Jen Caputo

More Cooking Adventures

As I mentioned last weekend, I've become addicted to cooking since the completion of my new kitchen.

Last night we were at the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beers.  Goose Island was supplying the food. They make the BEST soft pretzels ever. And they had them there!!! But by the time Adam and I went over to get a snack they were all gone.

I was so sad.

Walking home from the train station I decided I would try to make my own.  So at midnight, I got out my stand mixer and mixed up some dough.  Refrigerated it for the night and when I got up this morning, I made these.

I consider myself quite the aficionado of soft pretzels and let me tell you - mine were the best I'd ever had!

Could they be any prettier?  This is the recipe I followed.  They were pretty easy and totally forgiving of me messing a lot of things up.

One thing that wasn't as forgiving.... my pumpkin pancakes...

I made my batter, looked and smelled delicious...

Poured 'em on the griddle.... still lookin' good!

But then when they were done, I was really bummed that they weren't as light and fluffy as hers.

I express my dismay to Adam who says "well how much baking soda did the recipe call for?"

Me: "Two teaspoons"

Adam: "How much did you put in?"

Me: (Remembering...) "None"

Oops.... they were still very tasty and used up some of that pumpkin puree I made.  Super bummed I forgot such a vital ingredient though. 

Well.. I'm learning....

Shutterfly Book Contest Winners

Congratulations to

Aimee Gaston said...

I'm so excited!!! I like 8X11...

Who will be getting the 8x11 book

and

Melissa Ives said...

I would like the 8x8 softcover...I want to make a Who Loves You book for my twins Maya and Max. Thanks!

Who will be getting the 8x8 book!

I'll be emailing you two your codes shortly!

Shutterfly Photo Book Giveaway!

I'm a BIG fan of the Shutterfly Photo Books. In fact, you can see my previous ventures in printing Shutterfly books right here.

They turned out like this:

I love 'em!  Anyway, I hear Shutterfly has some new books and that they have expanded their line to include personalized photo covers on ALL book sizes (and with lower prices). In addition to the existing hardcover photo books, they're now offering the following:

• New 7x9 photo books with personalized soft photo covers starting at $15.99. These are great for people who like to make 8x11 books but want a smaller, more affordable option to use for gifts.
• Soft photo covers on the existing 5x7 and 8x8 books, both at great starting prices of $12.99 and $19.99 respectively.
• The flagship 8x11 photo books with a hard photo cover.

You can see the entire selection of photo books here: http://www.shutterfly.com/photobooks

So, I'm whiling away my Saturday morning over on Shutterfly's site making myself a book and I thought you folks might like to make one too!

I'm giving away 2 photobooks.  All you have to do is leave a comment and let me know which of the new Shutterfly books you are most interested in!

Here's the fine print:

• You'll need to make your book by the end of the month as the coupon code I'm going to give you expires 11/30/09
• All entrants must be in by 11:59PM CST TODAY (Saturday 11/7/09)
• I will send out the coupon codes on Sunday so you can get started on your book!

Contest Winners Announced! DSD Sale Announcement! New Product Released!

First up, let's see who Random.Org says won the new sketches!  There were 141 entries so I'm choosing 10 winners!

So then I had to start counting...

11:

caryl said...

Sounds a nice contest.
I actually love your 2 quick home decor post... I've been planning to do some decor for the coming holidays and I got new ideas from that post.. :)

18:

Diane said...

I really like all of your blog posts, but especially the kitchen organizing and the bags of pumpkin puree to freeze.

19:

EBPitcher said...

I really enjoyed your kitchen remodel updates. It was neat to see things progress!

25:

Deborah said...

I subscribe to your blog with Google Reader - I don't want to miss a single new template!

53:

Lisa B. said...

I subscribe to your blog through bloglines..have for a long time. I love your sketch templates.

61:

said...

I subscribe to your feed through Microsoft Outlook 2007. It so EASY to get my feeds the same place I get my mail and my calendar and my notes, etc. I love programs that serve multiple purposes!

