Mason Jar Smoothies

One Christmas during my college years, I received a Magic Bullet as a gift. I loved that thing. It was so convenient and compact and most importantly quick and easy clean up. Somewhere along the way, my dear Magic Bullet has got lost in the shuffle. Between graduating from college, moving home for a few months before moving to Kentucky for a year to volunteer and then uprooting my entire life and restarting it in Michigan, goodness only knows where that darn contraption has ended up. Every once in a while, I get a hankering for a smoothie but then I think about having to clean up my blender and I and my lazy self usually decide against it. However, I recently discovered an amazing trick that can turn my ordinary sized blender into a Magic Bullet of sorts that serves up individual sized smoothies in a to go cup. Seriously amazing. And all you need is a Mason jar. 

Om Nom Nom

You simply take the bottom part of the blender with the blade and screw it on top of your deliciousness-filled Mason jar. (I was skeptical that it would fit, but it really does!) Then you flip it on to the motor portion and blend away. I made a Peanut Banana Oat Smoothie that was absolutely delicious. I used 1 medium banana, 1 Tablespoon of Better 'N Peanut Butter (an amazing low fat peanut butter sold at Target), 3/4 to 1 c of skim milk, several ice cubes, and a couple spoonfuls of old fashioned oats. Once everything is well blended, not only do you have a quick and delicious smoothie but it is already in a lovely glass jar. And the clean-up is oh so quick. I'm telling you this discovery has changed my entire breakfast life. 

In other exciting news, Kevin and I spent our Valentine's Day having our second edition of the Chopped Challenge. This time in honor of the Hallmark Holiday we decided to do a Red & White theme for our food choices. Just like last time, we each individually chose an ingredient and then picked two ingredients together. We ended up with white asparagus (mine), canned dark sweet cherries in heavy syrup (Kevin), steak, and French bread. The cherries were definitely the difficult ingredient not only because they didn't quite match everything else, but also because they tasted absolutely foul. They were not sweet at all, just all sorts of nasty. Kevin came out the winner this time with his take on a Steak and Swiss with a Sweet Cherry Dressing, but no thanks to his absolutely foul Lemon Cherry Asparagus. Although my presentation was much improved from last time, the lack of seasoning on my steak lost me the competition with my Sliced Steak with Grilled Asparagus and Parmesan on top of a Crostini. The score now stands 1-1...until next time in the Chopped Kitchen.

The Ingredients and Our Final Dishes

Easy English Muffins

For any person who knows me halfway decently either through this blog or in real life, you have probably realized that I enjoy things homemade way more than their manufactured counterparts. From my wedding cake topper to my laundry detergent, I like to do things with my own two hands. The reasons behind this are various, but include the lessened cost of doing things yourself and the comfort in knowing exactly what is going into whatever it is you are making. 

I recently have been trying to carry this homemade concept over into my cooking as well. I love the idea of taking foods that are considered store bought staples and finding ways to make them at home. I have tried this with a few food items (hummus, tortillas, pickles, and pasta) with varying levels of success. Recently, I decided to take on a new food makeover - English Muffins. I found a recipe for them on Pinterest where I spend entirely too much time looking at recipes, crafts, workouts, and home decorating ideas that I will probably only ever complete a small portion of. 

Now I know some people are not the biggest fan of English Muffins, but I personally don't mind them at all. I usually have at least one package in our freezer. I use them in place of bread for sandwiches and we sometimes make mini pizzas with them when we are lacking inspiration for dinner. 

The finished product making its debut in my breakfast

I wish I could say that they came out exactly as I imagine or at least as good as they looked in the pictures. However, they were thinner and more dense than store bought muffins. They were absolutely delicious in their own way, but not quite the same as their store bought version. It was almost like they needed a little baking soda or something to make them fluff up or perhaps I made a mistake with the yeast or kneading. Despite the differences, I think I'm definitely going to stick with the homemade version with perhaps a few adjustments as it was not very complicated to make and even passed Kevin's taste test. He actually said they had a 'donut-like' sense to them which I have no idea how that is, but I guess that means he didn't notice the whole wheat-ness of them which I always consider a success.

