The boss of me

So, it's official. I'm a full-time freelancer. Yesterday I felt really sad. I didn't expect to feel sad (this being such a liberating thing and all), but as I was going through three years of notes, cards, emails and contact lists I felt pretty sentimental about the whole thing. And frankly, I'd like to remember it that way. There were some very good times, and truly amazing people in those three years.

Now I just feel strange. Even though I've been both part-time and full-time freelance before, I hardly remember what it's like. I recall spending most of the time wishing for a full-time job - ha!

I have so many ideas of projects I would like to try, especially when it comes to making my house feel more like a home. And blog posts and story ideas and scarves to knit and on and on. I really don't know where to start. I think I might just lay in the grass and read a book all afternoon. Because I can. Don't hate me.

If any of you are freelancers, I'd love to hear how you structure your day. Is it tough to stay disciplined? I'm usually good at it when I'm doing something I love.

Another yogurt berry bowl

Low-fat, low-sugar yogurt



plus fresh local strawberries



plus tangy blueberries



plus a sprinkle of crunchy granola



equals a pretty good start to a Sunday.

Cute cards

Yesterday I decided to skip the stifling heat of our outdoor arts festival and go to a smaller, indoor arts and crafts fair called Market Day. I found these adorable cards and just had to buy a few.



"I whaley love you." Too cute!



I don't see anything in her etsy shop right now, but I'm hoping it will be full of these cards soon.

Fiesta!

So we celebrated our engagement and my career change with some of our favorite foods. And sangria.



There are a million ways to make sangria, but basically it's wine and fruit. I made mine with two bottles of rose, a green apple, an orange, half a pound of strawberries and fresh mint. To make it fizzy I added a bottle of club soda (not sure the size, maybe a liter?), and to sweeten it I added one batch of simple sugar (1 cup each of water and sugar heated until the sugar dissolves).

I also left it in the fridge overnight so that everything would get good and mixed together. It was wonderful!

Of course I made guacamole.



So much guacamole. Although I ended up getting full on a friend's mango salsa instead.



Here's the cake. Heart-shaped, of course.







I used Pioneer Woman's recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Cake, but substituted a can of cream cheese frosting for the real stuff since we were already cooking so much.

Really, you could do this with a vanilla cake mix, too. Just bake it in two pans and stack the layers. You top each layer with mashed up strawberries that have been sitting in sugar until they start to make juice. Since the cake soaks up the fruit juice it tastes even better a day later.





So the deposit's paid, the contract's signed, and we are on our way to having a wedding. I'm hoping to post soon on all the sources where I've been finding inspiration — there are some great (free) ones out there!

Doggie eye candy

I can't resist. Sometimes they are too cute.

Loving: whole wheat muffins

I've meant to post about this for a while, but I am just head over heels for these Hodgson Mill muffins. At my Hy-Vee you can get two versions - whole wheat or bran. The little box makes 6 regular size muffins. They're great for breakfast or for a snack because they feel like a treat without massive guilt.

You just add milk, an egg and a tablespoon of oil or butter to the mix. You can also add dried fruit, but I prefer mine plain.

My only complaint is that the box isn't bigger!

I'm enjoying my muffins with some fresh summer fruit. The Iowa Girl Eats blogger inspired me to pick up some kiwi at the store this week, and it was delish. Don't tell the blueberries I liked it better.

Etsy update

Just thought I'd let you know I have added some great new items to my Etsy shop. There are several sets of button thumbtacks, including this light blue flower pattern and my personal favorite, mini Scrabble tiles. So cute!

I also put some more stacked button magnets in there (a lot of the buttons are vintage) and another new item, stacked button hair clips. If you don't buy them I will be tempted to keep them for myself!

Loving: red lettuce salad

The red lettuce in our garden inspired me to make this salad, and now I want to eat it everyday. To be honest, lettuce is typically my least favorite part of a salad. I prefer a ratio of lettuce to tomato of about 1 to 1. Most restaurant salads have one or two cherry tomatoes on a whole plate of lettuce, which just doesn't cut it for me.



So I made my salad with half a bowl of lettuce, one small tomato sliced into wedges, a sprinkling of powdered parmesan cheese and my favorite dressing, Newman's Own light balsamic. To cut the lettuce I stacked a bunch of leaves, then rolled up the stack and sliced it into 1-inch sections.



