Friday night calzone

It's the weekend!  What better way to start off then with calzone for Friday night dinner?!  Calzone is a fun spin on the regular ol' weekend pizza.  I love this recipe because: 1. it's one of my first "staple" recipes that I made before I got adventurous with cooking a plethora of meals, so it takes me back!  2.  It's a fairly light recipe, so I don't have to feel guilty for eating it!  3.  It's pretty easy, and who doesn't like ease when they've had a long week?!

So here goes the recipe...
INGREDIENTS:

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 onion sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 pound thin sliced deli ham, sliced into thin strips
• 1 pound refrigerated pizza dough
• 1 cup reduced fat mozzarella cheese 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.
Add the onion, bell peppers, garlic and oregano stirring occasionally for 5 -7 minutes until tender. Add the ham, stirring occasionally for about 3 minutes. Set the mixture aside to cool. 
Cut the pizza dough in half and roll/flatten each half into about 10 inch round on a baking sheet.  Take half of ham/pepper mixture and spread over half of the round.  Spread the other half of the mixture on the other 10 each round. Top the mixture of each round with cheese.  Fold the dough over the filing, crimping the edges to seal the calzone.
Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.  Let cool for about 5 minutes and cut each calzone in half.  Each serving of the calzone is approximately 400 calories and the recipe makes 4 servings, not too bad!  Enjoy!

Is it too late or too early for Christmas? ; )

As I sit here and look at some of my pictures I can't help but share how I decorated for Christmas.  I had every intention of starting this blog before the holidays so I could put my Christmas stuff on here, but I guess a month after the holiday (or 11 months early) isn't bad, right?!  So here it goes...my simple, delightful, nature-inspired Christmas decor. 

A simple green wreath from a craft store was personalized by adding a wooden letter tied with twine.  It made for a winter welcome for all who entered.

I sewed stockings made out of felt and burlap and added a couple of the glitter bird ornaments for a little extra sparkle.  I was pretty proud of myself for sewing these stockings without any help, considering I can count on one hand the number of things I had sewn prior to these stockings.

Cardboard, white spray paint, glitter and twine came together to make these charming bird ornaments.  The globe lantern-style lights happened to be patio lights that I've had for years and never used, until they found a perfect spot on the Christmas tree!

Felt circles were cut out and sewn together to create a simple garland to wrap around the tree.

Brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things...well and the way the tree came together!  It was fun to make the decorations for the tree and see our become a nature-inspired winter wonderland!  Hope your holidays were great! We only have 11 months til next Christmas! ; )

Little found treasures

So today Clint and I were doing a little project on the house that is our potential new residence and I found these colorful little bottle caps.  Now, I'm pretty sure these are beer bottle caps, we'll just ignore that...cause all that caught my eye was the awesome colors that match my kitchen!  That made me think that I need to turn these bottle caps into magnets for my fridge.  Wouldn't that me cute?!  I think Clint got a kick out of the fact that something little could make me happy and of course make me think about decorating!

Eat your greens!

Who'da thunk 20 years ago that one day I'd become a gal that loves eating her greens!  I remember putting off eating my veggies until the end of dinner in the hopes that the excuse of, "I'm really full!" would get me out of finishing my greens. 

Thankfully I don't have to worry about that excuse anymore since now I love eating my greens!   Veggies are always in plentiful in my fridge and on the table with every dinner.  For tonight's dinner I wanted to have a tasty veggie that would go good with the pulled-pork sandwiches and stuffed potatoes I made for our company, so I whipped up the oh so yummy broccoli salad.  I've made this once before, but I was reminded again how very tasty the sweetness of the honey and raisins are with the crunchiness of the broccoli, celery and almonds.
I made a few variations to cut out a few calories without losing any taste.  I cut the amount of bacon in half because really there is plenty of bacon for that great flavor with just a few slices!  I also used regular sliced almonds instead of honey roasted almonds since I didn't want the sweetness of the salad to be overwheleming.

Even with my little variations, the salad turned out to be a hit with our company going back for multiple servings of the salad!  Yeah for eating greens...yummy greens!

welcome home

Don't you love the idea of coming home after being away all day at work or after a long trip?  I do!  There's nothing like being in a space all your own, well... maybe not completely your own--there are those children, the husband, or roommates, but you get the jest of it!  Home rules!  I especially love how I feel cozy and good about being home before I even step in the door, thanks to my welcoming front door wreath.

This is one of my first craft projects that I did when I first moved in to our little place was this cute wreath.  It's made out of a simple craft twig wreath and felt with a handy-dandy glue gun.  To make the little rosettes I just traced a CD on the felt and then cut it out.  Once the circle was cut out I continued to cut the circle in a spiral shape.  After the spiral was cut out I spun it back in (starting with the center of the spiral) and hot glued the bottom of the rosette to the twig wreath.  Sorry I didn't take step-by-step photos, but I promise it was pretty easy!  It's a great way to say...welcome home!

Here I go...

So I've been planning/contemplating/exploring a blog for a while now.  I've made the excuse, "I'll start it when I get        done."  Or, "I don't know if I want to start a blog now."  But I keep coming back to the same scenario, me day dreaming at work about all the fabulous things I'd rather be doing.  Decorating.  Crafting.  Cooking.    Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for a good job, but some days I wish I was doing fun things.  I've made it a goal to continue to do these things that I daydream about and spend my time outside of work doing...and I'm going to share with you along the way.  So read on and look forward to an insight in to my little yellow house!