a book or music if I have to read anything, but I’m able to do math/look at numbers and listen to books or music).  So off and on this week at work I’ve been listening to my books – I’ve finished two and have started on a third.  What a great discovery!

And here’s a little bonus fact that goes along with #5.  It’s kind of an embarrassing confession: my secret indulgence is reading (or listening to) Christian romance novels.  They are so cliche and so predictable, but I love them!  It’s always the same: boy and girl have some sort of conflict that keeps them apart, usually one either is not a Christian or has fallen away but finds God during the course of the book, and then they get married and live happily ever after.  But I love them!  They are so sweet, not at all raunchy, and they have a good message.  I’ve read just about every Christian fiction author out there and maybe someday I’ll share a list of my favorites.

Linking up to High Five for Friday.

cake decorating course 2 week 2

This week we learned flowers, flowers, and more flowers.  While last week we used fondant to make our flowers, this week we used royal icing.  Royal icing is basically just water, sugar, and meringue powder (at least, the Wilton version is).  It’s edible, although I don’t think it tastes very good, and it dries super fast.  The icing was also very stiff so that the flowers would be firm, but I couldn’t believe how tired my hand and forearm got from squeezing the icing bag and trying to guide the icing in the shape I wanted!

We made lots and lots of the different types of flowers that we learned, and we are saving them to use on our final cake that we will make the last class of this course. (that’s why they are on the wax paper – I’m saving them for later…it doesn’t make for the prettiest pictures ever, though)

apple blossoms

primrose

rose buds

We were taught to make the rosebuds like the one on the left with the little “leaves” where the stem and rose meet; however, I thought mine looked like monster claws so I just started doing the stem with no leaves like the one on the right.  Maybe with practice I’ll get it to look right with the leaves, but for now I’m sticking to just the stem.

We also started making roses.  We made the middle part of each rose, but then we are letting them harden this week and we’ll put the petals on next week.

(psst…the giveaway is almost over…enter to win the That Works for Me! e-book chock full of over 800 tips and tricks)

chicken salad

I love chicken salad!  You know, the kind with the grapes and pecans?  So yummy!  I don’t love chicken salad that has celery or is loaded with mayonnaise, though.   Let me share with you my lighter, celery-free version of chicken salad.  Instead of using all mayonnaise, I mix mayo and Greek yogurt – the yogurt has less calories and much more protein, and it kind of “stretches” the mayo so that there is still that taste (since I used a little) but you don’t have to use as much as you normally would.

what you need: chicken, grapes, mayo, Greek yogurt, and pecans

cook and shred your chicken

add mayo

and then add Greek yogurt

halve grapes and add them

and finally, add the pecan pieces

Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (or cubed if you prefer)
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise (I use Hellmann’s with canola oil)
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 cup grapes, halved
• 1/2 cup pecan pieces
• salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

Cook chicken and shred or cube.  Let cool.  Add mayo, yogurt, grapes, pecan pieces, salt, and pepper and mix well.  Keep refrigerated.

Makes 6 servings of 1/2 cup each; 200 calories per serving.  This is South Beach Phase 2.

I love taking chicken salad for my lunch.  You can eat it on crackers, on a bed of lettuce, or with bread/pita to make a sandwich, but I just eat mine with a fork.  This is also a great dish to take to a potluck or baby/wedding shower.

High Five for Friday

I’ve told you before about my bloggy friend (and real-life friend) Amber (I’ve borrowed her Pinteresting Tuesday idea a few times).  Well another party she links up to is High Five for Friday – something hosted by Lauren at From My Grey Desk (who happens to be the sister of Kate from The Small Things Blog aka my biggest hair-crush ever…small blogging world!).  Did you follow that?  Anyway, the point of the party is to link up your five favorite recent things.  I wanted to join in on the fun, so…

1.

Today I’m headed to Cookeville (where I went to college) to visit my friend Anne (who also went to TTU and is now a teacher in Cookeville).  I’m super excited to have some fun girl time!

2.

