I Resolve

Are you a New Year's resolution maker?  For whatever reason, this year, I have  been giving my resolutions a good amount of forethought.  However, at this time, it has been determined that I'm lacking gumption for dramatic or glamorous changes this year.  After all, I'm in the process of getting the letters D and R in front of my name, which has the capacity to suck up most of my drama and glamour on any given day.  For this reason, my resoutions are few and simple.  I, Katie Jackson, do solemly swear to pack my lunch at night, Sunday through Thursday. 

January 1st, I shall be eating this:

http://www.flatoutbread.com/pbj-with-sbg-flatout-wrap/ 
and this:

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1EOZjC330qmSLhleqlRajR7eN9kyAXcBeBCkYShWsTBY

Hotdish

Minnesota girls looove hotdish.  When I was little My favorite was "Katie's Hotdish".  A hotdish, named in honor of my strong affinity... A concoction of elbow mac, cream of mushroom soup, hamburger, and canned corn.  Yum.  I have not had it in years.  I had dissimilar feelings towards "Red Hotdish"- elbow mac, condenced tomatoe soup and hambuger.  I would cry when my parents started making this entree. 

Nowadays, my husband is not open to the idea of hotdish.  I guess I can't blame the guy, I can certainly attest to the love-hate nature of hotdish.  Despite my husband's disinterest, I loooove to make the following hotdish- a modification of the recipe found on the back of the Stove Top stuffing box.

1 cup chopped chicken (I use the froze chicken breast pieces from Schwann's)
1 cups frozen vegetables (I use brocolii)
1/2 a can cream of mushroom soup
1/3 cup light sour cream
1 box Stove Top stuffing mix
1/2  cup mild shredded chedder cheese
Directions:

1.Make stuffing according to the instructions on the box.
2.Combine remaining ingredients and place in an 8X8 baking dish.
3. Top with prepared stuffing
4. Sprinkle with Cheese
Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes

Christmas Clicks

In college, I kept my baby Christmas tree up year round.  I had two sets of ornaments- Christmas and Easter.  The rest of the year, I celebrated the North woods (like many Minnesotans do)... FYI-if you're from MN, it's okay to have a fake pine tree adorning your home 12 months a year.  It's a lodge theme, I guess.  Anyway, nowadays, I live in MO, so I get to saver  my lovely tree for about a month, but after that it gets tucked under the stairs for the majority of the year.  For this reason, I feel compelled to document the beauty of my tree here, on the blog.  I also want to share some fun tips for making your tree look awesome in pictures!  If you have a DSLR camera, bust out your tri-pod and put that puppy on manual setting.  Make sure it's plenty dark outside and turn out all the lights in your home.  Crank up the camera's ISO AS FAR as it will go, set your aperture at 1.8, and select a shutter speed between 1/30 and 6 seconds (this is a broad range, but it will depend on how much ISO your camera has ).  Tah-dah:

DIY Christmas Gift: Vanilla Extract

Like most of you, every Christmas I'm on the hunt for a fun handmade gift to make. I scour the Internet (and my memory) for any ideas that are unique, easy, cute and fairly inexpensive.  This year, I came to the conclusion that I would be making vanilla extract.

First I bought 20 4-oz Clear Boston Round Bottles from Specialty Bottles and a 1/2 lb pack of Vanilla Beans from Saffron.com.  1/2 lb is roughly 45 beans. I also got a handle of vodka. 

First you'll need to cut the vanilla beans in half lengthwise and then crosswise and divide them among the bottles. I used 3 beans for each bottle.

Then pull out your funnel and pour roughly 1/2 cup of vodka into each container.

Next - put on the cap and wait!!! Easy-peasy, right?

The steeping effect sets in quickly. The vodka goes from clear to a pretty amber color. Ideally the vanilla should steep for at least a month, till the vanilla is a dark brown. The longer it steeps the stronger the vanilla flavor.

For labels,  I did a google image search for vintage vanilla lables.  I found one right away that I liked and photoshopped a  list of ingredients along with a Christmas note from Joe and I over the physician's information (apperently doctor's distributed vanilla back in the day?)  Regarding word choice, I was utilizing these gifts for business collegues and older family folk, so I listed the ingredients as "Good Tidings, Ethyl Alcohol, and Vanillas Beans".  I also added a few bows with ribbon and raffia.    

  That's it!!! Merry Christmas!

Any Given Sunday

Happy Sunday!  The following pictures are for my sister!  We have been living in our house for about 9 months and she has not been able to come and see it yet (understandably- she has had few other things going on, like giving birth).  Anyway- here is the "before & after" of our living roomm and the guest bedroom.  Just like this post, there is a kitty hiding in one of these pictures, look closely, & you'll find Stella!

Living Room Before:

Living Room After:

Living Room Before:

Living Room After:

Guest Bedroom Before:

Guest Bedroom After:

That white couch is a hide-a-bed.  We thought about putting a full bed in there, but we figured a crib might go in that same room as some point, ergo we needed something that would allow for crib space.  PS- I'm not pregnant. 

