This Is What 14 Looks Like (and A Hair Story)

She's my baby and she's fourteen.

How does this happen? Oh, I know how it happens, but, ugggh...how does it happen? My heart bursts with love and pride at the same time it's crying.

This is a weird, weird thing that just has no sane explanation. Although I'm comforted by all the generations that have come before and I'm sure felt these same contradictory feelings.

Ah, but isn't she sweet? I'm awed by the fact that we've been priviledged to raise her and see her make great choices (and some dumb ones...) and grow into a loving, funny, special girl.

And here is her hair story:

Her hair was stick straight until about a year and a half ago when it started to have a slight wave. Then over the course of about six months it became curly. And when I say curly, I don't just mean curly, I mean curls that make people come up and pull them to watch how they spring back into place like a slinky toy or something.

It was incredible, really. For awhile she hated it and continued to brush it as if it were straight which just made it more frizzy and big. But then she started to like it, began scrunching it instead of brushing it and soon she became comfortable in her own hair.

But she said to me a couple of months ago,"Mom, what if I become an adult and never go to a hairdresser? I won't know what to do!"

As the person who'd always cut her hair (hey, we're frugal!), I kinda laughed, except that I was at a loss with this curly hair and thought maybe it would be a good idea to get a good cut and watch how they did it so I could replicate it at home.

Enter a birthday and a Grandma who has a great stylist and decided to give her a gift of her first ever professional haircut and style:

And guess what? She doesn't just like her hair anymore, she loves it! See the face-framing layers? These really made the curls bounce in the front.

The stylist also showed her some tips to make the curls be more curly and less frizzy. Want to know the most surprising thing? He said she could use a little hand cream on her hair to control the frizz and make the curls more defined.

Hand cream, who knew?




She still has some straight hair underneath in the back, and he really did a good job of bringing out the curl here.

Beautiful hair and beautiful girl.

*sniff, sniff* but where's my little girl?

-Jami

Extreme Room Makeover: Day One

As you saw from the Introduction Video, we had our work cut out for us in re-doing our son's room in nine days and on a budget. How much did we have to spend? Well, as little as we could get away with (I'll have the breakdown for you when we do the reveal).

Since we were doing the floor which included topping with polyurethane, there would be a three day wait before we could return the furniture as well as the time to put the floor down, so we needed to start as soon as possible.

First thing Saturday morning after our son left, we started cleaning up and clearing out the room.

I always forget how long this part takes.

Watch this video full size on YouTube.

Stay tuned tomorrow to see how much we were able to accomplish the rest of the week, plus some tips on painting and the (infamous) flooring.

-Jami (and Brian)

Extreme Room Makeover: Introduction Video

The first video of the "Extreme Room Makeover" we planned for our son while he was in Mexico during spring break is an introduction and overview of the space we had to work with. As you will see, there's a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time, and, this is key, on a limited budget.

Where's Ty Pennington's sponsors when you need 'em?

Sure, it would've been smart to plan this a little more in advance so we could've had more time to look for bargains, but it was kind of spur-of-the-moment. And you will witness over the course of the week that necessity is often the mother of invention (did I just mess that phrase up?).

Can't afford all new fixtures and accessories? Try a can of spray paint!

Can't find a new, bigger bed that's affordable? Scrounge through the wood pile, buy a few more pieces, and...voila! A new "cottage style" bed (imperfections intact).

Floor didn't turn out? Wow, a rug covers a multitude of sins.

Follow us as we take you on a tour of the room:

Watch the video in larger size on YouTube.

Check back tomorrow and throughout the week for further installments of "Extreme Makeover: Room Edition!"

-Jami (and Brian)

This is linked to:

DIY at A Soft Place to Land

Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog

Trash to Treasure Tuesday at Reinvented

Monday's Menu

What a week here last week! We worked like mad on a re-do of our son's room and I'm happy to say we finished Sunday evening. Whew, in the nick of time because we pick him up at the train station today at 12:30 pm.

Stay tuned for some video of the project including Brian's decision to make a bed frame for a new double bed. This is a big deal folks...other than a few bookshelves and a bench, he's never made any furniture. And for sure nothing that someone would put their weight on. Hmmm.

I was sure glad I had made a menu, though. Since we had some long days (and a few nights), we would've been tempted to go out to eat. But the menu was easy and utilized a slow-cooker, so it ended up very do-able (especially with my newly 14-year-old daughter's help!).

Other than a birthday dinner tonight, we're back to a fairly normal week (Amen).

