What season is it anyway?

This weather has been so wishy washy lately that I have evidently come down with some kind of cold. This Week begins our move to the new house. I'm posting pictures of the interior before we started working on it because there are so many ideas that I have for this place. Hopefully this cold gets a clue before the real work begins. I know this place is a fixer upper. I am up for the challenge.

keep the cauldren bubbling

Just when you think that I have settled down into a nice place of my own, I up and move again. It wasn't necessarily my idea at this point. Thomas came home with bright eyes and full of hope for this new place that just happened to fall into his lap. I am nervous about moving because when I release the grasp of a comfortable place for something unknown this leaves a gap for potential chaos. This, I guess, is what I am really afraid of. Thomas should be gone at some point this month to do shows in Colorado. This means a few things; he is doing really well (musically), I'm going to need a dog ASAP, or I will be sleeping at people's houses frequently. There have been other changes in the past few months. Thomas is a recent college graduate now. Here are some pictures until my next post.

catching up...[recently]

I know I have been neglecting my posts lately. Don't feel too badly though... I've been neglecting a lot.
So I have put together a few things that I've been dreaming of lately.
Think of this as Oprah's favorite things edition. [except that I don't yell and you won't cry]

I'd like to stamp this season

party dress [dusendusen.com]

bridal dresses from VW

love<3

red velvet fudge

golden cake

floating lantern festival Tailand

still loving braids. this is a good wrap [fishtail] i don't know about meeting halfway though

sweater from anthropologie 

ginger chocolate cookies

original alice in wonderland illustration

An Experiment of Substitution

I was feeling frisky at the grocery store on one of my large trips to get nourishment supplies for our house. I ended up getting a pumpkin on a whim. Rather than carving it just for halloween purposes I decided to get crazy and make this curry pumpkin soup. I made a few substitutions and made a little more than the recipe called for because I am a huge fan of making large amounts of soups and freezing them for a later time.

Curry Pumpkin Soup


2 tbs pumpkin seeds (optional)
2 tbs butter
3 tbs all purpose flour
2 tbs curry powder
4 cups vegetable broth
1 (29 oz) can pumpkin
1.5 cups of half-and-half cream
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs white sugar
salt and pepper to taste

I began by cutting into the pumpkin

To begin, I didn't get a can of pumpkin. I used an actual one that I picked up from the grocery store. This one was about medium sized. This is the beginning of my substitution highway.
I started out cutting into it which ended up being a little difficult because it wasn't as ripe as I wished it would have been. So, in order to get the most of it- I rubbed some sea salt on the cut chunks of pumpkin. I then wrapped it in aluminum foil and stuck it in the oven (broil temp) for a while just to get the pumpkin to sweat. 15 minutes might be good enough, but keep checking on it. Different pumpkins sweat at different rates.

melting about a stick of butter

Meanwhile: On the Stove

•  The recipe called for you to mix the flour and curry powder until it became smooth. With the amount that the recipe gave I found it to be a little difficult to work with such a small portion. So I kept adding the broth at that time.

Also: if you find yourself running low on something like butter once you've started cooking (I find myself having to do this quite often) you can substitute butter for oil or something like this. 

• Once the mixture becomes smooth, start adding in your half-n-half. (I also ran out of half-n-half, so I used Silk soy milk. Which I can say was a good call because of the special flavor it has.
• At this time you can add your soy sauce, sugar, salt, and pepper.

Also: I used a sugar substitute in this recipe. It didn't change the dynamic of the soup. Then, I added some cinnamon to the mixture my house thanked me for the aromas.

After my added Soy, milk & etc.

using a whisk sure helped things

Now, I didn't forget to take that pumpkin out of the oven. 

• Using a spoon, I scraped all of the "guts" out. Pick out the seeds and place them on a cookie sheet or aluminum foil sheet making sure to not over lap them when placing them on there. After that, just throw the seedless "guts" into the soup. 
• Bake the seeds in the oven for about 5 minutes on a heat of about 375 F*. Keep a watchful eye on them. They will burn before you even realize it. A light tan color is desired. 

look at how thick that soup is!

