Oh Pottery Barn...

... how I covet the beautiful things that you sell. For some reason my Pottery Barn catalog got lost in the mail. I'm not happy about it. But, luckily, the world wide web has helped me through my ordeal. Though it isn't the same as paging through the beauty that is a Pottery Barn catalog, their website has some great new goodies for Spring.

You know about my small obsession with birds, nests, and all things aviary.

Apparently Pottery Barn shares my feelings.

Pottery Barn's new thing is "found" items (aka "stuff that we found in estate sales or antique stores that we are now passing off as our own"). How awesome are these old pharmacy bottles?

Yeah. I love them.

Again - I love me some birdies.

I picture this on our coffee table.

Sigh. I love this stuff. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford it. :)

~ Mari

Mexican Pasta Bake

The other night I was craving Mexican food... and pasta (as a side note, I'm almost always craving pasta, so it's really not that unusual) so I decided to take a recipe I saw in Martha Stewart Everyday Food Magazine and change it up a bit. Instead of corn tortillas, I used rotini pasta. Oh yeah - it's as if Italian food and Mexican food made sweet sweet love in a casserole dish. It's so easy, you'll say gracias/grazie!

Mexican Pasta Bake

1 Tbsp. olive oil

3/4 lb. Rotini Pasta, cooked and drained

1/2 large onion, sliced

15-20 baby bella mushrooms, sliced

1 tsp. chili powder

1 can seasoned chili beans (I used Bush's)

1 jar medium salsa

1 large tomato, sliced

1 cup shredded taco seasoned cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a large saute pan, heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and saute 8 minutes (or until transparent). Add mushrooms and saute until mushrooms are cooked through (about 8-10 minutes more). Stir in chili powder.

Pour cooked pasta into a 9x13" baking dish. Pour mushroom and onion mixture over the pasta and spread over the pasta. Next, pour beans and salsa over everything and spread as evenly as possible. Take the sliced tomatoes and arrange them on top so they aren't overlapping. Last, sprinkle the taco cheese over everything and cover with aluminum foil.

Bake for 20-25 minutes covered (until the center is hot), then uncover and and cook for 5-7 more minutes - until the cheese is bubbly.

Gettin' my mise en place together


Yummy sauteed veggies!

Spread over pasta!

Look at all those layers!

And there it be! YUM!

I must warn you, it falls apart just a bit because it's so warm and gooey, but I promise it will taste delicious!

Hope you enjoy it!

~ Mari

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Just as a warning... there will many photos in this post. Many. But, on the upside, they are all of THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER! Oh yeah - we went. And yeah, it was amazing!

We went with Ryan's family and we really had a blast. It was so detailed and well done... well, you'll just have to see for yourself!

Here we are posing in front of the Hogwarts Express - the first thing you see when you walk into the section of the park dedicated to Mr. Potter & Co.

Ta dah! There it is! Hogwarts - in all of her glory!

Butterbeer anyone? We got the frozen kind and it was delish!

(I'm pretty sure it's just frozen cream soda with vanilla and butter)

Hogsmeade!!

(How cute are those chimmneys?)

Where to go first!

It was so amazing to see in person what you'd only seen in movies!

Hermione's dress from the Yule Ball in The Goblet of Fire

We ate lunch at The Three Broomsticks!

Quite a feast!

Sweets, anyone?

I loved the colors inside!

Every flavour beans!

How cute is that?

I totally want to make these!

Hehe :)

Zonko's Joke Shop

Hilarious :)

Ready for The Dragon Challenge!

The lamest of all the signs for the Triwizard Tournament

(Go Fleur, maybe... but Go on? Kinda lame, right?)

Hagrid's Hut!

The poor car... after the Whomping Willow had a tift with it...

So very cool

The Goblet of Fire!

Which will you choose?

The Chinese Fireball or the Hungarian Horntail?

(I chose both, of course)

It was really a fabulous trip! I hope you enjoyed the photos! :)

Thanks for looking!

~ Mari

Pantry Raid Part II

Time for another shelf inventory! This time, it's jars and cans and bottles. Get excited.

