Tag Archives: #makehomeyours

Appetizers vs Dodd Frank

I am often asked, why do you do the blog, how do you find the time, etc. If you would like to know why I find joy in talking about recipes or pretty tables or crafts or parties, then you need only click on the following link and then click on the chart:

SEC Chart of Regulation

Go ahead, click on it. I’ll wait. This is a chart prepared by a Commissioner at the SEC (the law one, not the sports one) showing every regulation imposed on a financial services company since 2010. Two-Thousand Ten. The original Securities Act was passed in 1933 – so there have been just a feeeeew regulations in between.

Now ask me again, “Why are you oven roasting tomatoes for pasta salad when you can buy them in a jar?” Answer: Because I know what I’m dealing with and it won’t change tomorrow.

All right, got that off my chest. So K went to a Little League meeting the other night and I had about 45 minutes before I had to pick him up and go get the boys from School of Rock. And the meeting was taking place near a store that rhymes with Ebay Tacks/Romehoods. Sooooooo, this happened:

New summer bench pillows.

New summer throw.

Oh and a couple of these Turkish style beach towels.

And I may have also purchased a bag that can hold the Surface, the Samsung camera and my phone. You know, because the other bags were lonely.

So I think we can all agree. Sports are bad for household economies.

So now that we won’t be eating out ever again, what’s on the menu?

Tecate Flank Steak Tacos from The Mission via Bon Appetit.

The only substitutions I made was flank steak (obv from the re-name) instead of skirt steak, parsley instead of cilantro (tastes like soap to me) and Queso Fresco for Cotija (because I couldn’t find Cotija).

And to drink:

Grapefruit Margaritas
Adapted oh so slightly from Cookie + Kate’s Best Margarita Recipe via A Cup of Jo

WHAT YOU NEED (for 4 margaritas)
1 cup agave tequila
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 cup grapefruit juice
1/2 cup orange juice
4 tsp agave nectar
Salt, sugar and lime wedges for garnish

WHAT YOU DO
Combine first 5 ingredients in a pitcher and stir vigorously. Rub the lime over the rim of whatever glass you are using. Doesn’t have to be margarita glass if after 19 years of marriage you may have broken all but 2 that you got for your wedding. Place even amount salt and sugar on a dish and stir to combine. Dip the glass in the salt/sugar. Add ice to glass an pour that refresher in. Obviously this can be doubled/tripled if you have a big crowd.

As you may have seen on my Instagram, my dill plant was infested.

So, now obviously this army of creepy crawlies is on its way up the side of the house to come in upstairs and crawl over my face while I’m sleeping. YES, IT COULD HAPPEN. My cousin has a friend whose brother’s roommate’s ex-fiancee had them lay eggs in her ears in tiny dill nests. True story.

Stay ever vigilant, my resident bug killer.

Tomorrow – Hawks win video! Congratulations to the Stanley Cup winning Chicago Blackhawks!!!!!!

Happy Spring Break and Easter Happenings

Hello all. We’re back from a fun, but lacking in sleep, trip to the Wisconsin Dells. There was:

Surfing

surfing

Lazy rivering

Partying (Hulk say, “Drinks too small”)

And…sitting inside the waterpark watching Spongebob.

But a good time was had by all.

Then of course the 9^th Avenue Egg Hunt:

Then, right on to Easter for 30 people at my house. Yikes.

Main dishes were my standard roast salmon (see prior Easterpost) and glazed ham using The Pioneer Woman’s glaze with its secret ingredient:

This glaze is for you, Fake Sister.

Also made a wonderful Melon Salad with Prosciutto from NotWithout Salt

And the rest of the sides were asparagus, green salad, scalloped potatoes, lemon jello (even better when you eat it with your hands, says Baby D):

and of course, the spécialité de la maison – buttered noodles.

For dessert: Lemon Cupcakes from The Alchemist with Fresh Blueberry Frosting from White on Rice Couple. I am not responsible for the use of the word “moist” in the recipe’s title.

Look at the rest of the cute desserts from the oh-so-talented Ellen Anderson

The boys and I tried to make dyed Rice Krispie easter eggs. Essentially just use the Rice Krispie treat recipe, add food dye to the marshmallows when stirring. Note to file: in the future, do not try to make purple marshmallow krispie eggs unless you realllllly like gray food. Do not blame Ellen for the gray eggs!