I’ve mentioned my love for pens before but I just have to mention it again.  Especially because I am super-loving these Sharpie retractable pens.  Several weeks ago Michael was using one in church.  I had never seen one before so I borrowed it and gave it a try.  And found it to be awesome.  Fortunately my husband loves me very much and gave it to me (I think he had others at home, but we’ll pretend it was a huge sacrifice…shh) and I’ve been using tons ever since.  I also like the Sharpie pens with the caps – he gave me some of those for my birthday last year and I use them a lot too.  The best part is that they don’t bleed!

3.

After six months of living in Bowling Green and visiting tons of churches, we’ve finally settled on a new church home.  We officially placed membership this week and it’s nice to have a place to call home.  We’re excited to get involved.  P.S. Be looking for a post coming soon on things to do and not to do to welcome visitors to your church…a compilation of all our church-visiting experiences.

4.

These Belvita cracker/cookie things are awesometastic.  Renee, the librarian I did my practicum with, introduced me to them and now Michael and I can’t get enough!  There are 4 cookies (they call them breakfast biscuits, but they don’t seem biscuit-y to me) in a package so it’s a pretty big amount of food – I usually divide them in half and will have 2 cookies for a snack.  Sometimes Michael eats them for breakfast.  The blueberry ones are our favorite.

5.

Now that school is over, I actually have time to read for fun (i.e. not a textbook) again.  In January I started watching the tv show The Firm, based off John Grisham’s book.  I really liked it, but decided I wanted to read the book first.  Michael bought it for me for Valentine’s Day and I hadn’t had a chance to read it until last week.  I finally got to read it and I loved it!  I’ve gone back and watched all the tv episodes (but just in case you wondered, the tv show picks up 10 years after where the book left off, so the characters are the same but the plot is different.  I thought it would be the same story as the book but it wasn’t.  It’s still good, though).  I also loaded up with John Grisham books last weekend while we were at my in-law’s.

Linking up with Lauren @ From My Grey Desk

Oh, and don’t forget to enter the giveaway I’m doing…one lucky winner gets a free That Works for Me! book.

cake decorating course 2 week 1

Tuesday night I started the Wilton cake decorating course 2: flowers and cake design.  I loved everything that I learned during course 1 and so I wanted to take it a step further and learn how to do more intricate flowers.  In this course we will learn how to make several types of flowers each week and then the last week we will put them all together and make a pretty cake.  That will be nice to not have to have a complete cake made each week (plus I won’t have all that yummy goodness sitting around begging me to eat it!), although it’s not quite as exciting to show off a few plain flowers as it is to show a whole finished cake.

But anyway…

The first class we learned a little about gum paste and fondant.  I am not a fondant fan and thankfully the rest of the weeks we will be using icing to make our flowers, but it was fun just to learn a little bit about it – just enough to know how to use it if needed.  I really couldn’t tell you the difference between fondant and gum paste, all I know is that one dries faster than the other but I can’t remember each one.  We mixed the gum paste and fondant together, then rolled it out and basically treated it like Play-Doh.

The first flower we learned how to make was called a button flower (because the little circle in the middle is shaped like a button, I think).  This one was really easy: tint and roll out the fondant, press it into this cookie-cutter-mold-thing, it cuts out the flowers for you, then stack them together.

Here’s a little tip: if you are planning to take the Wilton cake decorating course 2 and you have a friend taking the same class – pool your money together and just buy one package of fondant and one package of gum paste, unless you are planning to take courses 3 and 4 (both about fondant).  In fact, one thing of fondant and one thing of gum paste would probably be plenty for 4 people.  I didn’t know anyone in my class to split it with so now I have quite a bit of fondant and gum paste left with no intentions of using it.  I’m sure I’ll figure out something.

The second flower we learned to make were pansies.  These were also pretty easy and I like that they look a lot more like really flowers than the button flowers.

And that was week 1 of course 2!

Don’t forget to enter to win the That Works for Me! e-book (btw, you don’t have to have an e-reader to read/use this book – all you need is a computer…just in case that was preventing you from entering)

That Works For Me {book review + giveaway}

*******This giveaway is now closed************

The winner is Stephanie Ann – congratulations!

You know how I post a Works for Me Wednesday tip every Wednesday?  Well, I’m not the only one – hundreds of helpful tips covering all kinds of topics are linked up each week.  And now, Kristen (who hosts WFMW each week) has compiled many of those tips into a organized book.

And guess what else?  Yours truly is featured in this book!  Yep, three of my Works for Me Wednesday tips were included in the book (but I’m not going to tell you which ones…you’ll have to buy it to find out…).

I am so excited about That Works for Me! (and not just because I’m in it…)  There are tons and tons of helpful tips that have been used and confirmed by real people!  The book is divided into categories like babies, beauty/fashion, blogging, cleaning, organizing, crafts, gardening, frugality, decor, gifts, homeschooling, parties/holidays, laundry, hospitality, recipes, parenting, marriage, time management, technology, and traveling.  Whew!  There’s something for everyone!  Each entry includes a summary of the tip and provides a link to the original blog post for that tip so you can check it out in more detail.

If you want to find out more about That Works for Me!, go here.  Here‘s an example of what a page from the e-book looks like.

There is also a related contest going through the end of April: submit a tip that works for you (you don’t have to have a blog to participate) and you might win a $150 to use to get your house professionally cleaned!!  Wowza!  You can submit as many tips as you want, too.  Go here to find out more about the contest and/or submit your helpful tips.

But that’s not all!  I’m also giving away one copy of That Works for Me!.  Here’s how you can win:

• entry #1: leave a comment on this post telling us about a tip that works for you (it can be a tip about anything!)
• entry #2: become a follower of my blog (sign up is on the right side of the blog) and then leave a comment telling me you’re a follower (if you’re already a follower you can just leave a comment telling me so)
• entry #3: Like That Works for Me! on Facebook (go here) and then leave a commenting telling me that you did.

The giveaway will end Sunday, April 22.

Can’t wait until then?  You can go ahead and buy it now: Click here to visit wearethatfamily. - use the coupon code SAVE1 to get $1 off your purchase.

tortilla soup

If you’ve looked at my recipes, you know I love pretty much all Mexican food (except cilantro!), and this soup is no exception.  Several weeks ago Mom made this tortilla soup (she got the recipe here) and we loved it when we tried it so I got the recipe from her and I fixed some earlier this week.  It is delicious!

you need: crushed tomatoes, corn, hominy, black beans, green chiles, chicken broth, oil, onion, garlic, chili powder, oregano, and chicken (not pictured – it was in the crockpot you see in the background)

cook the onion and garlic in oil until soft

add chili powder and oregano

then tomatoes, chicken broth, and water

next comes corn,

hominy,

black beans,

chiles,

and finally, chicken

let it cook and you’re ready to go!

Recipe (adapted from here)

Ingredients

• 1 cup onion, chopped (the recipe says one whole onion but Michael doesn’t really like onion so I reduced it to just 1 cup)
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped (or just use garlic powder if you don’t want to use cloves)
• 1 TBSP oil (I used canola)
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes (I had never used crushed tomatoes before – they are almost like tomato sauce)
• 1 can chicken broth
• 1 1/4 cup water
• 1 can whole corn kernels
• 1 can white hominy
• 1 4oz can chopped green chiles
• 1 can black beans, rinsed
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked and chopped/shredded
• tortilla chips, cheese, avocado, sour cream, etc. for topping

Instructions

In a medium pot, heat oil over medium heat.  Saute onion and garlic in oil until soft.  Stir in chili powder, oregano, tomatoes, chicken broth, and water.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.  Then stir in corn, hominy, black beans, and chicken.  Simmer for 10 more minutes.  Top with desired toppings.

(note: the recipe also calls for cilantro but as I said above, I hate the stuff so I didn’t use any)

(another note: this looks very similar to the crock pot chicken taco chili, and they do have some of the same ingredients, but the taste is quite different because of the different spices so make sure to try both!)

This made 10 1-cup servings; each cup is 175 calories.

This recipe is probably South Beach Phase 2 (I’m not 100% sure about the corn/hominy – I don’t think you can have corn on Phase 1, but correct me if I’m wrong)