I've also started doing what Rachael Ray does with her greens. I wash them and toss any bad parts (cutting of the bottom and separating the leaves if it's something like a romaine heart), then run them through the spinner to dry and put them in a large plastic baggie. I include a couple paper towels to soak up any extra water. This really seems to help the leaves stay crisper longer. And it seems to taste a lot better than bagged salad, which after many, many purchases still just tastes, bagged.

What do you put on your salad? I'm also partial to sliced apple, pecans and a few goat cheese blobs.

Summer blooms

First of all, thank you to everyone who left a supportive comment or sent me an e-mail about my career change. It means a lot to me that the response has been overwhelmingly positive rather than questioning my sanity. I have 7 more days of work, and one very long to-do list after that. I can't wait!

This weekend I've been trying to do a little maintenance on the garden, which has been hit pretty hard with storms lately. It's either growing wildly out of control or wilting from the wind, hail, or scorching heat from the last few days.

We've lost a few flowers and herbs, but others are still hanging on. This bush of annuals we planted two years ago finally bloomed.



My zinnias are pretty happy.



And it looks like we'll have lilies here pretty soon.



As for the garden, I've been eating wonderful red lettuce salads, while I wait for the beets and carrots to come up.

The zucchini is growing steadily in it's own box. We hope the fact that it's pretty shady over there will limit the number of zucchini baseball bats we have to give to our neighbors and co-workers.



Mike is pretty proud of his tomatoes, which are zooming upwards.



It might be hot, but I LOVE summer.

Rhubarb shortbread tart

A big bundle of rhubarb stalks had been sitting in our kitchen all week, waiting for us to do something with it. But having already made rhubarb pie, rhubarb crisp, rhubarb muffins and eaten various combinations of rhubarb jams the last couple of seasons, I didn't feel too inspired.

Still, I didn't want our farmers market purchase to go to waste, so I dug through my cookbooks and online recipes for ideas. And I got pretty much the same results - crisps, pies, cobblers, jams...nothing jumped out.



Until I saw a super simple recipe for a shortbread crust that you could fill with just about any fruit filling to create a quick tart that most importantly, did not require you to make pie crust. Hallelujah.

Pie crust is awesome, but it's more work than I felt like doing that day. And I was also out of just about everything, so I had to pick a recipe that didn't require me to go to the store.

For the filling I chose to make my crisp filling, minus the strawberries since I didn't have any. And I thought I should top it with something, so I followed the directions from yet another recipe for a crumb topping. And it came out great! I cooked down the rhubarb enough to take out a lot of the overwhelming tartness, and the shortbread bottom gives it a cookie-like crunch, which I love. The tart itself (I guess it's only sort of a tart, but oh well) is also a much more manageable size than the giant pan of crisp, which goes a little easier on the thighs.

So if you're looking for something new to do with the last rhubarb stalks of the season, try this.

Rhubarb shortbread tart
adapted from Simply in Season cookbook

1 cup flour
1/3 cup butter
2 tablespoons powdered sugar

For the crust, mix together ingredients until crumbly (a pastry cutter works great) with no pieces bigger than a pea.



Press into a 9-inch pie or tart pan.



Bake at 425 degrees until golden, 10-12 minutes. Cool. (Not the most beautiful crust ever made, but it sure tastes good.)



4 cups rhubarb, chopped
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons cornstarch

Combine rhubarb, sugar and vanilla in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat (wait long enough for the water to start coming out of the fruit), then reduce heat to medium and cook 4 more minutes, stirring frequently.



Dissolve the cornstarch in the water. I love to use a tiny whisk for this.



Add it to the rhubarb mixture and cook a couple more minutes until thickened.

1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter

Mix the oats and brown sugar. Then cut in the butter (again, the pastry cutter works well for this).





When your crust is cool, spread the filling on top. Then sprinkle the crumb topping over that. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes, until the crumb topping is browned.

Serve with a small scoop of ice cream or whipped cream, if you like.

Loving: Fire King find

I got this cute casserole dish at a garage sale the other day for 50 cents. It's the Fire King Blue Heaven pattern, one of my favorites.

