Zoodles were a hit!

I finally treated myself to a vegetable spiral cutter. I ordered a Paderno and got it over the weekend.  Let me tell you, endless fun with spiraling vegetables! haha, I'm such a nerd.  Anywho, this is dinner.
I whipped up a "Thai Chili Peanut" sauce.  (2 tbsp natural creamy pb, 2 tsp sesame oil, 2 cloves miced garlic, juice of a lime, chili sauce like sirracha to taste).
I "zoodled" one large zucchini, thin sliced some carrot, and chopped up some poached chicken.
Throw it all in a saute pan and heat through.  The sauce is really thick at first, but once the zucchini releases some of its moisture it comes together nice, so keep tossing it around in the pan. 
You don't want to zucchini to soften too much, this saute is just to bring the food to a hot temp.  I finished it off with some crushed wasabi almonds.  It was delicious!

Tote in Two Hours

So a friend of mine recently told me that a tote I made was Pinterest worthy...and she would pin it.  Well I will let you all be the judge of that.  Had I known I was going to blog it out, I would have taken more progress pictures.  Here we go...I used a tutorial from a fabulous blog...here is the link Diary of a Quilter.  Not only does she have this tutorial, but her blog is an endless wonder of projects and information.

With her pattern I just slightly modified it and used 1/2 yard of each fabric.  I folded the fabric in half trimmed the top 2 inches off...You end up with 4 strips of fabric, 2 outside pattern, 2 inside pattern.  I press and pinned the fabric together to make the straps match the liner and outside fabric.

I liked this Indonesian Batik, it so colorful it was kind of expensive, but I had a coupon for 40% off any cut fabric by the yard.  Thrifty, I know :)
Since I was making mine larger than the original pattern I inserted my handles 6 inches from each end, instead of the 2.5 inches for the original size tote. I did follow the 1/4 inch seam recommendation, make sure you press your seams after.

 

Bright! you can see where the handles are secured in the seam. The blue will be the liner, the fabulously bright colors will be on the outside. It's important to know which will be the liner at this point because you will now seam the long ends together.  But...you will leave a gap for turning, you will want the gap on the liner, so when you top stitch it together that will be hidden on the inside.
Pin, pin, pin the sides together, and sew 1/4 inch seam, I left a 2" gap and carefully turned right side out without issues. I'm a big fan of top stitch on the opening, it cleans it up and just finishes the tote out nicely.  Take your time doing it.

Now don't get too overly excited about being so close to done...this is when mistakes happen....when squaring the bottom follow instructions on Diary of a Quilter's  page....if you don't you will get excited, and end up with fashionable corners, but not a squared bottom.  YES, this did happen to me, but I'm ok with it.  The tote is still cute.
TADA!!!!!!

Notice the corners...this is a display of the incorrect direction of the gusset.  *Sigh* but I learned from my mistake, the next one will have proper gussets.  The handles are blue on the inside to match the liner, and the wild pattern on the outside.
Do you love? I do!  The perfect beach tote, it's fun, bright, summery, washable, and let's be honest...it's fabulous!

I'm baaaaack!

Ok I was on vacation from blogging.  Ok seriously, I was swamped with life!  I finished school and received my license as a paramedic.  You would think I would have taken the summer of.  Well, you thought wrong!  This girly took the state firefighter 1 certification over the summer.  It was a grueling 3 nights a week in the heat with 60-70 lbs of gear on...yea last thing I wanted to do at 10pm after class was blog.  I just wanted a shower.
So, now that I have technical degrees in both paramedic and firefighter 1 you would think I would be done...no silly!  I'm a glutton for punishment.  I'm now seeking my associates of applied science-paramedic.  I am taking it easy though, only 10 credits this semester =)
I will be revamping and changing around some things, but don't worry all the great projects, recipes, and stories will be back soon!

