Monthly Archives: May 2012

turkey enchiladas

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Sorry I’ve been MIA the past week … I strained my hand from overuse of the computer, so I had to take some time completely computer-free. (It’s crazy how much I use the computer in my daily life — writing, blogging, checking email — I didn’t know what to do with myself without it!)

My hands are feeling better, and today I have another delicious & healthy recipe to share with you, courtesy of my amazing mom!

Ingredients:

  • 1 package ground turkey meat
  • 1 yellow onion
  • 1 package of whole wheat tortillas
  • 1 can enchilada sauce (I like the La Victoria brand, mild)
  • a few handfuls of shredded cheese

1. Brown the ground turkey in a pan on medium heat. While the turkey is cooking, dice the onion.

2. Drain the fat from the turkey. Add the onion and cook for 2-3 minutes more.

3. Open can of enchilada sauce and pour about 1/3 of the can into a glass baking dish (I used a 10 x 13 size) so it covers the bottom.

4. Hold one tortilla in your hand. Scoop in some of the ground turkey mixture, a spoonful of enchilada sauce, and a bit of shredded cheese. Roll the tortilla closed and place in the baking dish. Repeat until all the ground turkey is gone. (I usually make 5-6 enchiladas.)

5. Pour the remaining enchilada sauce over the enchiladas and spread with a spoon until all parts of the tortilla are covered. Sprinkle with cheese.

6. Bake for 15-20 minutes in an oven set to 350 degrees.

And there you go! I served mine with green beans and a fresh garden salad. This recipe served my whole family with two extra enchiladas left over for lunch the next day! Yummy, healthy, easy and inexpensive — what more can you ask for in a meal?

Happy eating!
-Dallas

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Cost: $15.00
Time: 30-40 minutes (including bake time)

garlic, tomato & olive oil pasta

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One thing I love about being home in California is getting to eat my mom’s delicious cooking! Last night she taught me how to make a super quick, inexpensive and easy pasta dish that I immediately knew I had to share with you!

Ingredients:

– 1 box angel hair pasta
– 2 tbsp minced garlic
– 3 roma tomatoes, cut into pieces
– 1/4 cup olive oil
– 1 package chicken breasts
– feta cheese to taste

1. Cut up the chicken breasts into chunks and saute in some olive oil until cooked all the way through.

2. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cook angel hair pasta for approx. 3 minutes. {Be very careful not to overcook angel hair pasta!}

3. Coat bottom of a pan in olive oil and saute the minced garlic while pasta is cooking.

4. Drain pasta and dump it into the garlic and olive oil mixture. Stir until all the pasta is coated. Add the tomatoes and chicken and mix well.

5. Top with feta cheese if desired.

Ta da! Could not be easier, faster, or tastier! What are some of your favorite quick & healthy recipes?

Till Friday,
Dallas

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Cost: about $15.00
Time: 10 minutes

marvelous monday: mother’s day every day

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Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day yesterday! I feel very blessed I got to celebrate with not only my amazing mom, but my grandma, too! She and my Grandpap were in town for my brother’s graduation and decided to stay a couple extra days so we could all celebrate Mother’s Day together as well.

I think it’s great to have a day specially dedicated to celebrating mothers, but I also think we should make our mothers and wives {and all the mother figures in our lives} feel special and loved each and every day.

Here are some ways you could make every day Mother’s Day:

– send a handwritten card or thank-you note just because

– pick up some flowers on your way home, or send some over the Internet

– do a load of your mother’s laundry to thank her for the many, many loads of laundry she’s done for you throughout your life! {ditto for washing a sinkful of dirty dishes, filling up near-empty gas tank, or straightening up a messy living room}

– go grocery shopping and cook dinner

– pick up the phone and call just to see how her day is going and say you love her

The older I get, the more and more I realize how extremely fortunate I am to have such an incredible mom who is also my friend, confidante, advice guru, and role model of a strong, confident, intelligent and inside-and-out beautiful woman. I’m so happy I get to spend a few more weeks at home with my mom {and the rest of my family!} before heading back to Indiana for the summer.

I’m so grateful for the other marvelous mother figures in my life: my grandma, my aunts, Holly’s mom Susan, Erica’s mom Darai, my mom’s best friend Alicia, and various teachers and mentors including Tania, Aimee, and Rima. And I also remember my grandma Auden and dear friend Jewell who are no longer with us, but who I still think of often.

Have a marvelous Monday, and spread some love! ❤

-Dallas

take-out menu storage

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Happy Friday! I have a quick and easy organizational post for you today.

Remember a few weeks ago when I posted about my new stationary organization system thanks to a $1 accordian file folder I found at Target? I was kicking myself for not grabbing more of those folders … and then last week when I was browsing the clearance section I came across a stack of those very folders in various sizes! {score}

I grabbed a smaller one in a versatile black color because I had a hunch it would come in handy. Today, inspiration struck about how I should use it: to organize the various take-out menus cluttering up and falling off the fridge.

Like when I organized my stationary, this could not have been an easier project. All I had to do was take down all the menus from the fridge and slide them into the various pockets organized by different types of cuisine: Chinese, Thai, Mediterranean, Indian, pizza, burger/diner food, and dessert.

Last, I found the perfect place to tuck it away next to my reusable grocery bags, still within easy reach when I don’t feel like cooking and want to order take-out!