76:

beth said...

HI. Loved seeing the kitchen redo. Awesome!

I am on your mailing list and blog list through Google reader already. Love your templates. Very generous offer. Hope your enjoying that new kitchen. Beth

78:

Julie L. said...

Hi Jen--thanks for the update to know I need to post each comment separately!

This comment is to say that I subscribe to your blog's RSS through Google Reader!

96:

Margie said...

My favorite blogpost of yours is when you announced that Adam asked you to marry him!

136:

Amy Tolbert said...

Hi Jen! I'd love to win the templates! I've been following your renovation entries and I liked the one on your Container Store purchases-- one of my favorite stores!

Whew - ok ladies.  Email me: jen at jencaputo dot com to let me know you won and I will send you a code to pick up the new templates!

All of these ladies won my new Sketch Collection 31 which was released tonight!

Which you can pick up right now, here!  In fact, through the 9th, in honor of Digital Scrapbooking Day, you can get it for 40% off (along with everything else - no coupons necessary!)

Click here to start shopping those awesome prices now!

It's a Contest!!!!

Hey digi pals. I know some of you are still out there :)

I finished up a new sketch collection tonight that will go up on Friday, just in time for Digital Scrapbooking Day.  My CT is scrapping away some samples, but in the mean time, I thought I'd give you a chance to win it before you can buy it!

So here's the deal. To enter the contest:

• Add a comment to this blog post telling me which of my recent blog posts you liked the best and why. 
• Do it by 11:59PM CST on Thursday Nov. 5th 2009
• I will award 1 Sketch Collection for every 15 entries!

But wait - there's more!  Maybe you'd like to enter more than one time to up your chances - sounds good to me, but there are more rules.  For each of the following things you do, you can grab yourself 1 more entry! (In parentheses I put what I want you to write in the additional entries as proof.) LEAVE A NEW COMMENT FOR EACH ENTRY!

• Subscribe to my blog's feed in your RSS aggregator (tell me which aggregator you use. If you already subscribe, just tell me that)
• Sign up for my mailing list. (Just make sure you leave the comment with the email address you used for the mailing list - you must confirm your subscription too. Just have the comment say "I subscribed" or something)
• Blog about this contest on your blog to send people this way (remember, the more people that enter, the more I'll give away! - leave me a link to your blog post)
• Post about this contest in a public scrapbooking/crafting forum (leave me a link to the post)

For each one of the above things you do, you can leave another comment on this post giving you another chance to win!

Good luck!

Fall Nesting

I think they refer to this as fall nesting... this weekend my house was taken over by pumpkins.

First came the decorative pumpkins, picked them up at the farmer's market for $2. Saturday was the last day of the Farmer's Market for the whole season :(

The small pumpkins and gourds (on my cute new green table!)

The woven pumpkins

 

The glass pumpkins

and then, the baking pumpkins

which got sliced

and baked

and pureed  (this is what I did while passing out halloween candy. I had to wash pumpkin off my hands about 87 times)

and bagged

and turned into Pumpkin Five Spice Sweet rolls.

Ok, seriously... I didn't take a picture of these :(  They were so good!  I made 3 pans and gave one to my neighbors. One is still in the fridge. Maybe I'll take a picture when I bake that batch.

and turned into Pumpkin Butter

which is even better when smeared on crusty toasted bread with a little regular butter

and then there are pumpkin seeds...

which dried overnight on their baking sheets

and then were seasoned and baked this morning. Salted, Salted & Chinese Five Spice (Ground Cinnamon, Ginger, Anise, Star Anise, cloves), Lime & Chile

And I probably have enough pumpkin left over in the freezer now to make pumpkin flavored desserts for the next year.

Tonight, I decided to tackle Julia Childs' Boeuf Bourguignon. Apparently it was my goal to spend as much time as possible in the kitchen this weekend as I started that recipe 3 hours ago and it's still got at least 2 more before it's ready. I'll let you know how it turns out. I'm serving these Buttered Rosemary Rolls alongside it. I've been watching the rolls rise for a few hours now and I cannot wait to see them all golden and rosemary topped!