Monday- (birthday girl's choice) Eggs Benedict, fruit, giant birthday cookie

Tuesday- Slow cooker Mexican Lasagna (new recipe), green salad with spicy vinaigrette, chips and homecanned salsa

Wednesday- Chili, cornbread, vegetables and dip

Thursday- Slow cooked Asian Chicken, stir fry vegetables over baked noodles

Friday- Shrimp & Vegetable pasta (made like this, but with shrimp), green salad

Saturday- Burgers on homemade buns, oven fries, carrots & celery

Sunday- Easter Dinner

-Jami

The Floor Failure (Not!)

June 2010 update: It did work!! I just didn't wait long enough for the poly to dry- after waiting the recommended time before adding furniture, most of the wrinkles were smoothed out and the ones left were just part of the effect. See the room makeover reveal where my son says "the cool floor is my favorite part!"

Our first house was a bungalow in the city with wood floors throughout the main floor. But the attic had been finished in the 70s or 80s and when we bought it came complete with stained blue carpeting up the stairs and in both rooms.

Being young and poor and hating the carpet (yes, my non-love affair with carpet goes way back...), I found an obscure picture in a book on decoupage that showed a floor covered in torn brown paper that looked leather-like. So Brian and I tore and crumpled paper and I spent about a week on my knees gluing it down and covering it with coats of polyurethane.

We did the whole floor and stairs for about $150 (most of the cost being the poly) and it was beautiful. I couldn't believe how good it turned out. I thought for sure it wouldn't last very well, especially on the stairs, so I was going to get a runner to go up the stairs. But I never did. When we sold it five years later, it still looked great- even on the stairs.

Everyone who saw it thought it was so cool and didn't guess it was just paper. I told lots of people how I did it, "you just tear paper and apply it overlapping with some watered-down Elmer's glue!"

Apparently, time is not my friend.

This is a "keeping it real" post. I wanted a quick, cheap alternative to yucky carpet for our son's room makeover, so of course I thought of my cool paper treatment.

I tore and crumpled and glued carefully with my slightly watered down Elmer's just like before, but...

It didn't work this time. The paper wrinkled up and stayed wrinkled. Uggggggh.

I vaguely remembered seeing wrinkles the last time right after laying it, but that they smoothed out overnight after drying, so I kept thinking they would go away.

But they didn't. Not after drying. Not after four coats of poly.

I know you're probably shaking your heads, thinking "what possessed her?" but it really was a cool treatment I thought would be no problem to do again.

Now what? We're looking for a really big rug and will have to cover it with hardwood plywood (our other inexpensive flooring option) at a later date.

In the meantime, not only does it look like paper, it feels like paper and crackles when you walk on it.

And I'm left completely mystified why it worked so well before and not this time. Any ideas?

-Jami

This is linked to: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest

The Inspired Room

Remodelaholics Anonymous

First Day of Spring

It rarely happens that the first day of spring is warm and sunny here.

And by warm I mean 59 degrees, not California warm of 75 degrees. We dared to go to a softball game in just our shirtsleeves, seduced by the sun, and came to regret it as we huddled under begged and borrowed sweatshirts.

But I digress.

It rarely happens that the first day of Spring is sunny here (see, it's easier if I just leave out the warm), but it happened this year. And I was able to do two things for the first time in 2010: open the windows to let some blessed fresh air into the house, and hang some clothes out on the line to dry.






I can admit that it seems silly to view hanging clothes out to dry as noteworthy at all. I'm not sure why I enjoy it, maybe there's something elemental about hanging clothes. I'm forced to take a few minutes to enjoy the world around me. There's no thought involved other than looking at the sky and grass and listening to the birds.


I even feel connected to countless other women before me who've hung clothes to dry (although I'm sure some of those women would've killed for a clothes dryer).


It's actually sorta therapeutic.


But that'll just be our secret. I like to maintain the image for my family of all the drudgery I do for them..."look! I'm lugging out this huge basket of clothes and hanging them up for you."


-Jami

This is linked to Works For Me Wednesdays.

Before and After: Lighting

We are in the process of redecorating our son's room which we are documenting with a video camera to share with you all next week. I'm pretty excited about being able to put a video up here at An Oregon Cottage, it's a much easier way of showing a process. Plus, it's fun.

In the meantime, I had to share some pictures of the solution to the lighting problems in the room. The lighting in this room was either cheap-looking or really dated. But when I started looking at light fixtures that weren't as cheap-looking as what we already had, I saw that what I liked was between $30 and $40 dollars.

Which doesn't seem that expensive, except that we're on a tight budget and what we've allotted really needed to go towards paint, flooring materials, and furniture.

Then I went to a couple of thrift stores looking for furniture and a lamp to replace the dated brass one already in the room. Can I just say that thrift stores around here have gotten ridiculously expensive? Goodness, they wanted $10 to $$15 dollars for ugly old lamps (and the furniture? Broken dressers for $49!).

What happened? We used to find such good things at thrift stores. Now we just get clothes or small items there and leave the big stuff for Craigslist.

