House Tour!!

Read all about our new apartment, here. I snapped a few pictures of the house after we signed the lease, so here is a little house tour. Ignore the mess of the apartment, we signed the lease at 8:30 in the morning and the current tenant had just gotten out of bed, and I’m not sure she expected us to be taking pictures of her house.

Let’s go, shall we:

Here is the outside of the house. Our apartment is in the upper right corner. 🙂

You walk in the entry and are greeted by these stairs.

Once you walk up, you see our doorway. 🙂

Once you open the front door, you see the foyer (what will be Drew’s office) and then the living room through the French doors. Look at those gorgeous hardwood floors! 🙂

When you look back into the foyer from the living room, this is what you see! Those windows are so pretty! This picture cracks me up because Drew and the landlord thought they were hiding from the camera, but they are still very much visible, obviously.

I love that the view out of these windows is pretty too. Lots of trees and greenery. 🙂

Moving out of the foyer we go into the living room.

The doorway on the side of the living room leads to a long hallway. The first door you see is the kitchen, the second door is a bedroom, the door at the very end of the hallway is the utility room and if you turn right beside the utility room you see the bathroom and second bedroom.

Coming down the hallway to the first door, we see the kitchen.

Newer appliances, gas stove, built in microwave, dishwasher, nice cabinets. 🙂

This is the other side of the kitchen. It has a doorway that opens up to a side entrance to the building and then the door that is open is a nice pantry. There is even room in here for a small table!

This is a private side entrance to the apartment that comes up into the kitchen. We will probably just keep it locked and use it for extra storage. It will be nice to keep Drew’s bike in and the box for the Christmas tree.

Continuing down the hallway, the next doorway is the first bedroom. It is a good size and will be my room/art studio/study office space. 🙂

It has a nice sized closet that is really deep.

At the very end of the hallway, there is a nice-sized utility room. Perfect for laundry, ironing, storage, and our deep freezer.

To the right of the end of the hallway is the bathroom.

It is bigger than what Drew has now!

I love this cute little built-in in the bathroom! 🙂

Then right outside the bathroom is the entrance to the second bedroom. Sorry the picture is a little dark and blurry. I didn’t turn the lights on for any of the pictures.

This is the view looking the other way out of the bedroom. It has two closets and plenty of space. You can see the bathroom door right outside the bedroom door.

So that pretty much wraps it up. You’ve seen the whole house! I love it and I can’t wait until we get to move in! 🙂

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One Saturday Morning

One Saturday morning that is really exciting!!! I completed one very big thing on my 20 Before Twenty List and a pretty big thing for life in general: #19. get my first apartment. I didn’t actually get it today, but I signed the lease and will get to move in on May 15th!

First things first. I am staying in New Orleans for the summer for two reasons. 1. My scholarship requires that I be gainfully employed during the summer, and there are better chances of finding a good job that will be beneficial to my portfolio and enjoyable at the same time in New Orleans. I am hoping to get a summer internship with a graphic designer, a letterpress studio, or a stationary/invitation shop–or something in that sort-of job arena. There aren’t really opportunities for things like that in Harrisburg. 2. As much as I love being at home, I really need to feel a little more stability in my life. I hate moving back and forth from Illinois to Louisiana for the summer or for school. It is really stressful and my stuff is all over the place and I don’t have anywhere that really feels “mine.” Because I wanted to live off-campus, I was going to have to sign a year-long lease anyway, so that covers housing for the summer and for the school year, so it all works out well. Not to mention that Drew has a real job and bills to pay, so he of course will be here in the summer as well. We also need to be working on major wedding planning this summer anyway.

I had always wanted us to wait to live together until we were married. However, you always have to make compromises. The scholarship that Drew had for school was only for two years, so next year things are going to be really expensive for him as far as school is concerned. He also has a car payment to pay and rent and bills and on top of all that we are trying to save money for a wedding. We really can’t afford to live in separate houses in New Orleans, and besides it is really kind-of stupid since we are always together anyway. Plus, I don’t know that I would feel safe living in New Orleans on my own. So, that means that we are getting an apartment together next year. We can get something nicer and a little bigger together and we can just move once and if we like it enough we can stay there for more than just this year (which I think we will!).

