Buckling down

I haven't posted in 2010. I'm saying twenty-ten by the way. I think it sounds cooler than two thousand and ten. I've been very neglectful of the blog and of my design practice so not only am I buckling down with some homework, I want to get better about blogging. I'm thinking Make Up Review Wednesdays, tons of recipes, hopefully moving stories, and more frequent posting.

I'm off to think of more posts to gear up for the week.

Yum Yum

I looooove the Food Network. I do not love half of their shows though. I'm very picky when it comes to my TV chefs and my new favorite is Claire Robinson. She hosts the show 5 Ingredient Fix. She is adorable, I love her recipes, and she doesn't overdo the hosting. Her voice can be a little too raspy sometimes but her kitchen and Essie nails make up for it (she's from Memphis). Over the weekend I made a variation of her Blue Cheese Stuffed Fillets.

Gorgonzola Stuffed Sirloin
2 sirloin steaks
1 package of Gorgonzola cheese
1 stick unsalted butter
3 cloves garlic
2 sprigs of rosemary
salt and pepper
EVOO

Mince garlic and chop the rosemary. In a ziplock bag combine garlic, rosemary, steaks, and enough EVOO to coat. Refrigerate for an hour. In mixer, mix stick of butter, Gorgonzola (or Blue Cheese I don't like Blue Cheese so I went with the milder Gorgonzola), and a sprinkle of salt. Form butter on cling wrap into a log and refrigerate while steaks marinate. When ready to start cooking take steaks out of bag and make a slit in one side. Cut a couple pats of Gorgonzola Butter and stuff them inside. Sprinkle both sides of the steaks with salt and pepper. Cook them your favorite steak cooking method. I just heated EVOO until very hot in an All-Clad skillet and seared both sides of the steaks only flipping once so that there was a good crust. Serve with a small pat of butter on top. Essentially, I used her recipe but adding the rosemary and garlic marinade added more zip.

They turned out fantastic! We usually buy a prepared steak similar to this at Fresh Market and this turned out even better. I'm not afraid of cooking steaks anymore.

To accompany this, Limey made Claire's Clementine Cosmos. Oh my gosh, these suckers were out of this world! The flavors are fantastic. Don't doubt the vanilla vodka. We hate flavored things like that so we bought a small bottle of Smirnoff Vanilla convinced that we would hate it and never use it again but these things are wonderful. Both of our families are going to be here for Christmas so we're going to make a couple big batches of the Clementine Simple Syrup and freeze some for throughout the year.

Claire Robinson's 5 Ingredient Fix is on Saturday afternoons and I highly recommend watching it or trying her recipes online.

Some Changes

I just bought my own domain and I am currently working on my web design. I've been taking Photoshop classes for the past few weeks and this Thursday is my last class. We'll be using Photoshop to create web pages so I figured it was a fitting week for the new domain. Hopefully this goes well. I want to get back to blogging more and have more interesting posts!

You drilled where?

This week is not going well. First, Limey has had the dental week from Hell. He has a massive infection in his tooth and had a triple root canal done and then undone. Yes, I believe because he is English his teeth are revolting against their Americanization. The poor guy. They had to drill a freaking hole into his jaw bone AND remove a piece of his gum. I get sick to my stomach when he talks about it and I will never be able to kiss him again. We have to go back today because things are still painful.

Second, a husband hopped up on Vicadin and grumpy from pain makes you consider divorce or homicide.

Third, today is Limey's 30th Birthday! We had things planned from today on to celebrate. Sunday is also our First Anniversary. I was really looking forward to it but things are going to be just as bad this weekend.

Fourth, we took all 3 cats to the vet because they had ear infections. Oscar didn't have a cage so Limey was holding him and the little butthead peed on him! I have been shampooing my car everyday. I am so paranoid. The whole trip was a disaster, cost a fortune, and I know have to chase them around with eardrops and gloves so I don't get clawed to death.

To cap things off, I'm leaving again on Wednesday. I'm leaving for a month. We will be having a pity party all weekend.

p.s. What is the acceptable amount of time to put up with a grumpy injured husband before you can return him to his mom? Apparently a side effect of Vicadin is Asshole-itis.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

So easy I could do it

I read Eddie Ross' blog everyday. I love me some interior design blogs and this one in particular is my favorite. He provides great tips on how to decorate on any sort of budget. After the thrift store/flea market finds my favorite posts are about holiday decorating. This job he did for a client last Christmas is my favorite. Plus the house itself is nice to look at. I am very picky about Halloween decor and my mom went BANANAS with it this year. Very embarrassing. She's lucky I had to come home unexpectedly this week to save the day. All the items she bought this year are very country craft meets little kid. I had to put an end to that. Too help replace some of the more embarrassing objects I decided to make Eddie's Fiendish Feather Wreath. I had some downtime after the funeral so I got crafty with my mom's best friend Connie.

I followed Eddie's instructions but added a few things of my own.

1) Stop at the Dollar Tree. Look for black boas and dark spray paint (I added that step). The dark spray paint helps hide some gaps since I couldn't find multiple boas on a budget. It took me about half an hour to find where a dollar store of any sort was where my parents live and of course it had nothing so luckily next door was a temporary Halloween store and they had a large selection of feather boas. Connie chose a 6ft thick boa that had LED lights. She pointed out that it would add a little pizzazz to please my mom. The boa cost $7.99.

2) If like me you struck out at the dollar store head to JoAnn's, Michael's, Hobby Lobby etc. Buy a foam ring for dryed flowers. A few extra feathers to fill in gaps.

3) Go home and drink a glass of courage, in my case a nice crisp chilled white, while reading Eddie's blog one more time to make sure you understand the directions because it just seems too easy.

4) Realize that you are so un-crafty you don't have a hot glue gun and improvise with black thread tying the boa in place.

5) Finish the project in 15 minutes and then proceed to tackify the thing with glittery silver skulls to appease the more flashy parents.

6) Impress friends and visitors so much they all want to make the same wreath and you plan to buy boas on sale after Halloween for next year. Actually, planning smaller wreaths (minus the skulls) in every window like with Christmas wreaths.

I spent a smidge under $15 without using coupons or planning for this. I feel like I could have made it for under $9 if I had planned better.

Make sure to check out Eddie Ross' Etsy Store. Everything under a $100 to help Eddify your house. I've already started planning Christmas gifts.

p.s Eddie if you happen to read this I swear I am not a scary stalker. I'm a nice stalker. Just kidding. Sort of.