Happy Holidays!

Tis the season, right?

Right.

Although, I had decided not to decorate my place this year. It didn't make sense to decorate, I'm not going to be here anyway. Actually, I'm leaving today and I'm very excited about it! (Next post will most certainly be all about my train travel adventure!)

So, I'm leaving today. Apparently in my world this means that today is the day I need to decorate my apartment. What? Yup. That's the logic of my brain.

I think it has something to do with how dreary it is outside and I know I'll be coming home late next week to a dreary day and there's something about a little sparkle and twinkle that brightens up dreary winter days.

And so...

I give you Happy Holidays in the form of an avocado tree, a dwarf lemon tree, and a bay window:

The full view of the living room with lights and everything!

This poor sad avocado tree is my Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. It's where the presents are waiting for me to open when I return next Friday.

The lemon tree. It smells really good!

And remember this guy? The whole reason I created this picture window was to be able to change it seasonally. Seemed appropriate to actually do it.

Thanks to Julia and David for my coke-can angel on top!

Fall... beets... cupcakes!

It's fall in Northern California. That means that the days are a bit shorter and cooler, the nights chillier, the leaves yellow and brown and crunchy under foot. It's lovely. It also means it's the season for root vegetables and I love root vegetables. I especially adore beets.

So naturally, I made cupcakes.

Okay, I'll explain. I was inspired by a recipe I read in Sunset magazine which I have recently mysteriously begun receiving. It had a recipe for red velvet cupcakes colored not with food coloring but with roasted beets. I thought that was brilliant! And so I set out to make them.

Being me, I couldn't just follow the recipe exactly. First, I decided to make mini cupcakes instead of full sized ones. Then I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of the cake flour, I used truvia instead of sugar, being diabetic and all. I also changed the buttercream icing to a more lactose-intolerant-friendly vegan cream cheese icing with a dash of grapefruit bitters for extra flavor.

They turned out alright. Next time, I will not bake them as long as they got a bit dry. They are still pretty tasty though and I like that they aren't super sweet. They are a really pretty red color though, which is great for Halloween!

Anyway, here are some pictures and the recipe. Original is from Sunset Magazine, Northern California edition, October 2012.

roasted beet puree

finished batter

Adding icing.

 And here's the recipe:

Red velvet cupcakes with orange buttercream

Makes 12 cupcakes (32 mini cupcakes)

Cupcakes
1 lb. red beets (3 medium), scrubbed

2 cups sifted cake flour

1 tsp. baking powder

¾ tsp. kosher or fine sea salt

1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 cup plus 2 tsp. granulated sugar (or 3/8 cup truvia or other similar brand if doing sugar free)

3 large eggs, beaten to blend

2/3 cup canola oil

¾ tsp. vanilla extract

Orange buttercream

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups powdered sugar (10 tsp. truvia if doing sugar free)

½ tsp. pure orange oil (or zest of 1 orange)

¼ tsp. vanilla extract

• 1.       Make cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350. Wrap each beet in foil, put on a rimmed baking sheet, and roast until tender when pierced, 1 to 1 ½ hours. Let cool. Peel, cut into chunks, and puree in a food processor. Measure 1 ¼ cups puree.
• 2.       Line a 12-cup muffin pan (1/2 cup size) with paper liners. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Set aside.
• 3.       Whisk together beet puree, granulated sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla in a large bowl. With a plastic spatula, stir in flour mixture one-third at a time just until smooth.
• 4.       Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling each almost to the top of the liner. Bake until cupcakes spring back when gently pressed and a toothpick inserted in center of one comes out with a couple of moist crumgs clinging. 25 to 30 minutes (15 – 17 minutes for mini cupcakes). Let cool in pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Transfer to rack to cool completely.
• 5.       Make buttercream: Beat butter with a mixer on high speed until very smooth. Add powdered sugar, orange oil, and vanilla; beat on low speed to blend, then on medium until fluffy and smooth.
• 6.       Spread a thick layer of buttercream on cupcakes, swirling it decoratively. Or pipe frosting from a pastry bag, using a star tip.

Per cupcake: 481 cal. 29 gram of fat, 53 g. carbs, 176 mg sodium, 94 mg chol.

Per mini cupcake of sugar free: not sure of the calories but it’s much less, 10 g. of carbs.

