I was feeling lazy tonight. So lazy, in fact, I was trying to decide between orange juice or a fruit smoothie for dinner. I decided chopping and dicing was out of the question, but I hadn't eaten many vegetables during the day (just a handful of snow peas as part of breakfast) so I decided to make a salad.
I would say I have mastered the art of amping up a salad with herbs and I can make a mean salad dressing. However, I never ever use seeds! I saw a recipe in Cosmo (February 2012) for a salad with seeds, and I decided that would be the perfect way to go - delicious, filling, and no chopping.
I used pumpkin seeds, fennel seeds, poppy seeds, and sesame seeds. Fennel was new for me. I always hear them using it on Iron Chef and Top Chef, but had no idea what it tastes like. It tastes like a spicy licorice flavor - really tasty. However, if you aren't used to experimenting with new flavors, you might want to go easy on the fennel until you get used to it.
I got my pumpkin seeds from the snack part of the grocery store - where they have corn nuts, peanuts, etc. Not the best place, but if I didn't feel like chopping you better believe I didn't feel like digging around in a pumpkin for seeds!
I used 1 teaspoon fennel, 2 tablespoons sesame, two tablespoons poppy, and about 3/4 of a packet of pumpkin seeds.
Toast them over medium heat on your stove top until they start to brown and smell good.
Then, fill your plate with spinach. I didn't feel like making a dressing either, so I drizzled my salad with a bit of olive oil and ate it with a half lemon on the side. I also added salt and pepper, as well as some mushrooms I had in the fridge.
The verdict? A nice new way to enjoy a spinach salad. One warning though. Check your teeth after eating! You will have seeds all up in your grill, so make sure you don't want around unaware :)
My grandparents visited last night and we had an awesome time. As part of my graduation/birthday present, we got to go shopping. We hit up Pier 1 Imports and got some amazing stuff for my house. After I moved in in May, I was exhausted by all the decisions, and never did much of the "little details" it takes to pull a house together. My grandma was great at helping me!
We ended up buying a big painting of a flower to go on the empty wall above my TV. The colors were exactly what I wanted -- blue, yellow, and green. The blue matches my vases, the yellow matches my blanket, and the green matches my lucky rock. We also got two jumbo candle holders that are sitting to the right of the TV. The candles inside are perfectly-matching green and blue.
I repositioned my bird painting (birthday present) so that it is more visible, and the dark frame helps tie together the living room and dining room. We also put up two more pictures in the dining room. In addition, I got a great hurricane-type glass jar to sit on the dining room table. We filled it with little gold beads and flat marbles. The hurricane jar has a lid on it, so candles can sit on top as well.
We also got this crazy looking but awesome rug in the bedroom, and a cute standing fish for the bathroom. These were hand-me-downs that happened to be the exact colors for each of my rooms. I might move the rug to the side of my bed but it is the heaviest rug ever!
Once I got home today, all the decorating had me inspired and I decided I needed some fall decor (to celebrate the first day of fall, of course!). I bought a reasonably sized pumpkin, which wasn't even very hard to carry. I got gold spray paint (difficult to chose between gold, silver or glitter but gold was a great choice). I laid out a towel on the deck and set the pumpkin on it. I wrapped the stem in aluminum foil, which worked great for ensuring it wouldn't get sprayed.
After that, I got to painting. It was really easy and the only difficult part was making sure it got painted near the bottom. I was paranoid the paint would get all over the deck, but it was really easy to aim and ensure it didn't fly everwhere.
My original goal had been to monogram the pumpkin, so I bought some gold flat thumbtacks. In the end, I decided I couldn't make a good enough K, so I didn't bother trying. I still think it is a good idea though -- if you are artsy, you could make all sorts of cute patterns. One thing of note was gold thumbtacks didn' t stand out so well against gold paint, so pick a contrasting color.
I LOVE my gold pumpkin and ended up displaying it on my bookshelf. It looks just like some sort of fancy enamel pumpkin you could buy at the store, but it was cheap, simple, and fun to make. It also dried completely in about 15 minutes. The only sad part is it will rot one day - I will let you know how long it lasts.
The problem with painting my pumpkin? I am now OBSESSED with painting things gold. I love the way it looks and have all sorts of visions of purchases I could make and do-over with gold. Gold spray paint is like the Instagram of real life -- it makes everything look cute. I imagine silver and glitter is just as wonderful. I am going to have to avoid thrift stores for awhile while I try to shed my urges.
In other news, has anyone heard of a "Slimcado"? Check out this big huge type of avocado (I thought it was genetically modified but apparently it isn't).
Here it is sitting with MANGOES to give you a size idea (but yes, they were fairly small mangoes).
