New Recipe Review- Asian Lettuce Wraps

For my new recipe this week, I decided to make Asian lettuce wraps. I love them at P. F. Chang's and I figured they couldn't be TOO hard to make. I found this step-by-step on the Tasty Kitchen blog and figured I could handle it! I wouldn't call it a recipe, per se, as there were no measurements, and the recipe it linked to had totally different ingredients! But it was enough of an outline for me to  create my own version.

Here's what I did:

Mix
3 Tbsp oyster sauce,
3 Tbsp hoisin sauce,
1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce,
1 Tbsp Thai chili paste,
1 Tbsp minced garlic,
1 Tbsp brown sugar, and
1 tsp dried ginger

in a small bowl. Set aside.

Dice
1 red pepper,
1 onion,
1 bunch of scallions,
large handful of mushrooms, and
1 can waterchestnuts.

Sauté veggies in wok with canola oil, stirring occasionally until mostly cooked through, about 5-8 minutes. Remove them from wok and set aside.

Add more canola to cooking surface if needed, and brown ground turkey until no longer pink. Remove wok from heat. Add the veggies back in and stir to mix. Pour the sauce on top, and stir to coat.

Serve warm, wrapped up in large Bibb or iceberg lettuce leaves. Yum! This one was really good, and way easier than I expected!

I've Been a Bad, Bad, Blogger... And a New Recipe Review

I've been a very neglectful blogger lately. I've been in a bit of a funk, I suppose.

It's a combination of a few different things. We've been really busy lately, for one. Busy with mostly good things, mind you- great times and celebrations, with wonderful friends and family. But combine that with stress and extra hours at work, life has felt very GO-GO-GO recently, and we've had little downtime. And downtime, for me, is quite the necessity.

Another thing that has been bringing me a down a bit lately is that sometimes it feels like we work and work and work on our house, both inside and out, and still don't see any real progress. It may be a case of not seeing the forest through the trees, but nevertheless, it eventually takes a toll on my motivation.

And finally, all those "great times and celebrations with wonderful friends and family" mentioned above usually include an abundance of good food and drink. And so, my "healthy eating objectives" has been, ah ... suffering, shall we say. And since I tend to be a bit hard on myself, that's contributed to my funk more than it's motivated me to work harder.

But now that all that is out in the open, let's move on. 

And let's start with something easy to get back into the swing of things- a new recipe. One of the new recipes I tried last week was Farmer's Market Potato Salad from Cooking Light magazine. This one caught my eye because I'm so used to the standard potato salad- mayo-based with potatoes, celery, and hard-boiled egg- you know, the classic. This one was something different, and a lot healthier. AND it called for fresh corn on the cob, which had just become available for the summer in our area and I was craving some like you wouldn't believe. 

It turned out really well! I didn't really make any changes, except instead of roasting the corn in the oven, we grilled it with some butter and Cajun seasoning. Also, I added asparagus to the salad, since there was some in the fridge that needed to be used up. I served it with Honey Mustard Grilled chicken, from allrecipes.com, which was also really good and went perfectly. Man, how I love grilling weather!!

New Recipe Review- Baked Meatballs

For my new recipe this week, I tried Alton Brown's baked meatball recipe from the Food Network. I had wanted to try doing something out-of-the-ordinary with meatballs for a while, but I had trouble finding any original recipes. They were all basically ground meat, egg, Italian bread crumbs, garlic, basil, and Romano cheese- which is the same way I've always made them. There had to be something different out there!

So when I found this recipe, I definitely thought it had what I was looking for.

Of course, I made changes. We're trying to be a bit more health-conscious (and budget-friendly for goodness sakes!), so I just used ground turkey instead of the ground lamb, sirloin, and pork. I also chopped up and sautéed some mushrooms, eggplant, and zucchini for extra veggies, in addition to the spinach. I think I made them a bit bigger than the recipe called for, since I only got 16 instead of 20 (and had to bake them a couple minutes longer). I put them in the crockpot with the tomato sauce on low for about an hour to mix the flavors.

 Yummy sautéeing vegetables.

Meat- GOOOOD, cheese- GOOOD, veggies- GOOOOOD. (ha, at least how I see it!)

 All ready to bake

Get in that sauce!!

I served them over linguine, and they were really good! I know this sounds crazy, but I think the veggies actually gave them a meatier flavor (especially with using turkey instead of beef). It wasn't much more difficult than regular meatballs, so I'll probably be making them this way from now on!

Original recipe can be found here.

What a Weekend!

This past weekend was quite the busy one!

On Saturday morning, I ran in my first 5K race. It was for the Shirley Mae Breast Cancer Assistance Fund, which helps breast cancer patients in the South Jersey area with the cost of prescriptions, treatments, and prothesis. My mom had been running in this race for a while (go mom!) and since I had finally started running again, I decided to do this one with her this year.

My goal was to come in under 30 minutes, which I thought I was reasonable because my Nike plus band said I generally ran between an 8:40 and a 9:20 minute mile. But apparently the calibration of those bands is an important step, not to be skipped (which I did) and I am really running closer to a 10:00 minute mile. Oh well, I ended up coming in at 31:09, which isn't bad at all. I really pushed myself and was very proud of my performance. Next time I'll be under 30:00!

