Over the last month, Cory and I have been getting settled into our brand new house!!! It feels like a mansion compared to our tiny one bedroom condo we lived in for 4 years. We are still waiting on some new furniture deliveries (specifically, a new sofa that has been on back order since October, errh). Also, I still have a ton of interior decorating to do (hanging pics and artwork on the walls, etc). We are planning to have Christmas Eve at our house so I got lots to do to get the house ready before then!

Our new house…

My absolute favorite room in the house is my dream kitchen! I have always wanted a kitchen with a island, plenty of counter space, and lots of cabinet storage. The main living room and kitchen is one big open space which is awesome because I can watch TV while washing dishes

The kitchen also includes a walk in pantry with lots of shelf space. This is my first time having a gas burning stove so I’ve been getting used to cooking with an open flame.

What’s your favorite feature in a kitchen?

Speaking of the kitchen, I better get back in there and finish my Thanksgiving Day baking!!! Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday filled with great food, family, and friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kasey

Also, I have photography class this evening.  My biggest milestone in the world of photography is that I have learned to shoot everything in Manual Mode without flash (including all the pictures in this post) by controlling the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed depending on the lighting situation.

(Photo taken for my first Photography Assignment)

The other day, I had a package of spinach whose days were numbered.  I decided to make  homemade pesto with spinach (instead of basil).

Ingredients

1 package spinach

3/4 cup almonds

1/3 cup parmesan cheese, grated

4 cloves garlic, peeled

3/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 tsp lemon zest

salt & pepper, to taste

First, toast almonds over medium heat on a dry skillet (about 3-5 minutes).

In a food processor or blender, blend the spinach, almonds, cheese, garlic, broth, oil, lemon juice, and lemon zest until smooth.  Season with salt & pepper to taste.

I served a couple tablespoons mixed with whole wheat pasta with grated parmesan as a topping.  Turned out great!!!

I stored the rest of the pesto in a mason jar to use throughout the week for different things such as a sandwich/wrap spread and pizza/pasta toppings.

I bought a few mason jars over the holidays and I’m in love!!!  I’ve been using them to store foods that I buy from the bulk bins at Whole Foods such as nuts and grains.  Cory likes to use them as drinking glasses.

Do you have any storage tips in your kitchen?

What’s you favorite pasta topping?

Hope everyone is having a great week and staying warm

Kasey

Although I literally did not leave the condo, I was pretty productive.  After watching an episode of Neat on Fit TV, I had an intense desire to organize our closet.  Since our closet was not “unorganized” to begin with, I just reorganized and straightened things up a bit.  Space is at a premium in our one bedroom condo.  We take advantage of vertical storage in our shared closet. 

My side of the closet

My upper vertical storage

My lower vertical storage… the shoe cube almost is not even close to fitting all my shoes.

Cory’s side… a bit smaller because of the stacked washer and dryer!

Cory uses drawers in his vertical space.

After my closet cleaning frenzy, I cleaned the entire condo.  Cleaning to the degree of sweeping under the couches.  Cory was working and missed all the cleaning fun.  Mid day, I took a break from cleaning and organizing for a quick lunch.  This lunch took less than 5 minutes to prepare and cook.

Almond Butter and Jelly on toasted Whole Wheat Bread, Cooked Spinach, and a Clementine!

I prefer cooked spinach over raw spinach.  I heated a bit of olive oil in a small nonstick pan, added two huge handfuls of spinach, and cooked about 2 minutes.

Two minutes later!

What is your “go to” quick lunch?

Hope everyone has a wonderful Monday   Thanks for reading!

Kasey

Happy Monday!  Hope everyone had a great weekend  

My weekend was a great balance of productivity and relaxation.  Saturday, Cory and I registered for our wedding.  I don’t know why I kept putting this off because it was so much fun!  Before we left the house, Cory and I discussed and jotted down things we wanted to include in the registry.  We entered Bed, Bath, and Beyond with a plan… Cory was in charge of the scanner gun and I managed the list.  I was totally in the dark about how many cool kitchen/household gadgets are out there.  Here are some of my favorites from our registry…

Vegetable Steamer

Can you believe I don’t have one of these already?!

I’m thinking this would come in handy when I make sweet potato fries.

Olive Oil Sprayer

I have been wanting one of these for ages.

Slim Hangers

We actually have quite a few of these hangers in our shared closet.  We live in a one bedroom condo and these definitely help with space saving!

Some of Cory’s favorites…

Breville Blender

I plan on making green monsters while Cory plans on making Pina Coladas!

Roomba

A robot that cleans floors.  Genius!

I actually ended up buying a couple of our registry items as Christmas gifts!  I could not resist buying some healthy holiday gifts for my family.  Photos above are from Bed, Bath, and Beyond’s Website.

Sunday, we relaxed by watching our undefeated Saints (13 and 0) and Christmas decorating.  No big tree this year due to limited space in the condo.  We will have to settle for a table top tree…

Do you think it looks like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree?!  Once our “tree” was set up, I started wrapping presents…

Cory said, “It looks like Christmas in here” after all the presents were wrapped!  The only thing missing was Christmas music.  Even though I still have some shopping ahead of me, I have everyone’s gifts planned.

Have you decorated for the holidays?  Are you giving any healthy holiday gifts this year?

Kasey

I usually pick my fruit based on what looks good and what is on sale. 

After over an hour at the grocery, I came home with…

Okay, so there was a quite a bit of deviation from the list… 

• whole wheat pitas (goes perfectly with hummus)
• tortilla chips instead of tortillas (I love Whole Food’s tortilla chips)
• whole wheat waffles and pancakes (had a coupon)
• Annie’s whole wheat mac & cheese (easy side dish and so good)
• Pad Thai noodles (I have an abundance of shrimp in the freezer)
• red bell peppers (on sale)
• sesame oil (thinking of doing a stir fry with the red pepper & shrimp)
• pomegranate juice (had a coupon)
• rotisserie chicken (more on that at a later post)
• Ben and Jerry’s Americone Dream ice cream (Cory’s favorite… he deserved a treat!)

Hope you enjoyed my justifications and rationalizations (in parentheses) for not sticking to the list! 

Dietitian at Whole Foods  =  Dangerous!

Good news is that the house is fully stocked with healthy staples… including wine!

It’s so hard to keep our wine holder stocked!  Hope everyone is having a great week