So, no lighting. I then went to plan B and looked for a spray paint to paint the ones we already had.

I found this $8 can of Oil Rubbed Bronze metallic paint by Rustoleum. I was a little worried about the "metallic" part, but couldn't find any type of matte paint, so I took a chance.

And I LOVE it! Look at the difference in the before and after pictures:

Here's the ceiling fixture before. Functional, but really cheap-looking. But I think we paid $13 for it, so...um, form follows cost here.

Good golly molly! Same fixture...can you believe it? I think it looks a million times better. Richer and looks like more than $13 for sure.

I've always loved the shape of this lamp and the quality. The shiny brass? Not so much.

Probably why it was relegated to my son's room.

Wow. I can see this in our living room now. But I'm going to let my son keep it, anyway.

It's hard to see the effect in these pictures, but the metallic part is very subtle. It's not quite as matte as some oil-rubbed bronze things I've seen, but is very close. And I actually kinda like the subtle sparkle, it adds a bit of depth.

I love, love, love how these turned out and now my mind is racing with the other applications I can find for this paint.

First on the list, though, are our doorknobs we replaced when we moved in five years ago. The oil-rubbed bronze has worn off the knobs, leaving shiny brass. At more than $25 each, it would be prohibitive to buy all new ones.

Oh, am I glad I found this!


-Jami

This is linked to DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land, Get Your Craft On, Trash to Treasure Tuesday at Reinvented and Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays at Coastal Charm.

Monday's Menu

Last week's grand plan to try four new recipes didn't pan out as I had hoped. My schedule just couldn't accommodate them all. I ended up trying two new ones, the Mexican Layered Three-Bean bake (modified...umm..a bit, which I wrote about here), and Chicken-Rice Burritos.

We all liked the burritos, and I liked how I was able to use the menu to plan for leftovers. I used rice from Tuesdays meal and shredded chicken from Thursday, so they were really easy to put together on Friday. I usually bake my burritos, but this recipe had me use my griddle to brown each side. I like the crispiness I get from baking them, but this was fun and would be great when I don't want to turn my oven on.

This week is Spring Break here, our kids are away most of the time, and we are in the middle of a little redecorating project (which you will hear about soon...probably more than you ever wanted to know!), so the menu is EASY. I'm falling back on our favorite, quick mainstays and making use of the slow cooker.

Monday- Spaghetti with Roasted Tomato Sauce (moved from Sunday), green salad

Tuesday- Soft tacos

Wednesday- (guests) Slow cooker Italian Elk Stew (modified with broth and flour instead of jarred gravy) over garlic mashed potatoes, green salad, (and some dessert I haven't decided on yet)

Thursday- out to dinner

Friday- Slow-cooker pulled pork* on homemade buns (in the freezer from last Saturday), vegetable platter, maybe oven fries...

Saturday- Homemade Pizza

Sunday- leftovers (before a 14th birthday party!)

*recipe coming...

-Jami

When Seeds Sprout

One of the things I enjoy about starting my garden vegetables from seed is the thrill I get when they sprout. It's just such a little miracle.

You put this dry, brown thing in more dry brown stuff, add some water and - poof! Plants emerge.

Real, green living things.

And sometimes they're pretty old seeds and I think, "nothing will happen this time," but they still emerge. I just noticed today that five-year-old parsley seed sprouted, and since parsley is notorious for taking a long time to germinate, if at all, I was highly doubtful.

But I saw the little seedlings (two!) and threw my hands in the air and shouted, "I'm king of the world!"

Just kidding. But I was pretty happy to see them.

And to think I'm going to grow them (some to five feet or more!) and harvest vegetables that I will feed my family is truly a miracle to me that never gets old, even after years of growing vegetables.

I'm like Thomas: every year I doubt the seeds will sprout and every year they do, renewing my faith.

It's simple and pure and definitely a fine thing.

-Jami

*This is linked to Finer Things Friday.

*Also, I've linked my old post about Gardening the No-Till Way to Heavenly Homemakers 2010 edition of The Little Green Project. There are lots of great "green" ideas to check out!

A Recipe Recap

I had a goal to try four new recipes this week. The first one bit the dust early on the very first day of the week when I found out it was the only time I had to take my son shopping for needed items for his upcoming trip to Mexico. No time for a tart crust or cooking just before eating.

It turned out to be a good thing in the long run because I had quite a few vegetables that were just past their prime but made a perfectly good Vegetable Beef Soup that I threw in the slow cooker that morning.

I made recipe #2 tonight, Mexican Layered Three Bean Casserole and thought I'd give you an update.

Why?

Well, I kept thinking about a comment from my bloggy friend Jenelle who said that she would've made the recipe this week too, but she didn't have the peppers called for in the recipe.

