stick with it.

...

Polly brought over two delicious cupcakes from Miette today. We've been shooting a series of video tutorials for Easy Crafts and today was our last shoot. Sad but sweet. Will post the videos from today as soon as they're finished.

Tomato Pie!

A friend at work sent me a link to the recipe for this Tomato Pie on Monday. It sounded so delicious and easy and I couldn't wait to make it. Next time I'll cook and season the onions a little before adding them to the pie shell, and I think it would be fun to try this with cherry tomatoes. The cheese, bacon, and basil topping is kind of amazing, I probably could have spooned it all off the top after this came out of the oven but I refrained. I'm definitely making this again and playing around with the ingredients.

Tomato Pie

This recipe is from Farm Fresh To You, an organic produce delivery service in the Bay Area

Ingredients
• 1 9-inch pie shell
• 1/2 yellow onion, chopped
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 3-4 tomatoes, roughly chopped, excess juice removed
• 2 cups grated cheese (combo of sharp cheddar, Monterey Jack, Gruyere or mozzarella
• 3/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tsp hot sauce or Tabasco
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 5 slices bacon, cooked and chopped
• 1/4 cup chiffonaded basil

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 ° F. Place pie shell in oven and cook for 8-10 minutes or longer until lightly golden. If you are starting with a frozen crust, you’ll need to cook it a little longer. If you are using a homemade crust, freeze crust first, then line the crust with aluminum foil
and pre-bake it for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and bake an additional 10 minutes.
2. Squeeze as much moisture as you can out of the chopped tomatoes, using either paper towels, a clean dish towel, or a potato ricer.
3. Sprinkle the bottom of the pre-cooked pie shell with chopped onion. Spread the chopped tomatoes over the onions. Sprinkle the sliced basil over the tomatoes with the bacon.
4. In a medium bowl, mix together the grated cheese, mayonnaise, Tabasco, a sprinkling of salt and freshly ground black pepper. The mixture should be the consistency of a gooey snow ball. Spread the cheese mixture over.
5. Place in oven and bake until browned and bubbly, anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes.

Serves: 6
Difficulty: Easy

Christmas in September

One of my favorite qualities in a person is when they remember things you tell them. And I totally recognize how lucky I am that I have a boyfriend who remembers the most random things I tell him. Granted we both forget stuff a lot, but it's the little things he remembers that always surprise me. Last night he told me he had an early Christmas present for me and gave me The Supremes Christmas album. I completely forgot I mentioned I wanted this when it appeared on the screen for about two seconds during an episode of CBS Sunday Morning months ago. I think it's a super power of his, remembering random things like this.

My brother is usually the one who dorks out on holiday music, but I am so excited to crack this open and get in the holiday spirit.

Happy Monday

I wasn't nearly as productive as I thought I would be this weekend but I had loads of social time catching up with friends. Sometimes that's a lot better than 'getting things done'.

breakfast.

I made the poor choice of getting breakfast at HRD this morning, which, while delicious, is sort of like a bomb in the belly for breakfast. My hung over head thought it was a good idea. It was worth it for this photo.

eggplant parmesan pizza

Lately my favorite thing to make with the extra fried eggplant from when I make eggplant parm is a homemade pizza. This one is layered with lots of sauce, fried eggplant, mozzerella, goat cheese, and tomatoes from Alison's garden. It was pretty delicious.

Jennifer Collier’s Paper Devices

Spotted these amazing creations on Craft and had to post them here.



Amazing work by Jennifer Collier.

Words from Pinterest.

Sharing some of my Pinterest favorites.




All links to these can be found on my word board (sorry being lazy).

Something New

I started a new blog. It's over here. And it's all about reading. Kind of. I'll still be posting random thoughts and things I love here!

food like mom used to make

This weekend we had a little get together where we all brought food from our childhood. It was a fun night and a great way to do a pot luck - which usually causes some stress. I loved all of the rich, unhealthy food we ate which included spinach dip with fritos, chips & french onion dip (made with liptons soup mix), some sort of amazing cream cheese log roll wrapped in dough, hot dogs, baked beans, eggplant parm, and grilled cheese made with kraft american cheese & wonder bread.

Another Adorable Plant Project

I guess I have succulents on the brain lately. Saw this sweet project over on Mod Podge Rocks and just love the idea.

Full tutorial can be found on What Lauren Loves.

almost friday....

Plant Bombing

What a great idea. Via Tree Hugger.

How To Make a Fabric Chandelier

One of the things I am working on in my new job is a series of video tutorials. This is a pretty low budget operation and we're shooting everything with a flip camera. The videos are getting better, because Polly and I are learning as we go, but I've definitely had my eye out for other craft tutorial videos. This one from 100 Layer Cake is beautiful. It makes an intimidating project look easy. I don't need a fabric chandelier but this video makes me want to create one.

DIY Fabric Chandelier from 100 Layer Cake on Vimeo.