Beef and Barley Stew

Recently, my husband has been pestering, er, lovingly suggesting that I find a recipe to cook in the Dutch oven that we received as a Holiday present. Even though I was originally waiting to use it to bake some sort of bread (still planning on that), I decided to do as he asked and peruse the internet for a recipe for dinner this week. So I skipped on over to my trusty friend, Google, and came across a recipe for Beef and Barley Stew. It looked yummy and do-able without a terrible amount of work (always something I look at with new recipes); and since I would be done with work earlier than normal today and have some extra time for cooking, I picked it as our try-out recipe of the week.

It was a good choice! Although I believe that the original recipe was supposed to come out more as a soup, ours turned out as a stew and I'm glad, because it was de-lish! D. and I both agreed that this recipe was definitely going into the repertoire.

If you're inspired by this recipe and would like to make it but don't have a Dutch oven, you could easily whip this up in a large pot.

Gather the ingredients:

     8 oz. sirloin steak, cut into bit-size pieces
     1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, divided
     4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
     1/2 to 1 whole onion, chopped
     1 large carrot, sliced
     2 tablespoons tomato paste
     1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
     3/4 cup barley
     4 cups (32 oz.) beef broth
     1 cup water
     1/4 teaspoon salt

Sprinkle steak with a 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add steak  and cook, stirring often, until browned on all sides. Transfer to a bowl. 

Add remaining 2 tablespoons of oil, onion, and carrot to the pot and cook, stirring until beginning to soften. Add tomato paste and thyme and cook, stirring, until the veggies are coated with the tomato paste and beginning to brown.

Add barley, broth, water, salt, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper; bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to maintain simmer; cook until barley is tender, about 40 minutes.  Return beef to pot and heat through. Remove from heat and enjoy!

Side note: my husband doesn't really pester me, but I have to tease him sometimes. ;)

This Love Day...

…I am so happy. This day and every day; it’s a blast to experience this life with my best friend. Who knew marriage would be this fun? It just keeps getting better and sweeter. I love my Babe :)

Last night, I made chocolate dipped strawberries for us to enjoy today. Yum!

Winter's New Look

It's February, and I've hit the itchy part of winter where I long to change something up. Namely with my hair. It never fails to happen haha. So, I hopped over to my hairdresser and said, "Let's play!" She loves me; I'm always asking her to do something different, and we have fun. Yay! So happy!

Also, I got to meet my hairdresser's husband, and he told me to blog about it, so there! Done! They make a great couple, and they're cute together too :)

Sunday Morning Thoughts #1

Over the past few weeks, I've embarked on what I consider to be two huge projects: organizing the office and organizing the bedroom! Now, one would think that having been married 8 months and me living in our apartment 9 months, this would already be a done deal. Er, not so much. I've found that it's been a lot harder than I imagined to combine two people's things, especially when one of the people (me!) has a lot of stuff. We've come a long way, gotten rid of stuff, gotten rid of more stuff, organized, reorganized, and finally it all seems to be coming together. It's not finished, but we're getting closer!

Organizing our life together has definitely been a process, though. And not one that I really wanted to tackle most of the time. We probably could have had the results that we're seeing now sooner if I had decided to motivate myself sooner. Making the decision is the key. It's easy to put things off, saying, "I'll do that later." But then all the I'll-do-that-later's start to build up, and you're overwhelmed with all of the work to do and don't know where to start.

Just pick a place and start. It's as easy and as hard as that. Make the decision, draw yourself a schedule if you work that way, and then dive in. Putting things off doesn't help you in the long-run; I'm the ultimate procrastinator, I would know. :)

Who you are, what you do, who and what is around you is up to you. Every morning we're given a new day. Make yourself.

And remember: don't just be a wannabe; DO!

Lasagna Roll-Ups

A while back, I posted about White Veggie Lasagna, and in that post, I mentioned that I don’t really like lasagna all that much. Now I’m blogging about lasagna again, and I don’t think people are going to believe that I don’t like lasagna haha. I suppose that a better statement would be that I don’t prefer traditional lasagna, but rather variations.

I’ve spent some time thinking over the years of making Lasagna Roll-Ups as to why I like them so much, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because they aren’t overly cheesy or saucy but have a good balance of meat and other flavors. Flavor is, to me, my favorite part about eating.

I originally found this recipe in one of my mother’s cookbooks. The first time I made it, I bought the wrong type of tomatoes and didn’t even realize it until the next time I made the recipe and used the right type of tomatoes. However, I liked the way the Lasagna Roll-Ups tasted the first time I made them better, with the “wrong” type of tomatoes, and so I decided to use those from there on out when I made this recipe.