Or I really should say, I kept thinking about the comment as I was substituting one ingredient after another while I was making the recipe.

What did I substitute?

• yogurt and cream for the sour cream and milk
• chopped, frozen anaheim and jalapeno peppers for the poblano (and they weren't roasted, which probably really affected the final dish!)
• flour tortillas for corn
• kidney beans for pink beans
• cheddar cheese for monterey jack
• my home canned salsa for salsa verde

Seriously. The only things I didn't change were the black beans and refried beans. I was cracking up as I realized the final dish probably wouldn't come anywhere near tasting like the original.

Obviously, this is not a review of the original recipe. :-)

But you know what? What I ended up with was good, everyone ate it and even had seconds. But most importantly, it used what I had on hand. And in my world if I waited until I had salsa verde I would never make it. I wouldn't be able to keep my budget in check if I had to purchase specialty items like that.

I'm not advocating radically changing recipes and most of the time I only change one or two things, but the point is you can change things while using the recipe as a guideline in order to use what you have on hand. And sometimes I change things because I'm not a fan of them, like corn tortillas in dishes where they come out mushy. I almost always substitute flour tortillas in dishes like this.

Just be honest and don't say it's "so-and-so's recipe" if it bears little resemblance to the original (I've had that happen to me and it was not a good feeling...).

The good part? Well, besides the fact that my family enjoyed it, it turned out to be a pretty frugal meal even though I used some canned beans (bought on sale) instead of the usual cheap beans I keep in my freezer. Here's the breakdown:

• yogurt = .63
• milk = .04
• peppers from the freezer = 0*
• 5 flour tortillas = .65 (bought at $3.99 for 30)
• garden canned salsa = 0*
• 1 can refried beans = .85
• 2 cans beans = 1.00
• 1-1/2 c. cheese = .72 (@$3.99/2 lbs.)
• onion = .10

*I do have the cost of seeds and fertilizer that I should one day figure into the produce I get from the garden, but that would involve calculating the pounds I ended up with over the season, compared with the cost of the seed variety, plus each ingredient in the fertilizer I make, so...ummm...that's way too much math at this point in my life. Maybe one day...

Total = $3.99 leaving $1.00 for salad to easily come in at the $5.00 goal for the meal.

Will I make it again? Honestly, I don't know. It's very similar to "enchilada pie" or "Mexican lasagna" that I make often and it was kinda soupy.

But that was probably because I only kept two of the original ingredients the recipe called for, so you should probably take that with a grain of salt. :-)

-Jami

Family Snow Trip

We've gone to this lake with my extended family every winter for more than 10 years. It's an annual tradition that we plan a year or more in advance so that all my siblings and their families can come. We all feel it's important to get together, so we save during the year to be able to afford the trip.

And all came. All 16 of us now. In a three bedroom cabin.

Good thing we all have fun together. We played games, laughed, and ate some really good food.

And had this view off the balcony of the new place on the lake we rented this year.

We also had fresh snow right before we arrived, making the snowshoeing really fun and the scenery beautiful. My brother and husband blazed a trail for us through the new snow.

Under blue skies and warm sunshine.

Fresh snow, beautiful lake, spending time with my wonderful family?

That definitely works for me.

-Jami

This is linked with Works for me Wednesday.

Using Up: Italian Vegetable Beef Soup

On the first day of the week I had planned to try lots of new recipes, I had to scrap the first one in order to make a slow-cooker meal so I could do some last-minute shopping with my son before he heads to Mexico for Spring Break.

Best laid plans and all that...

I did have a lot of odds and ends of vegetables in the fridge to use up, though, so it was a good time to make this soup that I flavor with wine, garlic, and Italian seasonings so I can christen "Italian Vegetable Beef Soup."

I don't think my family knows it's leftover soup, and I'm not gonna tell them. Shhhh...

These are the things I pulled out of the freezer and fridge:

-2 cups garbanzo beans (frozen last November!)

-3 cups turkey broth (hey, I just use what I have)

-3 carrots and two parsnips, chopped

-my last bag of frozen garden green beans (don't add until the last hour of cooking)

I had chopped all these and added them to the slow-cooker pot before I took the previous picture:

-2 cans of tomatoes

-one onion

-1/4 of a head of red cabbage (from December!! man, it can last a long time...)

-a slightly wizened red pepper (don't throw it out, chop and freeze or use right away for soup)

-the last center stalks of a bunch of celery (very wilty, I might add).

Then I chopped up 1-1/2 pounds of Elk steak that was in our freezer, courtesy of our friend Dan.

Free is a very good price.

But I've used any cut of beef, including leftovers and hamburger before. And I've even left the meat out, just using beef stock.

But then it's really just vegetable soup. And my family complains, "where's the meat?" Sheesh.

