Happy Anniversary, House!

As of last Friday, we've had our beautiful Colorado home for one year! It's been a great journey so far turning this house into our home, and I have a number of projects coming up in the next few months as well. To celebrate one year here, let's look at a few of the things we've accomplished to make the house ours:

One of the first projects I tackled here was my home office. I stripped the peeling wallpaper, primed the walls, and painted it a nice pale blue-gray. Then we put up the wall shelving that was above the desks back in CA.

 before

 after

I also updated the downstairs powder room with a beautiful blue (called San Francisco Bay) and a new mirror.

before

 after

We installed a compost bin, hiding it behind some white lattice fencing and new plantings to make it HOA compliant.

And we took the guest room from a little girl's dream room into a sophisticated and relaxing place for friends and family to visit.

 before

after

I'm looking forward to all the updates and projects I have planned for the next year! Here's to many more years, house!

Weekly Meal Plan 10.25.15

With colder temperatures here, I'm looking forward to trying a bunch of slow cooker soup recipes I've pinned on Pinterest over the summer. I also love winter squash, so you'll be seeing a lot of those in the coming months too!

Here's what we're planning to eat this week:

Sunday: Maple Roasted Chicken

Monday: leftovers

Tuesday: Curried Roasted Eggplant

Wednesday: leftovers

Thursday: Slow Cooker Chicken Parmesan Soup

Friday: leftovers

Saturday: Butternut Squash Lasagne

Weekly Meal Plan 10.18.15

We've been pretty busy here the last month, with guests, work, seeing shows (if you get the chance to see If/Then, DO IT!) and Sean's deadline for his thesis. It's been a crazy fall so far!

Here's what we're planning to eat this week:

Sunday: chicken tikka masala & roasted cauliflower

Monday: spaghetti and meatballs

Tuesday: leftover chicken tikka masala

Wednesday: leftover spaghetti

Thursday: Slow Cooker Pumpkin Chili (we had a decent harvest of sugar pie pumpkins, so it's time to start eating them!)

Friday: sushi for Sean's birthday

Saturday: dinner out with friends

Our Experience with Green Chef

When I first heard about companies like Blue Apron and Green Chef, I didn't feel like they were for us. I love cooking and trying new recipes, and I'm normally pretty good about meal planning such that I use up any odd leftover ingredients. I also wasn't a fan of all the excess packaging typical of these delivery companies. Does a single lime really need it's own plastic bag?!

But earlier this fall, with tech week approaching for me and Sean's busy schedule with work and thesis, we decided to give it a shot. I liked that there would be easy, healthy meals that Sean could confidently cook alone while I was at the theatre. And I liked that I would get healthy leftovers the next day!

We went with Green Chef rather than it's competitors because humanely raised meat is incredibly important to me. Green Chef tries to use organic and humane ingredients whenever possible. More of their packaging is recyclable, too, which is appealing when I know we'll be having more garbage than usual. Unfortunately still not zero waste, but neither is fast food at the theatre!

Since Sean did most of the cooking on his own, taking pictures of the food for my blog did not happen. But you can go on the Green Chef website to see all the pretty pictures of food, and see what their instruction sheets look like too.

All of the food was delicious. Some of it I felt like I could have totally done without them packaging it up for me. But, again, we were doing this because I wasn't home to cook. The ingredients were all fresh, and I did appreciate the fact that you use up everything that comes in the box.

Is Green Chef cheaper than grocery shopping? The answer is likely "no". But is Green Chef cheaper than getting a healthy fast food dinner on a busy night? Yes! With that in mind, I think we'll continue using them when I'm in tech rehearsals, but not for everyday cooking.

If you're interested in trying out Green Chef, use this link below to get 4 free meals. Yes, in full disclosure, when you use it I'll get a credit. But you'll get free meals too!
http://greenchef.com/invite/q6xy9



Green Chef in no way sponsored this post. All opinions are my own.

Weekly Meal Plan 9.29.15

Once again life got crazy (I've been working a ton up in Boulder for a play) and I fell behind on my organized meal planning. This time I don't think we did too badly, we still ate fairly healthily while I was in tech thanks to trying Green Chef which I'll write about some more later. But of course we always use our groceries most efficiently when I'm doing a real meal plan so I'm back with the menu for the rest of this week.

Tuesday: leftovers

Wednesday: leftovers/night out with friends

Thursday: Sauteed Sirloin Tips with Bell Peppers (we finally have some peppers from our garden that I'm looking forward to eating!)

Friday: Sweet Potato & Chickpea Curry

Saturday: dinner & "The Martian" with friends

Weekly Meal Plan 8.30.15

The weather has cooled down fairly suddenly, and while it was faster than I was expecting,  I'm glad of the cooler days! All those days in the mid 90's were making the poor cat and me wilt! Cooler days are also nice because then I'm more willing to spend time cooking over the stove or in the oven, instead of relying on the crock pot or fast meals.

Sunday: Korean-style turkey stir fry

Monday: chicken fajitas with peach-mango salsa

Tuesday: leftovers

Wednesday: dinner with friends

Thursday: White Cheddar Corn Chowder

Friday: pasta with mushroom alfredo

Saturday: leftovers

Recipe Review: Peach Margherita Pizza

For a while now, I've been posting my weekly meal plans (inconsistently, I know) and when I'm using a recipe I've found online I link to the recipe. When I meal plan, I often try to include at least one new recipe per week and if it's a hit I'll use it again. I make some notes on my Pinterest pins (when I remember to) but I thought it would be nice to start reviewing some of the online recipes I've been trying lately. This way I can keep my thoughts in one place, and hopefully it will be helpful for you as well!

The first one I'll share is the Peach Margherita Pizza from Bright Bold and Beautiful.

We tried this recipe a couple weeks ago. It's a great, easy, light pizza that uses store-bought pitas instead of pizza crust. I liked this twist because then I had pitas for lunches later! The flavor was great, perfectly seasonal.

Sean did feel that a single pita pizza was a little light of a meal for dinner, so he found some leftover veggies that he heated up that night in addition to the peach pizza. I'm typically a lighter eater, but I did have some of the extra veggies too. I think the peach pizza may work better as a lunch, or alongside a salad -- something with a bit more fiber to keep you feeling full longer than an hour.

All in all, while we decided that the peach pizza wasn't enough on its own to be a full meal, we really enjoyed it and I think we would be happy to make it again!