So anyway, his current apartment has been perfect for the last two years and his landlords are amazing and it will be sad to leave, but it is just a studio and not really big enough for both of us and all our stuff. It has very limited closet space and a pretty small kitchen area that we have already outgrown. It is in a pretty great area though. As sad as we are to leave where we really first established a life at in New Orleans, it is time to move on to something that is bigger than just one room. That is for both me and him. I’ve been more than ready to have more than just a dorm room since the day I moved into the one I have now (Tulane requires all students to live on campus their first two years).

Anyway, back to the point. Lately we have been looking for apartments. We were really nervous and scared that we weren’t going to find anything that we could afford or anything that would be big enough or in a good neighborhood. We tried to keep an open mind, but had several things that we really wanted in an apartment:

-Laundry! It is so expensive to go to the laundromat and so inconvenient to lug your dirty laundry all across the United States to take it home and do it on visits. Plus in order to do the latter, it requires that you have enough clothes to last you a month or more without washing them. I hand washed quite a bit this year.

-A house with more than one room. No dorm rooms, no studio apartments. I wanted at the very least a kitchen/dining/living area and at least a bedroom and bathroom that were separate.

-Enough space for two people and a layout that allowed us to have a separate area to sleep, to study, and to relax. When you are constantly studying and working in the same area as everything else, it makes it hard to ever feel like you can relax in that space. I knew we might not be able to get something super big, but I at least wanted a layout that allowed for a small nook or area to dedicate for a desk and whatnot.

-A kitchen at least a little bigger than the one we have now, preferably with at least some cabinet space so that everything doesn’t have to be on display. Also big enough that the dishes don’t have to be in the same closet as my clothes. Also one that included appliances (they rent some apartments in New Orleans without appliances and we definitely don’t have the money right now to buy a fridge and stove). Drew also really, really, really wanted a dishwasher (He is the current one), although we knew that would be tricky to find and we could live without it.

-A good neighborhood, preferably somewhat close to Tulane/Uptown. New Orleans does have a high crime rate, and although I’ve never really felt unsafe here before, I don’t want our apartment to compromise our safety.

-A good landlord. The landlords that Drew has now are super nice, as you can tell in my last post, here. We knew we probably wouldn’t find someone else as awesome as they are, but we wanted to find someone that at least relatively cared about their tenants and the shape of the property.

-We really wanted a lot of natural light as well. Drew’s apartment now has a few windows, but they are all really small and don’t let in much light. It leaves the place feeling very cave-like. My first dorm room was similar to that as well. Not only is it depressing, but it costs more for your energy bill as well because you have to constantly have lights and lamps on. My current dorm room has huge windows that let in a lot of light and I never have to turn on any lights at all, unless it is night time.

Basically all in all, we would have preferred a two-bedroom, that way we both have our own spaces to study and whatnot, with a furnished kitchen in a good neighborhood with laundry. Ideally, we were willing to look past decorative features and whatnot, but obviously the more character and the nicer, the better.

I have to move out of my dorm room in like two weeks or so, so we really had to get on the house hunt. We found many that could have worked and went and looked at several of them. One was really nice and big and even had an outdoor area, but was in a not-s0-great neighborhood, one was too small, farther away and didn’t have laundry, and one was run by what Drew called a “slum lord” and was a big disaster. I didn’t even want to step foot in that place again. The last one that we looked at seemed perfect from the pictures and description and we started to get excited about it, but we were weary to get our hopes up too high, in case it didn’t turn out.

But ohhh was it Ahh-mazing. It is in a really good neighborhood, just a few blocks away from my school and is actually closer than the apartment that Drew has now. It is also 2 blocks away from the streetcar, so when we have guests or we want to go downtown we can just hop on over there. It is really in the absolute perfect location! It has off-street parking, so there is room for Drew’s car and also mine that I’ll have down here soon. It is also really big and has lots of windows in every room! There are these really pretty arched windows on the front of the house that are super pretty! We toured the house right before sunset and it was still bright enough in the whole house that we didn’t really need to turn the lights on! It also has old-fashioned dark stained hardwood floors that are really pretty and really tall ceilings as well!