Now throw all the ingredients (except frozen beans) in the slow-cooker with:

- about 1/2 cup of wine

- a couple cloves of garlic

- 1-1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning

- salt and pepper

- a tsp. of beef bullion (because I was using up turkey broth...)

If the chopped ingredients are not covered with liquid, add a just enough water to cover as pictured.

Cook on low for 7 hours, add the green beans and cook for another hour. It can also be cooked on high for 3-4 hours.

Serve sprinkled with a little freshly grated Parmesan and alongside some yummy artisan bread.

Needless to say, you can change this up any way by using different beans and vegetables. I've even used pork and chicken stock, just switching to white wine and keeping the same seasonings.

There. A nourishing and tasty meal using up whatever's in the fridge at a cost of way less than five dollars!

-Jami

This is linked to $5 Dinner Challenge, Tasty Tuesday, and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

Monday's Menu

After almost a month with very little snow in the mountain pass by us, it snowed the week before our annual family weekend snow trip! And then the sun came out for our excursions on Saturday. Wow, we were blessed.

On to a normal week of menus, though, and this week I'm making a concerted effort to try some recipes I've pulled out of magazines recently. When I outlined the steps I take to menu planning I wrote that most of the time I use our family's tried-and-true recipes or look at past menus for inspiration. That's because it's the easiest and makes for a pretty quick menu planning session.

But I do like to try new recipes and will keep them with my menus to remind me to include them in a menu. I hadn't done this in awhile, so this week I'm actually going to try four new recipes because they looked fairly easy and I had the ingredients on hand already.

We'll find out if any will make the permanent rotation or if they will end up in the recycling bin. Or if I'm crazy for trying all these new things and I'll end up just making a fall-back recipe (usually spaghetti or tacos).

I'm including the links to the ones I could find. Family Circle won't let me to the tart recipe without signing up for a newsletter, so I'll post it later if it's a keeper. :-) Maybe you'd like to try some of these with me this week? If so, let me know how it went for you!

Monday- Onion, Bacon, and Spinach Tart (with less onions for the kids), slaw made with Dijon Vinaigrette, sourdough bread

Tuesday- Chicken Teriyaki, brown rice (make extra for Friday), vegetable stir fry

Wednesday- Mexican Layered Three Bean Casserole, green salad with spicy vinaigrette, chips and home canned salsa

Thursday- Baked chicken, Roasted Vegetable Pie (substituting potatoes for the squash), green salad

Friday- Chicken Rice Burritos made with leftover rice from Tuesday and chicken from Thursday, vegetable platter

Saturday- Turkey burgers on home made buns, oven fries, carrots

Sunday- Spaghetti using frozen Roasted Tomato/Vegetable Sauce

-Jami

Fun Friday Links

I'm off for our annual family snow weekend, but thought I'd pass along some fun places I've visited this last week.

I shared with you my system for starting seeds and where I do it now (the kitchen was supposed to be temporary...5 years ago, *harrumph*), so I thought it would be good to share with you the DIY system that DigginFood came up with. Grow your seeds under a light using an IKEA shelf...smart!

I love, love, love reading about Clay and April over at Coal Creek Farm. Their love story is very similar to ours, complete with 1980s hair and acid-wash jeans.

Finally, The Inspired Room inspired me to think about decorating in new ways with this post about lessons from Anthropologie. Good stuff.

-Jami

Spring Seeds

I just got the first of my seeds started last weekend.

If you've downloaded the PDF of my Organic Gardening Checklist (located in the sidebar), you know that I'm a little late. *sigh*

But I've mentioned before that the checklist is the ideal, and well, I hardly ever live up to the ideal. Like, never. Seriously, I've never kept to the dates on that list in the five years I've used it. But it's a goal and helps me plan what I am doing, even if it's late.

And if you wonder why I even do this, remember my post waxing poetic about starting seeds and the four great reasons to start your own. And only one of them is about saving money.

I could spend a lot of money on special seed-starting cells, water reservoirs, and grow lights, but I choose to keep it frugal by buying $5.99 plastic dome kits and reusing them for a few years, along with reused 6-pack and flower pots. I use a normal, cheap, fluorescent shop light with one cool bulb and one warm bulb.

I wrote about the steps I take to start my seeds, as well as what I use, last spring and these new pictures look very similar. The one new thing I spent money on this year is a seedling heating mat. With coupons (of course!) and discounts, it cost about $13 dollars and I'm hoping it will improve the germination rate for both my sweet and hot peppers. I can usually get good hot peppers consistently, but since I wait for sweet peppers to get ripe and sweet (it was such a revelation to discover that green peppers were unripe- that's why I never liked the bitter things!), it's hit and miss as to how many I may get in a season.