2 Quick Home Decor Art Projects

I made two super quick home decor projects this weekend (about 20 minutes tops for each) and I thought I'd share :)

For this one I:

1. Spray painted a frame with glossy white
2. cut a piece of scrapbook paper to fit the frame
3. used a scallop punch on some white cardstock
4. wrapped ribbon around a chipboard M (to stand for Murphy, my future last name)
5. stuck it all together and framed it
6. tada!

Next, I was flipping through the latest Real Simple and was totally inspired by one of their Thanksgiving tablescape ideas. And it had a tutorial!

You need:

• A bottle or vase or anything else you want to cover - dig through your recycling bin for a bottle you were going to throw out!
• Twine or string
• super sticky tape (I used a roll of red-liner tape I had around, Carpet tape from the home improvement store would work great too)

My  bottle is from Koval Distillery (local in Chicago!) which used to house "my crack" (as Adam calls it), their Organic Ginger Liqueur. It is heaven on earth. I've been saving the bottles because I really like their shape.  For a while I was taking the labels off but they do not come off easy. As you can tell I got half done with this one and gave up.  Which made it a perfect candidate for this project!

1. Wrap your bottle in super sticky tape
2. Peel of the section you will work on first
3. Wind the twine around the bottle
4. and wind
5. and wind
6. and wind
7. I secured the ends with a drop of super glue

And in just a few minutes, you have a pretty new vase recycled from your favorite liqueur!

Well, we're having a party tonight so it's about time for me to jump in the shower and clean up my art projects!

And while I'm here - here's one more way I've recycled a Koval bottle:

To hold dish soap. I just added a liquor bottle spout.

Kitchen Renovation: New Goodies in Action

I picked up my Container Store order today and did some more kitchen organization, this stuff is so fun!

Look at how this expandable drawer uses every inch of space!

And these undershelf baskets that just slide on any shelf are perfect!

These baggies used to occupy an entire drawer.  I freed it up for kitchen gadgets in a jiffy by tucking them in this undershelf basket instead.

And then there's these Cleanser Racks that are ideal for my undersink area since I was unable to fit a roll-out drawer.

Everything I use the most, right at my finger tips, no digging around under the sink for it.

Yes, I use the Goo Gone a ton! Have you ever bought something from Home Goods?  They do not stick those price tags on lightly.... (I don't know if you can tell but there is literally 3 different bottles/sizes of Goo Gone in this rack)

The cleaning ladies come tomorrow!!! First time they'll have been here in about 5 weeks. I am so excited to have a sparkly clean house again.  They can resume their regular schedule now which makes me very happy :)

I am no housekeeper...

Kitchen Renovation: Organization Sneak Peaks

Very soon I will do a full scale reveal of the kitchen but in the mean time, I have been doing some organizing.

For instance... my wonderful spice shelf.

These lovely green-tinted jars from Home Goods are looking fabulous stuffed with coffee beans, powdered sugar, brown sugar, sugar, etc....  (I'm gonna stop back tomorrow and grab a few more I think as I need to add some flour jugs)

They are totally air tight when clamped shut and they were just $5 a piece!  I love how they fit perfectly on my spice shelf and keep everything within easy reach yet off the counters!

Then there's this box of lovelies which arrived the other day.

I ordered 55 of them and promptly shipped back 40... I ordered the 16oz tins which wound up being WAY too big.  I kept 15 for some of our bulk spices but the rest went back to get swapped out with the 8 oz tins.

My rationale in ordering the 16oz was that they were only 2 cents more than the 8 oz... Then I realized extra air in the spice tins is not ideal for keeping them tasting fresh.  So... back they went.

I also did some Container Store shopping last night.

They are having a 20% off sale on EVERYTHING!!!  PLUS, if you go through eBates you get an extra 4% back. PLUS, if you spend over $50 you get a 3 month subscription to Real Simple. But if you're like me and already subscribe to Real Simple, you can get a $6 rebate instead.  I choose to pick up my goods at my local store meaning my shipping was free too!