When you first walk in, there is a big, sunny foyer area. The current tenant uses it for her dining room, but I think we will use it as Drew’s office, since he works from home a lot. The sunlight that comes in there will be good for him to work and keep him nice and awake when he is on the computer all the time. There are two french doors that you can use to close off the room as well, so that would be perfect if Drew was working and I had company or was watching television or doing anything noisy in the other room. You walk through the foyer/office and into the living room. It is the perfect size for us and I think we can fit our small kitchen table in there as well. Then there is a hallway that stretches the length of the house and all the rest of the rooms lead off of it. The first room off the hallway is a nice-sized kitchen. It has all relatively new appliances with a fridge, microwave, gas stove (YAY!), AND… a dishwasher! (Double YAY!) It has the perfect amount of cabinet space for us and also has a little closet pantry! Perfect!

The next room off the hallway is a bedroom with a nice-sized closet. This would be my room/office/art studio/study space. The end of the hallway splits and on the end is a pretty big laundry/utility room and then the other way is a bathroom with an old porcelain tub/shower, toilet and sink with a built in medicine cabinet and also a pretty built-in linen cabinet with a normal wooden door on the bottom and a glass display door on the top. Next to the bathroom is the other bedroom, with two closets and lots of windows. The house also has central air, which is a big bonus for the scorching New Orleans summer coming up.

The landlord is really nice and really seems to care about the apartment and the condition of everything. He said that they had just installed the central air not too long ago and he was even concerned about having part of the ceiling repainted right next to the new unit before we moved in. We both fell in love with everything about the apartment. It had everything on our list and everything we wanted that we thought we were going to have to compromise about as well. It feels a lot bigger than what we thought we were going to be able to afford, so it will be a great place that we can stay for hopefully a couple years. Actually, I think that the just the foyer and living room area is bigger than Drew’s current apartment! I really, really love the old-fashioned New Orleans charm in the building and I’m really excited that it has charm and also still is nice and functional. It also has lots of storage space for all the stuff we have. PLUS, the price was exactly what we wanted to pay! It was even cheaper than the other, much-worse, apartments we had already toured!! The previous tenant was also moving out at the same exact time that we were looking to move in, so it worked out perfect!

I’m so relieved to have found something so amazing! I still can’t believe it!  We were anxious to find out what “the catch” was going to be in the midst of all of its amazing-ness, but it doesn’t really seem to have one. The only bad thing is that we don’t have hardly any furniture to fill all the space! We’ve got to save up and look for some furnishings! Good thing that we’ve got time to build up with those. Now the hard part is waiting for the rest of the month and a half until we can move in…

I feel like God placed this house in our hands for a reason! It is just too perfect not to be!

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First Official Wedding Gift!!!

Ohhhh can you tell I’m excited!!? Drew walked in the door with this pretty little thing on his shoulder:

How pretty! Ahhh the first gift I’ve ever received wrapped in wedding wrapping! It’s official! We are getting married!! (Obviously, I know. But sometimes you get so caught up in the planning, you forget about the fact that you are actually getting MARRIED!)

It’s a PANINI GRILL!!!!!!!!!! Drew’s landlords, Annie & Max, must know the way to our hearts. We love cooking and love ourselves a good panini. 🙂

So what did we do to celebrate our first evening as the happy owners of a wonderful/amazing/fancy panini grill? Well, we made Italian chicken, tomato and bell pepper panini’s, of course! (saving us also from another round of leftover lasagna!)

An enormous thank you to Annie and Max! They are the best landlords ever and feel like family! I mean, who else do you usually live with other than family? 🙂 You can check out Annie’s blog, here.

