Winner of the InvaderKristin Apron!

Today's winner of that awesome InvaderKristin apron,

picked using an online, random number generator is......

Natalie, from A Little of This,  A Little of That!

Congrats, Natalie!  Please contact me with your shipping info, so that I can pass it along to Kristin.

And be sure to check out the other goodies in the InvaderKristin Etsy shop!

Mrs. B. Cooks...Linguine with Seafood

Click for Printable Recipe

This is one of my favorite recipes!  It's also one of the most adjustable.  Don't have clams?  Use mussles instead.  No calamari?  No biggy, just skip it.  When I made it this last time, I was out of parsley (so don't look for it in the photos, lol!).  While I wish I'd had it, I certainly wasn't

 going to not eat it, lol!  It's also a recipe that just looks cool when you serve the seafood in the shells - and even better, it's really quite fast, and there isn't anything hard in making it.  

Let's look at the ingredients:  

shrimp, clams, calamari, white wine, linguine, olive oil, garlic, red peppers,  salt and parsley. And, like I said before, you can switch the seafood up if you'd like. Add or substitute mussels, you can use canned minced clams in a pinch, leave out the calamari - the only thing I would never do without is the shrimp.  You'll see why in a minute.

First things first, you'll need to start a large pot of water to boil.  When it reaches a full rolling boil, add 1 Tbsp salt (adding it to the water after it boils keeps the salt from discoloring your pan) and the linguine. Cook to the package directions.  When it's done, drain it thoroughly, drizzle with 1 Tbsp or so of the olive oil, toss well to coat the pasta and set aside (the oil will keep it from sticking to itself too badly).

Meanwhile, remove all the shells from your shrimp, devein if it hasn't been done already, and set the shrimp aside.  Take your shells and add them and 1 cup of water to a large saucepan.  Bring the water and shells to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. 

 Continue to simmer until the liquid is reduced by about 1/2.  Strain the liquid into a bowl and set aside.  You can toss out those shells now.

In the pan, add 2 Tbsp of olive oil and turn the burner on to medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes, stirring constantly for about 30 seconds:

 then add in the wine, shrimp broth and the clams (which you have already scrubbed and rinsed well, right?). 

Cover the pan, cover, and simmer for about 5 minutes.  After 5 minutes, add the shrimp (and well scrubbed mussels if you are using them), cover and simmer for another 3 minutes or so.  The shrimp should be pink and the clams (and/or mussels) should be open at this point.  

If the any of the shells are not open, throw those away.  

Toss in the pasta, the calamari (if you're using it) and the parsley (which I didn't have for the pictures).  Use 2 wooden spoons or a pasta fork to toss everything for a minute or two, until the calamari is cooked through. Remove from heat, season with salt and drizzle with a little olive oil.  

Serve immediately with a nice crusty bread for sopping up the juices and a glass of that white wine!

You might also want to check out How to Pick, Store and Cook Mussels.

Fun stuff happening today!

First of all, if you hadn't heard, a new pagan magazine started up today!  It's called The Modern Pagan, and you can check it out here.  You can also follow the magazine on Twitter here.  (Oh, and did I mention that I am one of the authors featured?)   I'm sure many of you know a lot of the authors from their blogs already: Draco's Rose, Retro Kali, Inner Musings of an Eclectic Pagan, and Redefining Perfect.

Today I am going to see my daughter's first band performance!  This is her first year playing the trombone.  Should be tons of fun!

Only a couple of days left to enter to win the awesome Apron from InvaderKristin!  If you haven't entered yet, click here to find out how!

See ya after the concert!

My new "studio"

I mentioned the other post or two about how we had cleared out the unfinished room next to our garage.  This is a room without a ceiling for the most part, and with mostly just bare sheet rock for walls.  It's been used, since we moved into our house, as a storage room.    The place where old junk, Christmas decorations and cat carriers went to die.  

Well, Mr. B. decided to declutter and reorganize.  Our walk-in closet in our room gained a ton of shelves which now hold most of our holiday decorations.  Our stair well to the downstairs, which was just a high wall of empty space got shelves, too.  Things were put in containers, thrown out, given away.  

And lo and behold!  A mostly empty room was born.  For about 10 seconds.  We've been discussing for years turning the room into a arts and crafts room, "when we get it cleaned out".  I don't think anyone really thought it would happen, lol!    Over a weekend, the room went from overstuffed junk room to girl cave!  It still needs to be finished, painted and patched, but it's already awesome!