Here's a photo of the start. This race has grown like crazy  in the past couple years; my mom said that the first year she ran in it, there was only a couple hundred people.

The next portion of my Saturday was spent in the garage (open, of course!) with a few cans of spray paint. See, H's parents got a brand new set of patio furniture- which is awesome for them. And as it turns out, not too shabby for us either! They gave us their old set, which included a good-sized table, four chairs, an outdoor umbrella, and umbrella base. It was green, which I wasn't all that fond of, and a bit rusty, but structurally there was nothing wrong with it. I decided that a coat of black spray paint would work wonders on it.

First, I rinsed it down with the hose and rubbed all the dirt off. Then after it dried, I sanded to get the rust off and to rough it up a bit. And after that, I just sprayed away with a can of flat black Rustoleum brand spray paint. It took quite a few coats to finish each pice, but it looks seriously brand spankin' new. I cannot wait to finish it up. Here are a few pics from the process:

The original umbrella base. 

Hm, I'd say it looks a bit better.

 The original chair, rust and all.

And here it is now.

And as if that wasn't enough activity for one day, we met up with friends in Philly for dinner and drinks. (I actually wore my happy-hour-outfit from a couple posts ago!) We went to El Rey, the newest Stephen Starr restaurant, which is traditional-Mexican-diner-inspired. The food was awesome- seriously, so flavorful, melt in your mouth deliciousness. And it was SO much more reasonably priced than many other Starr endeavors.

And El Rey is apparently associated/connected via the kitchen with a Prohibition inspired bar. The real entrance was in an alley, the waiters were dressed in period attire, and it was lit entirely by candlelight. So cool! And the specialty cocktail menu was filled with  rye, bourbon, and campari. Also very cool, I felt like I was back in the 20's (or at least what I'd imagine them to be like!).

Now, I certainly don't fancy myself a photographer, but the candlelit atmosphere was just begging me to take a few (or twenty pictures).

Needless to say, I was so ready for the relaxing Mother's Day dinner with family on Sunday! Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Paint it Red!

One of the other projects I tackled this weekend (besides sorting through my closet!) was painting the front door. I didn't think the color was too bad before- just a little faded, but BOY was I wrong- what a difference the fresh coat of paint made!

Anyway... I love red front doors- I think they're classic, yet fun, so that was my color of choice. We also got new hardware for the door- the old, yellow brassy hardware was tarnished and screamed 80's. I was so excited to get this done, and love the way it looks. The color stands out from the street so much better, and looks great.

The old door- not the greatest picture.

Um, wow, what a difference!! Goodbye faded, dingy pink- hello RED!

The end result. Lookin' good!

Mixing Patterns

Over the weekend, I decided to take inventory of my closet. With the summer months coming up (it's actually already started to get quite warm!), I really wanted to get a few go-to outfits for various occasions that I can throw on, look great, and not spend a lot of time figuring something out. Ideally, I'd like to not buy too many new things as well!

One of the things I had been wanting to try lately is mixing patterns. It's been a trend for quite some time now, but I've steered clear. It honestly looked like one of those things that can look great on a model, but the average person wouldn't be able to pull off- and not just because the model is 6 feet tall and 120 pounds, just that the average person would look like a hot mess in a bunch of different patterns!

But I decided to bite the bullet and take a few risks. And I'm actually quite happy with the results! Of course, I didn't do anything too crazy, but I'm still proud of myself.


I think this first outfit would be perfect for a Friday happy hour in the city. I love this skirt, which is from Target. I debated on whether or not to get it, since it looks like something my mom may have put me in during the early 90's in elementary school. But floral is another trend I wanted to try, so I decided to give it a try. So glad I did!


This one would be great for a day-to-night date on the Boardwalk. Comfy, casual, and a cardigan for the possibly breezy night. I love these Old Navy cardigans (both outfits), I wish I picked more up before they all sold out.

New Recipe Review- Ham with Garlic and Rosemary

Every spring, our grocery store has a promotion- spend a certain amount of money in a couple months, and you receive a free ham (or small turkey, or frozen lasagna, but we chose the ham). Anyway, we finally got our ham, and it's not exactly small! I had to find a recipe to use on this giant - to us! - 8.5lb ham.

So, for my new recipe last week, I chose Ham with Garlic and Rosemary, from epicurious.com. This recipe intrigued me because I have never heard of seasoning a ham with garlic and rosemary before. The brown sugar and mustard, of course- they're ham staples, but garlic and rosemary? Hm... I have to try it!

I have to say I'm glad I did, the ham had a great and unique flavor. I did make a few changes- the cook time seemed a little low (I guess since it was for a cooked ham), so I ended up using the time on the ham package, which I suppose is the best bet- 20 minutes per pound at 325. I also kept it covered for the majority of the cook time and added the mustard/brown sugar mixture as a glaze in the last 30 minutes, and left it uncovered after that. I served it with homemade macaroni and cheese and a garden salad. It was really, really, good and I'm definitely glad I tried this one!


And the menu for this week now includes 101 ways to use leftover ham- ham/potato casserole, chicken cordon bleu, ham/pineapple pizza... what else can I think of??