Monday, March 25, 2013

Pink, Pink everywhere

I know last time I blogged I talked about a project I have been working on that was a gift for a friend of mine who just had a beautiful baby girl last week.  Well I did give it to her on Saturday so I can finally share it with you :)

I actually found this pattern on Pinterest and I absolutely love it!  It is a messenger style bag that can be converted to a stroller bag.  Here is the original link from Pinterest.
http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2010/09/2-in-1-bag-stroller-bag-into-messenger.html

So I started out by cutting out all the peices and to be honest, this was the most difficult part.  Not so difficult but rather time consuming.  After that I got started on the bag and the straps and started sewing them together.

It was pretty awesome to see the progress so fast.  I am not sure if that I means I am getting quicker or it was just a less complicated pattern. lol  Either way I was quite happy with how it turned out.
As you can see I used two different materials.  The bright pink zebra print was actually a curtain fabric that was a bit heavier that your average material and the lining was a cotton which I totally fell in love with :) 

So here is the finished product.  I used snaps to convert from the stroller version of the bag to the messenger style as well as some velcro for reinforcement.

 You can see the velcro here and the two different materials.
I also made a wallet off of Pinterest that matches this bag.  I think it is awesome.  Here is the link I took the pattern from. http://modestmaven.blogspot.de/2012/02/bi-fold-wallet-tutorial.html

Again I had to cut out the peices however this was a lot less time consuming as they were much smaller.

This was kind of fun as I have never sewn a wallet before but here is the finished product.  Well almost finished.  I still have to add the snap to it but for the most part it is complete :)

You can see that there is enough space for 8 cards to be put as well as the wallet part.  I hope you enjoyed my crafts :)  And here is a pic of the babe that inspired it all!
Beautiful lady!
 

Friday, March 22, 2013

Fell off the wagon

So sad to say but this week has had nothing focused on this blog but today I am back at it.  I have started a few different crafts but I wanted to start with a couple of the recipes we had recently.

The first I will begin with was the romano Turkey Burgers.  Ok - I am not sure if any of you have had home made turkey burgers before but I can tell you this got a big thumbs up for me.  I had to start by mixing all the ingredients together in a bowl from the ground turkey, romano cheese, minced onions, garlic powder & salt and pepper....





 Then formed them into patties so we could eat them like burgers.

 The directions asked me to pace the patties on a broiler pan and broil for 10 minutes however I found that they didn't quite cook as quickly as I would have liked and I ended up finishing them off in the frying pan for a few moments.

In the meantime, I wanted to make a side with this so lately my specialty is cutting up potatoes and baking them in the over with spices so that is exactly what I did :)  I added my own special blend of spices and voila!  Here is the finished product.



Now I have been rating what Curtis and I have been giving this food however I think I rated this a bit higher then Curtis so we have agreed to settle in the middle at 8.5.

The next day we tried a little something I would have never tried on my own ever.  It was called Butternut Ravioli Stew.  This I have to admit is a MUST TRY.  This is definitely moving out of the comfort zone for me but I loved it.  Also there is no meat in this so for anyone avoiding meat - This could be a little treat.

I started out chopping my onions in my mini chopper as usual.  Anyone who knows me, knows I am not an onion fan but when in a meal, I can definitely pull it off.



After this I had to prepare the butternut squash.  This was a little bit of a process.  I had to start with stabbing it, then microwaving it for about 5-8 minutes.  Now looking back I could have probably put it in there longer to cook more but it worked.

Then I split it in two, deseeded it and then cut it in cubes.


After this was completed I took the onions and cooked them in a pot with a little butter then added the squash with some liquids and spices (cinnamon, ginger, broth) and let it simmer for a while.  The recipe states that 10 minutes should be sufficient however I undercooked the squash starting out so I wanted to make sure it was cook throughout now. 
 While that was being cooked, I them had to boil water and cook the ravioli.  Once this was done I was to drain it and set it aside.

