Gift Wrap

There are many times when I am too rushed while wrapping gifts, which is so unfortunate.  There are so many fun things you can do with wrapping paper and a few trimmings!

For Christmas each year, I try to pick a color theme and stick to it.  This year (as well as the last few), I went with blue, silver, turquoise and lime, to match the colors that we decorate the house with for the holidays.

While watching the Today Show this year though, I saw a segment on creative wrapping.  The woman who was featured adorned packages with flowers made from cocktail napkins.  So, when my sister-in-law's birthday rolled around, it was the perfect excuse to try out the technique!

I used three different colors for this rosette, each cocktail napkin sized.  I completely unfolded the darkest lengthwise, had the second color about 3/4 of its total length, and then the lightest was left folded in half.  I folded them into a fan, and then tied them in the middle with some wire.  I then unfolded each layer, starting with the middle, until it looked like a flower.

It was fun for the first attempt!

liste de désir

As I have mentioned before, I have a major shoe problem.  I could create a shrine to my shoes, as I love each of them so much!  The change of seasons is always very difficult for me because all I want to do is have the most fabulous new shoes. 

Today is no exception.  I LOVE these wedges.  Piperlime's email yesterday had a focus on wedges, and I all I wanted were these lovlies (again with the nude, as mentioned here)! 

$169, Messeca, piperlime.com

What stinks is that I have a giftcard to both Zappo's and Nordstrom, and neither carry the shoes.  Don't worry though, my Nordstrom card will be spent on any of these beauties...

Somewhat affordable:

$310, Diane von Furstenberg, nordstrom.com

Probably not attainable:

$850, 3.1 Phillip Lim, nordstrom.com

Completely Aspirational:

$1,595, Lanvin, nordstrom.com

Have a fabulous weekend!



Stuffed Peppers

This week has been a long, tough week (I know, I know, it's only Thursday), as referenced by my lack of posts.  My husband and I have set a new record since the new year started for the amount of nights we have eaten at home.  In order to ensure that I don't further increase my stress level, I have been planning our meals on Sundays and purchasing everything for the week.

On a trip to Costco on Sunday, I saw a six pack of beautiful peppers.  I decided immediately that I would make stuffed peppers...  and these yellow, orange and red peppers were perfect (since I don't like warm green peppers)!

Stuffed peppers are so easy (and not to mention, gluten free).  I hollowed out the peppers, and chopped up the area around the stem to use in the filling. 

Here is my recipe - but the great thing about stuffed peppers is that you can make them whatever you want!

5 peppers, cored and tops around stem chopped

1 medium vidalia onion, chopped

1 package 99% fat free ground turkey, browned

1 can tomato sauce

3 tbsps garlic powder

1 tsp chili powder

1 cup reduced-fat mozarella

1/4 cup shredded parmesan or asiago

Preheat oven to 350.  In a mixing bowl, combine the first 5 ingredients (through chili powder).  Add 1/2 cup of the mozarella and the asiago to the mix.  Spoon the mixture into each of the peppers (it's ok if it creates a little mountain on top).  Top the peppers with the remaining mozarella. 

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, or until cheese is melted and peppers are hot throughout.

I heart oranges!

Citrus is ingrained in my soul because I'm a Florida girl, and oranges are by far my favorite.  I don't really discriminate - I love them all, from navels to blood oranges. 

In my daily blog browsing this morning, I ran into this recipe on my PopSugar app in the YumSugar section.  I cannot wait to make it because it's just so beautiful.  How could you resist a salad that looks like this?!

courtesy PopSugar

Now, I am NOT a fan of olives.  My Grandmother says that I can't possibly be Italian as a result, but the taste is just too much for me.  So, I'm going to substitute feta cheese for the olives.  Feta will bring the same saltiness, add a little protein and give the salad a little bite. 

I really hope my grocery store has blood oranges...  