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Travel and Lists

I’m a list person. I make lists for everything. What to do today, what do do this week, things I want to do, places I want to go, I have lots of lists.

Today I was reading this blog post and it got me thinking about the list of all the places that I want to travel in life. Luckily, my family has always valued travel and we always went on summer family vacations and my dad has traveled all over the world. Travel is generally considered a luxury, but I also think it is a necessity. I think it is overwhelmingly important to see different parts of the world and see how people do things and how everything is so much different in the world from what you think you really know. This post describes it well. It is all about seeing the world in new ways and opening your mind to other things.

I’ve traveled many places in the U.S. and also one trip to Europe–France mainly but also a small part of Germany and a short excursion (like 4 hours to be exact) into Belgium. I wouldn’t at all call this extensive travel, but for a 19 year old, I wouldn’t call it bad either. I think that my trip to Europe was really crucial to helping me see things the way I do, to open my mind, to appreciate the things and opportunities that I have, to see how other people live, to break the barrier in my mind between the U.S. and “the rest of the world” out there, to help me survive on my own, and about a million other things. I couldn’t be more grateful. I really learned a lot that summer, and not only about the historic landmarks of Paris. I really hope that in my life I get to see a lot of other places and learn from them as well.

What places would you like to visit? (Comment and list the first ten places that come to your mind that you would like to see)

Here are some places I would like to go and things I would like to see (in no particular order):

-Visit the Alps in Switzerland (I would say ski, but we all know that I am beyond horrible at that! I fell off the ski lift the last time I went. I don’t really want to take my chances on a real mountainside)
-sing on a hilltop in Austria (i.e. The Sound of Music, haha)
-see art in Greece
-see art in Florence, Venice, and visit lots of other cities in Italy
-visit Kristine in Denmark
-visit Jacky in Germany
-tour southern France
-visit historic churches and mosques in Turkey & Russia
-see the pyramids in Egypt
-take Drew to a cafe in Paris and show him all the places that Anne-Nelly showed me 🙂

I’m sure there are a million more, but that is the first 10 that popped into my head! Sorry that they aren’t so creative, they are pretty typical destinations and almost all in Europe really, but you have to start somewhere!

In addition to travel lists, I also read several blog posts today about life lists. Here and here. I think that they are so cool and I would love to come up with 100 things that I want to do before I die. I just can’t seem to write many things down because I’m so afraid that I won’t get them done! But I guess it isn’t about the end goal, it is life in the process that counts.

Several months ago, I made a list of creative goals that I wanted to accomplish and I’m still working on that list. You can read it, here. I’m also still working on my 20 Before Twenty list! It is going pretty well actually! I’ve gotten most of my list done so far! I’ll give an update on it soon!

Remember to leave me a comment with your top ten travel dreams and places that you’ve visited and what you learned from being there! I’d love to hear about your travels! 🙂

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Lasagna

Guess what we had for dinner last night, tonight, and probably every other night this week?

Lasagna! It was really good, but I think I may be tired of it now. It made SO much for just two people! (Enough for 12 people to be exact–or at least that is what the recipe said.) I would definitely recommend the recipe though. I used this recipe. I saw the same recipe there and again on one of the blogs that I read, so apparently many agree that it is the world’s best lasagna or something like that.

A month or so ago, we went to Vincent’s Italian Restaurant and it was the best Italian food I’ve ever had! It was not your typical overcooked spaghetti and faux-Italian meals. It was really, really good. I had the Italian Chicken soup and the House Specialty– Canneloni (Homemade pasta stuffed with ground baby veal, pureéd spinach and Parmesan cheese baked on a bed of Alfredo cream and topped with a light red sauce) and Drew had the Lasagna and a salad. It was served with hot bread and garlic butter. Everything was great and the service and atmosphere were the best of any restaurant I think I’ve ever been to.

The only downside is that it was a little more expensive than most restaurants that we would go to on a normal day. It wasn’t that bad, just something that we could only afford every so often. Since we went the last time, Drew and I have both been wanting Italian food really bad. We even thought about going to Vincent’s last Monday, but they happened to be closed on Mondays.

