day 10(0000) quarantine

As most of you know and many of you are in the same situation, we are currently in self isolation aka quarantine, here at home. We had actually started homeschooling V back in February, and thankfully I had gotten my sea legs A LITTLE stable before the madness ensued. Of course nothing could prepare us here, or anyone for that matter, for what would come.

Yesterday a friend asked if I had any magazines that her children could use for a project. Of course I did! And I remembered she had just started her seedlings, I had not yet gotten soil, I asked if she had any left we could use, she did and would bring it by. I went around the house and gathered what I could find, magazines and catalogs. And a set of grow lights, it snowed again and she needed some for her seedlings. Into the bag they went! I grabbed some of the snacks I always keep on hand in bags, animal crackers, they are her little’s favorite, and into the bag they went also. I remembered an idea I had seen, drawing hand outlines on cardboard so that kids can practice painting their nails, she has 2 girls so I made one for each of them. Before I made them, I sprayed Lysol on the cardboard, front and back. That kind of struck a cord with me, like WOW, am I really doing this? YEP! I got it all into a bag, washing my hands probably 50 times while assembling the bag. And then I put the bag outside the garage door, and closed it and went back inside. That was hard.

That was a very profound realization. I could watch her from the window, but I wouldn’t be able to see her, give her a hug, or chit chat in the living room. She would leave the soil and some medicine she picked up for me, at the garage door also. I waited a bit before checking the window for tire marks in the snowy driveway. This is the new way of doing things. For now. I don’t want to call it the new normal, nothing about this is normal, and I don’t want it to ever be.

Merry Christmas and where did the year go?!

I have no clue where the last 12 months went. Did they even happen?  The 6 month old sprawled across me sleeping would indeed indicate that they did. Between being pregnant, packing up the old place, buying a house, moving, having a baby and raising the baby, wow it has been a whirlwind!  Hopefully this coming year is a little more calm and collected.
On a happy note, I installed a WordPress app on my phone, so hopefully I can get more recipes and posts done. Fingers crossed! In the mean time, I just wanted to take a minute and wish you all a very happy holiday and wonderful new year!

A new addition to the family and how to freshen your towels!

It seems like every weekend is busier than the last! Seriously! For two little days I sure seem to pack a lot in!  I am sorry I haven’t written. There has been A LOT going on. Father’s day, garden work, life stuffs, AND a new addition! That is right, I am an Auntie again!!! I am so very excited! (okay, I’ll chill with the !)

The corn is growing!!

Last weekend I recreated a salad I made at the cabin the weekend before, and it came out great, I can’t wait to share the recipe with you. I also made a delicious french toast bake, it was SO good. (Also will share that recipe soon)

Exciting new salad I made!

Also, Cicadas are everywhere! As in, we can’t drive with the windows down because they are flying into the car!! Gross!!!!!!

Remainder of a cicada

This past week we went strawberry picking, which was a lot of fun. However, challenging it might have been. 😉 Nah, really, my sister and I rocked that patch!  And last but not least, I found a way to freshen my towels.   I tossed some baking soda in with the towels (1Cup for a large load) along with my regular soap, extremely hot water and set them to the regular wash cycle then dry as normal.  Low and behold, they are like brand new!! I’m not saying they weren’t prefect….. but…. ummmm…… Someone in the house (and by someone I mean Mister C) likes to put wet towels in the hamper, and we KNOW what that does… It is more than my anal retentive heart can bear, luckily the baking soda did the trick and all is well again. I had been trying different methods for MONTHS so I am so glad to have finally found a solution!

 

My beautiful and fresh smelling towels

Weekend outings and garden updates

Happy Monday Morning! (or afternoon or evening by the time you read this)

In an effort to post more, I am going to start posting about the weekend happenings, garden updates, meal plans and random things I am up to. (Hopefully you enjoy hearing about my nerd life, I’m quite fond of being a self-proclaimed nerd)

This weekend I finally made the fire starters I’ve been talking about for a few weeks! It ended up being a combination of pinterest/advice from my good friend Julia’s mom. (Who I call Mama Arnouts) I have been saving dryer lint and toilet paper rolls. Yes it has been wrecking havoc on my OCD/”must always have a clean and organized home”, but I really wanted to have these for cabin time this year.   Directions are as follows:

1. Save empty toilet paper rolls
2. Save dryer lint
3. Stuff lint into rolls
4. Wrap in wax paper like a tootsie roll
5. Save and use to start a campfire

How to make a fire starter

 

In addition to the fire starters, I got a good amount of garden work done on Saturday morning.  Thus far I have planted Beets, Carrots, Lettuce, and Peas all from seed.  I am a little behind where I was at this time last year, but the weather this year has been the pits.  It started to rain so we cleaned up and headed to Goodwill.  I love Goodwill, they have all sorts of interesting finds there. I have found some great kitchen plates and servers there, I highly encourage checking out your local Goodwill/Thrift Stores.  We had dinner out Saturday night at one of my favorite restaurants, Four Brothers in Rhinebeck! Nothing, and I mean nothing, beats their Greek Salad!

Cucumber and pea trellises

I also made Lilac Lemon Thyme Sorbet with my friend Sarah. She and her sons made some lilac simple syrup, so naturally I thought it needed to be a sorbet. It was refreshing and delicious!