Gather the ingredients:

     6 lasagna noodles, cooked

     1 lb ground beef

     2 tablespoons minced onions

     1 garlic clove, minced

     1 can diced tomatoes

     ½ teaspoon salt

     ½ teaspoon oregano

     1 to 1 ¼ cups small-curd cottage cheese

     1 egg, lightly beaten

     1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes

     ¼ teaspoon onion powder

     ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese

In a skillet, cook beef, onion, and garlic until meat is no longer pink; drain. Add tomatoes, salt, oregano; simmer for 10 minutes. Spoon half of the meat sauce into a greased 9-in. square baking dish.

In a small bowl, combine cottage cheese, egg, parsley, and onion powder. Spread ¼ cupful of cheese mixture onto each noodle. Top with remaining meat sauce. Carefully roll up each noodle and place in baking dish.

Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until heated through. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Note: Serving size is approximately 2 roll-ups. This recipe is very easily doubled to make for more people. Enjoy!

DIY--Easy Pillow Slip Covers

I’m dedicating this post to my good friend, Justin, who first encouraged me to start a blog. I’ve really been enjoying all aspects of blogging, from thinking up and doing posts, to designing and redesigning (and redesigning again lol) the look of my blog. I’ve really been striving to carry out what I originally stated as my blog’s purpose: to stop just being a wannabe and actually do some of the things I’ve been wanting to do. I’m not perfectly there; I definitely have some big areas that I want to start making waves in (namely being more organized at home and getting rid of the mess haha), but I’ve been pleased with my progress so far. So, thanks Justin; I gave you the blame when I first started this venture, and now I’ll give you the praise! :)

I LOVE being crafty! Really, I love being crafty with a purpose. There are a lot of simple craft ideas out there…..but a lot of them are things that I would never use. I don’t like to make a project that I ultimately won’t use just because I want something to do. So, I look for ideas that I think are useful or practical. My recent pattern has been to search Pinterest after I finish my Facebook time to see if I can find any good ideas. Which is how I found the project I’m blogging about today.

I think pillows are wonderful. They’re fun décor that add warmth to furniture. When I’m at a store, I could spend quite some time just looking at all the pillows. The only problem with them is that they are expensive! “You want HOW much for this pillow?” I feel like asking. I just look at them and know that I can’t really justify the expense, nor would my husband appreciate me spending that kind of money on pillows. So, I was really excited when I came across the tutorial for these easy pillow slip-covers.

The best part about these (other than being easy to make haha)? I was able to get 4 pillow forms for just over $20 total, plus approximately $10 for fabric…..voila! Four pillows done for around $30. Yay!

I followed this tutorial here. However, I'm also going to blog this tutorial myself.

To make your own:

Gather a pillow form, 1/2 to 1 yard of fabric (depending on how many pillows you'll be making and the size; I made 14" by 14" pillows and used about 3/4 of a yard for two), thread, and your sewing machine.

Wash and iron the fabric. Cut the fabric two times the width of the pillow form plus 6 inches by the height of the pillow plus 1 inch. For example, for a 14" by 14" pillow, the width would be 34" by a height of 15".

Iron and sew a rolled hem on both short sides of the fabric.

Place the pillow form in the middle of the fabric, right side up. Fold one side of the fabric over the pillow until centered and then fold the other over until snug around the pillow form. Pin the fabric together at the top and bottom.

Carefully remove the pillow form and repin all three layers of fabric. Sew the top and bottom edges with a half inch seam allowance (I cut my fabric a little larger than I meant to, so my seam allowances ended up being more like 1 inch each; if this happens to you, adjust the seam allowance as necessary).

Turn the slip cover right side out and poke out the corners with a point turner (or whatever pointy type instrument you happen to have on hand lol). Insert the pillow form, and you're done! You're very own homemade pillow!

Banana Almond Smoothie

Recently, my husband and I have begun to endeavor to eat a little healthier and to work out to lose a bit of weight and get into better shape. Towards this end, I decided to stop eating cereal for breakfast and to start making fruit smoothies. Which also means that I have to be a bit more motivated to get up and get things done in the morning; not a bad thing, even if my bed is incredibly comfy haha!

I have been enjoying my berry fruit smoothies in the morning, but that’s not what I’m going to be sharing in this post. While on Pinterest, I came across a pin for an Almond Energy Shake that looked de-lish! So, I picked up a couple extra ingredients when grocery shopping for the week and whipped it up. I can say that it lived up to expectations grandly! It has a fairly light flavor at first taste, but the more you drink, the better it gets. I think that I’m going to enjoy alternating this smoothie with my berry smoothies in the mornings!

(UPDATED 1/31/2013) Gather the ingredients:

     1 1/4 Cups Almond milk

     1 banana, sliced and frozen

     2 tablespoons almond butter

     ½ teaspoon (approx.) cinnamon
     1 scoop vanilla protein powder

     4 ice cubes

Place all the ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth. This updated recipe makes 1 serving; pour it into a large mason jar and enjoy! Note: with the updated recipe, it won't fill a large mason jar to the brim like in the picture below. It's still yummy though!