Gobble Gobble, It's Turkey Time!

It’s Thanksgiving week! I am of course thankful for Family, Friends, Love, Freedom, Puppies... And also these things:  

Short work week! *and let me tell you, I have had my share of working Black Friday in recent years. I am NOT taking my office’s early closure on Wednesday nor the blissful 4 ½ days off for granted. No sir.

Amazing food. I’m actually halfway into my Thanksgiving feasts (yes, plural). We did a big “Fakesgiving” last weekend for Matt’s family. It gave me an excuse to serve up my family’s “turkey in a bag” recipe (see below). Since my dad will be cooking the bird when I visit my parents later in the week, this allowed me to hone my turkey roasting skills. I’m happy to report it was edible and second helpings were had. Phew.

Black Friday! Judge if you will. I make no excuses. This is a newer tradition. Not being an early bird (or any kind of morning bird, for that matter) I never participated in the 4 – 5 – or 6 AM deals. When retailers moved things up to midnight, my mom and I saw our opportunity. Nothing like a quick tryptophan induced nap to revive you for hefty discounts and waiting in line. And though many stores are opening much earlier this year, I think I’ll stick with midnight. I’d still like to spend my evening with my family first. I hope most consumers feel the same way.

Friday will bring a meal I look forward to almost as much as Thanksgiving itself. For the last few years, I’ve been crashing Turkey Leftover Panini night at a good friend’s house. It’s all the ingredients you love about Thanksgiving plus cheese and spreads melted in between crusty bread.

If you are not serving up your leftovers in a Panini press, you are sadly missing out.

Matt and his brother Luke are opening their Christmas tree lot on Friday in Greenwood. I’ll be supporting from afar in Spokane. Though I do plan to be more involved (read: self – appointed Director Of Visual Design and Social Media) this year.

The official kick off week to the holidays always inspires my creative side! I’m definitely more inclined to try new crafts and recipes. Hello Pinterest! Though I am terrified the results will belong here rather than be “pin” worthy, I’m realizing I enjoy the work of the creative outlet just as much as the outcome. 

I’ve also decided (in light of my Happiness Project prep) that pre – planning and signing myself up for things has actually been very beneficial in execution.

I have a sewing class I’m taking this week, registered two weeks ago. All Thanksgiving week workouts are prearranged (I know myself too well) and/ or paid. This ensures I won't bail on myself or others. And so far I am always glad I signed up and participated. 

If you are hosting or decided that deep frying your turkey is "so 2010" here is a recipe to try. It actually steams the bird, but the ingredients used make the skin crisp and brown! 

This is a recipe from my Nana, amazing flavor and is about half the cooking time of any other roasting recipe (seriously, who wants to watch/ baste a turkey for 5+ hours?).

“Turkey in the Sack”

You'll need: 

• Salt (anything from table salt, kosher, fleur de sel… I used a herbs de Provence salt blend from Whole Foods)
• Pepper (again, plain black pepper to fresh ground peppercorns)
• Paprika
• 4 tsp Hot water
• I Cup Olive oil (original recipe calls for Peanut oil, you can use either)

Use equal parts Salt, Paprika, and Pepper, depending on the size of Turkey. For a 13 lb Turkey, I used 1 tbsp. of each. Mix together
.
Take oil and coat a plain old grocery store paper bag. Make sure bag is completely saturated, seam included.

Combine half of the Dry Seasoning mix with hot water and remaining oil. Rub over the entire turkey. Use remaining Dry Seasoning on the top of the turkey breast. Place turkey in sack, breast side down. Fold bag closed, staple shut. Bake at 350, 10 minutes for each pound.

Use caution when opening the sack, there will be a lot of steam!

Take a look at that lovely bag just roasting away

And when it's done, you feel like this:

Magically genius in the kitchen with tons of spare time!

Happy Baking and happy start of the holiday season!!

Week O' Love

Happy Valentine's Week!

I thought I'd feature a week-long montage of all the things I'm loving these days. To start, a long overdue review of some products and styles I just can't stop lusting over:

Kate Spade's Topliner Trench coat:

I love the strong lines that give this coat so much detail to a tried and true classic. You can't quite tell from the picture, but this coat carries a bit of a flare in the skirt. It would be adorable to simply wear as a dress too!

All that Glitters:

It seems 29 1/2 is my guilded age as I only have eyes for gold accessories these days.

I LOVE this new product, the Pop Phone. It's a traditional handset that plugs into your laptop (for Skype), iPad, or cell phone. It comes in blue, red, and polka dots, but this gold version has my name written all over it!

My current wallet was a $5 glittered gold Forever 21 find I purchased for my trip to Europe last year. In case the wallet was lost or stolen, I didn't want to lose anything too valuable besides the cash that was inside.  After the trip I received so many compliments on it, I just kept it around as the permanent fixture.
Over time it's lost it's shine and the clasp doesn't really close anymore, but I still love the look of a bright, shiny wallet.

