Thai Meatballs

I was on a chicken kick recently so I started combing through my "chicken" Pinterest board and found a recipe for Vietnamese Chicken Meatballs.  Due to the ingredients I actually had on hand at the time mine turned out to be more of a Thai Meatball.

Here's what you'll need:

• 1 pound of ground meat (beef, chicken, or turkey)
• a generous squeeze of honey
• a tablespoon of peanut butter
• a tablespoon of soy sauce
• a few squirts of Sriracha 
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• a handful of chopped cilantro
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt
• 3-4 cracks of black pepper
• 1/4 cup of sugar

Mix up everything but the sugar until just combined.

Roll into average-sized meatballs.

Roll them in sugar (they'll caramelize!) and set on a cookie sheet.
(Tip:  use one with rims, not a flat one, so the juices won't run off)

Let them come together by sitting in the refrigerator for a half hour.  Then, bake them at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

I added them to some plain noodles--the ones I use for pho--but next time I'll add some kind of peanut sauce!

Think of all the things you could pair these with--rolls, soup, salad, pho...how will you use them?

Adi

Fried Chicken on China: our Easter tradition

My family's Easter tradition involves fried chicken and Easter egg hunts.  When I was younger we had big family get-togethers at my great-aunt's house, but later this turned into a picnic in the park.  We'd all bring our favorite sides and desserts and, of course, fried chicken!  (There was a Chicken Express conveniently located just outside the park.)  When all of the kids had grown too old for egg hunts this kind of fell apart, so now we usually host our side of the family at our house.  This year my grandmother wanted to have fried chicken from the place we used to get it and she also asked (jokingly) if we were going to have an egg hunt.  Well, we had both.

We have a six person formal dining table and a four person breakfast table...and eight people coming to lunch.  At 11:40am, 20 minutes before our lunch was supposed to start, my husband decided to move all of the furniture in our great room and bring in the tables and chairs from the two eating areas.  While I admit it worked in the end, the timing was not what I had in mind!

After a lunch of chicken, casseroles, and carrot-raisin salad, we had the indoor egg hunt:  22 eggs plus one prize egg!  

Everyone got in on the hunt.

Dingo's always ready to help, especially if there's food involved.

My grandmother spotted a whole bowl of eggs (the chocolate kind).

Is there something down there?

She's on a roll!

I guess she found so many she needed something to hold them all!

The definition of "egg" quickly became expanded.

The winning team (I think it's because he was the tallest so he could reach the high stuff!):

Mom played the Easter bunny:

Here are a few other Easter decor pics from around the house:

DIY egg garland (string cheap plastic eggs on some yarn)

Easter mantle:

More egg garland:

Pretty spring flowers:

Happy Easter!

Adi

Victorian Home Tour: Wallpaper Galore

Ohhhh, the wallpaper.

It was everywhere.  There's still some in the seldom-used upstairs bathroom but the rest of it is GONE!  The wallpaper was usually placed directly on the drywall, which made it especially difficult to remove.  In some places, the original wallpaper just wasn't bad enough, so even MORE was placed on top of the original paper!

You'll see the full impact of the papers and borders throughout this series.  Here are some closeups of my "favorites":

the kitchen (and underneath this:  little country houses!)

the bar (it was textured!)

the upstairs bathroom

the master bathroom

My true favorite was the wallpaper in the half bath.  The camera could not focus on the pattern, which is what happened to my eyes when I was unscrewing a fixture from the wall--suddenly I couldn't see straight and had to leave the room!

We're not missing the wallpaper.  I can admire some of the newer patterns but I just can't bring myself to use them...too many memories of taking it down!  What do you think about wallpaper?  For it or against?

Adi

Menu planning

Do you plan your meals for the week?  I wish I did a better job of this.  I snapped a picture of two styles of planning that I do:

The one on the left is the one for this week.  We'll call it "buy what's on sale and make it fit." 

I took this when I was in the middle of it.  I made an extra effort to plan lunches, too.  (Usually I just plan dinners.)