President McKenzie

Ah, yes. President McKenzie. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? 

It's not what you think. Really. It has nothing to do with politics or countries or clubs (or country clubs for that matter). Instead, it has everything to do with my new company and the fact that I have accepted the position that I offered to myself. That position is as President of the company. 

I'm also the CFO, the Secretary, the gofer, the marketing department, the payroll department, and several others that I'm sure I don't even know about yet.

Regardless, I went through a lengthy meeting with my lawyer doing the official things a board, a president, a CFO, and the secretary of a company do.  And after I signed my employment agreement with McKenzie Solutions, I signed a lot of documents as Kate McKenzie, President.

I thought that was pretty neat.  

And now I'm terrified I'm going to do something to get in trouble! Yikes!

Social Norms?

I'm spending the morning working from my local coffee shop. I decided I needed a change of scenery - because apparently I haven't had enough of that lately... No, it's just that my cleaning lady is at my place and I don't like to be there when she's cleaning. I feel like I'm in the way.

Anyway, I'm at a coffee shop. There is music playing as there is in all stores and coffee shops and restaurants these days. As a side note: have you ever wondered what it would be like if there wasn't any music playing? Would that affect you in any way? Would you even notice?

Ok, back to the current situation. So, there's music playing. The shop is fairly busy, most tables are taken. People are working, talking, reading, etc.

There is one woman at one table who is full on dancing to the music that is playing. She has a book in front of her but she hasn't paid attention to it at all, at least not from what I can tell. Instead, she's sitting in her chair, dancing to the music. Smiling, enjoying herself.

Now, what is interesting to me is that everyone sees her, walks by her, makes sure not to make eye contact with her. Everyone seems to be thinking, "oh wow, stay away from the crazy lady!"

Why? Why do we assume that someone who is enjoying the music and is free enough to dance to that music when it moves her is crazy or dangerous? Maybe she's really just having a wonderful time!

I'll admit that I, myself, initially avoided making eye contact but now I can't stop watching her. I caught her eye and smiled at her and she just smiled back and continued dancing.

Maybe she's nuts. Maybe she's weird.

But maybe she is exactly what we should all be: free enough to hear, appreciate, enjoy, and act on her impulse to dance to the music around her.

YUMmmmy!

It has been a long while since I posted anything but this new recipe is too good not to share. I've made it twice in the last few weeks and I just can't get enough of it. It is creamy and nutty and utterly scrumptious. The creaminess comes from the cashews, not cream. I've rediscovered cashews recently. They are amazing!

It's from Vegetarian Times and actually it's a vegan recipe so all of you non-dairy types can enjoy it as well.  Now, those of you who know how I cook know that I use a recipe mostly as a guide, a starting point, a suggestion, so I altered it a bit as I went. I also don't measure my ingredients so I wasn't very precise and it was absolutely delicious.

Anyway, here it is:

Black Pepper Fettuccine with Chardonnay Sauce
Serves 2
Sauce:
1 cup raw cashews
1 cup Chardonnay wine
1 Tbs. nutritional yeast (I use vegetable broth powder, this is where the sauce gets its salt)
1 Tbs. lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Pasta:
3 oz uncooked fettuccine (or any other kind of pasta, I used spinach linguine the first time, whole wheat penne the second)
1 cup baby spinach (I used more like 2 cups)
6 asparagus spears (the second time I made it I used broccolini simply because that's what I had on hand)
1/4 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips (I skipped this)

1. To make Sauce: Blend cashews and 1 cup water in blender or food processor until smooth. Strain out solids using fine mesh strainer; discard solids (I used the solids as well, they added the tiniest bit of nutty crunch but make sure the mixture gets nice and smooth first.)
2. Simmer Chardonnay in a small saucepan over medium heat 7 to 10 minutes, or until reduced to about 1/3 cup liquid. Stir in cashew mixture, nutritional yeast (or vegetable broth powder), lemon juice, and ground black pepper. Keep warm.
3. To make Pasta: cook in boiling salted water according to package directions.
4. Meanwhile, bring 1/4 cup water to a simmer in a small skillet. Add spinach, and cook 2 to 3 minutes, or until wilted. Keep warm.
5. Heat grill pan over medium heat. Grill asparagus 7 minutes, turning once. Grill bell pepper 2 - 3 minutes (if you're using them) until wilted. Keep warm.
6. Drain pasta, and return to pot. Toss with Sauce, and divide between 2 plates. Top each serving with wilted spinach, asparagus, and bell pepper strips.

