Thursday, February 23, 2012

Pretty, Pretty Paper!

I recently discovered that Paper Source has a Blog. I LOVE the Paper Source website! I've never been to the store before, but I have had plenty of fun perusing their website, especially during wedding season. Their paper was featured in MUCH of our wedding design. For example...



... so I was ecstatic to see an example from the Paper Source blog showing how their paper is made!!!


That is the same paper that we used in our decorations. (See the pink pinwheel above.) How Cool!!

This post makes me want to find more uses for my leftover batik papers!

Do you have any ideas?

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Making Buttons. Part 1

What to do when you have your FIRST BULK ORDER, which ended up being ordered later than anticipated, and you CAN'T FIND THE RIGHT SUPPLIES you need, but there's not enough time to have them shipped to you? Well, you make them, of course!

I desperately need more white buttons, and I can't find them in bulk anywhere in Richmond this past week. So I took a detour back to my childhood and bought some sculpey and decided to try my hand at making them instead.

This feature is basically a photo journal, so I will let the pictures speak for themselves.












What happened next? Tune in to find out! (It may have been a temporary disaster...)

Healthy Quiche recipe!

It is my boss's birthday tomorrow. So of course we are going to do something fun! Here's the catch: usually birthdays in our office involve eating out and indulging in unhealthy food. However, we are currently having an office "friendly bet," called MISSION SLIMPOSSIBLE, where we see who can lose the most weight percentage over 3 months, while we all prepare for the Monument Ave 10k. It's turning out to be great motivation. Okay, so back to the reason for this post: THE FOOD. I offered to try and make a healthy breakfast-like option for our morning meeting, where we will be surprising her with a little birthday party.

I woke up this morning inspired: I am going to make a healthy quiche! Bell peppers were $1 each at Kroger this week (!!!) so I had plenty of those to use. Before I get into the recipe, here is a shot of the final product:



I uploaded this recipe to LiveStrong, the website I use as my calorie tracker: Check out my Healthy Breakfast Quiche recipe on LiveStrong.com!

Ingredients:


Directions:
First, prepare the pie shells as the package requires.

Then, Dice up the 3 kinds of peppers and onion, about 1/2 inch cubes. Cook them with Pam and the minced garlic until they are beginning to be soft. Then add the 2/3 water and the Taco seasoning, as the package requires (as if the pepper mixture is browned meat). Once it starts boiling, add in the Turkey Sausage Crumbles and let the mixture boil again, then reduce heat as the package directs.

While the peppers and sausage are cooking, and the pie shells are browning, start chopping up the raw spinach. Make a pile of your spinach mixed with the 2 cooked bacon slices cut up into pieces. Toss it together, set aside.

It's probably time to take out the pie shells, so make sure to check on them if you haven't already! Set them aside to cool. Once the peppers have cooked through, you can turn off the heat for those as well.

To prepare the egg mixture, blend all of the remaining ingredients (except the cheese) together. Gather the spices, the egg whites, the dollops of light sour cream, the Greek yogurt, and the 2 eggs. Once they are mixed through, you can set them aside.

Now you should have everything ready to be combined. Get the shredded cheese out of the fridge. Pile everything into the pie shells. Here is the order that I recommend for putting them in, from bottom-to-top:
1) light layer of cheese, 2) 1/4 cup of pepper/sausage mixture, 3) 1/4 cup spinach/bacon mixture, 4) light layer of cheese, and so on, until you have filled the pie shells. Make the top layer cheese before you add in the egg mixture.

Once you have the hard ingredients loaded into the pie shells, you are ready for the egg mixture. Pour it into both shells, pouring over the ingredients, and almost reaching the height of the pie shell walls.

Place both quiches in the oven, on top of a pan (to catch any stray egg mixture that may fall off). Cook at 375 degrees for about 40-45 minutes, until the center is solid, NOT liquid. Your quiche is ready to be taken out when the top is brown, and when you put a fork in the middle of it, and it is mostly solidified. When it is ready, place the quiche on a drying rack. Remember that it will solidify even more as it cools.

Eat and Enjoy!!!! One serving is 1/8 of one of the two pies that this recipe makes.

Nutritional Facts:


Some photos for your inspiration:



What are you eating this week?