I told Drew that we could make our own lasagna, although he doubted it would be as good as theirs. It is a really simple recipe, it just takes a little while because the sauce has to cook for 1 1/2 hours. We also made roasted garlic butter to go on our warmed french bread as well. It was pretty tasty! The atmosphere, presentation, and service at home wasn’t as good as Vincent’s, but I would have to say that our lasagna turned out just as good, if not better! (Plus it made a whole lot more for the price!)

If you live in the New Orleans area and are interested in some leftovers, let me know. 😉

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City Park

Last weekend, Drew and I paid a visit to New Orleans’s City Park. It is so pretty there! It is also HUGE and there is so much to see! We’ve been there several times, always seeing something new each time. Here is a cute little bridge over a little waterway.

While we were there, we decided to try out some new camera equipment we bought recently. More about that later. 😉

Here are some of the pictures we took:

More about these later! 🙂

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When Life Gives You Lemons, Make LEMONADE!

This weekend has been quite citrus-y! When we were at the mall on Friday, we stopped by the Lush counter at Macy’s to check out all the handmade soaps. They all smell so good! We are both particularly partial to lemony/citrus-y scents. Drew ended up getting a little of two different ones and our bathroom since then smells like a big bunch of lemons! 🙂

When we were at the grocery store yesterday, we bought a big bag of lemons (for only like $2) because Drew is now set on making his own organic soap and wanted to give it a lemon scent, of course.

Lemons in the kitchen reminds me of home. My mom often had a big jar of lemons on our kitchen island. She would use them to zest into scones, or more often than not, not use them for anything and they would go bad before we had a chance to make anything with them. I think they are really pretty in a nice glass jar on the kitchen table. 🙂

Anyway, not only did I want scones after looking at them, I really, really wanted lemonade! So, I made lemonade. I used a recipe out of the Southern Plate recipe book we got last weekend. More about that, here.

Here is the recipe:

1. Combine 1 cup water and 1 3/4 cups sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking to dissolve the sugar.
2. Remove from heat and let cool.
3. Pour into a 2-quart pitcher along with 1 1/2 cups lemon juice.
4. Stir and add enough water to make 2 quarts. (or according to taste)
5. Stir and serve over ice. Refrigerate any leftovers.

Even though the recipe doesn’t call for freshly squeezed lemon juice, that is all we had and is what we used. We made a smaller batch because it takes a lot of lemons to get 1 1/2 cups lemon juice. (one lemon will give you roughly 3 tablespoons of juice)

The fun thing about this activity is if you have kids, (or a fiance that acts like one) you can let them play with the leftover lemon halves. I’m sure they will be entertained. They can build things like lemon towers:

Even better than the lemonade itself, is if you put it in the freezer until it starts to freeze, and then you get nice and cool frozen lemonade. Yummy! Especially with this 80+ degree weather here in New Orleans! Goodness it has been HOT! What happened to Spring?! 🙂

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Makeshift Art Studio

I have to have 85% of my painting finished by tomorrow. It is not anywhere close to there. Not at all.

My back was hurting from painting in the studio at school (metal stools with no backs), so I brought all my painting stuff to Drew’s house where I could turn up the music and work in a more comfortable environment. Except that there wasn’t any space for my painting anywhere but on the bed. That’s the nice thing about being an adult. You can do all those things your mom would have never let you do. Like paint on the bed. 🙂

I’ve been painting for several hours and I haven’t even gotten any paint on the bed! See Mom! 😉

Although I’m somewhat frustrated at my painting though. It isn’t turning out like I want it to and is taking five times as long as the time I have to do it in. 🙁

My brain feels kind-of like this:

Hopefully it gets better, quickly.