In case you are interested in trying your own hand at this I have included the recipe I followed (with a few adjustments of my own):

Homemade English Muffins

Adapted from myfairbaking.blogspot.com

• 1 cup of milk
• 3 tbsp butter (I used a little less)
• 3 tbsp honey
• 1 cup warm water (105-110 degrees)
• 1/4 oz of yeast
• 2 tbsp cornmeal
• 5 cups All Purpose Flour (I did half whole wheat flour in mine)
• 1 tsp of salt

Directions:

The Baking Process in Progress

• Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water, mix lightly and set aside for ten minutes to foam lightly. 
• In a small saucepan, heat the milk, butter and honey until the butter is melted. Let cool lightly.
• Combine the yeast mixture and milk mixtures gently. 
• In a large bowl, sift 3 cups of flour. Stir in the milk and yeast. Sift the remaining flour and salt. Stir until cohesive.
• Knead the dough for 3 minutes on lightly floured surface or until lightly elastic. Let rest for 5 minutes.
• Meanwhile, cover two cookie sheets with parchment and lightly sprinkle with cornmeal. 
• Flour your work surface lightly and roll the dough out until it's a 1/2 inch thick (don't roll too thin) and then cut into circles to make your muffins. 
• Gently place on the cookie sheets, sprinkle the tops with cornmeal and cover with a dry, light cloth. Let sit in a warm place for 45 minutes or til nearly doubled in size. 
• Heat a heavy bottomed skillet on medium low. No grease necessary.
• Gently place a muffin in your hand and shake lightly to remove some of the corn meal. Place into the pan and repeat til the pan is full. Don't let them touch each other. 
• Cook for 8 minutes on low per side or until browned well. Flip and cook again. (I found that you have to cook them longer than 8 minutes to really cook them all the way through the middle.)
• Let cool lightly on a wire rack.

Happy Baking!

You've Been Chopped

Yesterday, Kevin and I were excited to have an entire day off together which can sometimes seem like a rarity in our busy lives (although with me now working nights we do see each other much more often which is lovely). Since we had a whole day to ourselves, I decided to break out one of the ideas I had from our date night jar that I made Kevin for Christmas. The jar consists of Popsicle sticks painted one of three colors each representing a different type of date: dark blue means more expensive/planning ahead involved, regular blue means average cost/moderate planning, and light blue is nearly free/stay-at-home/little-to-no planning involved. This way when we are plum out of ideas for what to do with our free time we have a little help and we can pick from each category based on how much effort we feel like putting into the days activities. 

Some of you may not be aware of this, but Michigan has been absolutely freezing lately. I'm talking single digit numbers here and with the wind chill its even been in the negative. Miserable. Especially for someone like me who is always cold. I generally wear leggings under my sweatpants to keep from being absolutely frozen. I say all of that to say that there was slim chance of getting me to want to venture outside for any sort of adventure so I decided to stick with a stay-at-home/basically free date - our very own Chopped Challenge.

Our Individual  & Shared Supply Stations

I have recently been watching a lot of Chopped on the Food Network; the concept for this show is pretty interesting. For those of you who have never watched,let me fill you in briefly. The show consists of a cooking competition between four contestants. There are three rounds - appetizer, entree, and dessert - with one contestant being eliminated each round leaving a winner after the dessert round. The twist with the show is the mystery basket that the contestants open each round which holds usually three different ingredients that they must incorporate into their dishes in creative and innovative ways. Usually these ingredients are not well known like an exotic fruit or perhaps not ones you would associate with fine dining such as canned pasta. The chefs have very limited time to come up with an idea for what they are going to make with their mystery ingredients, execute the dish, and get it plated before the timer goes off. 

Kevin 'The Iron Chef' in the heat of the battle

I thought it would be a lot of fun to have our very own version of Chopped and so we decided to modify the rules a little to make it work in our tiny apartment kitchen. We each got to individually pick one of the ingredients and then together picked a third ingredient which gave us a 'mystery basket' of turkey sausage, blueberries, and wheat thins. We were not allowed to use the internet to look up recipes before or during the challenge. We decided that we would have thirty five minutes to make an entree and split up our limited counter space and cookware and each took one half of the stove-top to make everything as fair as possible. And then the cook-off began! Kevin kept a running commentary like he was on Iron Chef for most of the time (he's never actually seen Chopped so he was a little confused which show he was on). 


