things that make me smile today

Friends who like Food

Dear Ellen,
Hope you had a fun day hanging out with your family! We did. Here is a recipe for potato salad. I found it on the Cooking Light website. I am not a mayonnaise lover, so it was good for me. I wish I was hungry so I could eat some right now...

• Dressing:
• 1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 
  Salad:
• 5 cups cubed red potato (about 2 pounds)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chopped peeled cucumber
• 3/4 cup sliced grape or cherry tomatoes
• 3/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 1/2 cup chopped orange bell pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions
• 1 (2 1/4-ounce) can sliced ripe olives, drained

Preparation

1. To prepare dressing, combine first 4 ingredients in a large bowl; stir with a whisk.

2. To prepare salad, place potato and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a medium saucepan. Cover with water to 2 inches above potato; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 8 minutes or until tender; drain.

3. Add potato to dressing in bowl, tossing gently to coat; let stand 15 minutes. Stir in cucumber and remaining ingredients; toss well. Cover and chill.

Nutritional Information

Calories:

90 (28% from fat)

Fat:

2.8g (sat 0.2g,mono 1.6g,poly 0.8g)

Protein:

1.8g

Carbohydrate:

14.9g

Fiber:

2g

Cholesterol:

0.0mg

Iron:

0.9mg

Sodium:

295mg

Calcium:

19mg

Elsie Gonto, Savannah, Georgia, Cooking Light, APRIL 2008

Where is My Friend Who Likes Stuff?

Helllooooo??

Downtown Phoenix and a Sprained Ankle in Richland

Dear Ellen,
HI! Welcome home to both of us! As you know, I was just attending a Child Life Conference in Phoneix, and took my mom along! Not to the conference, but, you know, for the rest of the fun, like a movie and seeing my cousin Chelsea and eating yummy panninis. We had a wonderful time, and I loved chasing my boy around when I got home! He was so loving and snuggly, not mad like he sometimes get when I leave. We were running around in the grass and, well, you can see for yourself what I did. :) Enjoy the pics of Phoenix! Wish I could have taken pictures of the beautiful mission-style churches. I don't know when I started loving the desert, but I do!

I Am not the Best Blogger

...picture rotation, duplication, forgetting to credit Martha Stewart Living for those fabulous colorful photos. Sighhh. I have much to learn.

Even More Color, and a Meatball Update

So, not because I didn't WANT to do your recipe...I made a few changes. I'd already gone shopping, you see, before I got your response. So here's what I did, and didn't do:
3 slices of bread (I used store bought breadcrumbs, therefore no food processor. But I got it out of the cupboard!)
1/4 c whole milk (no)
1 1/2 lbs ground turkey (the dark meat kind has more flavor and fat) (I already bought a ton of ground beef)
3 scallions, finely chopped (oops, no)
2 small garlic cloves, minced (yes! from a jar)
2 Tbs chopped fresh parsley (not fresh. from a jar)
1 large egg (I double the recipe and still only had one egg, but figured it was okay, since beef has more fat)
S&P (yes)

Like I said, I didn't have to process the bread crumbs as they were already fine. But I did the rest:

Place bread in food processor; pulse until fine crumbs form
In a large bowl, combine turkey, scallions, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper
Beat egg and add
Sprinkle bread crumbs over entire mixture, then blend with a fork
Add milk (do NOT add before this point - lesson learned the hard way)
With hands (wet hands work best), form mixture into balls - all sizes work great, just adjust cooking time
Freeze on a cookie sheet & keep up to 3 month or cook right away in a little olive oil
For small - medium sized balls cook 5-7 min.

The recipe comes from Everyday Food Magazine Jan/Feb '08.


So, that is how Hannah, with best intentions, follows a recipe. :)

Buy this Sofa (or one like it):

Okay, do NOT look at the stripes. Look at the absolutely classic lines, the color of the wood stain that you already like. Look how beautiful, absolutely stunning this would be in your living room in a light colored micro-fiber (I am being realistic because of the dogs). Re-covering is expensive. You could do it my way, which is ad-hoc with a staple gun and a lot of determination (photos to come). Okay, now you can look at the picture: http://nashville.craigslist.org/fuo/1780702687.html
Here was my inspiration for the power of reupholstery:
http://madebygirl.blogspot.com/2009/03/remember-this-sofa-well.html

A Response

Dear Ellen,
Thank you for the balls recipe!! You are a nut (ball). Um, just a quicky tangential cooking question. Why would anyone actually mince garlic when you can buy jarred minced garlic? Is that a foodie purist thing? 'Cause you know, I'm lazy. Just wondering. I'm glad you know so much about food. I find it comforting.
You are cracking me up with your massive decorating pendulum swings. I want a neutral house! I want to be the pop of color (are you thinking of posing for a magazine cover?) in my house, but I want everything to be neutral! And yet you totally fell for the most non-neutral room of the pack. SUCKER! I did not have the "balls" to assume that that would be your fave, though I knew you would fall for it! I was thinking the bedroom would be your fave because it has the most neutral backdrop, which, turns out, you don't like.
I hope our readers are learning from our learning. Pendulum swings are normal. It takes a while to figure out what you really like. Like, Really Like! We sometimes think we know what we like and then we surprise ourselves.
So, Ellen. I am giving you an assignment. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make your own inspiration wall! How about taping it all up right over that bookshelf of yours. It will temporarily solve that problem while helping you solve much bigger ones. What do you think?
Also, you must not plan around that couch. I don't want to hear any more about that thing. Into the man-cave it goes, just as soon as you can scrape together some money for a Craigslist couch, or an Ikea one, or....
Please?

Balls

Dear Hannah,

I have an excellent meatball recipe! It calls for 1 kind of meat: ground turkey! Hubby likes it if that tells you anything...

3 slices of bread
1/4 c whole milk
1 1/2 lbs ground turkey (the dark meat kind has more flavor and fat)
3 scallions, finely chopped
2 small garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbs chopped fresh parsley
1 large egg
S&P

Place bread in food processor; pulse until fine crumbs form
In a large bowl, combine turkey, scallions, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper
Beat egg and add
Sprinkle bread crumbs over entire mixture, then blend with a fork
Add milk (do NOT add before this point - lesson learned the hard way)
With hands (wet hands work best), form mixture into balls - all sizes work great, just adjust cooking time
Freeze on a cookie sheet & keep up to 3 month or cook right away in a little olive oil
For small - medium sized balls cook 5-7 min.

The recipe comes from Everyday Food Magazine Jan/Feb '08.

Hope you like!

love,
Ellen