I've been told that some people in my area leave the peppers on heat mats until it is nice and warm in the garden, and even then they grow them under greenhouse-like plastic. I'm definitely going to experiment this year with the peppers to see how I can increase their yield. I might've gotten five ripe peppers last year (out of six plants!) if I was lucky, so anything should help.

The broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuces and even some of the tomatoes are up already. I just never get over the thrill of seeing the little green shoots coming up out of the dirt. I've had great germination so far, even from some seeds that were five years old! I just dumped a lot of the seeds in a cell because I wasn't sure if any would come up, and I think they all did.

Have you started seeds yet? Have you ever? There are many reasons it's a great idea, and frugality is only one of them!

-Jami

This is linked to Frugal Fridays at Life as Mom.

Thai-Inspired Turkey (or Chicken) Curry

Curries made with coconut milk and spicy Asian curry pastes are one of my favorite quick, real foods. Sometimes they are made with only some onion and lots of meat, but I always try to add as many vegetables as I can.

Served over rice or rice noodles, they are a great one-dish dinner that is light-years away from hamburger helper-type skillet meals.

I always start with coconut milk and turkey (or chicken), onion, and garlic and then add the curry paste. In the past I've used red and green, and this time I'm using yellow.

The vegetables I'm using today are carrots, chopped parsnips, and some frozen green beans from last year's garden. But since there are so many vegetables that are good in this like broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, and zucchini, it is a super flexible recipe to use whatever you've got on hand.

Oh, I forgot to put this in the ingredients picture, but I always add a splash of fish sauce, too. Some people just can't get past the smell, but I think it adds that Thai flavor I'm looking for.

Heat some olive oil or coconut oil in a large skillet, and add the onion, carrot, garlic, and any other fresh vegetable that would need sauteing - in this case, parsnips - and cook for about 4-5 minutes over medium heat.

Then add any remaining vegetables ( like the frozen beans I'm using) and the chopped, cooked meat. Oh, man, shrimp is really good, too.

Have you gotten the idea yet that it's easy to customize this to your taste and to what's in your pantry?

Broccoli, zucchini, and peppers would be added here, if I were using them. The point is to have the vegetables remain crisp and not over-cook them.

Then pour in the coconut milk and a splash of fish sauce. For the amount of meat and vegetables I'm using, I added two cans of coconut milk.

Now comes the tricky part. Most of the flavor (and heat) of this dish comes from the curry paste. There are recipes on the web that have you make your own curry paste, but then it's not nearly so quick and easy, is it? And they are cheap at the Asian food store and last for months, so this is one convenience I'll keep, I think.

Anyway, the tricky part is getting the right amount of the spicy curry paste - enough to be flavorful, but not so much that it causes your mouth to burn, your eyes to water, and your forehead to sweat.

Don't ask me how I know this.

Here's what I've found out through trial and error: yellow curry paste is the mildest (and tastes more Indian than the other two), red is more spicy and green will blow your head off.

Gee, do you think I had a little issue with the green curry?

One of my sisters lived in Thailand for a few years and she found that they like to laugh at Americans lack of ability to eat spicy food. I think she worked up to more spicy things, but she said their idea of "mild" is our equivalent of smoke coming out of our ears.

So, in my world, I use a teaspoon of green curry paste to two cans of coconut milk, 1-2 teaspoons of red curry paste, and a little less than a tablespoon of yellow. But my main point here is to go slow, and taste after you've added a small amount. You can always put more in, but you can't take it out.

Again, please don't ask.

OK, there was a recipe here somewhere, wasn't there? Oh yeah, after adding the curry paste let everything cook together for about 5- 10 minutes to meld the flavors and cook the vegetables to crisp-tender.

Ladle over rice or rice noodles and enjoy, 'cause no one's gonna laugh at you here...

Thai-Inspired Turkey (or Chicken, or Shrimp) Curry

• 2 cans coconut milk
• 1-2 Tb. olive oil or coconut oil
• 4 cups chopped, cooked turkey or chicken (or shelled shrimp)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tb. fish sauce
• yellow, red, or green spicy curry paste (1 tsp. to 1 Tb. according to taste)
• about 6 c. mixed vegetables of choice: sliced carrots, parsnips, or zucchini, chopped broccoli, cauliflower or sweet peppers, cut green beans, peas.
• rice or rice noodles for serving

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and any hard vegetable that needs sauteing (carrots, parsnips, cauliflower). Saute for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Add the cooked meat (or cook the shrimp with the vegetables until done), and any other vegetables along with the coconut milk and fish sauce.
3. Add the curry paste to taste, being careful to monitor the spiciness. Start with only 1 tsp. of green, 1-1/2 tsp. of red or just less than a Tb. of yellow.
4. Cook for another 5 to 10 minutes to let the flavors meld and cook the vegetables to crisp-tender.
5. Serve over rice or rice noodles.

