This week’s key ingredient was basil. I was incredibly lucky to find this basil (pictured above) that still contained it’s roots. Buying the basil this way was only $1 more than the regular way (already picked and in a plastic container) and so far it has kept 3 days in a cup of water. It looks beautiful on the counter and smells nicely, too!

The first thing I made was a small and simple snack. I used Laughing Cow Cheese, spread on crackers and topped with basil. You could add tomatoes to this, too.

Next up, for dinner was this pizza! Which, went over so well and was ate so fast that I didn’t have time to snap a good photo of it 🙁 I guess you could consider it a good thing, though! So, this week I don’t have an exact recipe… What I did was buy pizza dough mix (get the kind with yeast, it tastes much better!) marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese and all the toppings. You can top your pizza with anything really but I choose olives, mushrooms, tomatoes and basil. I think using just the mozzarella cheese and the fresh basil made this pizza delicous!

For the next nights dinner I ended up using up all the basil and tomatoes left over from the night before! After I cooked the noodles I sauteed some garlic in olive oil and dumped the noodles back into the pot. Added the tomatoes and basil and let it cook for just a tad bit longer, just to warm the tomatoes and basil. You could sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top or add any left over mozzarella cheese in when you add the tomatoes and basil.

And, I also ended up making these cookies 🙂 I probably won’t make dessert every time, but I just couldn’t resist these! I found this recipe at http://www.marthastewart.com/ and they are called Outrageous Chocolate Cookies and they are outrageously delicious! I recommend these cookies for anything! You’ll be the hit of the party with these on a plate! They were gone in about 20 minutes at my house (well… I did have help eating them!). I give these cookies 6 out of 5 stars 🙂 *Quick side note: I did substitute the “8 ounces semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped” for milk chocolate chips – just because we are a milk chocolate group around here and I knew that two packs would be to much semi sweet!

So that is all my cooking adventures for this week! We’ll see what next week brings… I’ll leave you with a picture of the baby 🙂

XO, Elle

Now that fall is in the air and the local farmer’s market has closed it’s time to start break the monotony of pasta or rice and fresh vegetables and start making actual dinners 🙂 I’ve decided that this fall and winter I want to try something new – a brand new recipe at least once a week! Usually I stick with what I know, have made before or have tried at someone else’s house. But, my recipes are getting boring and I’m getting tired of eating the same dishes over and over. So, I started looking on the Internet for new dishes to try. So far I’ve had the most luck at foodtv.com and marthastewart.com. I do not eat red meat, nor touch raw chicken or fish (just a weird food phobia I have) so I thought finding recipes would be a little difficult but I was very surprised to see how much is out there! So, if you have picky eaters, don’t worry, you will definitely find something out there!

• Pick recipes with ingredients you like! Example, if the recipe calls for rosemary and you know people that you are serving or you yourself does not like rosemary then either substitute it with something else or move on and find a different recipe. Don’t try to trick yourself into thinking “maybe I’ll like it once it’s in the dish.” You won’t and you’ll end up throwing it away.
• When needing fancy ingredients… try to use the rest of it during the week. For example, I usually don’t cook with fresh ginger, but this week my recipe called for it. So, I made a chocolate ginger cake to go along with it and will plan on adding it to other dishes during the week! Sometimes you can also freeze left over ingredients, too!
• Make larger batches! If you’ve made the recipe before or you’re 99% sure you’re going to love the new recipe make a larger batch and plan on freezing the leftovers for lunches or another dinner during the week. Try to eat your frozen food within 2 weeks to make sure you get the best flavor and avoid freezer burn!
• Substitute! Again, budget friendly is key – it’s not that good of a recipe when it costs $30+ per plate! If a recipe calls for “whole milk” but you happen to have “half and half” in the fridge, go ahead and use the “half and half”! I’m pretty relaxed when it comes to ingredients and try not to stress out if it’s not perfect. Most of the time no one notices!

I’ll be posting my Creative Cooking Monday recipes here once a week. If you have a recipe you’d like to recommend or have come up with a better name than “Creative Cooking Monday” please let me know 🙂

Our new October inspiration gallery is up and we are so excited to have Caroline Ikeji on board this month as our Guest Designer! Make sure to check out her beautiful cards and layouts that will inspire you for the season and beyond! There is also a fun interview that lets you get to know her more. Thanks, Caroline for the great and inspiring work!

Last month we were contacted by Claudia from cardsforheroes.org. This is a wonderful organization that makes and ships cards to honor our armed forces serving on our behalf. Regardless of how we feel about the conflicts currently going on around the world, we can agree that our brave heroes are honorable and deserve our support!

Cardsforheroes.org became official in November of 2007 and since has been able to bless our armed forces with over 43,000 cards – what an amazing number! I can’t imagine how much these cards mean to our men and women, since stores that sell cards and stationary are not always right around the corner and most of the time don’t even exist. Cards like these are so important to them since it is one of the ways they can stay in touch with their loved ones. Just imagine being in another country and not even being able to send a birthday card or thank you card!

The best part about this organization is anyone can help and it is pretty simple, too! If you’d like to help and bless our men and women you can make a card, or a few dozen, and send them to cardsforheroes.org. They collect all the cards and then ship them in batches all over the world! Right now they are especially in need of cards for teens and children. Don’t worry about the envelopes; they are able to supply them. But if you want an envelope to match your card, please feel free to download our free templates and make one to match (we have added a new size to our templates and you can now find them over on the right hand side of our blog)! VERY IMPORTANT!! Do not use any glitter – the glitter can get on their uniforms and then show up on night vision goggles, making them a target. Also, if you can, please include a dollar or two with your cards – all the shipping they do to get these cards to our heroes comes directly out of the organizations pocket. Any amount you can bless them with would be greatly appreciated!

I strongly encourage you to make a card or two and send them in, even if you can only do one or two, you are still blessing someone out there! This is also a great chance to use your leftover supplies while blessing others! I found that using double sided cardstock worked out perfectly! It adds the perfect amount of color to the inside and always color coordinates with the front – but make sure the inside is light enough for writing to show up… if not you could glue on a piece of lighter paper on the inside for them to write on.

I’m sending these two cards off tomorrow, along with a couple other things! One is a very simple card and the other a little more complex but both so fun to make 🙂

Happy creating everyone!
XO, Elle

You have to check out baileydoesntbark’s etsy shop, absolutely beautiful dishes and cups in there! Here are two of my top favs:

A couple other shops I’ve had my eye one lately are:
rosiemusic

janesays
LunasaDesigns

moop

evalicious

ashleyg

dazeychic
betsywaltonvol25
Etsy’s full of such beautiful items, it’s so easy to get lost in time looking at them all! I hope you enjoy these items as much as I do!

Thank you for all the birthday wishes, they mean so much to me! It was a great one 🙂 I’m glad everyone’s enjoying the envelope template download! Feel free to post any creations with it in our flickr gallery!
XO, Elle