After thirty five minutes we were left with a sink overflowing with dishes and two very interesting creations. Kevin made a 'Penne, Italian Sausage, & Broccoli Casserole with Crushed Crackers & Mozzarella Cheese Topping in a Blueberry White Wine Sauce' and I made a 'Sweet and Savory Feta & Sausage Cinnamon Cracker Crepe with a Balsamic Blueberry Reduction'. We each tasted both dishes and then graded them on a scale of 1 to 5 (with one being the worst) in four different categories: plating, creativity, taste, and use of the ingredients. Kevin won by far in plating as I barely managed to get my food on the plate before the timer went off and the blueberry sauce on top did not drizzle down the way I planned but rather just sort of plopped very unappealingly. Taste was a toss up - blueberry overwhelmed both the dishes in a not so pleasant sort of way (although Kevin plans on eating the leftovers from his today - brave man). After the points were tallied and averaged, I ended up coming away with the win by just half a point due to my creativity in the use of the ingredients and the originality of the dish. 

My Crepe Creation & Kevin's Pasta Dish

I cannot wait for our future Chopped Challenge rematches and according to this interview conducted after his devastating loss interview neither can Kevin Patrick aka 'The Iron Chef'. Bring on the re-match!

Thanksgiving Adventures of the Eye Sort

My eyes have this thing for Thanksgiving time. I swear it. They sense its coming, and WHAM an eye injury pops up like it was coordinated or something. Its becoming a serious problem, I tell you. 

I'm sure most of you remember my last Thanksgiving Eye Catastrophe which ended in me getting two stitches in my eyelid and rocking a lovely black eye the first time I met my (at the time unbeknownst to me future) in-laws. Well, this time around I have an eye issue of entirely different nature.

Probably about a month ago now, I noticed I had some slight loss of my inner peripheral vision of my right eye that is the vision from the center of my eye towards my nose. I got an eye doctor appointment where it was confirmed that I had significant vision loss and was referred to a specialist with various potential diagnoses ranging from a blood clot/stroke of the eye to an aneurysm or a tumor of some sort. Just a little terrifying. I went to the retinal specialist a few days later and was finally given a concrete answer which thankfully included none of the above. I had a detached retina in my right eye which was the reason for my vision loss. The doctor even thought that it might have been a problem long before I noticed it because unfortunately there was already scar tissue and the macula - the center of the retina - had also detached. 

After surgery - looking rough...

Long story short, I had to have surgical repair of my eye on Monday with a procedure called a Scleral Buckle where they place a band of sorts around the eye to press the retina up close to the eye again or something like that. (In the interest of full disclosure, do not youtube this procedure unless you enjoy nasty surgeries. I just watched the first few moments and now realize why it looks like someone ground off the outer layer of my eye. Only made it through the first 20 seconds and decided that was enough education for me for now on my still slightly nauseous stomach.) Anyway, I had surgery on Monday under general anesthesia and apparently things went well. I am still in recovery mode and my vision is still very blurry, but I am hopeful that by the time I have my follow-up appointment on Tuesday I will be doing much better. Namely, because I am sure to go crazy from being stuck in the apartment for long periods of time with nothing to do. Normally, I would try to get my craft on during this time, but of course this is limited by my lack of vision  (my depth perception is dangerous to all involved) and the fact that pain meds make me feel terribly nauseous. So instead, I am limited to mostly sitting around, mostly listening to television as straining my eye for long periods of time is no good, and being bored. Not as appealing as it may sound.

Luckily, before all this non-fun junk occurred, Kevin and I had a couple visitors here in Michigan - Turtle in October and Annie in November. We went out to all our favorite places in Michigan and some new ones too:

•  The Mega Mall - a huge warehouse like building chock full of antiques and junk where Turtle and I each got our own vintage aprons
• SugarBerry - our favorite frozen yogurt by the ounce establishment 
• The Daily Scoop - the local downtown ice cream shop 
• Lake Michigan - my first trip as well as Annie's...it was crazy rough water!
• The Twisted Rooster - a delicious restaurant we found that uses local produce and food to make uber delicious food
• MSU vs U of M Hockey Game - another first for me (and we actually won!)

Who would like to come hang out with the McCulloughs and check out probably most of the above locations because that's about all I know of what to do in Michigan as of yet? Just shoot me a text, email, letter, postcard, or fax and I'll get you all booked! The only requirement is you have to be willing to lead around the one eyed hostess at all public events. 

One of Those Wedding Bloggy Things

Shortly after we were married, Kevin said to me, "Now you can take all the pictures and make one of those wedding bloggy things you were always looking at". So here it is - my DIY wedding blog post. 

