Too Good not to Include

I know that this is a blog created for home improvement and tips but, now that my island is done, I've been cooking up a storm!  I've also been doing a purification cleanse via Standard Process.  Without going too much into the cleanse right now, let me just tell you that I feel amazing, I've never hungry, always satisfied and I've lost a pound a day without even trying.  It's also allowed me to get really creative with the already nutritious meals I prepare for my family. I wanted to share this recipe because I love the Cheesecake Factory and this is my take on one of my absolute favorite appetizers there.



Copy Cat Cheesecake Factory Egg Rolls:
Dipping Sauce:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 teaspoon tamarind pulp*
• 2/3 cup chopped cashews
• 1 pinch powdered saffron
• 2/3 cup fresh cilantro
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 green onions
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

Egg Rolls:

• 1 large avocado, peeled, pitted, & diced***
• 2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, chopped
• 1 tablespoon minced red onion
• 1 teaspoon fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 pinch sea salt
• 3 egg roll wraps (optional)
• 1 egg, beaten

DIRECTIONS:

1. Prepare the dipping sauce by combining the cashews, cilantro, garlic, green onions, sugar, black pepper and cumin in a food processor.  Blend with short burst as not to turn the cashews into butter, but enough to chop them down into pieces the size of rice. 
2. Stir together vinegars, tamarind, honey, and saffron in a microwave safe bowl, and microwave for 1 minute. Stir until tamarind is dissolved.
3. Pour the tamarind mixture into the food processor with the cashew mixture and combine well using shorts bursts again.
4. Pour mixture into a bowl and stir in oil by hand.
5. Refrigerate until ready to use.
6. Stir together the  tomatoes, onion, 1 teaspoon cilantro, and salt.
7. Gently add the diced avocado being sure not to mash it into the mixture.

STOP HERE AND DECIDE IF YOU WANT TO FRY THE EGG ROLL S OR SERVE IN THE AVOCADO SHELLS!

Directions for the original egg roll recipe:

1. Distribute filling evenly onto center of each egg roll wrapper.
2. Position a wrapper so that a corner is pointing toward you; fold the bottom corner up, 1/4 of the way over the filling.
3. Brush remaining corners and edges of the wrapper with egg, roll up from side to side, fold top corner over all and press to seal.
4. Repeat with remaining wrappers.
5. Continue by deep-frying the egg rolls in 375 degree oil for 3-4 minutes, until golden brown.
6. Drain on brown paper towels or a clean dishcloth.
7. Slice egg rolls diagonally and serve with the dipping sauce.

Directions for my grilled low fat version:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Evenly scoop avocado mixture into the avocado shells.
3. Bake the stuffed avocados in their shells on a cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes or until hot throughout.
4. Serve avocado halves with dipping sauce.

* Tamarind pulp is found in Asian grocery stores. I made this the first time without it and it tasted just fine. I substituted tamarind jam when I made them again and didn't notice a difference.  The sauce really  good either way and what makes these extra delicious!*

**This recipe make a lot of sauce and more than enough if you double the egg roll recipe.  I would hold off on doubling the sauce unless you insist on drowning your egg rolls.**

***Half the avocados and save the peels to fill with the avocado mixture for a lighter version of this recipe.***

My Island Oasis

Some of you may know that I took a random vacation and left J to work on the house without any excuses. I was hoping that he would finish the wainscoting so I could paint when I got home but, I was in for an even better surprise! While I was gone, Jeremy installed the cabinets, rerouted the plumbing for the sink and dishwasher and had the granite installed! Seriously? Is there anything that man can't do? WOO HOO! Let me tell you what a big deal this is; I moved how long ago? February! I've been doing dishes BY HAND FOR FOUR since then! The worst part was that we bought a new dishwasher more than 6 weeks ago and it's just been collecting dust. Worse than that? We have had 4 sinks delivered to our home, three of which were broken and chipped. For some reason, FED EX couldn't refrain from dropping the front right side of the box resulting in a headache for me and my granite company. No only that, but I went through two faucets! What evs... it's in the past now. Island installed and guess what! I've still been doing dishes by hand out of habit! HA! (J wants me to be sure and include that he is done with the exception of the trim at the bottom of the cabinets for those nit picking!) Before, I had a two tiered, "W" shaped, corian topped island that was neither functional or aesthetically pleasing. Here are pictures from the first showing of the house an after we moved in
.

Now, I have a lovely 8" x 4.5" counter-height, granite rectangle that I love everything about. I've foregone the kitchen table and eat all my meals at the island now.

 


 Now it's just the wainscoting I'm waiting for so I can paint like I mentioned earlier. The cabinets in the kitchen will be replace next year so we will be painting them for the time being. We are almost done with phase one! Then we can sit back and relax err... J can sit back and relax, I'm unfamiliar with that word! By the end of summer, our house will be ready for guests and I won't be tripping on boxes and dodging construction. I seriously can't wait!