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Sew Beautiful Spring

Happy first day of Spring!! It is such a beautiful day here! Lovely weather! I’ve got a nice yummy smelling roast sizzling in the oven and I’m working on my research paper for my Medieval England History class. 🙂

Speaking of things that are so beautiful, how many of you are familiar with the magazine Sew Beautiful? You know, Martha Pullen and her sewing empire? Well if you are at all in tune with the sewing world, I’m sure you have heard of this famous sewing magazine. Martha Pullen even has a sewing television show on PBS. She does all kinds of fun things, including her Summer School of Art Fashion in Alabama. My mom and I went to it 3 or 4 different summers when I was little. My little sister Kelsey went with us once too. They have all different classes you can take and learn specialty sewing techniques and there is a super fun Sew Kool for Kids School too! I’m sure they still have it, you should definitely look into going! It is really fun! We even got to go to Martha’s house for a special event each year!

Anyway, back to the magazine. My mom has had several of her own sewing creations featured in it before! In several different issues. A couple years ago, she made outfits for Jill, Kelsey, Evie and I and we all got to model them in a photoshoot for the magazine. Jill’s and Evie’s came out in one issue, and mine came out in a different issue with a whole separate article all about my outfit. This month’s issue, Issue No. 135, 2011 Volume 25, Number 2– features another dress that my mom made! It was Evie’s flower girl dress for Blair’s wedding! When Blair and my Mom took Evie down to get her pictures taken in the dress for the magazine, they said that they had some other outfits that they needed models for and Evie and Georgiana would be perfect! So they both made it in the magazine!

The issue is this Spring’s issue all about inspiring ideas for Easter sewing and it just came out! Here are some photos from the magazine:

Here is the dress my mom made for Evie and Evie modeling it. 🙂

Here is a close up 🙂

And the description.

Here is the page with Evie and Gigi modeling other dresses. 🙂

Georgiana 🙂

Evie 🙂

Here, are a few more pictures of Evie and Gigi on Martha Pullen’s website.

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Healthy Skin, Books & A Good Southern Meal

Lately, my face has been breaking out a lot. I think its been mostly due to the high amount of stress that I’ve had lately with school and all that. I feel like I’m back in middle school! I’ve used Proactiv the past couple years and I just feel like it is full of chemicals that are too harsh for my skin. I’m not a big fan of chemicals. Not using them in products or eating things full of them, etc. I like things natural. So anyway, I’ve been looking out for natural facial products. One day I got on the internet to look up natural cures for acne, most of which listed a combination of vitamins A and E and aloe vera. We have an aloe plant, so I’ve broken off small pieces of it lately and rubbed that directly on my face.

Today we had errands to run so we stopped by to check out some vitamins. I saw some multivitamins that were for hair, skin and nail health. I thought about those, but ended up with this:

I really wanted vitamins or vitamin cremes or something that I could apply directly to my face, since I thought that would be more effective rather than just vitamin supplements. I found this bottle of grapeseed oil that says that it is 100% pure sensitive skin care–a light silky moisturizer for all skin types. It claims to be useful as an all-natural moisturizer aiding in protection from premature aging and in reducing the effects of acne. It also says that it can be used as a base for lotions or even as a conditioner for all hair types. I love the multi-use quality of natural products! This was only $9.99 for a 16 oz. bottle; a whole lot cheaper than any other moisturizer and so much healthier!

I also got some E-ointment which has both vitamin E and Aloe Vera in it. It is good for dry skin, wrinkles, stretch marks and to soften fine lines and scars. My older sister, Blair, used it a few years ago to rub on her foot after she had surgery. I like to use it as chapstick. It is perfect to rub on your lips for a pure lip moisturizer. If you want to make it easier to tote around, just put some in a little tub for make-up or something. I know I have a few little tubs from Bare Essentials that they gave me when I purchased some eye shadow a few years ago. They use them for sample eye shadows. I’m sure you can buy them somewhere too. It was only $5.99 for that 2 oz jar and that will last me quite a while!

As you can see, I also picked up some vitamin A supplements as well. They were only $2.99 and are “essential for normal vision and healthy skin” as the bottle says. Be careful when you go to the store to look at see what the ingredients are in the vitamins and things that you buy. Some aren’t organic and have other things added into them. The more natural and pure, the better.