And the Easter drink this year was Pineapple Sangria from How Sweet It Is.

The Tables

For grown up table favors I went with the pretty blue and purple Mason jars as vases.

For grown up table #2, I busted out my napkin folding skills.

For the kids’ table, little Easter take out food boxes with Game of Thrones dragon eggs. Fine, they aren’t GoT but are called dinosaur eggs (with a tiny dinosaur inside) on Amazon. But the Mother of Dragons can dream, can’t she?

By the way, I accidentally went to TJ Maxx/Homegoods last week and bought pretty dishes. What?! You never see twelve of anything at HomeGoods. It was a sign from above. And when my sister went to her TJ Maxx/Homegoods to look for extra plates for me, she found the mirror she had been looking for. Divine intervention indeed.

Mother Nature again cooperated beautifully for the egg hunt.

Even the dyed eggs got dressed up.

And in the end, it was good day to relax. On a couch. In the yard. Seriously, why won’t anyone on Craig’s List buy this couch. Best offer. Text me. Drummer boy not included.

Happy Easter everyone!

Welcome to Middle Christmas

So here we are midway through the festivities, with Neighborhood Pizza Night and McNamara Christmas behind us. Let’s review, shall we?

Neighborhood Pizza Night was a fine time with many food gifts made. I made this Sriracha Salt, Middendorfs made all sorts of chocolate bark, Madly Pop’n sent Chicago Mix popcorn and the Coluntuano’s gave everyone their famous hand made tomato sauce so we have something to look forward to. I had planned to serve this Cake Batter Chocolate Bark from How Sweet It Is, but by the time I got home from work on Friday, this is all that was left:

Looking at you, Guitar Boy!

Fortunately, our neighbors from Pastries So Tasty make cake pops!

For the record, Baker Boy made lots and lots of cake pops, but by the time I could clear the children out to get a picture, this is what was left!

And they also did this with a Christmas wine topper. Cute!

Every year since we’ve moved here, which is also the year we acquired a digital SLR camera in an attempt to capture ANY picture of baby Drummer Boy smiling, we have created The Block book of pictures through the year. It forces us to actually create a yearly photo book and it makes a nice gift for the neighbors. Here is the 2014 edition on top of all the others:

Speaking of gifts, in honor of this here blog, the Borkowskis gave us these awesome lucky rhino bookends. And a gift card to TJ Maxx. Borkowskis are enablers.

In other gift news, when you make a joke saying the boys’ band should be called Turkey’s Furcula and you have a friend like John with immense creativity (see Fake Sister’s costume in Halloween posts), a touch of OCD and a love of music, you get this from the Rehors:

That’s right, Furcula concert t-shirts. For the whole family. Here’s the back:

Turkey’s Furcula, with the special guest, The Cranberries. Oh wait, such a gift would’t be complete without an magazine cover (bonus Furcula poster inside!):

In the end, all 34 people had a lovely time, and Kevin ordered…

…just the right amount of pizza.

Next day was McNamara Christmas. At the last minute (since Thursday I was flying from LaGuardia to Chicago, so it was anyone’s guess whether I’d be home by Saturday) I made this Smoked Salmon Dip from thekitchn. It was yummy and it tastes great with Trader Joe’s Everything Bagel Chips.

The boys went with ugly Christmas sweater theme for Mac Christmas:

And here is the whole crew:

it was basically your standard McNamara Christmas, with Irish dancing demonstrations, the cousins grab bag, and the children gathered around:

one kid playing Minecraft on an iPhone, while the rest of the family gathered around the traditional…

Danimals tree. Yep, your basic Christmas celebration.

I hope you’ve all made a dent in your shopping and will have time to relax and enjoy the rest of the month I just finished making the 5th batch of Chex Mix to create teacher gifts today, will move on to cookies next weekend.

Happy Middle Christmas everyone.

We Need a Little Christmas

Christmas is UP! So let’s take a look. In order to save us all time and effort, let’s just assume that if I don’t state where something is from, you can know that it is from TJ Maxx/HomeGoods. It’s either that or we turn this into some kind of “Hi Bob” type drinking game.

