12 for 2012: New Year’s Resolutions

photo weheartit.com

At the start of each new year, I like to make resolutions…some easy, some impossible and of course, the cliché ones. Last year I was able to work on one resolution that I know will definitely carry over to 2012 :)

Here’s a list of a few of my resolutions that I want to accomplish or work on throughout the year:

1. Reduce plastic consumption.
2. Take one day out of the month to make my own compound butters.
   • Jan. ✔
3. Learn to make fresh pasta noodles.
   • potato gnocchi ✔
4. Incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet.
5. Eat less meat (that means bacon too…) :(
6. Last year my boyfriend turned me into a coffee drinker. A little sips here and there from his cup turned into a full cup for me…coffee kills my tummy and afterwards you can always find me curled into a ball plopped on a couch. That’s my boyfriend, the coffee pusher :). Bye bye Starbucks and Coffee Bean, no more coffee drinks for me this year!
   • Jan. ✔
7. Drink lots of water!
8. Start an exercise routine.
9. Bedazzle a shirt.
10. Save money and spend wisely. Sorry Nordstrom, no more impulsive shoe/purses/accessories splurges!
11. Finish one pesky thing that’s getting in my way so that I can have 3 milestones to celebrate come summer!
12. Learn one new word a day and try to use it in a sentence.

What are some of your resolutions for 2012?

xo

baked salmon à la mon ami

basic baked salmon

My boyfriend, the chef, hehe. Another she eats, he cooks moment :)

This is such a lovely quick and easy idea for a lazy date night meal!

Fish bones scare the bejesus out of me because I always end up choking lol. Therefore, salmon is my favorite fish to eat because it usually comes filleted and boneless (which is key :).

Baked salmon is so delicious and super easy to prepare!! All you have to do is rub both sides of the fish with a little olive oil, season the top (skinless) side with s+p, any of your favorite herbs (he used dried rosemary and a little bit of dried oregano) and slather some super yummy roasted garlic/basil herb butter. How easy!

Bake in a 400°F oven for about 10-15 minutes depending on the thickness of your salmon filet.

Very easy peasy and extremley super yummy! I know officially heart lazy date nights if it means that he’s going to be making more salmon dishes like this for me :)

How do you like to prepare your baked salmon?

xoxo, kat

Baked Salmon à la Mon Ami (Basic Baked Salmon)

• salmon
• roasted garlic herb compound butter (or butter)
• olive oil
• dried herbs (oregano, rosemary)
• salt/pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Rinse the filet of salmon with cold water and pat the salmon dry.
3. Rub both sides of the salmon with olive oil.
4. Season with salt, pepper and any dried herbs according to your taste preferences.
5. Coat the top of the salmon with a compound butter.
6. Bake for 10-15 minutes depending on the thickness of the salmon.
7. Serve immediately.

DIY Quick Tip: How to Hull Strawberries

You know, I never really bothered to hull strawberries before I found this trick on Pinterest. If you haven’t heard of this before, then prepare to be oooh’ed and ahhh’ed :)

Things you will need:

• a bowl of fresh strawberries
• an empty bowl to put freshly hulled strawberries
• one straw

First, you’ll want to rinse your strawberries with cold water and pat dry.

With one end of the straw, insert it from the bottom tip of the strawberry and slowly wiggle (or apply slight pressure) up towards the top making sure to steer the straw in the middle of the strawberry.

Discard the tip and pull out the strawberry.

And repeat…

until you have a nice big bowl of hulled strawberries!

How easy and quick was that!

One of my favorite ways to eat fresh strawberries is to sprinkle sugar on top :)

Hope you enjoyed that very simple DIY trick on hulling strawberries!

xoxo, kat

bacon. nap. moonlighting. bar wench. nap. cake. nap.

Le sigh, that headline pretty much sums up my weekend haha. Since it was President’s Day weekend, it was a perfect excuse to relax and unwind! Below is a photo diary of my weekend…

My morning started off with a plate of bacon and rice drink (one of the perks of having a boyfriend that has bacon in his fridge :)

Then we headed over early to LA to help set up a party that his family was throwing. I took a stab at chipping a big block of ice, and it didn’t go as effortlessly as I thought it would lol. Now I have an ice chipping wound to prove it haha. Can you spot it?  (ps. it’s that red dot on my hand lol :)

Lots of ice was needed to keep all these drinks nice and chilled! You can hardly see it under all that ice, but my favorite drink is the fruit punch Capri Sun :)

You see those huge chunks of ice??! That’s alllllll me! Hahah, okay I lied…more like my boyfriend :) After all that hard work of ice chipping and mending my battle wound, I needed a nap haha.

Hello cakes! My face lit up when I saw these beautiful cakes!! My boyfriend’s mom made a topsy turvy cake (pre-assembled shown) and a giant cupcake cake…CUPCAKE CAKE! OMG, my jaw dropped when I saw her walking in with the giant cupcake cake!!!  She is an amazing cake maker, she seriously needs to be on Cake Boss!

My favorite thing about these parties that his family throws is the food! The food was sooo good! I didn’t grow up eating this type of food so any chance I get to eat this food, you can count on me being there! I wish I could tell you what I ate but I honestly don’t have a clue other than it’s good. For someone that doesn’t really enjoy eating beans, the pork beans were super yummy! But my ultimate favorite is the chorizo!!

After eating, I headed over to the bar area to find that Mister Bartender named a drink after me. He obviously likes me :)

Can you guess which one is my drink? Hehe.

Since there was a drink named after me, I obviously had to moonlight as a part-time bar wench (the other half of the time I was napping :). So what exactly is a Katifornia drink? It’s my signature drink…all vodka and ice/I’ll-spike-anything-for-you kinda drink. At the end of the night, there were quite a handful of very happy party guests!

This is one of my favorite discoveries from the party! One of his family members made this super delicious dip/spread. I wish I could give you a name but all I know is that it’s made with smoked marlin and cream cheese. Whoever it was that made it promised me that if he found an English version of this recipe, he would give it me. Please find one, I must have!!! If anyone knows of a similar recipe, please let me know!

Anyways, so good with chips! Honestly, I wanted to steal a bowl, put it in my purse, take it home with me, spread it all over bread and crackers, and just spoon it into my mouth until I fell asleep because it was that good! Mmmmm I can still remember how good it tastes!

Oh, and cake! The cake was amazing, as usual! So that’s my weekend! Thank you boyfriend/boyfriend’s family for a super fun time!!

How did you celebrate President’s Day weekend? :)

xoxo, kat

ps. mister bartender was my boyfriend. we played bartender and part-time bar wench for funsies :)

new read

My first Cooking with Trader Joe’s cookbook! I am so excited!!

Does anyone own any Cooking with Trader Joe’s cookbooks? What are your review for these cookbooks?

So far, I’m loving them! I can’t wait to start cooking something from this book, yay! With my new read and a Real Housewives of Atlanta marathon on Bravo right now, I’m pretty happy :)

Hope you’re all having a wonderful day!

xoxo

 

 

sleep.

shhh i'm still sleeping... || photo vi.sualize.us

Good morning!! Hope you all had a fabulous week filled with lots of fun, laughter, happiness, giggles, memories that will last a lifetime and candy!

How was your Valentine’s Day?! We opted to celebrate out monthiversary and Valentine’s Day a few days late since we both had a super busy week! I spent my Valentine’s Day with the other man in my life, he bought me dinner and marzipan chocolates from Godiva, my dad :)

Here are some of my favorite moments from the week…

Favorite meal (recipe coming soon!):

baked salmon à la mon ami :)

Favorite bow:

when in doubt, put a bow on it :) meet my new kate spade bow ring! and I didn't even have to hint ;)

Favorite date night (DIY coming soon!):

making homemade noodles with our new pasta maker, sooo yum! :)

Favorite advert:

photo weheartit.com

Favorite wake-me-up:

Since this has been such a busy week filled my many 3am late nights, and another busy week ahead of me, I’m going to be sleeping in today! And this weekend, will be spent in LA with my boyfriend and his family (party time!!) so I’m going to need that rest lol.

How was your week? And what are your plans for the weekend? I hear it’s going to be chilly and sunny in LA this weekend, so I cannot wait to enjoy the season!

Have a beautiful weekend!

xoxo, kat

Hot + Sweet Sriracha Wings

hot + sweet sriracha wings & baked parmesan garlic wings

For the past few weeks, our date nights have been spent eating wings. Yes, wings of all types…baked parmesan garlic, maple garlic ginger, bbq, and my new current fave, hot + sweet srirarcha wings!

I just love the combination of hot and sweet! If you have a love affair with Sriracha sauce than these wings were made for you!

Making the marinade for the wings requires very little ingredients…just melted butter, soy sauce, maple syrup (can substitute with honey) and of course, Sriracha sauce! Make sure you taste along the way! Adjust the sauce to your tastes and tolerance for spice. If the sauce is too spicy, add in a few teaspoons of brown sugar and more maple syrup.

Trust me on this, it’s pretty good already. But if you want you can always leave the wings in the marinade for an hour or until you’re ready to bake them.

It wouldn’t be wing night without my favorite baked parmesan garlic chicken wings! To make these wings, season the wings with s+p and coat them in garlic, oregano, rosemary, cumin.

he put a bow on it…

Happy Valentine’s month!

love, kat

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Valentine’s

It doesn’t take much to make me super happy…just me, my boyfriend and a hot dog drenched in two types of mustard :)

Wishing you all a beautiful day filled with love and happiness…

xoxo

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Frosted Sugar Cookie Bars

frosted sugar cookie bars

I’ve been seeing these frosted sugar cookie bars on Pinterest and the interwebs for awhile now. I’ve had this recipe saved in my must-try list since summer. That’s a long time but I’m very happy I finally got to make it! I don’t have a clue as to where these cookies originate from but they are super delicious and extremely easy to make!

These are definitely not your ordinary sugar cookie! Sure they taste like a sugar cookie, but they have the dense texture of cake. If you love soft cookies, then these would be right up your alley!

Ingredients needed to make your own batch of frosted sugar cookie bars: unsalted butter, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, all-purpose flour, salt, baking soda, frosting and sprinkles.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Once that’s nice and fluffy, add one egg at a time, making sure everything is incorporated after each addition. Add in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, sift all the dry ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, one cup at a time, until everything is well combined.

Baker’s tip: Once all the dry ingredients have been added, I find that it’s much easier to fully incorporate everything with my hands. It may be a bit messy, but it’s fun! And you’ll end up with a pretty nice ball of dough :)

Lightly grease a medium (or large) rectangular cake pan. The cake pan I’m using is a Williams-Sonoma 9″ x 13″ cake pan and it’s held up very nicely! As you can see, I originally was going to bake this on one of my larger Nordic Ware baking sheets (a monthiversary gift from my boyfriend :) but that didn’t turn out too well (ditch the foil) haha.

baking sheet fail :(

Jessica Pearce Rotondi: Valentine’s Day: How Much Will You Spend On February 14?

Jessica Pearce Rotondi: Valentine’s Day: How Much Will You Spend On February 14?.

Check out this great article from the Huffington Post on the costs of Valentine’s Day!

I’m actually not a big Valentine’s Day person at all, BUT I am a total sucker for themed “holidays”…and Valentine’s Day is probably one of the biggest themed holidays out there. Reds/pinks/and hearts are my faves…of course I’d fall into their advertising traps. every. time. And those companies that put out those cute little candies and cards are so smart because they always get someone like me (I’m a cornball at heart :) who doesn’t believe in the whole Valentine’s Day concept. I think you should celebrate the people that you love all year round, and I think it’s a bit silly…

But, here I am, still embracing this holiday for all of it’s cheesy cornballness. In fact, I think I did pretty well this year! I took the DIY route! I still cannot wait to show you guys what I made (I’m pretty proud of it :). You’ll be surprised at just how much it cost me to DIY my present!

How much will you be spending come this Tuesday?

x0