It's been awhile... oh how I've missed working

I know, I know.... I haven't posted on here in quite some time but that doesn't mean I haven't been working my ass off! In fact, this is what I've done: I got caught up on the last bit of laundry from the time we moved in. Ladies and gentlemen, I did 10 loads of laundry in 2 days to get rid of the piles of clothes strew about in the sitting room. I also managed to get all the book unpacked and shelved on two new bookcases in the sitting room and the desk was finally assembled and moved to the sitting room as well. We repaired the roof before we lost our home owner's insurance and we have been assembling the new island in the kitchen. I finally unpacked my craft room so I could start sewing those famous little dressed I whip up for my girls all summer long. I located Christmas presents that got tucked away and lost in the move. Oops... And that wasn't all... I finally hung pictures in the family room and worked on the yard picking up my second case of poison ivy. And here is a project I've actually taken pictures of thus far: For my craft room, I needed a place to sit. (I'll share pics of my awesome creative space when I finally have ALL the boxes unpacked in there!) I made it a point to buy a desk or build one yesterday and I did just that with this $10 Craigslist find.

The middle drawer was busted and I fixed it along with taking wood putty and filling in any holes from the original hardware that the previous owner didn't bother to do when they added the new hardware. I also sanded it slightly and whipped out my good old friend, Zinsser Cover Stain and slapped a half ass job of primer with a sponge brush on the old thing. Now, I did all of this work outside in the sun and I used solar energy to speed this process along. Basically, I didn't want a piece of shiny new furniture; I wanted something fun and distressed that I could be creative with in my craft room. I was too cheap lazy tired busy to go to the store for a turquoise colored paint so I rummaged through my acrylic stuff. It took about 5 minutes for the primer to dry so I grabbed a new sponge brush and painted the desk blue with acrylic paint right out of the bottle.

And right before the sun set, the sky itself gave me the idea to smear a little bright red acrylic paint here and there on the desk.

This afternoon, I started in on my desk again with some white paint I used to paint the dressers I did a few months ago. I was bummed though; it was too clean and smooth and thick and covered up all the brush marks I'd left earlier. Also, it was such good quality paint, it didn't do anything for me when I tried sanding it.

Oh well, I sat there mixing red, blue, green, yellow and purple acrylic paint because I didn't have any stain at the house and I was too cheap lazy tired excited to drive to the store to get stain. I had a nice brown color but dumped in too much greed at the end and wound up with a dirty gray color. Shit happens and I just went with it. Oh well! I dipped in my sponge brush and grabbed a dirty rag off the garage floor and wiped the gray on like it was a stain. I'm plenty imaginative and just pretended I bought what I actually needed.

I liked it! I ALMOST left it this gray color but I'm so happy I had taken a picture of the desk when it was blue. I figured the best way to get a light wash was to go back to my original blue color but add a little water to the acrylic paint. I did just that and used the same dirty rag to rub it off in some areas. I finished my project by distressing it with sandpaper. I had to really scrub hard to get the look I wanted. What ended up happening was the red and blue and gray from earlier peeked through in some places. I'm really happy with how the desk turned out. Better yet, the project was so stress free. Basically, I just kept layering and sanding until I got the look I wanted. Better yet, the sun dried the paint so fast!

One last thing I HAVE got to add too it that the finish on this piece is so SMOOTH!!! Sanding the desk top a little bit made the desk so sleek and shiny. I almost like the finish on this better than the dresser I did before. The acrylic paint also added a little bit of shine to it. I'm sure if you wanted a glossy finish, you could top this with a wax or polyurethane coat. However, I'm much too cheap lazy tired satisfied with how this piece turned out!

Wainscoting

I have been looking forward to this project for as long as I can remember! The first time we visited this house, I went home and began brainstorming ideas on how I would change it and what I would do differently; this was an idea that came to mind. I wanted tall beautiful wainscoting up the walls of the stairway and throughout the main living area to break up the height of the cathedral ceilings and accent the wall of windows in the living room. Finally, J cut up the wood and my secret ingredient to make this project extra special arrived after moths of picking and choosing and wheeling and dealing. Ahhh.... and here it is so far:

Isn't it wonderful?!?! Okay, here's how I did it. This project was VERY easy. I was dreading having to buy wallpaper glue and imagined the wallpaper dripping and not sticking but NO. It was easy as pie. What was hard was picking out the anaglypta. And forget using that word at Home Depot or Lowes. They thought I was sneezing and spasming at the same time. Say paintable wallpaper and they will direct you to some hideous crap. However, walk into Sherwin Williams and they still think you're sneezing but they can dig out an old dusty book and you can knock yourself out with choices. I checked their only anaglypta book out and for two weeks, searched the internet for the best look and best price. Here is the exact anaglypta I went with: http://www.creativewallcovering.com/pc/2ana-rd80029/anaglypta/Egon+Textured+Vinyl+Anaglypta+Paintable+Wallpaper.html
 I did buy it from Sherwin Williams because I couldn't beat their prices anywhere, not ebay, amazon, etc... I also looked everywhere specifically for an anaglypta border but couldn't find any that were wider than 4 or 5 inches. Our border is 6" so I just bought some striped anaglypta and cut the pattern at 6". I also learned a lot about paint-able wallpaper during the past few months so let me save you some trouble when you see the following words:

•   Anaglypta- it's actually been around forever! It was used in the Victorian period because it's pretty, decorative and can be cleaned easily. It's made of paper, feels like foam, should be used on smooth surfaces and relatively cheap. Expect to pay at least $40 a double roll. 
• Supaglypta- it's a little more ridged than anaglypta. It's better for rough surfaces like ceilings because it's more durable and feels kind of like poster board. It too has been around forever and costs about the same as the anaglypta. In fact, Supaglypta can be interchangeable with anaglypta. 
• Lincrusta- this is the mother of anaglypta. It was invented first in 1877 and used because it's super sanitary and can be washed easily. It's way more durable and actually hardens the longer it's on your walls, becoming more durable with time. It's main component is linseed oil and wood. It too is highly decorative and very beautiful but it will break your bank at $300+ a roll!!! 

 So there you have it! That's phase one of my future staircase and walls. J will be back painting this weekend to do the trim and molding and I can't wait to slap the main color on the walls!

My Half Finished Projects

I mentioned that my progress would be much slower with a 5 and 3 year old slowing me down. I can't work well into the night anymore and I think J is about sick of working on the house unless he's tearing things down. Forget clean up... that's apparently my job too. And I just haven't had the energy and spark to work into the wee hours of the morning. So here's what I've been doing. None of these projects are finished. I know. I know. I should probably work on one thing at a time. I hear you. But sometimes my wonderful hubby just likes to scare the crap out of me with the sound of a crashing wall. You'll see what I mean... OPENING UP OUR LIVING ROOM:

We decided to open up the formal living room and make the house more open and less choppy. The best way to do this was by removing the wall between the formal living room and the In-law Suite Master Bedroom. We saw no need for such a large guest room and wanted to have access to the double doors that led outside from that room. We still have yet to paint the formal living area and I haven't even begun to decorate the new space which we refer to the "family room" now. REMOVING THE CARPET FROM THE STEPS:

I did stay up into the wee hours of the morning with this project. It was not fun pulling out every staple and and nail. But, the effort was worth it I think. First, I got rid of the nastiest carpet in the world and second, there are beautiful hard wood steps beneath! This is my inspiration photo for what I will be doing with my newly uncovered stairs:

traditional staircase design by boston architect Siemasko + Verbridge

THE KITCHEN MAKEOVER: The first time I saw this kitchen, I thought to myself, "Now THIS is a kitchen I can cook in!". I was wrong. Once I started unpacking dishes, I realized I had no counter space and the cabinets were bass ackwards. The worst part was the ginormous island taking up most of the kitchen and slowing the flow of traffic in and out of the kitchen. Also, the cabinets weren't designed for someone who cooks. There's no space for me to store my dishes or my spices. In other words, we came to the realization we would have to replace the cabinets. Oh, and I hated the huge 60" wide fridge. It was obnoxious!!! So here we go...

Our new island cabinets are here and I'm waiting on J to install them. He's been rewiring the outlets and moving the plumbing around. Meanwhile, I've been working on the sink. Let's just say I drove two hours one way to pick up a sink yesterday and got it home, pulled it out of the box and J found a huge chip in the porcelain. I'm heartbroken. I have a 4 hour trip ahead of me to return it and I might go with something different now. I'm stressed to the max because out granite needs to be measured and I'm on a timeline with that. The kids and I have been looking everywhere and they are bored out of their minds comparing sinks and faucets! That still won't stop H from modeling everything I take a picture of as you can see in these out takes:

Making Life Easier With Kids

I've been spoiled not having kids here the past few month so I can work fast and efficiently. I'm not going to lie; I could run errands for hours without someone having to go potty, ask for food, cry, whine, this, that and the other. It was awesome!!! But, realistically speaking, I've had a hard time adjusting to life with kids again and after three hectic weeks, I needed a plan. Now, I'm not the first person to implement chores or some reward system. J and I grew up with two completely different upbringings and butted heads on the topic of allowance. He got one, I didn't. I was told chores were just part of being a family. And, it wasn't until I saw what my kids were doing on their own with my parents that I realized I was working way too hard at home and doing too many things for the girls. All of the above inspired my chore charts and reward. Not only did I feel like I was barking orders and constantly reminding my kids to do the same things EVERY DAY, but I was also barking orders and constantly reminding J of what the kids were capable of and what expectations I had for them as well. First and foremost, I believe that when you are a part of a family, it's your responsibility as a family member to help out in all areas. I also believe that doing chores are something that's expected and that you shouldn't be paid an allowance for doing things expected of you. However, I do feel that you should receive praise for a job well done and encouragement and positive re-enforcement is needed for motivation. Everything I have blogged about thus far helped me create an organization system for the kids that they love too. First, I went looking for magnetic boards. I didn't want a calendar chore chart and I didn't want to place stickers down after the chores had been completed. I wanted a chart I could easily move things on and off with no mess so I figured magnets were the way to go. I was going to frame a cookie sheet but decided I wanted a magnetic dry erase board to achieve my goal for the chore chart. I saw some at Target but ended up using my 50% off coupons at JoAnns and got two huge magnetic dry erase boards for $12.99 plus tax. Then I browsed the sticker section. Man did I get overwhelmed!!! I probably spent three hours starring at stickers and brainstorming what I wanted to do. In the end, I settled on two different colors of letters and my permanent markers at home. I began to think that if I made my boards too fancy, it would be distracting to the chores and the whole point was to keep it simple. I also figured my chart needed three things: a name, the chores to be done and the finished chores. The other tough part was deciding how to list the chores. H can read but and E can't; I needed pictures of the chores and wanted the word with it like a flash card to teach them the word like a flash card. I was all set to draw out 40 different magnets when I found something so perfect on ETSY, I couldn't possibly think of making the magnets any better myself. So (GASP!!!!) I actually bought the magnets from AbbiesHouse to spare me the time. And, coincidentally, she had designed chore charts nearly identical to the charts I had made!!! I was beside myself; great minds think alike I guess! So here's the finished project, complete with my little Vanna White. FYI... she was not prompted to pose for the picture, it's her new thing to model stuff!

As far as the reward goes, you may or may not notice the star on the done side. At the end of the day, The kids get a star on their side signifying "jobs completed". If they get a star, the add a star shaped bead to a simple string necklace. That way, they can wear their stars around like a badge or sticker. I will be writing on the dry erase side things they can ear for a certain number of beads. They can exchange their beads for new coloring books, trips to certain parks, etc... Also, their are round heart magnets I use to tell them I love them and they can bring it to me for additional work that isn't on a magnet to earn extra beads too.

I'm back!!! And I missed Easter :(

Sometimes a little R&R is all you need to refresh your creativity! I will give plenty forewarning that I might not be as amazingly productive as I have been the past two months now that my little ones are home and keeping me busier than ever. However, I will do my best and post as often as I can starting with what we did on Easter. Now, I know it's late and useless to anyone now but I'm giving you 52 weeks to plan for next Easter! In fact, I've been running around so crazy these past two weeks that I thought Easter was THIS weekend, not LAST weekend! Oops!
Anyhow, without further delay, these are the eggs we died this year:


Here's a close up:


I can certainly not take credit for coming up with this genius, mess free, not to mention BEAUTIFUL method of egg dying. I have to thank Sara and Kate over at
Ourbestbites.com for this one! They give a wonderful tutorial and I have no additional suggestions to add other than what I used to tie up the eggs. I used the old school pony tail holders with the balls because I didn't have twist ties on hand. Here is the link to the tutorial: http://www.ourbestbites.com/2012/03/silk-dyed-eggs-aka-tie-dyed/
Also, I allowed the kids to get in on the messiest dessert I've ever made. It also created a mountain of dishes. This was simple really. I saw the cutest chocolate covered apples at Disney World and decided to make peanut butter, dark chocolate and white chocolate covered rice krispie treat bunnies. The kids put the eyes and noses and ear on and made some of the balls.

Here are more of my inspirations with my suggestions for next season as well. You can find the link to all these photo at my pinterest account too.


I really like this door hanging put think this would be great in a white half teapot. I saw tea pots cut in half at the Bachman house when I did the tour in MN. Add ribbon and hang indoors and I think it would be lovely!





This is a great wreath too. I would use a larger bow and a bird in place of the butterfly. You can go crazy with any assortment of egg colors and patterns and even wrap the frame with the grass.


They sell giant paper mache eggs at Hobby lobby and I believe that these would make fantastic eggs for a centerpiece. You can creatively decorate the egg using modge podge or glitter and put a beautiful bouquet of ranaculus or tulips inside. I'm definitely doing this next year. In fact, I bought my egg at 66% off already!



What is so wonderful about this idea it that you aren't limited to Easter. The clear version of these vases are sold anywhere from target to tjmaxx. You can put anything and everything in these vases all season long.