Fiesta Rice Bowl
Servings: 4 Serving size about 1 cup

• 1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinse
• 1 cup cooked corn (I use frozen steamers)
• 1 large tomato, diced
• 2-4 tbsp chopped cilantro (or more if your like me)
• 1 lime, squeezed (juice only)
• cracked black pepper to taste

Cook rice according to package.  Steam corn, rinse and drain beans, dice tomatoes.  Once rice is cooked, add hot corn and beans.  Toss diced tomatoes and chopped cilantro.  top with some fresh chopped scallions and pepper.

Oh Christmas time, how I love thee!  And all the baking that goes with it.  Tonight I made Toffee Bars, Vanilla Meringue Drop cookies, and Raspberry Chocolate Meringue cookies...below find the recipe for the Mint Meringues compliments of Betty Crocker...  I use Vanilla instead of mint, and also used my sweet Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator to pipe that meringue.

• PREP TIME
  20 min
• TOTAL TIME
  2 hr 25 min
• SERVINGS
  48

 

2

egg whites

1/4

teaspoon cream of tartar

1/8

teaspoon salt

1/2

cup sugar

1/4

teaspoon mint extract

3

to 5 drops green food color

Betty Crocker® multicolored candy sprinkles, if desired

• 1Heat oven to 200°F. Grease 2 large cookie sheets with shortening or cooking spray. In small bowl, beat egg whites, cream of tartar and salt with electric mixer on medium speed until foamy. On high speed, add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until sugar is dissolved, meringue is glossy and very stiff peaks form. Beat in mint extract. With rubber spatula, fold in food color, 1 drop at a time, until well blended and desired color.
• 2Use disposable decorating bag or gallon-size food storage plastic bag with 1/2-inch hole cut in one bottom corner of bag (if desired, fit large star tip in decorating bag or in hole of plastic bag). Spoon meringue into bag; twist top of bag to seal. Squeeze bag to pipe meringue into 1-inch puffs onto cookie sheets. Sprinkle each with candy sprinkles.
• 3Bake on middle oven rack 2 hours. Immediately remove cookies from cookie sheets; place on wire racks. Cool completely, about 5 minutes.
• Link to Betty Crocker Site Recipe

These are the Raspberry Chocolate ones, baking away :)
For the raspberry, I used 1/4 teaspoon Raspberry candy flavoring and just beat that in after the stiff peaks formed, I also finely grated some chocolate, you can use semi sweet or dark chocolate.  And also beat that in before piping on to parchment paper lined cookie sheets.

Nice light pink meringue, also light raspberry taste.  The speckles are the fine grated chocolate.
They turned out perfect!

OMG its been 2 weeks and so much has happened!  Finals went well...Respiratory - PASS  Cardiology - PASS  Paramedic Fundamentals - PASS Pharmacology - final on Monday :)
So even though I have had class, finals, clinicals, work, holiday shopping and all that jazz I decided to make all my fellow Paramedic students a little holiday gift...

I was able to find some inexpensive glass ornaments, I filled them with some buffalo snow.  It is shiny and fun.  I chose to go with blue wintry wonderland theme lol.  So I added Blue fine glitter, just poured in until i liked it.  I glued 2 black feathers, they have a little iridescent bluish green on the ends.  I found some silver snowflake garland for a mini tree...I cut that up and glued that to the top of the feathers...just enough so there is some movement,  I added a jingle bell by tying it around the neck of ornament.  I secured the top back on, after I tied on a ribbon.  I also added a black glittery letter to complete that custom "just for you" monogram gift :)
So after that I got to looking at them and decided to add another bow...I centered it over the letter, on top of the feathers.  This helped to hide the end of the feathers and gave it a more complete look.  Sorry I didn't take step by step photos...maybe I will have to make some more!

Sunday a day for Football, Laundry, and Homework

Sunday...on the agenda today are take home tests for class.  I have to finish at least 1 and 1/2 of the other to feel some what ahead.  I would like to get all three done and have some time to research the questionable ones...but lets be realistic I have a ton of stuff to accomplish today besides just homework.
Sitting cozy at Stone Creek Coffee, Pharmacology take home test one and a Chai Tea