All of this adds up to some AMAZING deals at The Container Store. My cart was probably full with about $70 worth of goodies and after all the deals and ebates and rebates and free shipping I was at about $45.

Man I love a good deal!

Here's what I got:

  

 

Several of these things I got multiples of. You can click any of them to go to their product listing.  Don't forget to use coupon code savenow to save 20% and to go through eBates to get another 4% back!

Somebody loves me!!!!

So you may remember me speaking of Calamondin's before. The only place I've been able to find them is down at my parents place on Hutchinson Island. They're almost my favorite part of going down there.. So I bought a tree and tried to grow them myself.  Back in the spring, my tree looked like this:

Now it's dead....

I don't know what happened... I think it got too much water (not from me, from the Illinois rain of about a month or two ago).

I instantly plunged into a deep depression.

But today, a box arrived, and look what it was full of...

Oh those are Calamondins!! A whole box full!!!!

The box was labeled "Trick or Treat". 

Oh man was it a treat.  I literally jumped up and down.  LITERALLY!

Wanna know what the first thing I did was?

Got out a glass and filled it with Perfect Ice Cubes , and then the juice of 5 calamondins.  They are tiny little guys but they are 100% juice. just cut them in half and squeeze them between your fingers and all of their juice just oozes out.  I probably only needed 3 calamondin's in this drink. They are very concentrated. But I was soooo excited I kept squeezing.

Next, I added Vodka.  And promptly realized that by drinking out of this jar which has markings for every 4 ounces I was easily able to see just how much vodka was going into my drink...  well, we have a few shows to watch tonight (like Flash Forward!) so no problem!

Then, I just topped with Club Soda.

Did anyone else notice Calamondin's disappear between the last 2 pictures?

Dammit Adam, that is my stash!!!!

Thank you soooooooooooo much Mom and Dad!!! You have no idea how happy you made me tonight!  3 hours later I'm still drinking my Calamondin Cocktail.  Well.... it may have gotten refilled once..... ;)

Best drink ever!

I definitely owe the grand finale kitchen renovation pictures but we're still loading up the cabinets and such so I'm going to wait a few days until we're totally done. 

Expect some sneak peaks in the next few days.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid, Thieves

Well that's it... I'm officially done driving my car to concerts in downtown Chicago.

For the second time in 16 months I've had my car window smashed in while enjoying a concert in the city.

As we're looking for a parking spot, Adam drops Erin and I off on the corner. At the last second, we decide we don't want our jackets or purses in the Sweat-ro where we were seeing The Gossip. So we open the car back up, toss in our stuff, and by some stroke of genius, I think to pick up our coats and drop them on top of the purses. When Adam parks the car, he thinks enough to take the GPS down and put it in his jacket pocket, which he then also tosses in the back seat on top of our coats.

Yes, we are brilliant! No thief will ever think there is anything valuable hiding under those jackets!!

Low and behold, we get back to the car to find the window smashed in, the glove box and center console both ripped open and their contents strewn everywhere.

What did they take?

• The GPS charger
• The GPS suction cup
• My car's user manual.

That's it.

Seriously.

No jackets, no purses, no GPS, no power inverter, neither of the two phone chargers that were right next to the GPS charger. Not even any of the money in the center console that was wide open!

Seriously.

Worst. Thieves. Ever.

I'm just dying to know what they're planning on doing with that users manual...

 

In case you are curious, we didn't bother filing a police report or calling the insurance company as we learned the first time this happened in Chicago... nobody really cares. And getting the window fixed is cheaper than my $250 deductible.

 

Oh and you know what else is awesome? Driving home on the highway at 1am when it's 40 degrees outside and you are missing one whole window. And having to wear sunglasses because you are afraid a piece of glass may fly loose.