A more effective way is the "pre-shop-plan," which is better for avoiding missing ingredients and extra trips to the store.

I made a note of the cookbook page or Pinterest page/website where I found the recipe.  I like to make this plan with the shopping list notepad next to it.  (You can find great organizing notepads in the dollar bins at the craft stores or even discount stores like Marshalls or TJ Maxx!) 

Do you plan your meals for the week?  What's your style?  

Adi

Victorian Home Tour: Pantry

Here's where we wound up:

Here's where we started:

Oh, the stink.  The old wooden shelves, the nasty shelf paper, the extra storage attempts that looked like an afterthought, the flooring...it all had to go!  Out came the shelves, out came the random hooks, out came the light, out came the tile.  We scrubbed the walls, patched the areas that were damaged by the original shelving, re-textured, and painted the walls in Adam's choice:  orange.  Kraft Macaroni and Cheese orange, actually.  I don't think that's exactly what he was going for but he wanted it bright and, by golly, he got it!

We installed a new light and a WHOLE NEW SHELVING SYSTEM!!  Easy to clean, fully adjustable, and sturdier than you'd think, the wire shelving system is the way to go.  It's hard to avoid warping wood shelving when you're storing food on it and shelf paper is gross, no matter what age it is.

We mounted a repurposed over-the-door hanging rack for my aprons.  My first painting party masterpiece once again lives in the pantry.  (It was also in the pantry at the old house, but it makes me happy in this room!  It also matches the orange perfectly.)

I use a mix of baskets and plastic storage jars and arrange by theme.

When you first walk in, from the ground up, you'll find:

• bulk items
• broths, Asian items, rice, and dog treats
• canned goods and pasta
• breakfast items

On the very top are extra cereals (I married a cereal nut who hit the jackpot during a recent 4 for $10 sale at the local grocery store), cake carriers, and a giant cupcake tree.

To the right, my baking ingredients are at eye level.

Below that are my baskets of nuts and nut butters, breads and quick pastas (mac and cheese and someone's Spaghettios), chips, and crackers.

On the lowest shelf, I keep large baskets of storage bags, trash bags, and all of those long, skinny boxes of foil, cling wrap, parchment paper, and wax paper.

I'm always on the lookout for cheap party supplies and I keep them in a big tub in the corner.

The final touch is a polka-dot dry erase board where I jot down supplies when we're running low.  

Thanks for taking the tour!

Adi

Victorian Home Tour: Entry and Dining Room

This post is the first in a new series, Victorian Home Tour.  I can't get enough resources that feature decorating a Victorian home so I wanted to add to the collection for the next person who buys a dollhouse. :)  I've posted some pictures but this is going to be a fairly comprehensive look at the befores and afters.  Let's start at the beginning:  the entryway!

The Entryway

Before

Ick.  Dingy, stained wallpaper and lots of holes...not so inviting!

The closet under the stairs:

After

My adorable handyman:

Pretty new tile:

A cool, inviting, textured gray-blue:

The decorating hasn't happened yet, but there's no hurry.  We like it better already!

The Dining Room

Before

Mauvelous.

The walls were covered with sand texture that would scratch you big-time if you so much as brushed up against it.  It had to go.  So, handy Adi spent one evening sanding down the walls.

Our contractor started the new texture work:

which leads us to:

After

I was going for a French country look.  I don't think I made it.  This is the one room in the house where the colors on the tiny cards were misleading and I think I may be altering these colors sometime in the future.  I plan to make curtains for the windows, which could help, but it could really go more butter than lemon on top and more navy than whatever shade matches painter's tape on the bottom.  

I love the natural lighting but it's not doing me any favors on the color combo.  Hey, look, it's the unity candle holder from our wedding that was once a Halloween decoration that may dad changed from black to white!

We chose many colors throughout the house--we pretty much covered the rainbow.  Stay tuned each week as we go through a new room (or two) of the Victorian!