Here's a photo of my first finished product.

The second time I made I deviated a little more and added sauteed mushrooms for a nice meaty vegetable. Still delicious. Whatever you do, whichever vegetables you choose to use, enjoy it. And try not to eat all the sauce before you put it on the pasta!

Enjoy!

P.S. For anyone who is interested, here is the nutritional value per Vegetarian Times:
per serving: calories: 386; protein: 15g; total fat: 16g; saturated fat: 3g; carbohydrates: 49g; cholesterol: 0; sodium: 184mg; fiber: 5g; sugar: 6g.

The final piece (for now). Finally!

Alright, I've been posting a lot of home improvement projects in the past few months. It's been fun to finally really turn my place from an apartment into a home. I've redone my living room, my home office, my kitchen, and my dining room.

There was only one piece missing from making this wave of improvements complete: I wanted a bar/sideboard/wine storage thing for the dining room. I spent a lot of time looking for the perfect piece. I initially thought I wanted something like a china hutch but couldn't find anything that I really liked. Then I thought about getting some kind of old desk to convert but again, I couldn't really make it work the way I wanted to (I thought about using the old secretary but didn't like how it looked). Ultimately I decided I wanted something simple, not too big, and functional. But how does one find the perfect thing?

Then, a few months ago I visited friends in Southern California and I really liked the bar they had. And thus began another journey...

I knew they got their bar at a really expensive place and I didn't want to spend that kind of money on it. So I began a very long and broad internet search. You can NOT believe how many different bars, hutches, sideboards, and wine storage things are out there!

Eventually I found exactly what I was looking for at Crate & Barrel. But it still cost a lot more than I wanted to spend. And then I found a coupon! Woohoo!!! Armed with my 20% off coupon, I called all three Crate & Barrel stores in the Greater Bay Area only to find out that they were all completely out of stock. The last person I spoke to said that every store in the country is out of stock and they're waiting for the manufacturer to make more and that they weren't expecting to get more of them until at least June or July. Sadness.

So I grudgingly continued my search. I found the same bar at a few other places for less but they were all out of stock as well. I guess they get theirs from the same manufacturer. And then I found it! A small, family-owned discount furniture place in Ohio of all places. Not only did they have the exact thing I was looking for, they had it for half the price Crate & Barrel did! Plus free shipping! Their website said they had one in stock so I ordered it immediately. I was so excited!

And then came the email: "We're sorry. The item you ordered is out of stock. We will notify you when it becomes available." WHAT??????? AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

sigh...

I called them to find out how long it would be before they expected to get it in again and they said probably May. Well, that's better than June or July and it was half the price so I left my order in their system.

They lied, by the way. They said they were going to notify me when they got it in. They didn't. Instead, yesterday I came home from a meeting to find a big, heavy box from FedEx outside my door. My bar arrived!!! And it's only April!

WOOHOOO!!!!

So, last night I got to spend the evening putting together my new bar/wine storage piece and I love it. Here's the fun and the final product for your viewing pleasure.

Box unpacked, parts, pieces, and hardware separated. Ready for assembly.

Somehow this was part of my process. I can't help it if my legs are good helpers!

The final piece in its various iterations.

The finished dining room. (Yes, pictures still need to hung).

So, finally it is complete! Well, there are still some things that have to be hung and put on the walls but now that the furniture is all there, I can do that. So happy to have it finished!!

still can't get used to it

I saw my roommate from college freshman year on a TV show the other day. It's still so weird to me when I see someone I know on TV or in a film. It happens frequently enough that it shouldn't surprise me so much anymore but I'm not sure I'll ever get used to it.

A favorite pet peeve - or "idiot parkers"

OK, I've been all nice and creative lately. Time for some griping.

I have some pet peeves. I freely admit that. Most of them involve language and spelling but there are some that exist in the real world. One of those is idiotic parking.

Let me explain.

I live on a street where most people do not have enough off-street parking to accommodate their vehicles. I also live on a street where parking is free, which is unusual for the city. I also live in a fantastic neighborhood that people want to visit.

