Yummy Salad Trick

My friends tend to make fun of my healthy eating habits, of course it could be because I have no problems eating large amounts of soy or large amounts of chocolate lol. So here is a tip for making a boring salad more exciting with a little extra effort. Don't worry I think even my sister could pull it off (she is a bit kitchen challenged).

What you will need is a bagged salad or lettuce cut up plus added veggies you like on your salad (I'm lazy and just bagged salads). Next you'll want lunch meat or chunks of meat or for a vegetarian option pick a non-traditional salad veggie like green beans. You'll also need a liquidity store bought salad dressing, I usually go for the vinaigrettes but nothing fruity.

Now that you have everything, cut up the meat into bit size pieces and place them in a skillet. Warm the meat up a little on a medium-low heat. Once the meat heats up and starts searing add a quarter cup of water and the salad dressing. Turn the heat up a little to medium heat and let the salad dressing boil. This way it saturates the meat which gives it a nice marinated flavor. Once the salad dressing has reduced to a little more liquidity than its original state pour it over your prepared salad.

It takes a boring salad and makes it a warm salad with yummy meat. Also you made the salad dressing go further which is healthier. More flavor, yummier salad, less calories, whats not to like :)

Best Job in the World

All the buzz on the news is how the Austrialian government is trying to hire someone to fill what they call the Best Job in the World. Basically you live on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef and the tourism department shows you everything cool to do there. In exchange you maintain a blog, both video and written, about how much fun you are having. The term is for 6 months and they are paying what is equivilent to about $100,000 USD. The website is http://www.islandreefjob.com/ but it is often down due to extreme popularity.

Now I'm going to apply for this. I mean you just need to make a 60 second video to start with. They limit it down to to the top 50 videos before they get indepth with the application process. I've been going through the audition videos to get a good idea of what I thought was good and what looked bad. So for those of you interested in making a video, here are some hints on what NOT to do to make a good impression in 60 seconds or less.

1. Don't read a script, esp. looking down.
2. Don't sing, unless of course you are super talented, but still they aren't after a singer
3. Don't hold up snap shots
4. Don't use Power Point with music in the background, this tells nothing about you
5. Don't have the background flip through a million vacation pictures
6. Don't beg
7. Don't complain about your weather
8. Don't voice over your video, nobody likes it when your lips don't match your words
9. Don't take the audience through a tatoo parlor pretending you just got inked to get the job
10. Don't just declare your desire for the position in 10 seconds and cut the video off

Edible Play Dough - Candy Clay

There are many recipes for edible play dough or candy clay. This recipe uses Almond Bark as its base, which is just a brick of white chocolate. What you do is take half of the Almond Bark and chop it up finely. Place it in a microwave safe bowl. Melt it in the microwave by starting at 1 minute. Take it out and stir and place it in for 30 seconds at a time taking it out and stirring each time. Once the almond bark is melted add 1/3 cup of Karo syrup or any other light corn syrup. Mix it really good and let it cool. I find that if you take a cookie sheet that has a bit of a lip helps cool it faster, but put down some wax or parchment paper so it doesn't stick. It takes awhile to cool, I usually let it cool overnight so I'm not sure exactly how long it takes. This is a great activity to do with a bunch of kids.

You can do this whole thing with Wilton candy chips that comes in a lot of different colors too. They are significantly more expensive than the almond bark and you'd have to buy all the different colors you wanted. It takes 1/3 cup of Karo syrup for each package.

I've tried this with a bunch of different types of chips, but it doesn't seem to work that well. The white chocolate chips work the best but real chocolate chips or things like butterscotch chips make the dough too hard. Perhaps adding more Karo syrup would help it, but I didn't really mess around with it that much.

Aerogarden

I am so excited I got an Aerogarden for Christmas this year. I've already ordered the seed starter tray for it. Hopefully it will get here soon so I can start my garden soon. I need to plant things before the end of February (I'm in southern Georgia). This year I'm going to try and grow the following:

Kentucky Wonder Green Beans
Red Noodle Beans (which are a long bean good in stir fry)
Zamboni Broccoli
Yaya Carrots
Merida (winter carrots I'll plant later in the year)
Giant Red Celery
Snack Mix Sunflowers
Sugar Dot Sweet Corn
Ambition Shallots
Pot and Patio Lettuce Blend
Athena Cantaloupe
Super Sugar Snap Peas
Oregon Sugar Pod Snow Peas
Mini Chocolate Bell Pepper
Small Sugar Pumpkin

I order my seed from Territorial Seed company, but Burpee has similar seeds and I've had good results with them as well. Their prices are about the same as well. Sadly I'm not growing in tomatoes this year because I had so many bug problems with them.

Fabric Gift Tote Bags

These are great for giving as a gift bag. People can reuse it, so its a gift in and of itself. I find two matching fabrics, they don't have to be Christmas fabric. I then cut 3 inch strips to make the straps. The strap length is a person preference, as is one or two staps. For me I just cut the width of the fabric, which is usually 45 inches, out of both the fabrics, and make two straps. Sew the straps with the good sides facing each other. Turn it inside out, iron it down, and top stitch the straps, which is sewing a line on each side of the edge of the strap as close to the edge as possible without going over the edge.

Then I take and cut a huge rectangle out of the remaining fabric. Usually about a 18x 24 size bag, but your demonsions can vary, just as long as it fits what you want to put in it. You can simple measure the size of the gift, add a couple inches to each side, and double the length.

Turn the good sides towards each other, and pin the handles in place. Remember they will be on the inside of the fabric during pinning. Sew the two tops, then turn it inside out and top stitch the tops. Finally, sew the sides together. Its super easy, cute, and functional.

Advent Calender

There has been some interest in my sites, and my Christmas craft ideas. So I thought I would post some of them for you.

Felt sheet size 21x24 inches and I sewed strips of felt for loops. The loops measure 3x6.

The calender has a Christmas tree that I free-handed out of various sized triangles.

The stump is a rectangle. Then I took a glass that had about a 3 inch diameter and traced the circles out of felt for ornaments. I took two circles and sewed them together. Then I wrote the number on them with puff paint. I finally glued them onto the red felt with a small white ribbon behind them. The ornaments have an inch and a half opening for the pocket to put candy in.

For the star, I happen to have a die cut machine that I used to make the star. If you do not have a die cut machine or the star die, then you can print off the interent a picture of a star and use that as a template.

Travel Games Website

Many of you will be traveling for the holidays. I came across some nice travel games on the Coca-Cola website that I thought might help someone looking to occupy their children during a long trip.


http://www.woccatlanta.com/docs/travelgames.pdf