Finally I was to go back to the squash and take half of it, put it in my blender and add 3/4 cup of neufchâtel cheese.  Well I am not sure if it is because that isn't common around here or I was just stunned but I couldn't locate this cheese anywhere.  I googled it and found out that this is comparable to cream cheese so I added a full block of cream cheese to this mixture and blended it all together until it was smooth.  Then I needed to add this back to the remainder of the mixture along with the ravioli.  Then I was to add some half & half and heat it until it was almost a simmer.  
By this point, my kitchen smelled delicious.  It was so aromatic and I was looking forward to eating this.  
We ended up eating this for a couple of days afterwards and I was not complaining.  Curtis and I would rate this an 8.5 out of 10.  We did truly enjoy this and would definitely make this again.  

As for my crafts, I made something for a friend of mine, who just had a baby and due to the fact that there is a chance she might read this, I am going to have to wait on showing you the finished product.  Hopefully by Sunday I will have it up here.  Until then hope you enjoyed our newest dishes :)

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Beef....It's What's for Dinner

Last night I went out and purchased all my groceries that I would need to make supper for the next week and prepared for today's lunches and supper.  The first recipe on the list for today was Ginger Beef.  Ok, I have to admit I was a bit freaked out over this recipe.  I am not one to normally jump out of my comfort zone when it comes to foods however I have been quite proud of myself with the food I have been eating and tonight was no exception.  This meal started with some centre cut steak I purchased at Costco.   I had to cut this up into strips and sauté it with fresh grated ginger and extra virgin olive oil.



 After this was done, I set it aside and added some frozen veggies to the frying pan.  This only took about 6 minutes to fully cook and in the mean time, I also boiled the water and cooked the egg white noodles for it.




After the noodles were cooked, I drained them and then added several other ingredients to them, including peanut butter, red pepper flakes, soya sauce and green onions.



Then came the mixing.  I have to admit this was a little interesting to do as the peanut butter was sticky as you would expect but after it heated up a bit, it stirred in perfectly.

Once this was all stirred in, I added the veggies and beef to the pasta mixture and Voila!  Toute Fini! :)


Curtis and I definitely enjoyed this meal.  We figured we would rate it about a 8 out of 10 and would definitely make it again....As well as eat it for lunch tomorrow.  Yay leftovers :)

Monday, March 11, 2013

Viva Las Vegas

So as I stated in my previous post I was in Las Vegas last week and oh my goodness it was something else.  I have never seen anything so grand in all my life.  I was there for work however I did have some fun while at the same time.  First and foremost we stayed at Caesar's Palace and lets just say holy cow.  Here are a few pics of my room while I was away along with the view.





I ended up going to see a Cirque du Soleil show called "Mystere".  There are apparently are 6 or 7 different shows that Cirque does including "O" and "The Beatles".   Also there was the Bellagio Hotel and Casino that was right beside our hotel.  This is the hotel that they rob in Ocean's 11.
And the fountain in front of it is amazing.  I have seen it both during the day and the night and I do prefer the night as it also includes a light show but I only took pictures during the daytime.

On the last night we were there - we went to a restaurant that over looked the fountain and the Paris hotel.  It was a sweet view for sure.



This was a few of the people that were with us from New Brunswick.  A very nice stranger took the picture for us :)

Even though both of these hotels were amazing, after going to the Venitian hotel I was mesmerized.  The art on the ceiling and the indoor gondola rides were quite the additions that really made the experience.




Salvador was the name of our gondola driver...if that is proper name for it. lol.  He sang to us and everything.  It was definitely worth the $18.65 it costed us.   These are two of my friends that were down there during the conference as well.  Also notice the ceiling - all the hotels have made them look like the sky and they change the lighting to make it look either day or night.  Pretty cool.

While I was in Vegas, I had the absolute privilege to see my parents as they were down in the US when I was.  We ended up going on a little road trip to the Grand Canyon.  After that experience, I can tell you that God is amazing.  It felt like it was a picture that I could reach out and touch.














So that is a very short description of my week but without writing until midnight, I guess I have to say goodnight.  All around the trip was amazing.  I learned a lot for work and I met a lot of great people.  I hope you enjoyed my pictures :)