Not a great picture, but you get the idea

 

After that excitement it was home and time to clean the house and make dinner.  I pulled some of my homemade pesto out of the freezer, tossed it with some shell pasta and served it with delicious baked chicken breast.  It was divine, and very easy, which is perfect for Sundays!

That about sums it up!  How was your weekend?

Classic Macaroni Salad, just like Grandma used to make!

Classic Macaroni Salad

Sunday I had the pleasure of attending a Goddess Girl Event in High Falls, and wow, I am speechless, it was fantastic! Goddess Girl Events are an amazing day of pampering, luxury and bliss all put on by Tamme Stitt Photography; along with Christene Spiezio, LMT, Gina Truhe Make Up, and Hair by Adrienne Nixon, these women wow’d me big time!! I have never felt so beautiful and so pampered! Everyone needs to experience a day like that!

This is me! All done up and heading home 🙂

After my morning of amazingness, I went home, aka back to reality.  Mister Chris had requested burgers and potatoes for dinner.  Honestly I wasn’t in the mood for potatoes; Margaritas on the beach sounded MUCH better. Le sigh, reality always wins.  But I still didn’t want potatoes. I scanned the kitchen, “what can I make, what can I make, what can I make…..”, and then it hit me, I haven’t made macaroni salad in FOREVER! It’s quick, easy, and I already had all the ingredients right there in my kitchen, and let’s be honest, nothing beats not having to go back out to the store!  I made it just like my Grandma used to make it, no deviations! I wanted to add some pickles but I decided to really keep it classic and use just the juice.  Give this a try when you need a quick side or a dish for a BBQ or picnic. It is a sure fire crowd pleaser!

In the making, not exactly picturesque.

Recipe:

• 1/2lb Elbow Macaroni
• 3 Hard Boiled Eggs (see here for how to make perfect hard-boiled eggs with no green ring)
• 3/4 Cup Mayonnaise
• 1/4 Cup Pickle Juice (I use bread and butter pickle juice and it is perfectly fine if some of the spices get in there)
• 2/3 Cup Grated Carrots, packed well (or more or less to your liking)
• Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Make your hard-boiled eggs.  If you use my method they will cool perfectly in time for the Macaroni.
2. Boil the macaroni according to the instructions on the package, I cook mine for 9 minutes.  Make sure to salt the water well! Allow to cool in the colander.
3. Put the macaroni in a medium-sized bowl, with plenty of room for mixing
4. Add in your mayonnaise, and carrots
5. Now cut your eggs DIRECTLY above the bowl, that way you can just open the cutter and the eggs fall in, and you won’t loose a single ounce of eggy goodness! I use the OXO egg slicer, it’s perfect, and I highly recommend it.
6. Add a dash of salt and pepper, and mix it all to combine using a large rubber spatula. I find the large rubber spatulas work best. They don’t break up the noodles, but they DO  break down the yolks and really get them mixed in well with the mayonnaise, which is exactly what you want to happen.
7. Adjust your salt and pepper accordingly and enjoy!

Just like Grandma used to make!

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Hudson Valley Wine Fest, better late than never

A few days before my epic computer crash, I had the privilege of attending the Hudson Valley Wine Fest, courtesy of Fine Cooking Magazine! I won a four pack of tickets through a twitter contest, and I was PSYCHED!!!! I had always wanted to check it out, but timing wise it just never worked out. This time around not only did it work out, but I was given tickets and I was taking some fantastic friends as guests!

Via a late night twitter convo, I told Ken, aka Hungry Rabbit, that if I won I would take he and M, with me; along with my date, I brought the infamous Stanley Samantha Jones Blanch Deveroux, otherwise know as Michael!  Once there we met up with my dear friend Winnie of Healthy Green Kitchen (and her daughter Maddie) and went to watch Abby Dodge  do a series of baking demos for Fine Cooking Magazine. It was my first time meeting Abby and she is such a doll!!! She is sweet as pie with a great sense of humor!!!

The fest itself was good, but what really made it was my friends. I’ll be honest, the fest itself wasn’t exactly what I expected…. I am so grateful to Fine Cooking for the tickets, but had I been a paying guest I would have been really disappointed. It was extremely overcrowded, as in barely any room to move, and it was HOT. Hot and alcohol are not a good mix.  Also It’s the food and wine fest, but there was almost no food (other than crackers and a dessert). The “food” portion was only a food tent that you could purchase food tickets for, but it was not included in the price of the ticket, and the vendors in it were unprepared and the food, eh. As for the wine the pours, they were VERY small; so small it was hard to really even taste the wine.  And the people representing the wineries were cold and inhospitable; honestly not very nice at all. I was shocked!! They were terrible representations of their wineries!!!

On a good note, there was a huge assortment of wineries there!!! It was fantastic to see just how many wineries are in NY!!!! There was something for everyone, and it gave me a lot of ideas on places to go for a day trip.  The organizers really did a wonderful job of representing all areas of the wine spectrum as well as the state. The best part was definitely the fine cooking demos, and of course, the spectacular friends I went with! 🙂 Enjoy the pictures!