Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Re-Purposed Cupcake Holder / Ornament Holder

I thought this was such a great idea! I have a cupcake holder that gets used at best a few times a year. What a great idea to use it as a centerpiece for the holidays. The most time consuming part of this project was locating the cupcake holder. I eventually found it in the way way back dark corner of a kitchen cabinet. I then took a few ornaments off my tree and filled in the cupcake holder. Voila, I had an instant dining room table centerpiece. I decided to sprinkle a few extra ornaments around the centerpiece. This was so simple!

Here is the link I found on Pinterest: http://livingwithlindsay.com/2009/12/my-home-christmas-ified.html


Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The Best Broccoli of Your Life

This is my very first post! Yay! Please forgive any misspelled words and my sub par grammar. Writing is not a strength of mine.


Okay, so I saw this posted on Pinterest a few times and decided I had to try it since broccoli is my favorite vegetable. My daughter, Sophie (she is 4), loves "trees" too and I thought she would love this!

Here is the link to the recipe: http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2008/11/the_best_brocco.html

I did alter the recipe, so here is how I made it!

I read that the broccoli should be very dry, so I washed it about 2 hours before I wanted to bake it. It was actually still a bit wet, so next time I won't wash it at all. The recipe says that the heat will kill any bacteria. Okay, I'll buy that!


I preheated the oven to 425 degrees.

I cut the florets off the bunches and placed them in a large bowl. Since I only had about 1 pound of broccoli (the recipe calls for 4-5 pounds ... holy broccoli), I only used 1 T. of olive oil, 1/4 tsp. of minced garlic, 1/4 tsp. ground pepper, and 1/4 tsp. sea salt to coat the broccoli.


I transferred the broccoli to a foil lined baking sheet and roasted in the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, the broccoli had a nice brown crispy look to them. I brushed about 1/2 T. of olive oil, and dropped lemon juice on each floret. The recipe calls for the juice of a real lemon, but I didn't have one. I excluded the pine nuts, basil, and Parmesan cheese as I didn't have any of those either. Regardless, it turned out great! I loved the crispy texture. My daughter wouldn't even take one bite because there was "brown" on it. Kids!