Monday, January 28, 2013

How I kept busy with yarn during the Holidays

I completely forgot that I wanted to post few pictures of my December whereabouts. You know the time, when I was MIA here on my blog? Well, I was creating lots of hand made gifts for friends and family. Here are pictures of some that I didn't forget to photo journal ;-)

Leg warmers for our special neighbor friend!


Boot cuffs for my sister-in-law!


Christmas tree chain, which I fell in love with! <3 p="">

And a men scarf for my husband's cousin, who jokingly asked me for one via Facebook ;-) My first creation for a man.


I was pretty happy with all those things I made, but I won't lie - they were time consuming and that was the reason why I was behind on all my other projects! Holidays turned out great and that all that counts - wait not all, the smile on people's faces when they got my presents were the best ;-)

Saturday, January 26, 2013

My One Word for 2013


I know I am a little late with this one but couple weeks ago I found a post on someone's blog about The One Word for 2013. This is how it works - instead of writing down a list of New Year's resolutions and then later get overwhelmed by it, you simply come up with a word that summarizes what you want to accomplish this coming year. I love this idea!
My last year's "unofficial" resolution was to start running again and do something I thought I could never do. At the beginning of the year I had no idea what that might be but I just let it sit and stir and eventually it came to me on it's own. And so in September of 2012, I ran the Chicago Half Marathon. You have no idea how much I went out of my comfort zone.
This year I feel more confident, thanks to my last year's success and I am setting this goal - get organized. Now I am not talking only about organizing my house, although that is a big part of it, but mainly I am talking about organizing my priorities, my mind, my life...
I would like to feel more confident in what I do and I believe the biggest part of succeeding in that is to keep myself on track with everyday life, activities, and just things that are going on around me. Stay on track with my goals, make people around me happy, send friends and family Birthday cards, be present in the moment. Those are the small things that are usually running through my fingers and I miss out on them. 
That is what I want to achieve this year 
Get Organized!

In case you are interested in joining this idea, here is the link to the lovely Melanie from OnlyAbreath.com, who makes these for free! Isn't she so nice?

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Stuffed peppers European Style

I haven't posted any recipes lately and since it's winter and therefor the backyard life is quite boring, I am letting you in on a family recipe for these delicious and super easy stuffed peppers.

You will need:
green peppers
1lb of ground beef
1 medium onion, diced
salt
black pepper
sweet pepper
1 egg
breadcrumbs
3 tbsp of oil
1 small can of tomato paste
3 tbsp of all purpose flour

First cut the top of the peppers and clean out the seeds. Then mix together ground beef, onion, salt, pepper, sweet pepper, egg and breadcrumbs.


Fill peppers with the meat mixture. 


Heat up the oil and fry the peppers from all sides. Be careful, they might start cracking so keep an eye on them. I did about 2 minutes on each side.


When you fried them on all sides, add boiling water (I always boil it in a tea kettle while preparing the food). Also mix the tomato paste with water and add to the pot.


Now let it boil until the peppers soften. Then take them out. You might see some meat balls floating around the pot - my kids would not like the boiled peppers so I just made them the inside meat mixture into a meat ball. 


When you take out all peppers, thicken the sauce with the flour. I mix the flour in a magic bullet with cold water and then slowly pour it into the pot while stirring. Put the peppers back into the pot.


Dinner is ready! I serve it with rice but if you know how to make dumplings, those are even more delicious! (That makes me think about the next recipe post ;-)


Friday, January 11, 2013

Is there a competition going on in the coop?

We have had our chickens for a year and a half now and they are actually egg-cellent layers ;-) We have never had lack of eggs even when the girls were molting. 
However, few months ago I started noticing extremely large eggs in the laying boxes. They are also a weird shape but never really double yolked, which I read they might be. 


Well, supposedly there is nothing wrong with any of those overachieving hens and it can happen on occasion. I am only concerned about the pain they must be in when the egg is coming out - ouch! I should check their private parts for any damage or even a stuck egg. That happened to us once before and we had to remove it by hand being careful not to break it while still half way in the chicken. Anyone knows more about this subject?