The Sparkly Trees

Many years ago, a former colleague at Merrill Lynch and I took an epic lunch trip to the Tag outlet store called the 1730 Outlet on the north side of Chicago which had no sign, no parking, was in the back of a warehouse and was only open for about 3.2 hours a day. But in this glorious space were items you normally see from Tag at Crate & Barrel, Macy’s or the Container Store at ¼ of the price. Now, this was before the Internet allowed Tag to sell to just anyone, not just to those with the stamina to forego lunch and race up the Kennedy to save a bunch on housewares, and then lug them, piece by piece, home on the train over the course of the next two weeks. But it does explain why I have Easter napkins, Halloween appetizer plates, Thanksgiving napkins, 67 napkin rings, seasonal doormats, and these:

I put Starry String Lights from Restoration Hardware inside them on timers. They are tiny little lights on copper wires so you can bend them. Looks cute in mercury glass too.

The Santas

Once again, I find myself with a collection of things that I don’t actually collect. It started with one wooden Santa that Marge and Dad gave me, then I found another in an existing Christmas bin, then someone else gave me one as a hostess gift, then I saw another at *do a shot*. And so on, and so on,

In honor of this non-collection, we also decided to do the family room tree as a Santa theme:

The Christmas Art

I love this Christmas Motawi tile that we purchased at The Art Stop here in town.

Favorite Christmas pictures of Baby Guitar Boy:

And Baby Drummer Boy. Frames from Exposures.

As an aside, here is Guitar Boy performing at his first gig at a bar yesterday with the Hinsdale School of Rock band. They played Tom Petty songs:

Ok, so it was at 3:00 p.m. on a Saturday, but still, pretty cool. Drummer Boy has just been promoted up to the performance group as well, so he’ll join his brother on stage later in the year.

Back to this business of Christmas.

Other Stuff

Front Room Tree

Went with a turquoise and red theme on this one. Turned out cute, huh?

The White Elephant Party

This is a great group and we always have a blast. The gifts are always ridiculous and we each collect stuff throughout the year/run to Walgreens 5 minutes before the party to come up with the most irrelevant items you never wanted to own, but yet somehow were mass produced anyway.

Here is what we gifted:

The Date Night In Package consisting of a Big Bang Theory fleece blanket, a White Castle scented candle, (Yep, scented like a slider. Yep, it smells as disgusting as it sounds), bacon lip balm and a yodeling pickle.

The Dessert Package consisting of a set of Presidential Pez, blue rock candy that looks like meth from Breaking Bad (was supposed to go with Kevin’s Halloween costume but we forgot) a chocolate zombie Santa and a unicorn shaker where sprinkles come out of its butt. Happy birthday baby Jesus.

About 10 years ago, the white elephant gifts would lean towards inappropriate adult gifts. This year, 5 of them were toilet related. We received two humorous toilet paper roll holders, including one that looks like a Polaroid camera with toilet paper that looks like Polaroid pictures. We are old.

To close, we present one of many awful pictures that Drummer Boy took with Santa at the mall over the years. Even the presence of Fake Sister could not cheer him up.

This has a “let’s re-create this picture when we’re in our 30s” written all over it.

Happy pre-Christmas everyone!

Thanksgiving Wrap Up

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Cheers!

Oh relax, its a pomegranate/apple juice spritzer. But Cousin Minecraft’s face does have a Dorothy Parker Algonquin Round Table “bored with you all” kind of look to him.

The Table

Because this is the smallest of McNamara/Guilfoile/Kuhn holidays, what with people going to various in-laws’ houses, we can, for this one-time only, fit at one table.

These are my new dishes that Kevin got me for my birthday. My other ones are almost 20 years old and are starting to show their age. I’ll still keep the ones that aren’t chipped, but I thought it was time to class things up around here.

The aforementioned salted butter:

The Final Menu

The Gravy While the gravy made with the turkey was good, it was not that different from the gravy made two weeks ago and frozen. Therefore, that gravy wins as it doesn’t require sweating over the stove at the last minute until your previously flat bangs turn into water buffalo horns.

