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25 June, 2010

Rearranging

Who knew such a small space could be arranged so many different ways?

My original kitchen colour was orange...very powerful. We have enough energy as it is, so when we come home we like to mellow out. So here is the kitchen at round 2 after a little different paint. This is looking out through the other 2 rooms of our apt from inside our kitchen right after we moved in. I had only a vague idea of what we were going to do with our stuff in there - the plan was, "just get it in there." And that's about what it looked like!

Version 1

After we started to get a sense of how much space we had we rearranged the chaos and made a cozier living room with a mock fireplace. The living room in the middle made sense to us because we were thinking that while entertaining we could use the kitchen and living room and close the door to out bedroom and we would have two functional spaces. It worked ... for a little while.

Version 2

Version 3
This is round 3 of the living room. After craving more sunlight during our waking hours, less noise during our sleeping hours (we had spent many nights on the pull out couch in the living room where the sounds were dampened) we decided to try switching our living space for our sleeping space. Kind of screws up our plans for a cohesive entertaining area...but hey, this whole living situation is a little funky!

Living room: Round 1
Round 2
Round 3: as our bedroom
The original bedroom setup:
After a few minor changes. I missed taking a photo of the new linens. the bench under the window the bed in the right corner and the new desk area with a mirror hanging over it. That would have been the real "round 2."Round 3: as the living room where we can enjoy the sunshine if we are home. It is much brighter than this in person. I wonder why my camera made it look this way?

14 June, 2010

Hungry Hungry Hippos


My latest stretch of the comfort zone...
Today is the first day I am making food for Daniel's co-workers. Kind of like catering...but not, I guess. I am cooking vegetarian foods for another guy and eventually another girl. The first two things I had to do were calculate how much I would charge them weekly, and how much extra food I would buy. I guess its challenging because Daniel's appetite is hard enough for me to figure out sometimes. Some days, I make more than enough and others that same amount is nowhere near enough. It's hard for me to get a grip on!

I am very excited to be doing this though. :) This weeks menu seemed easy to come up with though I can forsee that becoming a little more challenging as I try to keep things interesting while going through my recipes one-by-one. I am happy to be promoting vegetarianism. Both of these co-workers have been vegetarian in their lives so they are very comfortable with not eating animals.

Today I made Messy Mikes with whole wheat buns - one of Daniel's favorites. They are like sloppy joes but with tempeh instead of meat.

Messy Mikes

1 pkg Tempeh per person, crumbled (for the guys. otherwise 1/2 works for me)
2 Whole Wheat Buns/pkg tempeh

Sauce:
3/4 c natural catchup per pkg
1 T mustard
1T tamari
2 T brown sugar
1 t vinegar
1-2 T liquid smoke
fresh ground pepper
garlic
red pepper seasoning

I mix all the ingredients in the sauce together to let it marinate and then taste test. After about 10 minutes I pour it over the crumbled tempeh and warm in a saucepan. Then, spoon out onto a toasted bun! yum :)