After leaving there, we went to Borders Bookstore. Both of the ones in the New Orleans area are closing, so they had a big sale going on. We should have gone sooner, because most of the books and furniture were already gone, but we did get a couple books:

Do It Gorgeously was already on my book list! I was actually going to get it for my older sister for Christmas last Christmas, but they didn’t have it at the bookstore when I was Christmas shopping and I had other books that I wanted to get her and got her instead. It says “How to Make Less Toxic, Less Expensive, and More Beautiful Products.” That is totally my style. It has homemade recipes for beauty products and skin care, sewing tips and how-to’s, food recipes, ways to save energy, lifestyle tips, gardening tips, how to be nifty and thrifty, how to get out certain stains and clean certain things and even exercise tips. It is definitely a neat book!

I haven’t had time to look through it a lot, but I was just flipping through and saw some of the skin care section. It has different skincare regimens based on your skin type. It gives natural recipes for cleanser, toner, moisturizer, balancing oil, exfoliators, sunscreens, eye-makeup remover, eye serums, eye gels, skin masks, acne gels, hand sanitizer, lotions and even deodorant and mouthwash! It even gives recipes for insect repellent, PMS reliever, cough syrup, and other natural health remedies. All made with natural vitamins and ingredients! Plus all those were just from a couple pages of the book. It really makes me want to make everything I use!

Drew’s brother’s girlfriend, Trang, has a friend who only eats raw food. It is a whole special diet. More about it, here. Trang has posted several things on her blog that they have made and they look good and it really intrigues me how healthy the raw diet is. I saw this cookbook all about raw desserts and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for me to give some raw recipes a try. I really want to make the nut flour in this book to use in stuff. If you are skeptical about the raw diet, here are a few pictures from the book:

Don’t these vanilla macaroons look awesome!

Look at these yummy fruit crepes!

Baklava

Even raw brownies!

I definitely have a lot of new recipes to try in here! Yummy desserts that are healthier for you? I’m totally in on that one!

The last book we got was another cookbook all about Southern cooking. As much as the raw diet sounds neat, I couldn’t completely give up all those yummy deep south staples. I’ve already read through quite a bit of this one and the woman who wrote it is so interesting! All these recipes are from her own family collection. They all sound delicious! So delicious in fact, that we just had to make one for dinner since our mouths were watering just looking through it!

We ended up making:

We used her family recipe for fried chicken planks and we made mashed potatoes (the first time I’ve made them this whole semester!), corn and fresh green beans to go along with it. They were amazing! We also followed her recipe to make southern “comeback sauce” which tastes pretty much identical to Louisiana’s Raising Cane’s sauce! (Raising Cane’s makes a big deal about their sauce being a secret recipe) We both really like their sauce and it is great now that we can make it at home! (for those that don’t know, Raising Cane’s is a really good somewhat fast food restaurant that is known in Louisiana for their chicken strips and Cane’s sauce. It started in Baton Rouge and is really good!)

With dinner we used our new cloth napkins that we got yesterday. I’ve been meaning to make some for a while, but we saw these at T.J. Maxx yesterday and I liked the pattern and they were only a few dollars for a pack of four. They match the chartreuse green that we have in some of the accents in our kitchen and they will be much more economical than paper napkins!  I’ve got some other fabrics that I’m going to make some more in the same size to go along with these.

Here is a closer look at part of the pattern.

We’ve only got three daisies left from my flowers that Drew bought me a few weeks ago! They still look pretty though for being out so long.

Lastly, we also got a new bottle for our olive oil yesterday. Drew broke the topper on our old one and we couldn’t get it off to put more olive oil in it. I love the curvy shape of this one! It is from World Market.

Please excuse the dirty stove! Isn’t the oil pretty in this bottle? It goes well with our chartreuse kitchen accents!

Anyway, I’ve been babbling on long enough! Today was a pretty fun day. I also got the research done that I needed to do for my Medieval England History paper. Now I just have to write it. But I think I’m going to go try out my new grapeseed oil moisturizer first. 🙂

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