Kitchen Renovation: Day 22

Really not too much different then yesterday.  Looks like they grouted and hung some window treatments in the living room and that's about it.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the final day (besides waiting for the bay window to come in which will be late next week), this is the list:

• Install outlet plates
• Caulk backsplash corners
• Hook up water & electric to downstairs fridge
• Clean out garage
• Secure shelf to right of sink
• Hook up cable/phone jack
• General clean up
• Install finish panel in sink base

So yeah... not too much for you to look at on the final day either :)  This weekend we will do lots of cabinet-filling and I plan on doing some accessory shopping at HomeGoods.

Kitchen Renovation: Day 21

Today: Backsplash.  Well, almost. It hasn't been grouted yet but it's up.  I wasn't 100% sure I'd love the backsplash until I saw it today - now I'm positive I LOOOOVE it!

Since we finally have countertops and running water and pretty much everything we need to start cooking, I decided it was time to go to the grocery store.

We cooked the first meal in our new kitchen today! 

Pub burgers on Ciabatta rolls with 10 year aged cheddar, avocado, and tomatoes. Paired with Lagunita's Hop Stoopid of course!

I love you new kitchen!!!

Kitchen Renovation: Day 20 - Counters!!!

Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! (said in my best Tessie from Little Orphan Annie voice)

We have running water!

We have counter tops! (Silestone Quartz in Ivory Coast)

We have stools!

We have this awesome new cactus (I found him for 12.99 at Ikea today.. a little more than I'd have liked to pay but I thought he looked soooo cool! The pot he's in was 1.99. I am in love with those pots!)

woo!  It was obviously so so so exciting to come home today. The counter tops are so beautiful but the running water and working dishwasher... well that's just priceless :)

Can I say how much I love my farmhouse sink and my pull down faucet?  I LOVE them!!! The water pressure is crazy strong, the different sprays on the faucet are so useful. Oh.. and the instant hot water? Just makes me want to immediately have a cup of tea (If I knew where my tea was...)

I thought I'd share a few more views of the craft room too, so here is a full view from all corners.

 

Kitchen Renovation: Day 19

Lots of little things got done today in preparation for the counter top install tomorrow. I'm so excited. This time tomorrow I will have countertops, running water, and possibly a backsplash!!!

In addition to a bunch of little things around the kitchen and living room, they also re-arranged my craft room.

This morning it looked like this:

I didn't like how the Expedit was blocking my pretty new barn-door closet. So they pushed the island over a few feet, moved the shelves hanging on the wall to the other side of the room and put the other Expedit where the shelves used to be.

(not really sure what happened with the colors in the second picture...

I think I might ask them to nudge the island about a foot further from the wall. I didn't realize how much room there would be and so I want to even it out a bit.

I realize the pictures have been kinda boring the last few days as the updates have been small but please come back tomorrow to see the huge changes with the new counters!!!

Kitchen Renovation: Day 17 & 18

You may have noticed I didn't post yesterday. It wasn't because I forgot... it was because I didn't get home from work until almost 3am.  I got there at 8:30am. Nothing like an 18 hour day...

Anyway, things are pretty slow moving as we wait for the counter tops.

I did manage to unpack a few boxes.

and the cats took it upon themselves to re-pack them.

They finished trimming out this window and painted the trim. Of course the walls still need to be painted.

This should be the point where I show you my bay window but that thing gone wrong that everyone kept telling me would happen finally happened. Home Depot tried to trick me, thinking I must have never seen a bay window before, and thus I wouldn't notice when they sent a normal casement window instead.

I did.

So now I have to wait 1 to 2 weeks for them to send the new one :(

My custom spice shelf was installed today... well, kind of.  By the way, it was absolutely inspired by this one.

When I say "kind of" it means they haven't really attached the shelf since it's not really supposed to go up until they do the back splash.  But, he routed out the wall where the brackets are so that the tiles will lay flat over them. Look:

The shelves are just taped on for now.  They got the shelf material from the cabinet manufacturers so that it would match perfectly. It's 1"x6".

I put a couple button jars up there so you can see what it will look like with cute spices on it!

