Tip-sy Tuesday: Chinese Takeout Tip

 Did you know that Chinese takeout cartons are meant to function as a plate? I stumbled on this and had never heard it before - I have no idea if it's true or not but this picture makes it look like a legit hack!  

1.31.22:  Miss Lori's valentine wreath

1.31.21: 🔥week 5

1.31.20: napa (cabbage) salad

1.31.19: wire scottie overhaul

1.31.18: Tesha's Texas Caviar 

1.31.17: hair bump trick

 
1.31.16: pretzel hugs 

Origami Heart

I've done a couple origami posts in the past (including a couple different origami hearts - click here for a money heart and here for a heart made from a square piece of paper), but when I saw this idea for a Valentine's letter folded into a heart shape I thought it seemed like a fun little project and thought I'd try to make one. 

I originally saw instructions at a site called 'thehousethatlarsbuilt' but I just could not follow what she was doing and that made me a little frustrated, so I googled for anyone else doing the same folds and found  one at wikihow that's much clearer and easier (at least to me!) to follow. I started to take lots of pictures of the folding steps but then realized that you should just go to the wikihow site and follow along with someone who's already done a good job with the instructions hahaha. 

I will give you a couple tips tho:

    1. Practice! Before folding with your pretty paper I'd practice with some scrap pieces, I used plain printer paper to start.

*The first heart I folded turned out bad - the edges don't line up, it's thick and won't stay together. 

*The second one I made using cardstock and the paper is too thick and once again my edges aren't nice and clean although it does hold it's shape so I'm getting closer. 

*3rd time is much better - I used white printer paper and really took my time getting the paper lined up exactly right, I'm really happy with that one!

    2. Use a bone folder or your fingernail to smooth every folded edge so they are nice and sharp. That made a big difference on my 3rd heart. 

    3. I recommend using paper that is thin like printer paper or decorative scrapbooking paper, cardstock is way to thick to get those crisp, sharp edges. The top heart above using the cheetah paper looks pretty good but the paper tore a couple times - don't know if the paper is too thin or I was too rough haha. My favorite of all the hearts is using a piece of printer paper that I accidentally copied my Dick's Sporting Goods return info on! 

4. If you are writing a Valentine note or drawing a picture or something like that for your person to unfold the heart and then see the message, or if you are just making the heart not intending for it to be unfolded and want the decorative patterned paper to show, start with the white side or your message side facing up to make the first fold. Whatever side is facing up when you begin will be on the inside of the heart. 

 instructions found on wikihow, search for 'how to make an origami heart: 15 steps with pictures'

1.30.22: 🔥 week 5

1.30.21: creamy chicken soup

1.30.20: tbt cardinal salad

1.30.19: chocolate mint crackles

1.30.18: baked ham and cheese sliders (and other Super Bowl ideas)

1.30.17: heart cork wreath or trivet

1.30.16: sweet sunrise mocktail

🔥 Around the Campfire (week 5)

 Dear Campers ~

Here's a quick recap in case you missed anything at camp last week:

Posts ~

1/22: 🔥 week 4

1/23: deck planter boxes

1/24: TT laundry symbols

1/25: chipotle bbq meatloaf

1/26: ham salad version 2

1/27: coconut rice with cumin garlic shrimp by Macey

1/28: coconut rice

What's Cooking ~

• grilled steak, potato salad, sautéed mushrooms, caesar salad
• grilled chicken breast, leftover potato salad, roasted green beans
• shrimp tacos, spanish rice, tomato and avocado side salad
• individual pizzas, green salad with balsamic vinaigrette 
• grilled marinated chicken, coconut rice, wilted spinach
• baked salmon (rubbed with maple bourbon spice blend), coconut rice, roasted broccoli

Miscellaneous stuff keeping me busy ~

• read "The Secret Garden" by Francis Hodgson Burnett, it's considered a children's classic and I'd never read it. Macey bought me a 'secret garden' phone case for Christmas that is really pretty and that was the inspiration for me to read this book. I enjoyed it - while it doesn't beat out my all-time favorite childrens book (The Velveteen Rabbit ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️),  it's a really good read ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
• read "Open Season" by C.J. Box, first in the Joe Pickett series, there's many books in the series and I wanted to love it so I'd have another book reading mission to go on hahaha but it just didn't grab me. I'll read the second one and give the series one more chance. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

That's it for this week - stop back often to see more projects, crafts, recipes, whatever else I think of to make at camp next week. Bye!

Sincerely ~

Jill

camp counselor

1.29.22: thru the years

1.29.21: air fryer avocado

1.29.20: lemon rosemary chicken (starting with a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken, easy!)

