Leftover Remix

I love making a lot of something and then re-purposing it for different meals. Then, I only have to make one thing when I get home from work and I'm starving! Example:

Get out the grilled chicken from previous meal.

Then, chop up some stuff from the garden (ok, so I bought the garlic)

Cook up some pasta and add delicious buttery farmers market olive oil

Put it all together and enjoy your fancy 10 minute dinner!

Some randoms!

Some delicious garden produce.
Yesterday I got more zucchini, romas, yellow cherry tomatoes,
 a cucumber, and a spicy pepper!

Some rummage sale and thrift shop finds. Love them.

I made this. Thanks anthropologie, I stole your idea.
And thanks for the cheap glass thing, Ross!

I have recently fallen in love with this cast iron grill pan I
got a few years back as a birthday present.

Delicious grilled chicken and zucchini from my garden.

Unconventional Summer Grillin'!

So...I was really feelin' falafel and Bryan was wanting to be all manly and grill (plus our house was already WAY too hot for real cooking) so we decided to go for the combination and see what happened! I usually just broil the falafel anyway, so I figured it wouldn't be too different.
First, I got the falafel mix out of the cupboard. I've heard the real thing is somewhat involved and I know I like the mix from my days as a cook at the ol' eating disorder center! Then, I found some cucumber in my own garden outside.  I went ahead and mixed up the mix while I went to the store and bought some pita pockets, lettuce, hot sauce, and hummus (wish they had had tahini). Since my own tomatoes weren't producing at the time, I went and bought one at the Farmers Market in Campbell a few days earlier...you just can't eat store bought tomatoes if you've ever had otherwise. It's wrong!

So, while I was chopping up the veggies (and the tomato), Bryan prepped the grill. He just got some tin foil and made a flimsy cooking sheet with it for the falafal. I went ahead and used a melon-baller to make the falafel balls and brushed them with oil. If we could go back, we would remember to spray the foil like crazy before putting the falafel down and to brush the tops with oil before turning them. They kind of stuck a bit. Also, we would smash the balls into patties for the grill because they would cook more evenly that way and be easier to flip over and what-not.      

There they are, chillin' over
the coals!

Well, it actually worked out really great! They tasted great and cooked well without heating up the house. All that remained was putting everything in the pita and eating up!

We turned them every couple minutes to brown all sides.

They actually cooked really fast!
We turned them a few times and
about 6 minutes later they were done.

Close up!

The delicious finished product. I should learn to make pitas...

Art Success!!!

That's right, it was a success this time! Ok, so I guess that's a matter of opinion, but I really like how this project turned out. Could be that it was a joint effort between Francis and I. I was really feeling the decor itch again and so I started perusing google images (of course, heh). I found some pictures of some wallpaper that I thought was really cool here. The second and third pictures down to be exact. I wanted to print them off for some frames I got at a yard sale ($7 for both!), but the size was really not normal and I didn't want to pay a lot, or even wait until tomorrow for that matter. Yes, I'm impatient. Sooo, Francis suggested we just draw them ourselves and I mixed up some paint for the occasion. I had some sponges laying around too so I could give in the same textured feel as the original source!

As you  can see, there's the basic design in pencil on the sponged up paper. I didn't mix the paint all the way so it would have even more depth. I really wanted that grey heather-type feel. Francis did all the drawing herself, just looking at the pictures online!

            At that point it was getting pretty late and I was starting to feel a little lazy. I was noticed that there were roughly a million (note: slight exaggeration) leaves on the two pictures combined and I did NOT want to have to paint all of those by hand and even if I did I'm sure the uniformity would have suffered. So, thanks to my mother and probably the 4-H, I thought of a brilliant idea! I made a leaf stamp out of a shriveling potato in the kitchen. Worked like a CHARM.

So, there you have it. I painted the tree and circle branches and then used a brush to put paint on the stamp (to keep the paint more even) and used different areas of my paint plate to get a slight variation in color. What do you all think??

I've since moved them to a new location above the tv
and there's a sweet little $1 garage sale find in the spot above the chair.