In fact … maybe I’ll kick off the weekend by doing just that!

xoxo,
Dallas

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Cost: $1.00
Time: 5 minutes

brown sugar, cinnamon & apple cookies

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Last week I posted about my new Brown Sugar Bear and how it rejuvenated my previously hard-packed brown sugar. {yay!}

Today I used my newly softened brown sugar to make cookies based on a recipe that came on the packaging of the Brown Sugar Bear. Here is the original recipe:

– 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
– 1 cup brown sugar, packed
– 2 cups flour
– 1 egg
– 1 tsp vanilla
– 1 tsp baking soda
– 1/8 tsp salt
– nuts to taste {I used slivered almonds}

I made a couple modifications:
– I added 1 tsp cinnamon
– I substituted 1/3 cup applesauce for the egg

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream butter through sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla. {I used no sugar added granny smith applesauce instead of the egg}

3. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the sugar mixture. Mix well.

4. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet.

5. Bake for 6-8 minutes until golden-brown.

They turned out delicious! Smelled divine while they were baking and tasted even better, especially warm from the oven. And they could not have been easier to make.

Have a Wonderful Wednesday!
-Dallas

marvelous monday: the midnight stroll around the neighborhood

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Ever since I’ve been focused on making my Mondays {and every day} marvelous, I’ve been able to appreciate them much more and find moments to cherish and be grateful for even in the midst of busy days. Still, sometimes life feels even more chaotic than normal. Sometimes when I hear the alarm blaring on Monday morning, truly signaling the end of a fun & relaxing weekend, it’s hard for me to wake up and seize the day. Sometimes we all have those tired/headachey/blah days that feel like a series of one spilled-glass-of-milk after another.

Today was an especially busy Monday for me. My “to do” list included: finish up my grading, pack to head home to California for my brother’s college graduation {woo hoo Greg! Fight on!} and get ready for my Fifth Annual Youth Writing Camp coming up in a couple weeks, not to mention regular end-of-semester stuff like meeting with students, saying goodbye to friends who I’ll miss for the summer, and squeezing in loads of laundry and dishes so as not to leave my apartment a gross mess while I’m away for a month in California…

So tonight, I stepped away from my overheated laptop and went for a walk around the neighborhood.

There’s something really peaceful about walking through quiet, darkened streets in the summer air. The streetlights hum, the crickets chirp, and the air is fresh and cool against my skin. I’ve always loved staying awake late — it feels like a magic time, when the rest of the world is asleep but I am still awake. It is my favorite time to daydream.

It was the perfect marvelous ending to an otherwise crazy-busy day!

flour & sugar storage

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I am so excited to share my new flour and sugar containers with you today! {the ones I gave you a peek at on Wednesday}

I love to bake, but you wouldn’t know it just by looking through my disorganized kitchen cabinet of baking supplies!

I decided that this week was time for a change. Not just for aesthetic reasons, but also practical ones: it was cumbersome to open the plastic baggies I kept my flour and sugar in to try to keep them fresh. Flour and sugar would inevitably spill onto the counter, making a mess.

Thanks to some inspiration from some other organization bloggers, I decided to invest in pretty containers to keep my flour and sugar fresh and neat. I found these online at The Container Store. I chose the glass canisters because I loved the timeless look — my pantry shelves are not very tall so I planned to display the canisters on my countertop, and I wanted something pretty and classic looking.

I got an 80 oz canister for the flour and two 32 oz canisters for the sugar and brown sugar. I also like these canisters because they have wide enough openings to reach in with measuring cups and take scoops out.

Then today, after washing the jars with soap and water and letting them dry overnight, all I had to do was pour my flour and sugar {including my newly softened brown sugar!} into each jar and press down on the sealed-tight lids.

Now I’m more eager than ever to get baking! Stay tuned next week when I try out the new recipe I got for brown sugar/ cinnamon/ apple cookies!

Happy weekend,
Dallas
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Time: 15 mins
Cost: $22.00 ($9.99 for the 80 oz, $5.99 for each 32 oz one)

brown sugar bear <3

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I like cooking in general, but I think my ultimate culinary love is baking. I simply love to bake. Banana bread, pumpkin pies, berry muffins, brownies, cookies, cakes — to me, baked goods are filled with care and sweetness and love.

I was going to bake banana bread the other night, but when I went to scoop out some brown sugar I had a problem: it was hard as a rock!

Ack! Would I have to toss it out and get a whole new package? It seemed like such a waste, and I hate to be wasteful.

After some online sleuthing, I found a solution: the Brown Sugar Bear!

The Brown Sugar Bear is a small terra cotta figure that promises to keep brown sugar moist {or bring rock-hard brown sugar back to life} if you soak it in water and then place it in your brown sugar container. You can also use it to keep salt, spices or crackers/chips dry if you dry the bear out in the oven first.

So my first step was the soak the Brown Sugar Bear in water for 20 minutes:

Next, I placed it in my package of unusable brown sugar and sealed it up overnight.

The next morning, it was like magic — my brown sugar was wonderfully soft again! So I poured it out of the bag and into my new container, and made sure to put my new magic Brown Sugar Bear on top before I sealed the lid on.

Isn’t the little guy adorable?? I could not be happier with this purchase!

Next week, stay tuned for a new recipe: brown sugar cookies! {It came with the Brown Sugar Bear and I can’t wait to try it out}

Meanwhile, on Friday I’ll give you the full tour of my new flour and sugar containers that you got a peek at today.

-Dallas
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Time: 5 mins
Cost: $3.50