Changes

I quit my job.

It wasn't a quick decision. I wasn't mad at my boss. I didn't throw chairs or anything.

I just knew it was time to move on. Actually, I'd known that for quite a while, but I needed to feel like I was standing on solid ground when I made that big of a decision, and it took a while.

I want to work for myself. I want to be in charge of my own days. I am an extremely productive person when I'm doing what I love. The past few months I've been squeezing what I love into a few hours after my day job, and that's made me a person I don't like. I don't sleep well. I'm cranky. I have headaches all the time.

Now I'll have time to craft, to learn how to properly market my business. To work for other publications and earn what I deserve. And in a few weeks I will take a training course for Nia, which is an exercise class I've been taking for a while now. It takes me back to my dance background a little, which is fun. And most importantly it helps me let go of all the stresses in my life. It's a wonderful thing. You should try it!

Am I scared? Um, yes. The first few months could be pretty rough. But I have done this before, and I have done this well. I just never looked at it as a full-time career, and now it's all I can imagine doing. Funny how things work out.

I will miss my co-workers like crazy. I'll miss the constant stream of new people I've met through my reporting job, and the way it pushes me to be more social and ask more questions. But this is the right thing to do. I know that now.

I'll be at Juice through the end of the month. Then I'll take a deep breath, walk into my home office, and start over.

Just thinking about it makes me smile.

Red quinoa salad

I read a lot of food blogs. It's one of my greatest sources of inspiration, and it means I hardly ever have to crack open a cookbook anymore. If you want a recipe, it's usually out there somewhere, beautifully photographed and spelled out step-by-step.

But there's one thing I've noticed about all the food blogs I read. You almost can't buy a healthy recipe. There's so much butter and heavy cream in these recipes you'd think Paula Deen was masquerading as 20 different food bloggers. It has not been good for my butt these last few months.

So I decided that I would make a better effort to seek out healthier recipes, and try to post more of them here. There's no reason I can't challenge myself to cook a little lighter, and make those Pioneer Woman recipes a once-in-a-while treat.

So here's one of my first efforts. It's similar to a tabbouleh salad, but I used red quinoa instead of bulgur (which is packed full of protein). I found it at our farmers market, so I'm not sure how difficult it will be for you to find. You can always substitute regular quinoa.



This recipe makes a very potent salad, so dial down the garlic if you like it more mellow.

Red Quinoa Salad

1 cup (uncooked) red quinoa, rinsed
1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for cooking veggies
Juice of a large lemon
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cucumber, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
4 scallions, sliced
1 red pepper, seeded and sliced
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves

Start by rinsing the quinoa. Then boil it, covered, with two cups of water for about 12 minutes, or until the water is evaporated and the little spirals start separating from the grain.

This is optional, but I like to saute the red pepper and green onions in a little olive oil before I toss them in, just to soften them a little.



After those have finished cooking and cooled a little, toss them in a large bowl with the remaining ingredients.



I just grabbed some fresh herbs from the garden – a little basil and thyme. But you can use what you have on hand. Basil and mint is a great combination. Oregano would be good, too.



This tastes even better after it has soaked overnight. Serve it with the hummus I posted yesterday.

Healthy tofu hummus

That probably sounds like something you would never want to make, but I assure you our version of hummus has virtually the same taste and texture as any other hummus. It just uses tofu instead of tahini. Blended up in the food processor you never know the difference.

This is actually Mike's recipe, and one I only made myself because he was sick in bed the other day. But we eat it so often I felt like I had to post it here.

Healthy tofu hummus

1 1/2 tablespoons cumin seeds
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 12 oz. package soft tofu, drained
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (roughly the juice of 2 lemons)
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt to taste





Start by toasting your cumin seeds to bring out the flavor. Just put them in a small skillet over medium heat for a few minutes until they start to darken a little. But be careful not to burn them!



After they've cooled down a little, grind them up with a mortar and pestle. This step is optional, as you can also toss them in whole.

In a food processor, puree garlic, chickpeas, tofu, cumin seeds, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of oil until smooth.



Season with salt and pulse a few more times to combine.

When you serve the dip, drizzle a little more olive oil on top. It's great with pita wedges, crackers or cut veggies. Perfect for lunches or afternoon snacks.