I won't be using jars though because spices are supposed to not be exposed to light. Instead, I'll be ordering some metal tins and doing like Martha Stewart does ;)

I'll be making my own cute labels for the tins of course. So far I've found them in bulk in  a few places for decent prices.  Here and here. If you know of a better place, send me a link!

Ok, that's about it today. There have been several questions in the comments recently but I haven't had a chance to respond... (due to the working till 2:30am thing) but I'll try to get to them over the weekend.  If anyone else has questions about any of my renovations just leave a note here and I'll do a big question round-up post!

Kitchen Renovation: Day 16

Today I got more new windows!

The old windows looked like this (on the left side)

They were double hung which I never had a problem with until my new windows showed up!

Don't they look so much bigger!!!   The windows crank open which I'm loving!

They will finish painting and framing it out tomorrow along with putting the bay window in place of the paned window in front. We'll actually be able to open the sides of the bay window unlike the current one which won't open!

They also hung our new ceiling fan. I don't have a good picture of the old one but here's a crappy one:

The wood didn't match, it was brassy, and just very dated.

The new one:

It's still an ugly ceiling fan but Adam insists we have one since I took out the one in the kitchen. I would much rather have a beautiful drum pendant lamp but Adam won't budge on the ceiling fan...

The kitchen got a new coat of paint today, as did my craft room. The closet is almost done!!

I also am inquiring about what it would cost to get some recessed lights in the living room. I'm being spoiled by all the light in the kitchen and now I think we need more in the living room too... fingers crossed it's affordable even though I waited till the last minute to ask!

New Sketch Templates @ Scrapbook Graphics

I know this may sound hard to believe (since I haven't had a new pack out since April!) but, I have new sketches in the store today!

These are my favorites I've done in a long long long time (longer than April even, LOL!)

I was even inspired to scrap with them and we all know how long it's been since I've scrapped!

Here's a few more sample layouts that my team created:

If you want to pick them up, you can do so right here.

You can even use coupon code jc-col30-25 to nab them for 25% off! (expires 10/10/2009 at 11:59PM EST)

 

... and what could this be all about?  All I can say is that fun and deals will abound!

Kitchen Renovation: Day 15

I got nothing...

They don't really have anything to do until the windows or countertops arrive so they were only here for a little bit today to fix up the garden window outside. It looks much better.

I think today is a good day for a new Sketch Collection @ Scrapbookgraphics to be released!  Stay tuned :)

Kitchen Renovation: Day 14

It's here! It's here! My garden window is here!!!

It looks pretty crappy from the outside, I'll admit.  I'd heard from others that they are pretty weird looking on the outside and I have to agree. But I don't care because I LOOOVE it from the inside!

Just as luck would have it, I actually stopped at Ikea today to pick up a bunch of these pots:

They have all different sizes, the ones I got ranged in price from $.99 to 2.99 and they are super cute and textured in person!

Since it's starting to get cold, we wanted to salvage any of the herbs still growing in the garden so Adam and I ran out after dinner and dug up the mint, chocolate mint, 2 different basils, and the rosemary. We planted them in the new pots and set them in their new home. It looks kind of like a jungle right now because I need to do some pruning still.

There's actually a glass shelf that can go in the garden window too but since the basil and rosemary are a little out of control right now I'm going to wait to put it in.

They also started painting the living room and some of the kitchen today

It was a little too dark to take the picture considering most of our lights are not in this room right now. It's a very light Taupe color and I love it! 

Oh, I also ordered my stools today!

They are a knock-off of these Pauchard stools ($300 a pop!) for a fraction of the price and the reviews on Overstock are glowing! I can't wait to see them in person. (By the way, I went through Cashbaq and was able to get a 5% off coupon on furniture plus an extra 5% back because I went through Cashbaq!  I love a bargain!)

I was originally looking at getting this guy from Pottery Barn

but I thought it would be just too much wood tone and I liked how the metal broke that up. Plus, the Pottery Barn one was 2 inches taller which seemed a tad too high. I picked up two of the Pauchard knockoffs for less than the price of 1 of the PB ones!