1.29.19: curly willow branches

1.29.18: folded paper pouch

1.29.17: creamy roasted tomato soup

1.29.16: homemade playdough

Coconut Rice

This is a follow up to yesterday's post from Macey for coconut rice with cumin garlic shrimp. I made the coconut rice last night and thought I'd share how great it is! We loved it. I did half water and half canned coconut milk in my rice cooker and it turned out so flavorful, and the kitchen smelled so good - I will absolutely be making rice this way as often as possible haha. I didn't take a picture, it just looks like rice!

Using the cup that came with my rice cooker, I combined 3 cups of long grain basmati rice with 1 can of coconut milk and 2 cups water; when the rice cooker clicked to 'warm' I added 2 tablespoons of butter, closed the lid and let the rice steam and the butter melt. Stir it up, add salt and pepper to taste. Yum. 

I served this with chicken marinated in tequila lime seasoning (from the grocery store, I don't know what the actual ingredients are) and wilted spinach. 

1.28.22: thru the years

1.28.21: old fashioned ham salad

1.28.20: TT microwaving tip

1.28.19: DIY glass cleaner

1.28.18: salsa verde pork enchilada casserole

1/28/17: mimosas

1/28/16: guest room tips (organizing and getting ready for guests)

Coconut Rice with Cumin Garlic Shrimp by Macey

Macey shared another recipe that looks great (and I bet smells great too!). Here's how she makes coconut rice with cumin garlic shrimp, in her words:

Tonight’s dinner was super easy, and so delicious! I’ve only made coconut rice a couple of times, and each time it gets better and better! 

While the rice is cooking (in a rice cooker, 1cup rice to 1 3/4 cup coconut milk ~30mins) I fire up the stove for one cast iron pan, adding olive oil, butter, white wine, cilantro, shallots, and chopped garlic. Saute for a couple of minutes to cook the shallot and garlic, then whisk in 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch. Cook until the liquid is thickening. 

I then add the shrimp! (I’ve decided to go with a cumin garlic cayenne shrimp seasoning which I’ve totally made up myself but it’s basically just butter melted with cumin, a dash of cayenne pepper, garlic powder, salt and pepper) and then drench each shrimp into the pan of sauce and let it sizzle (only for a few mins!) 

From there, I squeeze some fresh limes and sprinkle cilantro and coconut shreds on top of the rice and then with a ladle, spoon the sauce and shrimp over top of the rice. Add cilantro to top (for looks). 

•• the shreds of coconut in the rice is bomb! It adds a nice texture to the dish. I also like to put cilantro directly in the pot that I am making the shrimp sauce in; you really get that strong flavor forward taste and then sprinkling a little more cilantro on top at the end just adds more flavor, texture (and looks pretty!) 

I sliced a lemon in case it needed more at the end, but the lime from earlier was plenty it really didn’t need anymore.

1.27.22: thru the years

1.27.21: galumpkis (stuffed cabbage rolls)

1.27.20: Mason jar cork jar (DIY not DUI)

1.27.19: 🔥week 4

1.27.18: words ~ your story

1.27.17: slime

1.27.16: displaying recipes

Ham Salad v.2

After making ham soup last week I still had leftover ham (because ham is never-ending haha) so I thought I'd make ham salad for lunch - I mixed together chopped ham, diced bread and butter pickles, diced celery, mayo and a little honey mustard. It was fine but not really blog-worthy (right, so many of my posts are 'blog-worthy' hahahah. click here and here for a couple examples of what gets blogged and probably shouldn't have). 

While going thru old posts I found that I already posted a ham salad in '21 and that one was really good! So I decided to post this as more of a tip than a new post. The salad I made in '21 has pretty much the exact same ingredients (I added mustard to the '23 version) - so the key to why the '21 salad was so much better? Has to be a texture thing. In '21 I put the mixture in the food processor, last weeks I left as chunks and just stirred it together. Pulsed in the food processor is much better. 

Click here for the post 'Throw-back Thursday: old-fashioned ham salad'. 

left chunky - should be the same thing, no? 
texture makes all the difference here!

1.26.22: thru the years

1.26.21: TT separating cabbage leaves

1.26.20: 🔥week 4

1.26.19: Ron's Mom's dinner (aka 'the okra dish')

1.26.18: Brooke made gemstone soap

1.26.17: Valentine heart garland

1.26.16: honey lime dressing

Chipotle BBQ Meatloaf

Here’s another meatloaf knock-off Hello Fresh/Home Chef recipe from my sis’s stash - this time it's chipotle BBQ meatloaf. A couple weeks ago I made an Italian-style meatloaf that we loved, not sure how many different versions of meatloaf one person needs but thought I’d go out on a limb and try this one (mostly because I had leftover chipotles in adobo sauce and this caught my eye). 