This Kate Spade gold "japanese florals" is a perfect replacement.

Since upgrading to my new iPhone, I haven't found a cover for it. This Diane Von Furstenburg style (though not gold) carries a great daily reminder for myself.

And finally, I came across a great, simple craft to do today to prep for Valentine's dinner.
Paint two glass champagne flutes with glitter craft paint (using a small sponge brush) to add some sparkle to your bubbly.

To make them dishwasher proof, set the paint by "baking" in the oven.

Duh. Pinning.

Pinterest has become my new time suck. If I have a free minute, I'm no longer updating my Facebook profile, wandering aimlessly through friend's albums, or falling into random twitter feeds.... I'm collecting quotes, recipes, crafts, fashion how to's, workouts, and dreaming of a better life through images and placing all these things on the social pin board known as Pinterest.

A couple months ago, my pinboards were nothing more than things I thought were interesting. I'd repin images I liked. Now, I'm uploading my own pins from sites. I'm using the platform to keep track of my own ideas. Most importantly, I feel challenged to actually put my pins to practice. The result has been new outfit ensembles with clothes I already owned, new makeup ideas (without having to spend $50 and 2 hours at the MAC counter), new hair up dos, recipes, crafts, and decor.

I've decided to add a new blog page to keep track of my pin experiments. Each post will explain the process, if it truly is the "best recipe/tutorial/easy decor idea ever", and my results. Additionally, I'll link my original pins with the post.
(If you care to peruse or follow my ideas before action, my Pinterest page can be found @ http://pinterest.com/carinamae/)

Happy Pinning indeed.

Are you there summer? It's me, Carina

Since moving back to the PNW, there have been few things more frustrating in daily life than the crappy weather. I've been told these last two years are merely a fluke. However, I have my doubts.
If this is indeed the case, this transient can hardly hold still long enough to wait out the rain with the "hope" of sunny days to come. I fear for my sanity, as I'm beginning to show signs of a Seattle (Tacoma) local. Just this past Friday (our warmest day of the year so far... with a record 70F), I blasted my car's air conditioning and left the house without my token grey sweater. Gasp!
Luckily, the warm sunny weather did not last long, and I was back in my cloudy, overcast comfort zone by Saturday.
Since, however, the temperature has remained a steady 65ish thoughout the weekend, I was able to accomplish a handful of summerlike activities such as weekend crafts and grilling out.

For your viewing pleasure, enjoy:

I spent most of Saturday up at Paine Field at an airshow for work.
Unfortunately for my family, it only strengthened my desire to start
flying ASAP

I've driven by the Dream Lifter many times, but have never been close up on foot.
I was really hoping for a tour... but a couple shots will suffice, I suppose.

I have my first obsession with Tacoma: A food co-op called Tacoma Boys...
this bunch of asparagus was a mere $2.50 and will probably
provide us with side dishes all week. I also happened to
purchase three bottles of wine for $10... AH-mazing!



Sunday evening grilling is a family affair





A little garden pruning



GrillMaster Flex 

 

 It seems almost criminal for me to have this $600 grill... an inherited piece of furniture from the last move. I was happy the moving guys were smart enough to hook up the propane tank for me, otherwise this bad boy would probably just sit through the summer looking pretty.



  

My weekend project was to create frames to display all my metro and train tickets from my trip in Europe last fall. I found this two large frames featuring smaller displays and thought with some fabulous craft paper, they would be perfect. I love how they turned out! Unfortunately, now I can't find the tickets... so they'll sit empty until the tickets are found or a new trip is booked, whichever comes first...

Globalization

Rachel Zoe featured these little gems on her site today. Considering the long talk Katie and I had yesterday about whether Wisconsin and Illinois are actually connected (for those of you scratching your head at this too, they are... a lot... WI is the state directly on top of IL), studying up on my geography is probably not a bad idea.

And what other way to do so than fashionably? The globes featured by R Zoe were created by ImagineNation.

Remind me to share with you about my run in with real life superhero Phoenix Jones, I imagine this globe might be right up his crime fighting alley

I think with a little creativity, some Elmer's glue, a flat surface globe, and decoupage finish, these wouldn't be too hard to recreate on my own. A stand alone globe would be a perfect addition to the library. Stay tuned, hopefully this DIY project comes to fruition!

Season's Greetings

Just like Kindergarten, arts and crafts have been aflutter around here lately . I decided Valentine's Day was a perfect excuse to create some kitschy homemade cards.

It seemed appropriate to borrow some of Nick's punny lines for my greetings.

And speaking of cards, if you've taken your holiday collection down recently, here's a great idea for them The Kind Life (this also happens to be one of my new favorite websites). Or you can do something similar yourself: Cut the back off, recycle, and mount the front to a new card for next year. My family also reuses the front decorated part for a gift tag.

As for the photo cards many families are now sending out, I'm thinking of cropping the message off and using the picture for an album of all our family and friends.