The Turkey from Epicurious. Was done even faster than the recipe said (maybe because I only did one pan, not two).

The Pumpkin Cornbread Stuffing

The Salad. I used the dressing from this Brussels sprout slaw from The View From Great Island but poured it over butter lettuce, toasted walnuts, shredded carrots and dried cranberries.

Also Colleen & Mitch’s cheesy potatoes, sweet potatoes, Mom’s stuffing, corn and fruit. So for those counting, yes, that is 3 potato dishes and 2 stuffings. For 13 people. Irish Thanksgiving.

Dessert Table

Chocolate Pie from the Pioneer Woman. Guitar Boy’s comment: My life has been changed forever. So I think he liked it.

Salted Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats I’d seen so many food bloggers comment on Smitten Kitchen’s recipe that I had to try them. Plus, Drummer Boy doesn’t really like cake, pie, pudding or candy which leaves him a bit stranded in the McNamara dessert oasis.

Apple Pie – from Kirschbaum’s bakery. Why mess with greatness.

Cranberry Orange Scones from Trader Joes – because GG likes them.

And Aunt Colleen brought brownies. Because you can’t have only 4 desserts for 13 people!

Who Was There?

But Really, Who Was the Cutest Person There?

Why it was Colleen and Mitch’s grand-nephew, Sweet Baby D.

So what now?

Christmas is going up. I’ll come back with a post about some of my favorite Christmas items a little later. With respect to recipes on deck, I’ve got to take something to Rob and Nancy’s most awesome white elephant Holiday Party that we look forward to every year. But my company’s party is the same night, so it’s going to have to be cookies that I can pre-wrap on the tray I’m giving them:

And then Kevin can just bring the cookies with him when he picks me up at the train from the company party. Note, the tray is not our white elephant gift as it is not impractical, inappropriate, useless or hilarious. I’ll let you know what we gave/received after the party.

Here are some of the possible choices on the cookies though:

The Pioneer Woman’s Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookies

I’ve made them before and they are quite tasty. However, the Chocolate Pistachio Sablés from Bon Appetit look delicious and fancy (you can tell they are fancy because of l’accent aigu over the e). Food always tastes better with an accent aigu or accent grave. It’s a fact. I’m sure it’s on Wikipedia somewhere. Or it will be shortly.

If I find myself slacking off and sleeping more than 4 hours a night, I might do these wonderful, but time-intensive, Lemon Wreaths from Martha Stewart.

Now go get your weekend on!

A Time to Give Thanks

As far as my young children are concerned, Thanksgiving is just a small step between Halloween and Christmas. A step where people eat “gross” food (except for canned, jellied cranberry sauce – that apparently is acceptable). So we were trying to make it more meaningful last week and in talking about what we are thankful for, the main thing the boys agreed we are thankful for is:

Skunk, our cat. Sure, we love our family and friends. Happiness and health – good things as well, both boys agreed. But survey says what we are most grateful for is our cat. That, and Xbox.

Since we cannot show our appreciation and thanks to the folks at the Microsoft corporation, we instead agreed with the boys that if we are thankful for Skunk, we should show our thanks during this season by donating to the shelter that saved him. So the boys gathered up their tooth fairy and the occasional chore money and we took it over to the shelter (Mom and Dad augmented the donation).

The shelter couldn’t have been more gracious. Getting out of there without another kitten may qualify as a Thanksgiving miracle.

But enough about giving thanks for the things we should, let’s talk about giving thanks for the little things that make Thanksgiving easier or more fun. After all, this blog is about tabletops and recipes, written at night by someone who works 12 hour days sitting behind a desk and really isn’t physically fit or mentally competent to be offering any kind of life advice. If you want to read some truly uplifting and spiritual discussions about how to live your life, I suggest you try my sister-in-law’s blog at Everyday Faith.

But as for me, on with the material possessions!

Serving Platter/Carving Board

This carving board from Cost Plus World Market:

Isn’t it pretty? I most often use it as a cheese board but this year will use it for the turkey. And right now it’s $29.99 and, if you still have the Sunday Chicago Tribune around from 2 weeks ago, there’s a coupon in there for 10% off. THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE. It’s a newspaper. Yes, on paper. Yes, we still get one.

