Salmon Worth Salivating Over

Ever try to start dinner and realize that one of your ingredients isn't any good? Welcome to my evening. I'm not a very good cook, so improvising is a little bit scary for me (and my poor hubs who has to eat it), but this  concoction actually turned out to be pretty dang tasty! Paired with baked Parmesan, mushroom and artichoke tomatoes, this salmon made for a healthy, yummy dinner. If you try this out, please let me know if you liked it!

Sweet and Savory Salmon
2 salmon fillets, with skin
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp Old Bay
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried cilantro (probably about 1 tbsp of fresh)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place salmon on greased baking sheet, skin down. Poke each fillet all over with a fork multiple times.
2. In a small bowl, combine lemon juice, honey, garlic, onion powder, Old Bay, olive oil, and cilantro. Stir well until oil, lemon juice and honey are well combined.
3. Brush all of the sauce over the salmon.
4. Bake for 20 minutes for well done salmon.

DIY Extender Duster

I was mighty proud of myself for coming up with this contraption today to reach my vaulted ceilings for dusting. I'm sure many of you have already done this and are going to say "well duh!!" (Mom). I had been using my Dyson digital slim to vacuum the cobwebby ceiling corners, but after doing a few rooms and holding the vacuum up into the air for a few minutes at a time, my arms were really feeling it. Then it dawned on me, we have a lightweight yard stick and an already dirty Swiffer duster, so I could just rubber-band the duster onto the top of the yard stick... Don't judge me for using a disposable duster. The hubs and I both have HORRIBLE allergies, so trapping the dust and getting it out of the house is a must for us. It's the one and only not-so-eco-friendly cleaning thing I use. Anyways, here's a picture of the contraption:

I literally just folded a Swiffer duster pad in half, slid it onto the top of a yard stick, and rubber-banded it in place. This would also work with a broom handle and sock or any sort of cloth. Moral of the story: save yourself the $20 on the Swiffer Extender contraption thingy or whatever else they try to sell you to reach up into high places for dusting and just use what you have at your house. The environment will love you for it :) 

DIY Mini Keg Planter Follow Up

I posted our mini keg planter project a while ago (original post), but since it was winter, I didn't have a picture of one with flowers in it! We acquired a 2012 Oberon mini recently thank you to some amazing friends and the hubs made me another planter out of it last weekend. We lined the bottom of the planter with pea gravel before we added dirt to allow for better drainage. I found some adorable pink impatients at the blueberry farm last weekend, so we now have some pretty flowers on our patio! I was really excited to find flowers that like shade, since our patio is covered.

Reusable "Paper" Towel

Between having a baby, dog and husband, I use lots of paper towel to clean up messes. To be fair, I'm probably the worst offender with the kitchen mess making, especially when the blender is involved in the project. When I realized that we're literally using a roll a week, which is unbelievably wasteful, I decided that it was time to do something about it. Pinterest yet again delivered with ideas for reusable paper towel, modified to meet my needs :) Since my needs usually call for a half-sheet of paper towel, I made mine in half-sheet size. I finished this project early this week and started using the cloth towels, and let me tell you, they ROCK. One sheet of Bounty doesn't have anything on terry cloth! I also made a wet bag to hang on my stove and collect the dirty towels until it's time to wash them.

Reusable Paper Towel
Materials:
- 1 1/2 yards of terry cloth material
- 1 1/2 yards of cotton material or flannel
- matching thread
- sew-on velcro
- scissors
- sewing machine

Instructions:
1. Wash and dry both pieces of fabric.

2. Cut 24 6" by 11" rectangles out of both types of fabric. Set the extra fabric aside for the wet bag. If you want full-sheet sized towels, make your pieces 12" by 11" and only cut 12 of each fabric.

3. Match the rectangles up into pairs, one terry, one cotton. Place the printed side of the cotton face-up, pin together around the edges, then sew all of the way around the rectangles, leaving about a 1/8 allowance between the stitch and edge of the fabric.

4. Cut the velcro into 1" pieces. Lay the rectangle flat, cotton side up, short edges as top and bottom, and place two pieces of the same type of  velcro in the corners on the left side, one on the top corner, one on the bottom. Sew these on. Flip the towel over, place the opposite pieces of velcro in the corners on the left side of the terry cloth, sew on.