This combination of things leads to people parking on my street with great regularity. What bothers me is when people park so that they take up so much space that another car would have easily fit, had they only parked properly.

Sitting in my living room, looking out of my windows, I just watched three people - yes THREE in a row! - park with so much room between their car and the nearest car that only a motorcycle or a Smart car would fit but no regular car. The result is that there is now only very limited parking available on my street due to these idiot parkers.

Here's a picture of a few of them. There is just as much space behind the red car and just as much space in front of that blue one at the front. REALLY? Come on!

And I'm expecting guests for dinner tonight. Where are they going to park?? I really wanted to yell down at these people to pull up! But, alas, I refrained from doing so, leaving myself to grumble to myself and be terribly vexed by the idiots I observe in the world.

I think this idiotic parking phenomenon is part of a greater pet peeve of mine: inconsiderate people. More on that another day.

window project

I actually finished this project some weeks ago but haven't posted it yet so here it is.

Back in December I had an idea. I knew I would be travelling a lot during the holidays and would not be at home and so I didn't want to go all out decorating my apartment. But I did want to have a little holiday flair. I thought it would be nice to have some sort of art or wall hanging that I could change with the seasons and/or decorate for various holidays or other events. Wouldn't that be nice?

So I thought about what that could look like and here's what I came up with. A window. An old window. Refurbished, painted, some hooks added. Hmm...

A trip to my favorite salvage yard yielded the perfect specimen. One side was this gorgeous blue (it's still that color, I only re-did the boring white side), and the other was white.



The window sat for a while in my apartment before I did anything to it, which is why I just finished it a few weeks ago, but once the work started, it was pretty quick and fun. The only part that really wasn't very fun was scraping the old white paint off the frame. But it was very satisfying to be able to sand the raw wood after removing all the paint, and then repainting it. I decided to leave the inside near the panes of glass white for some depth effect.

Here you can see the boring white side of the window before I started working on it. Notice, however, the very un-boring hardware that really adds to the character of it:


Scraping and painting...



Then, since it was no longer the holidays (these things do tend to take some time for me to get to...), I set out to find things I wanted to use to decorate it. I took some time and kept a look-out for fun little items that spoke to me in my regular daily wanderings. I really like the final product.



Here you can see it in context with the other things on that particular wall:

Super fancy business woman , a.k.a. Crafty Katy

Earlier this week, someone - jokingly? - called me a fancy business woman. Although I would love to take that as truth, here's an example of the less fancy aspects of my business.

I have a client, there's a convention this weekend (actually beginning on Thursday), the woman who usually staffs this particular convention is getting married this weekend, so... they asked me to take it on. No problem!

Except, I didn't know that the whole thing had to be developed and created by... you guessed it! Me! Also, it's all very last minute so I'm not able to order what I want and have someone else make all the stuff like a proper fancy business woman. And so I spent my afternoon making the table top display.

Initially I was a little concerned because it was going to involve cutting paper in straight lines and I do not have a paper cutter nor am I proficient in cutting in straight lines. Ah, but I do have quilting supplies!

Anyway, here's the final product (before and after).



This is just the first step. I have a tack board which is 8x4 feet that still has to be covered with pictures and information when I get to the convention, the pictures and info is stuff which I still need to find and print... it's going to be a long week.

You know what? Actually, this wasn't the first step. The wheel came in multiple pieces and had to be assembled as well. And then there's the step of coming up with the questions and answers for the wheel. Oh man, I'm so not fancy...

More DIY home stuff

I love my apartment. I know I've said that before but I really do. One of the very few things that bother me about it, however, is the lack of counter space in the kitchen. It's always the problem with apartment kitchens. I have a very cute kitchen, with the original cabinetry and an old stove, yellow tiles and light blue/turquoise accents. But the counter space is lacking.

So, I have taken steps to increase my counter space. I got a couple of butcher block topped cabinets. During a previous bout of home improvement fever, I made curtains for them. (see January's post: http://katysthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/01/home-improvements-continue.html)

The continued problem though, is that the top of the new additional counter space was covered with stuff. SO, today I took care of that problem as well, giving myself a whole new large area of counter space. So happy!!!!! It's like I have a whole new kitchen to work with!