The first thing I did was put these up:

I've been hauling these records and covers around for about 20 years!  Finally I found a use for them!  I love seeing them every day!  The Cure, Book of Love, The Lightning Seeds, The Soup Dragons, Material Issue, Sarah Mclachlan (pre-Lilith Fair), Enya, Voice of the Beehive...ahhh, the sounds of my youth!

Underneath is a little storage set up that used to be in my daughter's room.  It now holds some canning/brewing stuff and a crap load of art supplies!

Mr. B. found these containers in his garage that he was no longer using: 

They are now filled with goodies like sea glass, glue sticks, shells, craft sticks and more.

On the other side of the room (which is super narrow and long) is an old dining room buffet.  It now holds craft supplies galore:

Including this little paint container that Mr. B. made for me, so I can easily see and find all my paints!

On either side of the wall is a spool holder that Mr. B. also made.  Perfect for ribbons, spools of dog tag chain, holding raffia and all sorts of things!

       

At the far end of the room is my old dining room table.  It's a huge, sturdy table that saw a lot of use (we got it used from a family friend when we first moved in here).

It's jam packed with my pencils, charcoals, pastels, erasers, art journals, collage stuff.... more crap than you could shake a paint brush at!

Also added to the room: an old CD player and CD's of all of my iTunes, so I can have music on whenever I want, without having to use my iPod (I have to be able to hear my phone and/or yelling children, lol).

I don't think I've ever loved a room more!  There are certainly more practical uses we could have made of this room, I'm sure.  Thankfully, I have a hubby that is willing to let me take it over and create a place for me to play, relax, and create!  How freaking awesome is he?

TAG is at it again!

The Apron Goddess blog has another amazing apron giveaway going on!  Don't miss out!

Click here for the rules!

Short Monday Message :O)

Just a quickie this afternoon! Kids are home and Mr. B. is at work, so trying to keep everyone busy and work on Mr. J's makeup work after being out sick from school almost all of last week.

Just a reminder to enter to win the awesome apron from InvaderKristin - I wish I could enter, lol! I love that thing!

Tomorrow I'm going to try to post pics from my old storage room. I say old, because over the over the couple of weeks, Mr. B. cleaned through it and got rid of a ton of junk. This past weekend, he and I turned it into the beginnings of a girl cave! I've moved all my arty stuff into it, and Mr. B built some awesome features for me. I even burned a ton of my iTunes onto discs so I can play them on a CD player down there. The walls are still unfinished and the floor is in the midst of being redone, but it's my own little space and I love it! I can't wait til I have enough time to share pics. (And who is freaking better than Mr. B.? Letting me take over an entire room?!?)

Hope you are all having a wonderful long weekend!!

New Apron Giveaway Starts Today!

You may remember that cute little black and white apron with the skulls on it that I bought a while back.  Well, the creator of that apron was kind enough to let me give another of her aprons away!  

InvaderKristin offers one of a kind items for ladies of all sizes. She never makes the same thing twice and only makes things from patterns that she's made herself!  So if you win this apron, you know it's a one of a kind InvaderKristin original!

To enter to win this contest, you must travel over to InvaderKristin then come back here and tell me your favorite item from her shop.  

She's having her annual sale, so she's down to a very few items right now!  If you see something you like, better get it now, because it's the only one like it out there.

For bonus entries, leave an extra comment if you did any of the following:

• For one extra entry, follow (or be a follower) of this blog.
• For one extra entry, make a Twitter about the giveaway that includes the URL of this blog.  Leave the URL of your profile in your comment, please.
• For one extra entry, follow this blog (or be a follower) from your Facebook account.
• For 3 extra entries, have my handy dandy button in the sidebar of your own blog.
• And as requested, for those who do not have blogs, for one extra entry, email a friend (with a cc to my email) about the giveaway, complete with the URL of the blog.
• And if you purchase something from InvaderKristin, let me know and you'll get an extra 5 entries for the apron!!

Now that is a lot of chances to win!  And, if you've been following my blog, you'll have realized that sometimes during the week, I throw in a bonus entry or two in my daily posts.  So those who actually read my mutterings about my siding and issues with my cats actually get another chance to win.  Tricky, huh?

And, as usual, if you do not have a blog that I can contact you through, please leave me your email address in your comments.  The winner will be announced at noon EST on May 29.

Good luck!

And the Winner Is.....

Thanks to everyone who entered to win the beautiful Lady on the Moon necklace from The Greenstone Room!  

Each separate entry was assigned a number and the winner was picked using an online random number generator.  

And the winner is..... Ty-Anna from Let's See If This Works!

Congrats, Ty-Anna!  Please contact me with your shipping info so I can pass it on to Greenman for shipping.

There are plenty of amazing items for sale at The Greenstone Room, so be sure to check them out!

Don't forget!

The winner for the Lady on the Moon necklace from The Greenstone Room will be announced today at  noon, EST!  Still time to enter!

Pizza love and other random things

Last night Mr. B. stopped by the local pizza place and bought two globs of uncooked pizza dough ($2 each).  We made our own pizzas and cooked them on my cooking stone.  Dang!  Best pizza ever!  I meant to get a picture, but it was snapped up too quickly!  It's easy to make your own pizza dough, but so much quicker to just get it on the way home and whip up the pizzas.

Mr. B. is working on his first essays for his online college courses.  It's awesome to see him excited about going to school and getting a degree.   I'm glad the GI Bill money is allowing him to do it, because otherwise it probably would not have happened.  It's not something that will really affect his current job, but having a degree in your field never hurts with job opportunities in the future (and with this economy the way it is, nothing in life is guaranteed!).  I have to admit to admit to a fair amount of envy over the fact that he's taking the classes.  I've taken classes over the years at the local community classes, when time and money allow (neither of which is ever in abundance, lol!) and I love it!  The good news is: Mr. B. is pretty open to my "helping" hand on editing.  So I get to play school second hand, which is still pretty fun.  He's such a good sport!

Don't forget that today  is the last full day to enter to win  the Lady on the Moon necklace!  If you haven't entered yet, but want to, better get to it, lol!   And for those who read, I'll throw in an extra "code word" bonus entry: pizza dough!  Just go over to the entry and post those words for 1 extra bonus entry.  This is a limited time bonus entry just for today, May 20 (UPDATE: bonus entry is now over!).  Good luck!  And if you don't win tomorrow, there are plenty of amazing pieces still being offered in The Greenstone Room at Etsy.

I've already lined up a giveaways for the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!  And if you have an Etsy shop (or something similar) and would like to sponsor a giveaway, just let me know! It's a fun way to show off your wares and reach a few new potential buyers :O)

Mrs. B. Cooks......Asian Style BBQ Ribs

Last night I whipped up a recipe that turned out to be pretty darn tasty, so I thought I'd share! These Asian style ribs came out tangy, sticky, messy and delicious!  Most of the ingredients you can pick up in the Asian isle of the grocery store, but if you're lucky enough to have an Asian grocery nearby, get it there (they usually have the good stuff!).

And  because my mom asked for it:

Click for Printable Recipe (Coming soon to all past and future recipes)

Mrs. B.'s Slow Cooked Asian Ribs

Ingredients:

2 pounds pork ribs, cut into individual servings 

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Sauce:

4 Tbsp black bean sauce with garlic (look in the Asian isle, it's there, I swear)

4 Tbsp Tamari (substitute with plain soy sauce if you have to) (but only if you have to)

2 Tbsp Chinese rice wine (you can use sherry, or in a pinch, cooking sherry)

2 tsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (or to taste)

2 tsp minced garlic

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.  Yes, that says 250, not 350.  To get these ribs nice and tender, we are going to cook them nice and slow!  Spray a jelly roll pan with non-stick cooking spray (you'll thank me for this later, believe me).  Place your ribs on the pan and salt and pepper them generously.  Drizzle with a little olive oil.  Place them in the preheated oven and let them cook for one and a half hours.  

Meanwhile, mix all the sauce ingredients in a small sauce pan.  

Heat over medium heat just until mixed well and the brown sugar has dissolved.  This just takes a minute or two.   Set aside until the time is done on the ribs.

After an hour and a half, check your ribs.  You may need to pour off a little grease at this time.  Baste the ribs with sauce, and stick back in the oven for another 1/2 hour. I like to turn the ribs and do both sides.  During this time, baste the ribs 2 more times (again, you might want to give them a flip midway).  They'll look a little like this:

After the 1/2 hour is up, you can do one of two things:  finish the ribs off, or set them aside until you are almost ready to eat.  You can even refrigerate them for up to a day or two.  If you stick them in the fridge, wrap them well.  Bring the ribs back to room temperature before you finish them off.  If you know you'll be cooking them ahead for later, before you use any of your sauce, set some aside in a container for finishing off the ribs (bring that to room temp as well before you finish cooking). 

When you're almost ready to eat, place your room temperature ribs on a broiler safe dish.  Place your oven rack on the closest-to-the-flame placement and turn your broiler on high (you can also finish these off on the grill as well, just watch for flair ups with the sauce).  Baste the ribs with sauce and place the pan under the broiler.  This step is  not going to take long - you just want to re-heat the ribs, and give them a bit of char. Keep an eye on them; you don't want them to burn.  Depending on the heat of your broiler,  about 3-4 minutes should do the trick.  Remove the ribs and serve immediately.

These are great served with white rice and an Asian style veggie.

work, work, work

Well, the siding is almost done on the house!  I think today will be the last day of work.  The guys showed up on Friday morning, bright and early, and they worked their hineys off!  By stopping time on Saturday, they were done with 90% of the siding work.  Today should be putting on the shutters, the gutters, mailbox and lights and wrapping all the edges.  I think it should be the last day of work.  I'll try to have pictures of the final product tomorrow.

For today, I thought I thought I'd share a couple of photos of what else we've been up to.

  Most of the big work so far has been to Mr. J's room.  Patched walls (THAT was some work!), paint, new dresser, light fixture and posters have turned his "little kid" room into a room for a budding teenage. No pictures there, though, as per Mr. J's request ;O)

In the kitchen, is an ongoing project.  We had some old wallpaper that had to come down in spots.  We've repainted part of the wall (just needs a few touchups), got new curtains, and hung some cute little pictures.

The pictures were postcards I found of vintage food art and advertising that I found at NY's Museum of Modern Art (and they have other postcard collections).   I got a package of 50 food art postcards for $10.   The frames were about $1 a piece from IKEA (did I mention I love IKEA?).

And of course there are my awesome curtains from Fussy Gussy!  Man, do I love these curtains! And hanging from the handle along with my kitchen witch you can see the matching pot holder!  

This is the new artwork we picked up for the living room (the wall in the picture hasn't been painted yet).  We had the frame already; it used to hold a beach scape.  The wall it hangs on will be a much darker color once we've painted, so we needed something that was much more colorful to hang there.  I love the doodle feel of it, the total absurdity of the pictures.  There are a few notes written here and there on the picture, one of which says "Toe Jam" another of which says "Stop coming to my house".  So fun!  And, yes, another IKEA purchase.  $12 for the print, which is huge.

So there you have a few of the new things going on in our "fix up the house" extravaganza, lol!  More pictures to come as we keep tooling away on the improvements.

Oh, and don't forget, if you haven't already, enter to win that great necklace from The Greenstone Room!  See the details here.  And as an added bonus entry, for those who read my blog, skip over to the entry page and enter the code word "toe jam"!  This bonus entry is only good for today, May 18!

Apron Goddess Giveaway!

The Apron Goddess blog is at it again!  This time she's giving away an apron from Cupcake Provocateur. It's the most adorable poodle skirt apron you've ever seen!

How freaking cute is that?  Go to the TAG site to learn how to enter!

Brand Spankin' New Giveaway Today!

While I'm working on the new layout for my blog, I thought you'd all like to have a try at this gorgeous necklace from incredible Etsy shop, The Greenstone Room!  

It's the Lady herself relaxing on the Moon. The necklace is a 16 inch strand of black resin beads with sterling silver spacers and clasp.  It's just one of the gorgeous pieces from the collection from Greenman, who, with his wife, is celebrating the upcoming launch of a new website to sell their creations!

To enter to win this amazing necklace, simply visit The Greenstone Room and pick out your favorite item. Return here and leave a comment about it. That's it! Your entered!  If you do not have a blog that I can contact you from, please leave an email address with your post, so that I can find you when you win.  The contest will run from now until May 21.

And if you'd like extra entries to the contest, you can do any, some or all of the following (just be sure to leave a separate comment for each):

• For 1 extra entry, be or become a follower of this blog.
• For 1 extra entry be or become a follower of Greenman's blog (be sure to come back here to tell me!)
• For 1 extra entry, Twitter about the giveaway (leave the URL of your profile so I can find the post)
• For 1 extra entry, be a follower of this blog via Facebook
• For 5 extra entries, purchase something from The Greenstone Room.

Good luck!

Changes are in the works!

Don't mind the mess!

 Please bear with me while I make some changes to my blog :O)

And the winner is.....

After assigning a number for each entry (multiple entries where spread throughout the list), I used an online random number generator to pick the winner of the beautiful "Harm None" charm necklace from Lauren Nicole Monogrammed Gifts.  The magic number was 59, which had been assigned to....

Julia from The Apron Goddess blog!  Congrats to Julia!  Please email me your snail mail addy so that I can forward it on to the wonderful folks at Lauren Nicole Monogrammed Gifts.  Also include which bead charm you'd like: garnet, amethyst, aquamarine, crystal, emerald, light amethyst, ruby, peridot, sapphire, rose, topaz, blue zircon, or freshwater pearl.

And if anyone is interested in purchasing one of these, you can get one in the new "Go Green" section of the LNMG site!

Frugal Witchery: At the $1 Store

One of my favorite places to browse is my local dollar store. Now while some of these are just filled with random crap, some of them are gold mines of wonderful. I often pick up little odds and ends there. My favorite buy is the stretchy gloves in the winter, because I can buy a ton of the same color for super cheap and it doesn't matter if the kids loose half of them! And with the economy the way it is today, who doesn't love a deal?

That got me to thinking.... what kind of magical supplies could you get at the $1 store? Surely there's something? Here's the list I came up with:

• Herbs/Spices - I go through a ton of certain herbs that I just can't grow. For ritual/herbal baths, for incense, for simmering potpourris. You do not, of course, want something that is too old or stale; with a quick sniff and a peek you can usually see if it's something worth buying.

• Incense and/or incense holders - Often the only incense that my local $1 store sells is the cheap, smelly crap. Once in a while, however, they will get in my favorite brand of Nag Champa, or a really good cinnamon. When they do, I stock up! The $1 almost always has some decent incense holders available as well.

• Ribbons/Yarn - I personally go through tons of ribbons and yarn for ritual use. Use for bindings, wish crafting, ladders, knot magic, creating pagan dream catchers, decorating different tools; the list is almost endless. I can usually count on finding a selection of yarns or ribbons at the dollar store.

• Wooden spoons - What domestic or kitchen witch is without her kitchen wand? Whether for cooking or crafting, the dollar store is a great place to grab wooden spoons or all types and sizes.
• 
  

• Feather Duster - Feather dusters are a great tool of air for the domestic witch! And if you don't mind using the fake feathers (or can't seem to collect enough fallen feathers for what you need to work), they can be snipped apart to use separately.

• Books - While I rarely find books that I would actually read at the dollar store, with a little gesso, some creativity, markers and glue, you can transform a dollar store book (or a blank notebook) into an art journal type Book of Shadows, Herbal Grimoire or dream journal.

• Scrapbooking type materials - My local store has got a pretty decent (if small) scrapbooking area. I get papers and stickers to use in my BOS, especially at Halloween time! And of course they have markers, pens, pencils, scissors, etc.

• River rocks - I've found great bags of river rocks at the $1 store that I've made (with the help of a permanent marker and/or paints) into charms and runes. Of course it's always better to try and use things you have found yourself out in nature, but if you are far from the water, these will certainly do in a pinch!

• Shells - again, if you can go collect them at the beach, do so. But if you aren't able, the little bags of shells you can pick up in the summer time are perfect for an altar decoration, to transform into charms, as candle snuffers or holders, incense burners, or to use as an offering dish (I use a scallop shell to leave honey outside!).

• Interesting glass containers - I've found some really cute small jars with corks or lids at the dollar store; perfect for holding powdered incense blends, herbs, small stones, feathers, etc.

• Salt - Though this probably could have been covered in the "herbs" section, I believe salt needed it's own little blurb here. I personally go through a ton of salt. Besides just for cooking of course, I use in charms and spells, for cleansings, ritual baths - salt is one of those things I could never live without. Of course it's cheap just about anywhere you buy it (sometimes less than a dollar a container at the grocery store, so check first!), but I always look to see if they have a large container when I stop into the $1 store.

• Candles/candle holders - I do try to use the candles made from soy and more natural ingredients (good for the environment, good for you!), but, darn it, they can be really expensive! The $1 usually has a wide variety of colors and sizes of pillars, tapers and tea lights. And don't forget to look for birthday candles sized! Great for when you need to burn a candle all the way down. They often have a decent variety of seasonal and/or plain candle holders - something I never seem to have enough of!

Anyone else have a favorite witchy $1 buy?