5. To make the wet bag, cut two 12" x 14" pieces of each type of fabric. Place one piece of terry cloth down, then a piece of cotton - print up on top of it. Set the other piece of cotton - face down onto the stack, then the other piece of terry cloth. Sew around 3 of the sides, then turn it inside out. Cut 4 16" x 3/4" strips of the cotton fabric. Roll each piece over onto itself 3 times, then sew it together. These will be the ties. Pin two ties into each side of the top of the bag. Sew the cotton to the terry around the top, securing the ties into the seem well.

6. Using an empty cardboard paper towel roll, mark where the velcro from the terry cloth side of the towels is. Glue the opposite type of velcro around the tube at both of the marks.

7. I had to rewash my towels at this point, since the terry cloth sheds a lot while cutting and sewing. If yours are ok, then you can attach your towels into a roll! Woohoo!

Menu Board

In my meal planning frenzy, I've been printing off a weekly menu to hang on my fridge and keep me on track. Printing a new one every week seems so wasteful, even though it get recycled. Luckily, I had an old picture frame hanging around the house to repurpose into a menu board! Did you know that you can write on glass with a wipe-off marker and it comes right off?!

Menu Board
Materials:
- Picture frame
- Staple gun
- Ribbon
- Fabric Glue
- Days of the Week printout

Print Out:
1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. Draw a table 8" wide and 10" high with 7 rows, 1 column.
3. Make each row 1.3" high.
4. Type on day of the week on each line. I started with Sunday since that's how I do my menu.
5. Choose a great font, make it size 72 and print that bad boy out.
6. Cut the paper down to 8" x 10" size - cut around the outside of the table.

Board:
1. Measure out 3 feet of ribbon. Tie a bow directly in the middle, insert fabric glue into the knot and pull the knot part tight.
2. Place the frame on the floor/table, front facing down.
3. Place the ribbon ends on the corners of the back of the frame, fold each end over onto itself once or twice, and staple into place.
4. Remove back panel from frame, set the print out face down on the glass, then replace the back panel.

5. Find a convenient spot to hang the menu board in your kitchen and write out your week's dinner menu!


This is a QUICK project, literally took me all of 5 minutes! I'm sure hubby will love the pink ribbon too! :)

Eating "Fresh"

This post isn't about a project, but is about my opinion on food. Stop reading if you don't want to hear my opinion, otherwise, thanks for listening :)

 Lately, I've gotten into a ton of discussions with people about what kind of food they eat and how either processed food is the devil or the inexpensive solution to feeding a growing family. It doesn't matter which side of the fence you're on regarding this issue, but here's the bottom line: there's food revolution going on in our country. People need to educate themselves with factual information and stop blindly following everything that they see on the news or the internet. Yes, fresh food is definitely healthier for you. Is organic necessarily better? That's your personal opinion, in my opinion. I don't think that we eat very much processed food at my house. An outsider would probably come in, look at my pantry, and beg to differ. True, there are lots of boxed and canned items in my pantry, but after looking closer, you'd see that it's all raw ingredients. Sugar, flour, rice, pasta, etc. Of course there are things like cereal and tortilla chips, but I don't feed my family "convenience foods" like frozen pizza or TV dinners. We literally make everything from scratch. Breakfast muffins? Scratch. Granola? Scratch. Spanish rice? Scratch. Every single lunch and dinner, baby food, and dessert - from scratch. Sure, the ingredients were processed, but compare the little bit the raw ingredients are processed to how much a boxed mix of brownies is. It's a no-brainer.
I've also been hearing that vegetables are expensive. I will agree with this to some extent, but the fact is, when you buy things in season (ie, asparagus in the spring time or apples in the fall), that's when the price is lowest. Eating produce when it is in season is sustainable and cost effective. Don't believe me? We just got 20 lbs of blueberries for $2.50 a pound because they are in season. Compare that to a pint for $3.99 in January. Vegetables are an investment, but they stretch mush further because they FILL YOU UP. You'd be amazed by how far a few single veggies can go. $25 worth of produce will feed us for a week, eating veggies as a side dish or main dish for every meal. If that isn't bang for your buck, I don't know what is.

Moral of the story, if you want to feed your family less processed food, start with buying more produce and more raw ingredients. Making things from scratch is time consuming, but I'm 100% convinced that it's saved us majorly on our grocery bill.