• Because the soup was SO thick I thinned it out with some water. 

Don't forget about your seeds! Once you have pulled them out of the oven they don't take long at all to cool. (not EVEN a minute) 

sprinkle them on your bowl before you eat and voila!

Finished product

I substituted a lot of things in the recipe. Tasting all throughout the process. The soup ended up having a little bite. I like that. Substitutions don't always give you the product you want, either it's a good thing or a bad one. It is fun though. Cooking is all about experimenting with your taste buds and this one really paid off.
If you make too much or too many soups you can always freeze them for a later use or send them to your friend. My mother and I always love making them and exchanging. Her taco soup is unbeatable.

Happy Snuggling my friends!

can I borrow your children?

This past week has brought me so many pleasant surprises. A long overdue visit with my best girlfriends was the highlight of my week. Even though it wasn't as long as I would of hoped. Adulthood was calling me back home in the morning. We caught up and made sweet treats. I didn't take many pictures of the night because sometimes it's just better for me to be in the moment than to record it. But I managed to get two out of it.

Ashley Mixing up some deliciousness 

Diabetes anyone?

Also, in the recent days or weeks I have finally discovered all of these new things. I don't know why I suddenly get the itch to do something once it's out of season. Take canning and preserving fruit for instance. I found a really helpful page that gives a step by step guide on how to do it.

How to Make Your Own Jam/Perserves

My dad always does this in the summer but I think it would be a good thing for me to know for myself. It just might be more useful and give me more satisfaction knowing that I made these things myself.
I also found this recipe, if you want to call it that, for making your own Vanilla Extract. This I can accomplish now.

I can't wait to make these darling cupcakes for some kid that I know. It doesn't matter which one. 

Wizard of Oz Cupcakes

These Days are getting RICHER

With this new fall weather making my heart leap. It either makes me want to bake or get real crafty. My boyfriend's company is moving into a new building that used to be a pretty monumental building in Lafayette. The fun shop was a really cool costume shop that had the wackiest costumes imaginable. For the years that it was open it did rather well. Keeping in mind in Southern Louisiana people tend to have a lot more to get dressed in costume about. It recently closed. As soon as those doors were open again for us to start clearing out the left over junk left behind, Thomas discovered that there was a lot of potential for these shelves.
So we sanded this one down and used a really bright color  in order to use it as an accent piece in our condo. It will really stand out in this white and chocolate color themed room.

pt.1- After I started the Sanding Process

Obviously a messy task

This cherry color is explosive

It's going to look great on the wall

There will be pictures of the finished project up soon. As soon as I can get a hold of a drill. There's still some odds and ends that we need to work out.

of course these things are getting out of control

Saw this in Eunice, Louisiana [amazing]

I'm still looking forward to working on the desk that I got inspired to do from this incredible blog Manhattan-Nest.

I am making a list...

I have started making a list of films that i must RE-buy because of my recent move. Weather or not they were stolen or lost is not important.
I've already started this project. This is where I'm headed:

  1.Ame'le (purchased)
  2.Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (repurchased on 10/9/11)
  3.I'm a Cyborg, But that's OK
  4.The Life Aquatic (purchased 10/12/11)
  5.The Darjeeling Limited (purchased 10/17/11)
  6.The Royal Tenenbaums
  7.Dancer in the Dark
  8.Big Fish
  9.Fantastic Mr. Fox
10.Garden State ( will be repurchasing)
11.Pan's Labyrinth
12.Black Swan
13.Coraline
14.Wristcutters, A Love Story
15.Where the Wild Things Are
16.Atonement

Those are Films I'm in need of purchasing. However, I highly recommend to others that there are certain ones that you MUST see.

1. Lost in Translation
2. The Science of Sleep
3. The Squid and the Whale

This week has been hectic. I probably should have been doing laundry all day today but sleep was a little more important to me I guess.
sweet Zzzz's out there.Black Swan