Wood Burned Ring Bearer Pillow made by Kate

When Kevin and I got engaged, and if I'm being honest some time before, I was very up front with the fact that I did not want to spend a fortune on a wedding. I didn't see the point in spending money on things I could do myself. I also love the look of homemade things and the thought that goes behind them. Lastly, I am always up for a good craft project. Put all those things together and give a girl access to the Internet and the world of wedding blogs and our day became one big beautiful collaborative DIY extravaganza.

Some of our wedding projects I had previously shown little bits of including the boys' button boutonnieres, our photo-booth props, and our dessert spread of delicious homemade pies. 

The button boutonnieres definitely came out better than I even imagined them. With my lovely sister, Andrea, as a color consultant, we matched up buttons I bought at antique stores and sewed them together and then attached them to floral wire to make the base of the boutonniere. And since Andrea had taken a floral arrangement class in high school, she was nominated to finish off the project by attaching fake leaves and covering the wire with floral tape. The only issue that we encountered with them was the fact that the boys had no idea how to attach them to their shirts. Thank goodness, one of our dear friends, Turtle, was able to come to their rescue. 

These also doubled as fans in the 95 degree heat

Another project we decided to take on for the sake of saving money was our ceremony programs. I had seen a lot of different things online and decided to go with a simple two sided program made out of 8x11 cream card stock that was left over from our favors and invites. All I did was design a simple one page outline of the order of events for the front side and then some fun games for the backside to entertain our guests with. I decided to do three different types of games - a mad-lib, trivia about Kev and I, and a word search.  I bought a box of golf pencils from Staples and used a drill to create a place to run ribbon through to attach the pencils to the the popsicle stick handles of the programs. With some glue and double sided tape, we folded the cardstock in half and secured the posicle stick in the center. And then voila, our programs were done! 


One of the projects that I probably loved doing the most (besides pies baking) was making our cake topper. I had originally planned on purchasing one on Etsy, but with our short engagement and my indecisiveness about which one to get the time line to order by passed me by. I was then down to the options of buying one from a traditional wedding store or making it myself. I decided to at least attempt to make one with supplies from Hobby Lobby. I used a 4 inch wood circle, two simple wooden doll figurines, a piece of a dowel rod, some scraps of fabric, twine, and paint. I will admit that my first attempt at doing the bride's face was not that successful; I ended up looking slightly Asian. However, the second time around was a different story and that is the one we went with for our cake (which one of our groomsmen's aunts made for us). 



I will admit that not all of our DIY wedding was fun and enjoyable. There were some projects that seemed never ending. Favors were a marathon event that Kevin, Andrea, and myself participated in. Our favors were wildflower seed packets made of burlap, tissue paper, and twine and probably cost us less than twenty dollars total. The price alone made the project worth it, but in the middle of the mess it was a little hard to remember that. It wasn't that the project was hard; it just involved cutting up square pieces of burlap and tissue and tying up little bits of seeds with twine with little tags attached. It was more the monotony of it; cut, dump seeds, fold up, and tie. Repeat. But at least it only lasted a few hours. 

The box of flowers & the finished project on the table

The next project took probably over half the time we were engaged - centerpieces. I decided to start making paper flowers early on in our engagement, but didn't really know where I was going to fit them into our decorations. I just kept finding different variations online and slowly but surely filled a large cardboard box with flowers. I can recall several nights sitting in the apartment alone watching TV and folding and gluing paper for hours at a time. We ended up hot gluing the flowers to twigs we found around camp and then placing them in glass bottles that we and our friends had found down along the banks of Dewey Lake.

Although, I had my hands in a lot of different DIY parts of our wedding, there were some things that I completely turned over to other people. Kevin and I are blessed to know a lot of very crafty, talented, generous people who willingly helped us with various projects that we could not possibly handle. My maid of honor and one of my bestest friends, Staci, was instrumental in all the decorations for our ceremony site and just in general keeping me sane. She made a beautiful background out of window shutters and old decking boards for us to stand in front of for the ceremony. She also sewed the curtains for the sides of the chapel and made the hanging flower filled jars that lined the aisle. Best maid of honor EVER.

Vintage Inspired Bunting Banner

Kevin's mom is a very talented seamstress and she agreed to make the bunting banners that we used down at the reception tent. We love them so much that they are currently hanging up in our living room and they make me smile every day. When I decided I couldn't bear the thought of spending fifty dollars on a veil, she even helped me pick out tulle and actually made my veil (for less than ten dollars in supplies). I couldn't have bought a more perfect veil and the penny pincher inside of me was doubly excited.



