clam lights

Had a delicious clam dinner at my friend Bill's house. It was his birthday and our friend Ed, the clammer, brought these yum yums. I took these emptied clams home and intend to fill them up with tealights for the big party.

Goldfish bowl

I'm always trying different ways to display these two goldfish I bought in the Cape years ago....This is a pretty crystal bowl of my mom's. The lid broke a long time ago, but it was an expensive bowl so I never wanted to throw it out. I sometimes use it as a vase, but Sunday night, when I should have been sleeping, I decided to combine the two and pair it in the bathroom with my tulip/daisy/rose arrangement.

(I'm trying to pretty up the house for the upcoming party for Mr. Scott!)

This quote, from Tut, is so true. Just thought I would share:

Too often, Karen, the only difference between HAVE and HAVE NOT depends on whether or not the initial request was followed by a thank you, yee-haa, and action, rather than a question mark, timidity, and TV.
Don't ask. Give thanks. Bust a move.
Yo - The Universe

pretty Easter things

Here are some pretty Easter-y items I have seen over the last few weeks. The eggs, I made myself. The flowers and chocolates were all seen on my travels. The fanciful mums are the cutest, aren't they?!

Easter basket with a twist

I love Easter decorations. Everything about them, the pastels, the flowers, the cute little bunnies, they are all some of my favorite things.

This Easter Basket is one of the coolest decorations I have seen this Easter. This photo doesn't do it justice because the really cool element to this, doesn't some across well in a photo.

The special part about it is it's made of real grass. A woman I work with brought this to work last week - she said she grows the grass weeks before and uses it instead of that store bought stuff. It really makes a difference. When I saw it I was like "Wow." Can you make me one?

She just puts the grass in a basket, buys decorations, like little chickies and eggs, and then sticks real flowers in little water containers in the grass. Very clever.

Here's the simple Sunday lunch that sparked me to toss out most of the spices in my cupboard. I'm looking forward to getting a cool rack, however.

First, I started with an iceberg wedge, I love iceberg, even though it's not very nutritious, at least not as much as kale or romaine or other greens. But I LOVE iceberg texture, so I love ordering "wedge salads" when I go out to dinner. I drizzled a simple Paul Newman's Italian dressing on top and that was it. It really was delish.

I also made sloppy joe's with turkey. YUM. That's when I realized I could really use cayenee and paprika and oregano. The oregano looked really old. I added a little but then started googling and came across that really great McCormick Web site that told you everything you ever wanted to know about spices.

This turkey reciple turned out good. I didn't use buns, although I think it would have tasted even better with buns, but I'm trying to avoid carbs as much as possible. I started with olive oil, about two tablespoons and three or four cloves of garlic. With that delicious smell in the air, I was in heaven as I started getting ready for the rest of the dish. After a few minutes, I added about one pound of ground turkey and I used about a half teaspon each of oregano, paprika and cayenee. I kept stirring for a few minutes and then added a 28 ounce can of organic tomatoes, a tiny can of tomatoe paste, and about two cups of water. I kept stirring, maybe 30 minutes longer. That was it. It turned out great, eaten as sort of a stew/soup. I even took some to work for leftovers. I actually tasted even better today.

spice up your life, throw out outdated spices!

I knew some of the spices in my cupboard were old. The Dean and DeLuca ones in the adorable silver tins were at least 20 years old. I remember the boyfriend I was dating when I cooked him up nice meals with those. I hung on to them because the tins were so adorable and they were so expensive. Those were the days when I blew money like water. I knew I had to toss those. But there were dozens of others in my cupboard I didn't know what to do with.
This issue came up today because the sloppy joe recipe I was making today would have tasted really good with bay leaves and oregano but I left those out because I realized I didn't know how old those spices were.
After looking online, I found a great site, http://www.mccormick.com/Spices101/HowOldSpices/KeepingItFresh.aspx, that explains when spices are too old. Some start going after one year. McCormick says to watch the color, once the color fades, it's time to get a new bottle. Most of my spices looked pretty good. It was hard for me to tell by sight if they were no longer good.
But McCormick also allows you to punch in the codes at the bottom of the spices so you know just when they made a particular spice. When I punched in the Hot Madras Curry Powder, they told me that this particular bottle was made in August 24 of 1980! Holy smokes. The codes on some of my spices had faded, so I couldn't punch the number in, but McCormick also says that if it's made in Baltimore, it's 15 years old and should go too. "Blue spiked hair was fun for a while but don't hang onto spices from the punked ear," McCormick says.