Makes 6 servings

-Jami

Living Room Makeover Continued: The Foot Stool

After doing the first part of the living room makeover, continuing onto the bookshelves, and bringing the entryway into the same scheme, it's time for the foot stool we use as a coffee table to receive a facelift.

Sometimes I'm seduced by magazines and catalogs that have wonderful, chunky wood coffee tables in front of couches. They look so cool, and some have shelves for storing books and things.

But then I'm watching TV with my kids and we all have our feet up on our footstool and we're all comfortable with no table edge grinding into our legs, and I'm reminded why we have a footstool for a coffee table.

But see this lovely toile? I am growing weary of seeing the dirt on the side facing the couch courtesy of said feet. And, like, how silly would it be to tell people not to put their feet up on a footstool?

I just have to face that the light colored toile was never the right choice for a foot stool.

Unless I want to wash it every week.

Not.

My husband and I actually made this foot stool/coffee table more than ten years ago using some Home Depot legs, a thick piece of plywood, foam and batting. This lovely green (screams 1980's, doesn't it? So it must be way more than 10...) was the first layer and I think some other floral design was slipped over before the latest toile cover.

I'm bringing some black touches to my color scheme of white and sage green and also some texture by adding natural burlap and linen. I already had a large piece of burlap from some other project and decided it would be perfect to cover the stool since it's just the color of dirt. :-)

And here is the stool, newly covered in the burlap, after pounding 100 black upholstery tacks all around the edge to hold it in place.

I'm ready for the cleaner look and like how it turned out, but I was not prepared for how long it took me to pound all those tacks in. Sheesh, it was not easy getting them all evenly spaced (and they're not, so don't look closely!), and it took more than two hours and a bruised, painful thumb to get to this point.

Which is not done. If you look at the corner of the stool at the right in the photo above, you can see that I ran out of tacks with only about three more to go.

The same 3 that I bent putting them in.

Always get more than you think you need. Though in my defense, I bought all the store had in the design I wanted.

The corners were the trickiest parts to fold just right, keeping the material tight and yet not so bulky that the tacks wouldn't hold.

Some corners look better than others, but I figure no one's going to be looking at all four corners at once, are they?

Just to remind you, here's a shot of the living room before the makeover (I should point out that it's just a mini-makeover...no major remodeling will be undertaken here!).

I'm definitely liking it, and the clean lines of stool has inspired me to store the magazines in a basket and not pile them on the stool anymore.

Our feet would usually knock them off, anyway.

Next up are new pillows for the two overstuffed green chairs. I'm thinking a vintage linen I have with some black transfer designs on them...

Make sure to check back to see how they turn out!

-Jami

This is linked to DIY Day at A Soft Place, Get Your Craft On, Frugal Friday at Shabby Nest, and The Inspired Room.

Monday's Menu

The two new recipes I tried last week, Yellow Turkey Curry and Pulled Pork were both keepers. I've got the curry almost ready to post and will share my friend's super easy and tasty pulled pork recipe soon.

This week we have our annual snow trip to a nearby lake, so it's an easy week for menu planning. Love it when that happens.

Monday- Egg salad sandwiches, chips, carrots and broccoli (youth night)

Tuesday- Stir fry elk and broccoli (what do you think- will it work with the elk?), baked noodles

Wednesday- Cheesy-Crust Ham Pie, green salad

Thursday- Haystacks (beans and toppings on corn chips)

Friday- snow trip (or maybe "lake trip" since there may be very little snow!)

Saturday- at the lake (I'm bringing eggs, fruit, and cinnamon rolls for breakfast)

Sunday- On-your-own (sandwiches, etc.)

-Jami

Drugstore Deals

There were lots of good deals I could've bought at Rite Aid this week and I did plan on going back to use another $3 off $15 coupon but never had the time. I'm OK, though, with the deal I ended up with:

2 Kashi cereals, BOGO @ $4.99 -FREE Kashi cereal coupon from vocalpoint= 0

2 Sure deodorants, BOGO @ $2.99 -$1.50/1 (men) & $1/1 = .49

Acnomel acne treatment, $6.99 ($6 SCR)

Dentyne cup, $2.50 -$1.50/1 = $1

-$3/$15 RA coupon

=$5.48 (and since I'm getting the $6 SCR, I actually made .52 on this deal!)

Can I just say how much I love Rite Aid?

With Walgreens, however, it's more of a love-hate relationship. I really just go so I can use a Register Reward I got earlier that will expire (hate the expirations, by the way), not because there's some awesome deal. I spent $4.69 for these items and received a $4 RR.

