Mmmm Manicotti

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Tuesday I slipped into the store just in time for buy 2 Ragu spaghetti sauce jars for $.99 each and get a free box of pasta.  It’s the perfect chance to show you one of the many fantastic recipes that comes in the Grocery Shrink Ebook. Did you know the book had recipes?  It has a step by step how to plan for saving money on your grocery bills, but also a collection of recipes to make cooking at home interesting again.

You can modify the filling in these tender pasta tubes however you like.  Cottage cheese, parmesean, basil and spinach would be yummy!  Or pizza toppings stuffed inside would be sure to please the kids.  Here’s how I made them:

Boil your manicotti noodles according to package directions.  Drain and rinse with cool water until cool enough to handle.  Meanwhile combine the manicotti filling ingredients listed below.

Manicotti filling:

1 lb ground beef, browned

1 cup shredded mozarella cheese

1 cup Italian style bread crumbs–(you can make your own with dry/toasted bread heels a blender and dry Italian seasoning)

1 Tablespoon worchestershire saucef–the secret ingredients that makes these the best!

1 teaspoon garlic powder

Stuff into cooked shells. 

Place stuffed shells in a greased 9 x 13 pan.

Top with a jar of spaghetti sauce and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. 

Sprinkle with parmesean cheese for good looks :).

It’s tasty with salad and green beans.

Moving Into the Kitchen

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All the cabinets are in and I am putting in shelf liner!

I chose printed vinyl from Jo-Ann’s and am using spray glue to hold it in place.  I really like the look.  It’s fun to open the boxes of kitchen items I haven’t seen since  April. 

I’m really liking the glass front doors on this cabinet.  It’s the only glass we put in since most of our stuff is useful but not pretty.

My favorite cabinet so far!

We still need countertops, a sink, crown moulding, and baseboard trim, but for now–it’s such an improvement.

Strawberry Pizza

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The Lesson:  Use what you have. 

I found a huge sale on cake mixes for $.49 each about 9 months ago and I bough a LOT.  Normally we don’t consider cake mixes food, but when I need to take a treat to a gathering, it can make it a lot less stressful.   I’ve tried making cake from scratch and I’ve never gotten it to turn out well.  (Unless it is fruit filled cake, like fresh apple cake, carrot or zucchini cake–Yum!)

Cake mixes make cake (duh), but they also make cookies, brownies, sweet pie crust, and fruit crisp topping. 

This summer has been especially busy for us and I often feel overwhelmed.  I needed a quick snack to take to our monthly family worship gathering and thought about what I had on hand:  cake mix, fresh strawberries that really needed to be used, a tiny amount of powdered sugar, strawberry jello, and an open brick of cream cheese needing to be used.  Strawberry pizza was the natural choice!  Since I was using what I had on hand, I didn’t follow a recipe.  Here’s what I did:

Strawberry Pizza:

Crust:  1 cake mix, 1 stick butter melted, 1 egg.  Mix all together in an electric mixer and roll onto a pizza pan.  Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Cool completely

Frosting:  8 oz cream cheese (can use lowfat or non-fat) 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla.  Whip together and spread over crust.

Top with sliced strawberries.  You can glaze with strawberry jello mixed with 1/2 cup warm water until it dissolves.  But it was almost too sweet that way.  It would have been better plain or with whipped cream.

New Wall Art: Framed Pointe Shoes

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The lesson:  If you can’t find what you want at a price you can afford, wait.  It will turn up.

While we were thinking of ideas for my daughters’ bedroom remodel, I decided it would be fun to add a little piece that nods to their love of ballet.  I was going to need a large oval frame and an old pair of pointe shoes.  As I shopped discount decor stores I found that most frames like that retailed for $50!  Even on clearance the best I could do was $25.  It just wasn’t going to work within my budget.

I decided to wait it out.  A few weeks later a neighbor put this frame in her garage sale for $5.  It was like new and still had the $50.00 price tag on it!

What I show you next will make many people cringe.  It was hard for me to think about too, but the black and gold, gorgeous as it was, wouldn’t look right for my purpose.  So I painted it.

At first I thought I had totally ruined it and was so glad I only risked $5.  But I braced my shoulders and focused on the plan.  I found a retired pair of pointe shoes on Etsy for $20.  They were a huge splurge for the room, but were a fraction of what I had seen other shoes go for.  Add a little ribbon from stash and voila.

I hung it from a Wall Dog screw and just for giggles hot glued a rhinestone over the screwhead.  It’s perfect, sigh.

Stir Fry at Home

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The Lesson:  Use what you have on hand.

Happy Birthday to my husband, Darren!  He helped me make the meal below.  Even though it was a simple thing to prepare and the rice cooker and frozen eggrolls made it a snap, I got in over my head with 2 pans to stir and other things to tend to and he rescued me.  Thanks dear!

Stir fry is one thing we rarely do the same twice.  If you have a reliable sauce recipe (one to follow), then you can just use what you have to fill out the dish.

This time we used a couple of chicken breasts, sliced and cooked in a skillet.  I cooked the sauce with the chicken after the chicken was mostly done.  This same sauce is nice with beef, pork, or shrimp too.

The vegetables were the rest of a bag of baby carrots, zucchini from my mother-in-loves garden, sliced onions, and fresh mushrooms that we happened to snag for $.77 a carton.  I’ve found it’s nice to add the crunchiest veggies first since they take the longest to cook.  I gradually add vegetables based on their cooking time.

The eggrolls were homemade and pre-frozen recipe here.  We baked them on a cookie sheet at 350 for 3o minutes and didn’t worry about thawing first.  Yum!

Here’s our sauce recipe which was passed to me from my sister-in-love, Gena.

Stir-Fry Sauce

2 cups cold water

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger (or powder)

Shake everything together in a blender jar until the cornstarch is dissolved.  Pour over your browned meat and cook and stir until sauce is bubbling and thickened.  Combine meat, sauce and vegetables together and serve over rice.

The Girls Get Desks!

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I found two desks this week at garage sales for $25 each.  This first desk wasn’t worth the $25 I firmly decided when I got home.  It had been chewed on by a dog all up and down the legs.  The top had deep grooves drug into it and the drawer pulls are antique and an odd size that isn’t made anymore.  You’d think I’d have noticed those things before I bought it.  But I had seen the desk on craigslist and drove 35 miles to pick it up.  I think I had love dust in my eyes.

Before

 When I finally got the desk home, and started sanding the honeymoon was OVER.  This desk was a lot of work.  I filled in all the gouges with wood puddy and sanded everything as smooth as possible.  Then gave it 2 coats of oil based rustoleum paint in glossy white.  I gave it a light spray paint at the end to get rid of any brush strokes.

After--just needs drawer pulls

 She turned out pretty :).  I’m still trying to decide what to do about drawer pulls. I tried ribbon–too flimsy.  Then I thought about making my own from wire and crystal beads.  But I think I may just spray paint the old ones brushed nickel and call it done. 

Before

 I had originally planned to get two desks of similar style.  I had two 7 drawer desks picked out and bought the first one on faith.  But the second seller sold his desk, pulled his listing, and never returned my emails :(.  Then I found this adorable piece and fell in love again.

Love the scallop on the drawer

 It took a lot less sanding and puttying to get it in order and painted up easily.  The best part is the drawer pulls were a single hole so I could get some inexpensive glass knobs from Walmart ($6 for 2) to finish the redo. 

Cute little feet

 I’m so glad I jumped into this project!  The desks look great side by side and I’m over my fear of working with oil paint.  It covers so well and outside the fumes aren’t anything to worry about.  It cleaned up easily too.  The mineral spirits just melted the paint right off the brush and it washed out in half the time latex does.

After

 I just had an idea!  Why not putty in the holes on Heidi’s desk, repaint over it and drill single holes for glass knobs? Excuse me, I think I’ll go get started :).

Side-by-side

You Are A Window

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Windows are such lovely things.

Imagine what your home would be like without one.

Windows let in light and give us a view of the outside.

I run to my window every morning to see if the sun is shining.  Our loved ones do the same with us.

We are the climate of our home.  When we are happy and smiling the sun is shining.

When we are moody or frustrated a storm rolls in for the whole home.

When people are drawn to your home, it’s you not the decor that brings them. 

It’s like the feeling you get when you sit in your mother’s kitchen.  Even the food tastes better there.

It’s not because the food IS better.  It’s because she is there.

Now it’s your turn.  When we become wives, we become windows.  We are views of the Sonshine, and His light brings a contagious joy.

Let the Sonshine in!

Easy Cord Covers

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Cord covers give a finishing touch to lighting.  It hides the industrial feeling and makes everything soft. 

They aren’t hard to make with a basic sewing machine and some ribbon.  I used Organza ribbon because it was cheap (10 yard for $2.)  I found the wider the ribbon, the easier it is to do.

Start by cutting 2 lengths of ribbon twice the length of your cord.  Then sew them together along one side with an 1/8 inch seam allowance.

Wrap the ribbon around the cord and push the cord against the first seam.  Stitch the other side of the ribbon with a 1/8 inch seam allowance, encasing the cord inside.  Be careful not to sew into the cord and make sure your lamp is unplugged :).

If you get tired of the look, you can take the stitches out or just cut off the cord cover to remove it.

More IQ Lamps

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IQ lamps are gorgeous and inexpensive to make.  I love that they blend well with a modern theme or victorian/shabby chic.  

I made 2 more this week for my daughters.  There is no central light fixture in their room and it can get pretty dark.  To help, we added the rose lamp, 2 huge mirrors on the large wall and iq lamps.  Here’s a pdf file IQ lamp curly corners 2 on page of the pattern I used.  You can click here to see my first IQ lamp post with more information. 

 This IQ lamp is unique because it is designed to puff out a little more and look “curly.”  It’s also known as the Mexican style IQ lamp. 

If you use 2 Hobby Lobby coupons for the vellum (110 lb clear “frosted” vellum in the drafting department), the lamp shade costs $4.20.  The Hemma lamp cord from Ikea to finish out the lamp is $3.99.  I used a 15 watt compact fluorescent bulb to help reduct fire risk. 

The main reason for writing this post, is the clearest video on how to put one of these together is in Spanish.  I made an English video in case any non-Spanish folks would like to make one.  The Spanish video is nice because the 2 colors really help you see what is going on.  Watching both should make it really clear for you.

How to Take-in a Skirt Waist

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Are you losing weight or plan to but don’t want to lose your favorite skirt?  Here’s a two minute alteration that will keep your clothes fitting great and can be undone if necessary.

Oops!  Youtube linked a racy video to this one.  I apologize if any of you saw that link.  I’m fixing the problem but it will take about an hour.  Check back to see the video.

How to Take in a Skirt Waist from Angela Coffman on Vimeo.

P.S.  This skirt has a side zipper.  If your skirt has a back zipper, put in 2 equal sized pleats on either side of the zipper.  Instead of pressing the pleats to center on itself, press them away from the zipper.