Wishbones

Given that I have two boys who feel bad about eating animals (but won’t eat beans, kale, spinach, cheese or any other protein or iron based food – so chicken nuggets it is!), I’m not sure how they’d feel about breaking a turkey’s furcula (look it up!). But hey, tradition, so I had them make a bunch of these fun clay wishbones from Oh Happy Day. Added bonus, everyone who comes for Thanksgiving can make a wish.

By the way, I told Guitar Boy and Drummer Boy that I think Turkey’s Furcula should be the name of their band someday “THANK YOU CHICAGO – WE ARE TURKEY’S FURCULA – GOODNIGHT!!!” They did not agree.

Salted Butter on Little Plates

I read this story at TheKitchn about salting butter. Now I don’t usually use butter on bread, but Faith Durand’s story about how this simple act – slicing butter and sprinkling smoked salt on it – would transform people’s opinion on bread and butter moved me to action. And I can tell you, it totally works, everyone comments on it. You know, because we need to find a way for Americans to eat more bread and butter. I’m a patriot really.

I use this smoked salt from Williams and Sonoma.

And I serve on little plates. Such as these. From TJ Maxx/HomeGoods. I know.

Chocolate turkeys:

Because I can. WorldMarket, Dylan’s Candy Bar and Godiva all have some.

Turkey – to heck with tradition

After seeing 3 or so articles from chefs about how we are all suckers for cooking a turkey whole, where the breast is done and dry way before the dark meat was fully cooked, I decided to try the turkey in parts. You show everyone the turkey for like 1 minute and then take it back to the kitchen for slicing, so why all the hype about a whole turkey? *shaking fist at Norman Rockwell in heaven*

The practice turkey from House Beautiful turned out well. The whole turkey, white and dark done to perfection, in 1 ½ hours.

However, we thought it needed a little something-something. So Thanksgiving turkey will be some combination of these two recipes from Epicurious: Deconstructed Holiday Turkey with Sage Gravy or Citrus Sage Roast Turkey Breast.

I’ve made the latter turkey breast before in testing out the stuffing recipe (see below), but kind of think brining could help. I’ve also pre-made the gravy (wha?!) because TheKitchn told me I could. We’ll do a gravy taste-test on Thanksgiving to see if TheKItchn was right. Mmmmmmh, gravy taste-test.

I’ll let you know how everything turns out afterwards – in between cleaning up Thanksgiving and putting up Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Halloween Redux

Here are various pictures of the crew:

at Alvin’s costume birthday party:

carving pumpkins:

and actual Halloween.

Check out the detail on Fake Sister’s home made by Dad Up costume. Amazing.

New decorating idea – cheap snakes from Target dollar section stuck in my flowers.

Green pepper ghouls:

Oranges for the kids – everyone knows that kids DEMAND healthy snacks when they return from trick-or-treating in the Illinois Halloween snow. Yep, snow.

And, best drink from Halloween Pizza Night:

Vampire Blood Margaritas (aka Pomegranate Lime Margaritas from Howsweeteats)

As I had to make 2 pitchers of them, after juicing 12 limes I decided that bottled lime juice is no longer as fake tasting as I tend to think it is. And it tasted fine mixed with the fresh in the drink.

Dipped top of pitcher in corn syrup mixed with red food coloring and let it drip down the outside for spooky effect. But forgot to take a picture, because, well, 2 pitchers of pomegranate margaritas might explain why.

NEW MONTH

But, now that it’s November and Halloween is behind us (other than the 12 hours of putting away all the Halloween décor), I made a mini Thanksgiving. I was inspired to do so when I saw pumpkin/cornbread croutons at Trader Joe’s. Then I found this recipe for Pumpkin Cornbread Stuffing at The View from Great Island.

Use 2 boxes of TJ’s pumpkin cornbread croutons. 3 out of 5 Wileys surveyed recommend this stuffing. But quick, it’s a seasonal item so HOARD NOW. Among other things, I combined it with the Citrus Sage Roast Turkey Breast from Epicurious.

I’ll be back when Christmas season approaches.

Don’t forget to set your clocks back!

Happy Daylight Savings Time everyone!

Lucky Rhino

For the recipes and pictures I promised to send, but never do.