 

liste de désir

Handbags.  I'm notorious for picking a favorite and sticking with it for months, even though I have plenty of others to choose from. 

Currently, I need a black bag.  I have truly needed one for about a year now, as the ones I have are beyond repair or just outdated.  But, how can I buy a new black bag when this only comes in orange (BEST color), cobalt, yellow or ivory?!

$425, kate spade, katespade.com

I know, I know.  kate spade again.  I just can't help it lately!  Plus, my fabulous sister has a Marc Jacobs bag in this color that she totes everywhere, and I have always been envious. 

Orange is supposed to be THE color of the spring.  This bag is so classic that it can go with anything, so it will be perfect for the spring trends - whether it's bright & geometric or feminine & lace, this bag will go with it all.

The BBC was wrong!

Last month, a friend of mine posted this list on Facebook.  According to the BBC, most people have only read 6 of these books.  While I didn't think it was necessary to re-post on Facebook, I was still curious about how I stacked up to the "average."  So, each that I have read completely are bolded, and those I haven't finished are italicized.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 
4 Harry Potter series  
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee  
6 The Bible   
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte  
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott  
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare  
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger   
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens 
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 
33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen 
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen 
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne 
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 
57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens 
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas  
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding 
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt 
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White  
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

34 of 100 read completely for me.  What about you?  How many have you read?  It's a good thing I got a Kindle for Christmas, I apparently have a lot of reading to do!

Tasty Thursday - Pasta Night!

My husband and I have a hard time finding common ground on food, so when I find a recipe we both like, it's cause for a celebration!

This recipe for Tomato-Ricotta Spaghetti was an overwhelming success on all accounts.  I substituted brown rice fusilli (gluten free) for spaghetti, because that's what we had in the house.  Since we weren't having anything else with the pasta, I also added a little extra cheese.  Lastly, I spiced up the tomatoes a bit with gluten-free balsamic vinegar.

 
I'm telling you, it was delicious...  worthy even of leftovers!!

liste de désir

I have major shoe envy every day.  I have to keep myself away from websites where fabulous shoes reside...  for my bank account's sake. 

I am especially jealous of those who can wear nude pumps.  My skin tone is such that it typically does not pair well with nude or lipstick tones at all.  These, however, I would make an exception for:

 $650, Prada, saksfifthavenue.com

Aren't they perfect?  And, bonus!  They have a little tinge of red in them, which would lend well to my light olive skin.

Tasty Thursday (on Sunday!)

So, Thursday was a just a little busy this week. Not only was it the day before New Year's Eve, but I was one of the only people in the office at work. As a result, I definitely did not have time to cook or even think about creating something deliciously gluten-free.

I was bitten by the cooking bug early yesterday morning. With guests still at our house, I whipped up some scrambled eggs and some french toast scones (which I could not eat, but everyone else enjoyed)! I was still motivated, and while my husband and I planned our meals for the week, I was also planning dessert.

My mom has made Cherry Surprise for years. I am not a fan of slimy fruit - especially not pie filling. The recipe is traditionally made with cherry pie filling, and I always end up just eating the topping. While wandering around Costco the other day, I saw that blackberries were back in-season at a fabulous price. So, I thought, "why not make it with fresh fruit." In addition, I had a yellow gluten free cake mix at home to use.

It came out delicious and no one could even tell it was gluten free. That was a bonus, because I did not need to eat it all on my own.

Blackberry Surprise Recipe:
2 clamshells blackberries, washed
4 tbsp white sugar
1 box Betty Crocker Gluten Free Yellow cake mix
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 tsp gluten-free vanilla (hint: McCormick's Madagascan Vanilla is gluten free)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put washed blackberries in a mixing bowl and cover with sugar. Let sit for 1 hour. Grease a small baking dish, and pour the blackberries into the dish. Cover completely with entire box gluten free cake mix. Pour melted butter over the cake mix. Cover butter with chopped walnuts. Bake uncovered for 50 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.