• Cans: Light Organic Coconut Milk, Crushed Tomatoes, Organic Tomato Paste, Baby Clams, Chicken Soup, Pineapple, Pears, Chunk Light Tuna, Garbanzo Beans (Hummus, anyone?), Chili Beans, Green Beans
• Jars: Artichoke Hearts (in water), Natural Peanut Butter, Pickles, Parsley In Oil, Pesto, Balsamic Onion Jam (I couldn't resist!)
• Bottles: Balsamic Vinegar, Apple Cider Vinegar, Red Wine Vinegar, Sesame Oil, Grapeseed Oil, Truffle Oil, Reduced Sodium Soy Sauce, Marsala Wine, Lea & Perrins Steak Sauce, BBQ Sauce

So, there you have it! That's generally what I like to keep around on hand. How about you?

~ Mari

The Bleak Mid-Winter

Ok, so it's not so bleak for us here in Kathleen, GA. But, in Atlanta it's more than bleak. Luckily, I didn't have anywhere I had to go today, so I organized and such. But, I did manage to pop outside for a bit to take some pictures of the ice.

Icicles on Icicles?

Front yard

Back Porch Lights

Back Yard

A little goldfinch enjoying the suet :)

Hope it's warm where you are!

~ Mari

Pantry Raid

I'm convinced that a person's pantry reflects her/his personality and mine is no exception. Just like everything else in my life, I get it organized to my liking and then, over time, I get lazy putting things back and it gets cluttered. Then I have to organize it to my liking again and so-on and so-forth. So, I'm curious: what's in your pantry?

Here's (the photo above) what's in mine. It's not the largest of pantries, but I can't complain considering I'm lucky I even have a pantry in my kitchen at all. It serves its purpose, but it does tend to burst at the seems when I get home from the Dekalb Co. Farmers Market.

Maybe this isn't interesting to anyone but me, but I'm always curious to know what staples people keep in their pantries. For instance, as soon as I'm out of organic light coconut milk, I have a little panicky moment, I write it on the ongoing fridge list, and I breathe again.

So, here it is. Shelf by shelf - what's in that crazy mess of jars and Snapware...?

Part I: The Baking Shelf

• Sweeteners: Organic Unbleached Granulated Sugar, Dark Brown Sugar (I just don't see the point in light brown), Icing Sugar (10x), Honey, Molasses, Stevia (I don't use this to bake with, but it's good to sweeten tea and such)

Flours: All-Purpose Flour, White Unbleached Flour, Unbleached Bread Flour, Whole Wheat Flour, Semolina Flour (for pasta and pizza doughs)

Dried Fruit: Cranberries, Cherries, Grapes (haha... raisins)

Chocolate: 75% Cocoa bars, White Chocolate Bar (I'm not a fan of white chocolate (because it's not actually chocolate), but sometimes I find that I need it), Ghiradelli Large Semisweet Chocolate Chips, Natural Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

Other Stuff: Homemade Vanilla Extract (it's just vodka and vanilla beans, folks...) Organic Cornmeal, Wheat Bran, Organic Rolled Oats, Butter-flavored Crisco

So, what's in your pantry?

~ Mari

Resolutions for 2011

Even though I sometimes think that new years resolutions are a little silly (just because the year changes we have to re-evaluate our lives and fix stuff?), I'm still going to make some goals for myself for the coming year.

1. RELAX. This one is the same every year. In case you didn't know, I'm a little high strung. Just a bit. Hah! I need to relax and go with the flow. I give myself headaches and stomach aches stressing about every little thing in my life and if I did less of that I'm sure my life would be better. But, it's a difficult thing to do for a type A personality to do. So, I'll do my best, but I have a feeling this resolution will be back again for 2012...

2. Get involved with theater. Yep. That's me in Little Shop of Horrors my freshman year in high school. Can I tell you how much I miss it? I did theater throughout high school and college and then I just quit. Well, by golly, the drama queen is back and she longs for the stage! (told you I was a drama queen)

3. Eat less dessert. This is going to be more difficult than any other year because I just happen to be a dessert writer for a magazine. Clever, right? But, I figure I will try to limit myself on the sugar front. I find that when I eat lots of sugar, I crave lots of sugar. So, if I don't eat quite as much... maybe I won't want to eat dessert after each meal. My hips will thank me.

4. Create more art. Even if I just do a little 5x5" painting/collage a day, I think that will be enough to satisfy my artistic urges. If I spent half the time I spend watching TV (more specifically The Real Housewives 0f...well...anywhere) creating artwork, I bet I would also make much more progress on resolution #1.

Happy new year, everyone!

~ Mari