 One other big project that we could not do ourselves was a photo-booth. I asked my old crew leader, Tony, if he would be willing to undertake that project. He, in his typical style, went above and beyond and made the most amazing photo booth wall ever. I mean he put in a little bit of molding on the bottom and installed an outlet and light switch to make it more authentic looking. I'm sure if there was electricity at our reception he would have wired it up as well. And not only did he make our photo-booth, he also sketched out the tree for our thumbprint 'guest book'. I just sent him a picture of something I had seen and and idea of what size I would need and he did the rest. Now we have a beautiful unique piece of art that hangs in our living room to remind us of everyone that shared our special day with us. 

I told you, we know some extremely talented people.

So I'm sure that is not all of the crazy DIY nonsense that we decided to take on and delegate out for our wedding, but hopefully it gives a sense of the homemade feeling we wanted our special day to have. I would highly recommend that if you are planning on getting married any time soon or really planning any sort of large party to try and first see what projects you can tackle yourself or recruit a friend to help with. It makes everything really unique and personalized to you and allows you to spend a little more money on things that you maybe can't do yourself or really just don't want to.

Five Months into Forever

Have no fear dear friends, I did not fall off the edge of the earth upon getting married as my lack of blogging may lead you to believe. I have just been enjoying and adjusting to life as a married woman with my oh so sweet husband. 

Our wedding was so absolutely perfect. Although the weather was sweltering and I'm pretty sure that I sweat more than any bride should be allowed to on her wedding day. We were surrounded by our friends and family and everything went more perfectly than we could have planned it. The chapel was beautiful, the ceremony went smoothly, our reception was an absolute blast, and we even managed to pull of the pie baking marathon of the century the night before. Getting married at camp where we met was the best decision we could have made and I am so glad that we were able to start our married life right where we first met. 

View from one of the docks at the cabin

After our wedding, we got to spend some much needed vacation time up north. (For those of you not from Michigan, apparently all you need to say to describe any place in the northern part of the state is Up North and everyone seems to know exactly what you are talking about. Oh, Michigan, you are a funny place.) We had a cabin that was right next to a beautiful river that we got to canoe in and a pond that we attempted to fish in without success. There also was a really cool old mill pond up the river from us which I was fascinated by. We adventured out to Alpina for a couple nights to have fancy dinners and discovered according to Kevin the most amazing mozzarella sticks he has ever tasted, which he would know since he's kind of a connoisseur of them. 

We were quickly jolted back to reality on our ride home from Up North when I got a call from the mechanic that my car which we had dropped off previously was going to need about 1800 dollars worth of repairs. Yowza. Poor Milo (yes, my car has a name) is getting up there in years and has developed a host of problems including a sometimes leaky roof, a rusted out exhaust system, a broken AC system, and a cracked windshield. I love him, but not 1800 dollars worth so we decided to just fix the necessity of new brakes and leave the exhaust system alone as my car can still run with the way it is. So now I sound like I am driving a hot rod all the time, and during the summer I may have lost several pounds just through driving my car in the heat. However, its still getting me from Point A to Point B so I'm not complaining. 

 Today marks five months of marriage for us and I cannot even begin to sum up all the highs and lows of the past months in this one post so I'm going to end here with the promise of more frequent updates on life in Michigan, including our rambunctious kitten and my many crafting adventures. 

Newest member of the family - Tucker

Can I Have S'More, Sir?

Pie number four has officially been decided on for the wedding - s'more pie. 

Pouring in the chocolate

 

Agh - this pie is every camping fanatic/chocolate lovers dream dessert. It was made of all the sorts of deliciousness that you would hope would be in a pie that is all the amazing-ness of a s'more spread out into a full sized pie. And we are getting married at a campground so how could we not have a pie that embodies this tried and true camp staple.

I don't think that there is anything mysterious about what a s'more pie should include - graham crackers on the bottom with chocolate and marshmallows on top. And that is exactly what this pie had. A buttery graham cracker crust filled with rich chocolate ganache filling and topped with golden sugary marshmallows. 

Yum. Yum. Yum.

I loved this pie so much that I even made individual ones for all the lovely nurses I got to spend my day with on Mother's Day at work - delicious-ness in miniature form.