I baked some of these this afternoon: 

These are Joe's Grandma's recipe, passed onto me by Joe's Mom- thanks Judy!

Zucchini Muffins

2 cups sugar

3eggs
1 cup oil
3 cups flour
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp vanilla
Directions:
1. Grease and flour bread pan or muffin pan
2. Mix all ingredients
3. Bake bread at 350 degrees for 60 minutes (muffins bake for 30 minutes)

I started school again this week.  I've finished one semester and I have 5 to go- woot.  I have class on Wednesdays which means I work from 8:30AM-3:00 PM and then I spend the next seven hours traveling to Columbia, sitting in class, and then traveling back home.  It makes for a bit of a long day, but I know people have done much more difficult things in the interest of furthering their educations.  I'm lucky to be doing this.
 I was talking to an old friend/higher-ed colleague on the phone  last weekend.  Her husband started working at a church this past year and she shared that she had observed how similar their jobs were.  She works at the University of Minnesota, which obviously doesn't have any religious affiliation.  I can't say I was too surprised by this, education and ministry have a history of being intertwined.  As a result, similarities are intuitive.  People that know better, do better.  Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had followed my original plan of working in ministry.  I guess I'll never really know.  But, I'd like to think that if you're in the business of challenging people to expand their knowledge, you're probably making the world an exponentially better place.  Knowledge will always be greater than ignorance. 

Karma's Telling Me to Quit Watching Bacholor Pad

This is my first post from my new laptop!  I was watching a tv show on-line  in bed last weekend and I dumped half a nalgene bottle of water on my old one-opps!  I can't say anything bad about that old thing- it got me through my master's degree, my first job, my second job, the start of my third job, and my first semester of doctoral work- whew.  Rest in peace old lap top.  My cute husband bought some kind of cord on-line to get all my old files off the hard drive- what a guy- he is always quick to resolve my stupid problems! 

Alrighty- time for a recipe!  This is one I made up on my own for the most part.  I did consult simplyrecipes.com for some guidance on the pesto sauce.

Pesto Pizza
1 roll of refrigerated pizza dough
Goat Cheese
Mozzarella Cheese
Fresh Veggies (Peppers, tomatoes, onion)
Kalameta Olives
1 cup fresh basil leaves, packed
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tbs pine nuts or almonds
3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Special equipment needed: A food processor

Method
1 Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor- I use the Magic Bullet. (If you are using almonds instead of pine nuts and they are not already chopped, pulse them a few times first, before adding the basil.) Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.
2 Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
3 Unroll pizza crust onto a cookie sheet.
4 Spread sauce over the dough using a rubber spatula
5 Top with veggies, goat cheese crumbles (careful, this stuff is potent), and mozzarella cheese.

6 Cook in oven according to the pizza dough directions.

Is your husband isn't crazy about pesto and goat cheese, you might consider making a more traditional side for him... with regular pizza sauce, peperoni, and mozzarella cheese;) 

Librarian's Worst Nightmare: A Book Wreath Tutorial

It's been a while since I posted a tutorial!  Today, I'm going to share the process for creating a book wreath.  Warning- no decent books were harmed in the making of this blog post. Nor were any library books destroyed.  "Summer People" was a Target purchase a few years back.  I can't imagine re-reading this book or bestowing such a dragging story on any friends or family.  I always liked the cover though- this book finds redemption in it's physical appearance, ergo, it's perfect for the following endeavor. 

Here's what you'll need:

1 Styrofoam wreath (mine is 10 in)
1 book you're willing to destroy
1 package of stick pins
1 hot glue gun and hot glue
Paint (gray, brown, or silver)
1 Paintbrush
Now, for the process:
1. Paint the edges of the book using gray, brown or silver paint.  This will help the pages to look aged.

2. Carefully rip all the pages out of the book. 
3.  Fold each page accordion, fan style.  I made 5 creases in each page, folding the short way.

Here's my little helper, making a little weasel bed in a pile of  the finished pages.
4. Glue and pin one layer of fanned pages onto the back of the wreath like this:

5. Turn the wreath over.  Glue and pin the next layer around the outer side of the wreath.  Apply the glue on a small tab like this:

6. Attach the pages to the wreath using glue and pins with the tabs pointing up  towards the ceiling.  After this layer is complete, the wreath should look like this:

7.  On the next layer, continue applying glue on the tabs, however, this time attach the pages with the tabs pointing down. 

8.  Continue making layers with the tabs pointing up.  The final layer should be attached to the inside of the inner ring. 

You're done! Great decor for any literary enthusiast!

While I fanned the pages for my wreath, here a a few other options:

Rolling:

Making strips and ringlets:

Or a combination of rolling and fanning:

This book wreath will be hung up in our guest room on an antique window that we found under our basement stairs.  I'm really in love with antiques lately!