Upcycling my way to a more organized life

Upcycling. It's the newest craze. Not really, but that sounded good. It's a fairly new word though, I think. Basically it's just a fancy word for finding new uses for old things. I like the concept and today I made it work for me: A few months ago I found four of these hooks at a salvage yard. I'm not sure why I liked them but I knew I would find some use for them eventually.


Today I finally did.

The problem: too many scarves and cardigans and no place to put them (other than in a big pile on top of my dresser, which was making me a little crazy).

The solution: upcycling! Using those old hooks from the salvage yard to make my life more organized: attach them to the side of my dresser as scarf/cardigan hooks.

I feel so much better now!

Here's the final product:

foggy morning

The sky outside my window was a beautiful bright blue and the sun was shining when I walked out this morning with my sunglasses on, ready for a good walk around the lake in the early morning sunshine. Exactly 6.5 minutes later, when I got to the lake, it was completely fogged in. The lake was, I was, everybody and everything else was too. It was kind of eerie. Here's the scene I encountered when I got there (there's a lake behind there somewhere):



As I began the brisk, now pea soup-y walk around the lake, I figured, the sun would burn off the fog soon enough and as I rounded the half-way point, the fog had begun to lift and one of the buildings began reflecting the sun that was still shining above the fog:



Now it's sunny and clear again. What strange weather the winter brings in the Bay Area!

I saw this little guy (actually, he was quite large!) when I stopped to stretch and thought he was interesting enough to share (what is that bump on his beak?):

A walk on the beach

After a day inside, I decided I needed some fresh air yesterday. So, I combined my grocery shopping trip with a walk on my favorite beach. (This is the same beach where my lobsterization occurred last year. Read all about it in last July's "Lobsterized - a new word" )

It was a lovely sunny late January day, in the mid-60's with just the slightest of breezes. (Reason #587 why I love living in Northern California!) The beach was fairly empty but along the 2 mile beach I came across children playing, jumping in the shallow water, giggling, families building sand castles, flying kites, walking their dogs and riding their bikes along the shoreline. It was an overall pleasant day to spend walking in the fresh air.

Here is where I was:

The home improvements continue

Today, I wasn't feeling too well so I decided to skip my day's planned outings and stay at home. However, I also didn't feel like just sitting around, watching movies or reading. So I decided to tackle a project I've been wanting to complete (well, technically I've been wanting to start it and then complete it but you get what I'm saying).

Several things happened to get me to this place.
1. My kitchen has yellow tiles on the counter tops and teal/aqua/turquoise (what's the difference, really?) accents. It's super cute but I have very little counter space so when I moved in I got additional cabinets. I'm not crazy about them because they're open all around. Here's a pic of the kitchen. (Cabinets are not seen in this shot.)


2. Several months ago I found some cute fabric online at spoonflower.com (check it out for custom printed fabric and fun craft ideas!). It's turquoise with yellow dots. I supplemented it with some plain yellow fabric.


3. When I was at Ikea recently to pick up some the rug for my new home office (see home office post), I saw a nifty idea for hanging curtains that I decided to adapt for my kitchen cabinets.


4. I have a functioning sewing machine again!! A 30-year old Bernina that was in desperate need of being taken for a test run. (Thanks again for a great Christmas gift Mom!)



And that, my friends brings us to the project of today: making curtains for my kitchen cabinets.




And for the full effect: Before and After

new home office

I realized recently that sitting at my dining room table for hours and hours every day was not great for being productive with my work, and also not great for having a dining room table that is available for its intended purpose, i.e. dining. Of course, I do have an area designated as a home office and it was sweet and quaint with the old secretary from Grandma Corinne but, lets face it, I need a larger work surface than that, which is why I migrated to the dining room table.

So, with the new year and the further realization that I am in fact committed to building my own business, I decided I needed a real and functional home office. I had fun putting it all together over the weekend (with a little help from a my friend Jessie, thanks Jessie!). I had no idea how much stuff I had already accumulated so it was also a great opportunity to go through and throw out a lot of the unnecessary stuff and file things I need to keep. Overall, a very productive weekend. Here's the process:






A lot of stuff!

It still needs a bit of work (like hanging things on the walls, etc.) but it's certainly functional and coming together nicely. Take a look at the before and after:



And just in case you're wondering what happened to the secretary, it found a cozy little home in the dining room.