I took inspiration from their recipe but changed it a bit - they call for using all ground beef (or pork, or turkey), chipotle pesto and topping the cooked meatloaf with crispy onions; and served it with roasted red potatoes and broccoli (tossed with a little olive oil and garlic salt). 

Here’s what I did:

• 3/4 cup bbq sauce
• 10 Ritz crackers, crushed
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 T. chipotle in adobo sauce
• 1/2 pound each ground beef, ground pork, ground lamb (or turkey) totalling 1.5 pounds
• Salt and pepper 

Preheat oven to 425’

Combine ground meats, half the bbq sauce, crushed crackers, shredded cheese, pinch of salt and pepper. Form into 2 equal loaves. Place in a baking dish.

In a small bowl combine the remaining bbq sauce and chipotle adobo sauce. Top loaves evenly with the mixture. Bake uncovered 20-25 minutes until they are cooked thru and reach a minimum internal temp of 160’.

I served it with pasta in olive oil and parmesan, and roasted green beans. 

1.25.22: thru the years

1.25.21: beaded mask leash

1.25.20: cauliflower parmesan 

1.25.19: spirit gloves (sew pompoms onto glove fingertips)

1.25.18: anniversary card

1.25.17: Kyle's sausage stuffed acorn squash

1.25.16: stamped floor mat

Tip-sy Tuesday: laundry symbols

I bought a package of towels and napkins at IKEA; after I got home and checked the tags for laundry instructions I remembered something about IKEA - in addition to notoriously being known for everything coming in a box and having to put it together with no word instructions, just pictures, the labels are often not in English and for the towels and napkins they only have the laundry symbols printed. That got me thinking about how many of these symbols I don't know!

So I googled and found us a chart and lists of what most of the laundry symbols are - if you already know all this then stop reading and I'll see you tomorrow. For the rest of us here's a cheat sheet we can easily reference - there's no way I'm remembering all this info, at least I know it's on the blog haha:

WASHING INSTRUCTIONS:

• a tub icon with a wavy line = an item can be machine washed

• a tub icon with a hand = an item should be hand washed

• a tub icon with cross thru it = do not wash

• a tub icon with 

• one dot = item should be washed in cold water (85'F or 30'C)
• two dots = wash in warm water (105'F or 40'C)
• three dots = warm/hot water (120'F or 50'C)
• four dots = hot water (140'F or 60'C)
• five dots = sanitizing wash (160'F or 70'C)

• *note the tub with numbers inside are in Celsius, so match them to the temps above. For instance, the tub on my tag says 60 - so that means wash in hot water

BLEACHING INSTRUCTIONS:

• an open triangle = ok to use bleach

• a triangle with two angled line inside = non-chlorine bleach

• a cross over the triangle (white or black triangle) = do not bleach

DRYING INSTRUCTIONS:

• a square with a circle = item can be tumble dried
• one line underneath = permanent press
• two lines underneath = delicate or gentle

• a square with a circle with a cross over it = do not tumble dry

• a square with a curved line at the top which goes from side to side = line dry or hang to dry

• a square with three vertical lines inside = drip dry

• a square with a single horizontal line = dry flat

• a tumble dry symbol 
• with the circle filled in = no heat should be used
• one dot in the center = low heat
• two dots = medium heat
• three dots = you can use a high temperature

IRONING INSTRUCTIONS:

• an open iron icon = item can be ironed
• one dot inside = low heat
• two dots = medium heat
• three dots = high heat is allowed

• if the iron has two sloped vertical lines below that are crossed through, do not use steam

• an iron with a cross over it = do not iron

I've never needed to know what most of these circle symbols mean, other than

• an open circle = ok to dry clean
• an open circle with a cross thru it = do not dry clean

Back to my IKEA tags, here's what they show and what I now know to mean:

There are 2 rows but they both say the same thing: 

• machine wash hot 140'F or 60'C
• do not bleach
• do not tumble dry (I'm confused how I am supposed to dry them tho!)
• iron on hot heat
• do not dry clean

And this tags indicates:

• machine wash hot 140'F or 60'C
• no bleach
• tumble dry medium heat
• iron with high heat 
• do not dry clean

info and graphics found here

1.24.22: thru the years

1.24.21: 🔥week 4

1.24.20: candy cane hearts

1.24.19: DIY body wash

1.24.18: side table re-do

1.24.17: egg and avocado toast

1.24.16: citrus scented lamb stew