While I was happy to get the Kleenex here, I have to tell you about the horrible customer service I got at the store. The four long boxes all rang up at the sale price, BOGO at $2.19 each, but the two little boxes beeped. The cashier apparently couldn't ring them through, even though the exact boxes were on the front page of the ad that was sitting there at her register.

So she calls somebody for a price check. Seriously. With the ad in front of her. No one comes. There's probably one other customer in the store somewhere, but really it was dead at this time and yet not one other Walgreens employee came.

Finally she looked at me and said, "I hate this," and goes to get the price check herself. I'm a little steamy at this point, but other than point out the ad, I didn't say anything as she finished ringing me up. I had a lot to do, and was already thinking of the next stop, and she did apologize for the wait.

But the total didn't sound right, so I checked my receipt out in the car (always check!) and realized she rang up both boxes without giving me the BOGO sale. So I run back in, thinking she could just fix it...wrong. She tells me I've got to go to the cosmetics counter and she'll call someone. Great.

I should mention, I still haven't seen another customer. So I stand at the other counter waiting for the manager for almost 5 minutes while she looks at me from her register. I kid you not. Then the manager comes, looks at my receipt, which was their fault, and says she needs to go get a box to give me the credit. So I wait again.

When I finally got the $2.19, she didn't even apologize for the wait or the problem in the beginning. It was like I was bothering her when she was busy doing other things.

Contrast this with what my husband experienced at Starbucks a couple days later. He order a coffee that was going to be brewed and then he sat down to do some work on a computer. He thought it was taking awhile, but didn't realize until they brought the coffee out to him with a profuse apology and a coupon for a free coffee that he had waited 4 minutes.

Ah...it's amazing how good customer service makes you feel about a place, isn't it?

What do you think? Did I just get a bad day, or is the customer always treated like this at Walgreens?

-Jami

Whole Grain Apple Butter Bars

For this installment of "Cookies in the Cottage" I bring you an easy bar cookie that has some good-for-you sounding ingredients but still taste like you're eating a cookie, plus they work as a really good granola bar, too, for snacks and lunches.

And no, they're not chocolate, but sometimes that's OK.

But only sometimes.

This bar cookie can be done in a variety of ways by changing the fruit in the middle. I've made them with strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and blueberry jams and they're equally good. But using my homemade thick and spicy apple butter is really one of my favorite ways to make these.

And in the spring when the rhubarb is coming on, I make a rhubarb filling for these that is so good people who don't like rhubarb will gladly eat them (read: my kids). I'll share that recipe, too, when the rhubarb is ready in a few months.

Here are the ingredients: oats, white whole wheat (or whole wheat pastry) flour, brown sugar (I'm using sucanat here for the first time), salt, baking soda, cinnamon, butter, and a cup of apple butter (or your favorite jam).

Nuts are purely optional, but usually add them as I really like them in cookies. Here I'm using chopped pecans.

Lightly butter a square baking pan, either 8x8 or 9x9 like I'm using here.

(*Ahem*...moving away from the natural light to the mixer area)

Add all the ingredients except the butter and apple butter/jam to a mixing bowl and stir to combine.

Then mix in the butter until thoroughly combined and all the butter pieces are incorporated.

(Ta-da- back over by the window...)

Press half of the crumb mixture (about 2-1/2 cups) onto the bottom of the prepared pan.

Pour the whole cup of apple butter (or jam) onto the unbaked crust and spread evenly.

Sprinkle the remaining crumbs over the top, covering completely and pressing down lightly.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Being so easy, these would make a great homemade substitute for all those "fruity" (I use the word loosely here) granola bars sold in the stores. You can wrap them individually and even freeze them. If you put them in the kid's lunches in the morning, they will be thawed by the time lunch rolls around.

And you will know every good ingredient in them.

Whole Grain Apple Butter Bars

• 2 c. rolled oats
• 1 c. white whole wheat flour (sometimes sold as "pastry flour")
• 3/4 c. brown sugar or sucanat (which worked great in this recipe)
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1/4 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. cinnamon
• 3/4 c. butter
• 1/4-1/2 c. chopped nuts (optional)
• 1 c. apple butter (or other type of jam)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter a 8 or 9-inch square pan.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine oats, flour, sugar, salt, soda, cinnamon, and nuts, if using. Cut in the butter using a pastry cutter or electric mixer until thoroughly combined.
3. Press half of the mixture (about 2-1/2 cups) into the bottom of the prepared pan. Spread the apple butter evenly over the top and then sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture over the apple butter, pressing down gently.
4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until lightly browned.
5. Cool in pan on a wire rack before cutting into 16 bars (or 12 bars for "granola bar" sizes).

Makes 12-16 bars.

-Jami

This is linked to Ultimate Recipe Swap where you can find other recipes that use flour and the Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap.