Enjoying The Journey

Image Courtesy The Soul Dad

I'd like to introduce you to Luma, a dear dear friend of mine.

Luma has an inspirational blog, 'The Soul Dad', which is a delightful collection of his writing - his poems, his daily journal and coursework from the book that he is writing. Luma, his beautiful wife, Inger, and their 2 gorgeous children have been such wonderful friends to me and my boys. He has helped me, and others close to me, transform our lives. Luma inspires me daily to 'enjoy the journey' and 'live in the now', being present in every moment. His blog is so insightful, calming and creative. It really is soul food. I would love you to visit Luma. I would love to share you, my blog friends, with him. HERE.
Say hi from me!

Pizza Friday: The Works

Pizza Friday has returned to A Taste of Home Cooking! I'm very excited about this because (1) I'd grown tired of spending so much money on takeout pizza and (2) because I love finding new pizza recipes to try.

To get back into the swing of things I kept it simple with an old favorite - The Works:


Unfortunately the pepperoni looked a little funny so I had to leave it off. This pizza usually involves pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onion, green pepper and olives. Delicious.

Question: What pizza toppings do you enjoy? Please leave me a comment so we can broaden our pizza horizons!

Kitchen Makeover

Happy Monday!

I have some before and after pictures to show of our mini kitchen makeover today! I can happily say I spent less than $20 to update our kitchen...but a lot of time painting. But it was so worth it. We are enjoying it very much!

Let's start at the very beginning with this poor before pic(except for the cute little boy). Our kitchen was UGLY with a capital U! The original 1960's cabinets complete with white plastic handles and knobs. You can kind of get the idea behind the cute little boy. :)

When we moved in, I had no blog at the time...so no fun before pics. Sorry.

After a couple years in our house, we finally decided to tackle the kitchen the best we could. We painted the cabinets black. We also added trim to all the doors and new knobs. Below, you can see what the cabinet doors used to look like. Pretty huh?

We also added new beadboard backsplash, new countertops, new sink. Then we removed some of the doors from the top cabinets to have some display space for collectibles. We painted the trim red and the walls a greenish tan color. The fan was replaced with a cute light fixture as well.

This is what our kitchen looked like a couple weeks ago.

Unfortunately the red was not the red I intended when we painted all the trim in our kitchen, dining and living rooms. It was more of rusty orange than a pretty deep red. In some light it looked really orange. But we did all that work, so I just lived with it.

There's that cute little boy that was in picture #1 all grown up and goofy. :)

So with a paint brush and some leftover paint from our hallway project, I started tackling the walls and trim in the kitchen. 4 coats it took for the lovely trim to cover all that red. Fun times. But it was well worth it!

Our kitchen is lighter and brighter!

On one wall I added board and batten to give it some interest. I used a 1x6 board for the top horizontal piece and 1x3's for the vertical pieces. I spaced them about 16 inches a part. The wood only cost me around $10.

I painted the beadboard the same color as the trim. That made a huge difference.

The fridge looks "busy" with abc fun. But I'm just keeping it real.

I painted the inside of the display shelves a greyish blue (leftover paint I had). I then added some dark walnut stain over it after it was dry to blend well with the already distressed cabinets.

The doorway is the landing to the steps leading to our basement.

Looking into our dining room.

I accessorized with items I already had or thrift finds that still needed a home. The candle and candlestick was made over by my mom.

The little shelf was a flea market find and I painted it cream. The other accessories were garage sale finds.

On my wish list is a new faucet.

The curtains are from our old house. I took them with us and finally have a spot for them. The plate above the sink was bought at TJ Maxx for less than $3 on sale. It's a pretty grey blue color.

Basket was 10 cents at a garage sale.

For the display above, I searched for all my white and cream dishes to make a more cohesive display.

Yellow plate was $2 at TJ Maxx.

My $3 mini pitcher found a new home.

I love vintage signs. I bought this reproduction Fig Newtons sign at a flea market. The little boy reminded me of my son at the time. Now I wish there was 2 little boys on it.

Another fun thrifty display. The picture frame I got at a garage sale for 50 cents and then I painted some flowers on a piece of muslin for a fun spring touch. The pitcher I got at a garage sale also for 25 cents. The box with lavender was made by my mom.

If you take a closer look at the landing in the doorway, you can see I added a special little touch to that area.

I found a fun stencil at Hobby Lobby for around $8 on sale and stenciled the walls just in that little area.

I used the same grey blue color I painted inside the display shelves. I also decided to paint the little section of ceiling as well.

A closer look.

The light fixture was replaced back in the fall. I got this at EcoStores Nebraska for FREE. I removed the outdated glass and repainted it oil rubbed bronze.

I put my recovered burlap bulletin board inside this space. I just added a matching blue ribbon. Now I need some pics to fill it up.

I will be honest, the stenciling was a little time consuming but I'm sure glad I did it. It's something unexpected.

One more look at the before and after.

Before

After

Before

After

Subtle changes that made a BIG difference.

Thanks so much for visiting today! I really appreciate it!!

I'm joining a few of these linky parties.

 Before & After Party at Thrifty Decor Chic

Baking Day! The Best Carrot Cake Recipe...

I hate washing up so I start off by weighing out 12 oz sugar and putting it a bowl with half a pint of sunflower oil. Then you add 3 large eggs - I have big and little eggs as I keep bantams so I used four (two big and two small) to make it up.

Then weigh out your 6 oz of plain flour. (I have just experimented and tried to make a gluten free version - I'll let you know how it turns out!)

Add a pinch of salt and three quarters of a teaspoon of both bicarbonate of soda and baking powder.

Beat the eggs into the oil and sugar mixture.

Sift in the dry ingredients.

Then add the carrots - you need 8 oz so I usually weigh whole carrots (less messy!) and allow a bit for peeling and then grate them straight into the mixture.

Pour into a 9"/10" cake tin (doesn't matter really!) and bake at 180 degrees C or 160 degrees if you have a fan oven.

It should take about 45 minutes but check after 40 and it may need longer, test with a skewer - if it comes out clean it's done!

Now for the frosting - yum!
Beat together 6 oz of cream cheese and 6 oz of butter with 8 oz of icing sugar and half a teaspoon of vanilla extract. This makes a lot of icing so I frequently cut the quantities down but keep the proportions the same.

Fork it on as you please! Serve on a cakestand for preference or in this case (as it was a travelling cake) a vintage plate.

Here's the one for the children's party a triumphant cake made by my sister-in-law Caroline and eaten by princesses and princes...

Happy baking, Nic x

UPDATE!
It works with a 50/50 mix of ground rice and ground almonds in place of the flour making it gluten free - yippee! It has been devoured during Sew&Crow last night and during a crafty catchup with Jane Southgate this morning...