What's for Dinner...

Caprese Grilled Chicken


3 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast

Marinade
3/4 Cup Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Minced Garlic
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/4 Teaspoon Pepper
1 Teaspoon Onion Powder

Mix together marinade and marinade chicken at least 5 hours but you could go overnight.

Topping
3 Tomatoes Diced
8 ounces Fresh Mozzerella Cubed
2 Tablespoon Pesto (could sub just fresh basil)
1 Tablespoon Minced Garlic
Splash of Balsamic Vinegar
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Mix together all ingredients and let sit. Pound out chicken breasts (tip: pound them out inside the zip top bag you marinaded them in to keep chicken goo from flying all over your kitchen). Grill chicken 5 minutes per side. Spoon topping over hot chicken and serve. We served this with grilled asparagus.

Linking To:

Show Off Your Stuff

What I Whipped Up Wednesday

Polka Dots on Parade
The Taylor House

House of Hepworths

Create Your Own Artwork

There is a theme with all the artwork in our house. It was all cheap (surprise) and is almost all black and white. I am just drawn to it for some reason.

If you've never visited the Graphics Fairy its a treasure trove of free clip art and printables. The link is to the images I used in Tate's room. I think I went through just about every single black and white clip art there is on the site and these were my favorites. I was in dire need of some art for the walls in Tate's nursery and the budget was as close to $0.00 without going over. Once I had the images I wanted to use I took some thick resume paper (because we had it laying around) and printed it but the paper was still to pristine looking for the effect I wanted.

We had plain white resume paper laying around. Please excuse the packaging-Diesel was working on his resume.

I experimented with tea and coffee staining the paper. I initially used the leftover coffee from my morning brew- the coffee was too dark and uneven for the look I was going for so I brewed up some strong black tea and tried again.

I soaked the pages in the tea for about 10 minutes making certain to cover the entire paper evenly.

Then I placed them on cooling racks over kitchen towels to dry while I was at work.

When I came home the pages were dry but slightly wrinkled so I lightly ironed them with the towel over the top.

Final product- perfectly aged paper ready for printing! There is a more noticeable difference in the two papers in person. The camera doesn't pick it up very well. I then just fed the paper into the printer through the bypass tray (the stiffness of the paper jammed my printer's regular feed) and printed out my images.

Linking to:  

It's a Hodgepodge Life

Simply Designing

Watch Out, Martha!

Love it, Like it, Link it!

Mother's Day Brunch

We hosted my Mother-In-Law and Father-In-Law for Brunch in honor of Mother's Day. I kept it simple with a make-ahead French Toast Strata (recipe below), bacon, and fresh strawberries. I hate rushing around and cooking while people are here so the Strata is the perfect solution.

French Toast Strata
8 eggs
1 package of cream cheese
cinnamon (to taste)
1/2 cup syrup (plus more for serving)
3 cups milk
6 tablespoons butter
2 crusty baguettes

Halve baguettes and spread softened cream cheese over bread. Put loaves back together (with cream cheese in the middle) and cut into bite sized pieces. In a large bowl whisk together eggs, cinnamon, syrup, and milk.

Place bread pieces into a baking dish and pour liquid over top. Cover and refrigerate overnight. In the morning take butter and cut into small cubes and place over top of bread. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes covered and 5-10 minutes uncovered.

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Linking up to:

  Grace at Home with Imparting Grace

Funky Junk Interiors

Show And Tell Friday

Tatertots And Jello
Crumbs and Chaos
Skip to My Lou

Adventures in Babyfood

Tate is almost 4 months now and still about 2 months away from solids (which in baby food world means purees). But avocados were on sale at the grocery store last week and I planned to prepare and freeze food in advance anyway. So--- I busted out the Baby Bullet (a gift from my sweet mother-in-law) and it was so easy!

Avocado and bananas are the two purees (well the 2 I know of) you can make for baby without having to cook anything. So we won't get the Tate Taste Test for a few more months but this Mama certainly has no complaints about the process.

Recipe for Avocado Puree from Baby Bullet cookbook:
1 Avocado
1/4 Cup Water

Cut Avocado down the middle and remove pit. Use spoon to scoop out avocado into Baby Bullet (or other food processor) add water and puree.

I then scooped it into the silicone tray (you can also use silicone ice cube tray, there are even some that have lids) and froze. Once completely frozen you can "pop" out the frozen baby food and store in freezer bags. Note: The avocado will oxidize and turn brown but it will still taste the same and baby won't care. 

Linking up to: Not Just a Housewife

Rollover Beethoven!

Its official- I've got a rolly polly baby on the loose. Tate had rolled over on occasion (read: in fits of rage about tummy time) in the past but today he got it down pat and has been rolling tummy to back and back to tummy all day. I'm so proud of my little man- though this rolling thing seems to be having an adverse effect on our nap times...

Rehab

Please excuse the poor image quality here- these were taken on my phone pre-blog. As a new home owner I was chomping at the bit to turn our house into a pottery barn catalog a home. Well then we went furniture shopping and furniture requires money- money we'd already spent on buying the house and trivial things like food and electricity. So it was out necessity and frugality that we started refinishing Craigslist and Thrift store items.

I found this dresser at my local Salvation Army- solid cherry and on sale for only $50.00! I had been searching and searching for something for our front hallway- its a long and wide foyer type hallway and I knew I didn't want to waste all that space by just putting a table there. I originally wanted a buffet or sideboard but I hadn't found any of those that met my rigorous criteria- namely cheap and solid wood. So when I found this beauty I knew I couldn't pass it up. It had all the original hardware but I'd already removed it in this picture. This picture also doesn't show just how sad of a state this dresser was in. The top was thoroughly scratched and the finish was uneven.

My trusty assistant since my husband was at work! 

The finished product in the garage.

The finished product in its home in my front hallway.

I used my Makita power sander to sand the dresser completely then restained it in a toffee stain (Minwax) and finally finished with three coats of matte polyurethane. I had wanted to replace the hardware but thats A LOT of drawer pulls and those things don't come cheap so the originals stayed and I have to say I don't mind them so much. They are brass but they are so aged that the have a more natural tone to them. 

Linking to: Handy Man, Crafty Woman, Primp Your Stuff Wednesdays

All images copyright reserved 

Tater Patch

Our little man was born January 29, 2012 but I had been anticipating his arrival for much longer. All the excitement and anxiety and love I had growing inside me those 9 months spilled forth in creating a haven, a nursery for Tate. It turned out exactly as I had hoped and though it rarely looks as clean and tidy as it does in these pictures I cherish the time I spend in there rocking my little man.

Linking up to:
Homemaker on a Dime
Debbie-DebbieDoos
Nifty Thrifty Things

All Images Copyrighted