November | 2010 | myMCMlife.com

Phone Photo Friday

11/12/2010

New doormat for the fall.

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: Phone Photo Friday | Tagged: door mat, doormat, fall | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

11/05/2010

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Art: Phone Photo Friday | Tagged: cell phone photography, fall, garden, patio, Phone Photo Friday | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Basil Cubes: Saving Fresh Basil

11/04/2010

I love adding fresh sweet basil to my Italian food but sadly, basil is one of the few herbs that doesn’t survive through the winter in our garden. It often drops enough seeds that it will come back in the spring. If not, we buy a plant and I can’t wait until it’s mature enough to pluck off some leaves to chop up and sprinkle on my pasta. Two years ago a fellow basil lover shared a little secret with me: basil can be frozen with extra virgin olive oil to make basil cubes! I’ve never tried drying basil, but freezing it is great way to preserve fresh basil and save it for cooking through the winter.

Before the first frost warning, I start by cutting back most of the basil plant. I left one branch with flowers and seeds on the plant.

Then I chop it up pretty fine. I used the food processor / blender for the second batch and it worked a lot better. If the leaf pieces are too big they wont stick together enough to freeze with the e.v.o.o.

Mix the chopped basil with extra virgin olive oil. (Again, chopped finer than this is better.)

Spoon the mixture into an ice cube tray, packing it pretty tightly.

After the cubes are frozen—I waited until the next day—they’re ready to be popped out of the ice cube tray. I used a knife to loosen the edges of the basil cubes from the tray and flipped them on to a piece of wax paper. The olive oil melts pretty quickly so work fast.

I store my basil cubes in a couple of layers of zip lock bags and stick them back in the freezer.

To use the basil cubes, I toss them in with pasta sauce as it’s cooking or heating. It would probably work to put one in with hot, cooked pasta too. It doesn’t take much for the e.v.o.o. to melt. Not as good as freshly picked basil but it’ll get me through the winter!

1 Comment | Art, Art: Cooking, Art: gardening | Tagged: basil cubes, freezing, herb garden, herbs, preserving, saving, sweet basil | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Kitchen Coat Area

11/03/2010

Since we lost the hall coat closet to my new home office, I decided to do a mini makeover of our angled kitchen wall. I once had big plans to turn this into a wall of pegboard on the bottom and cork tiles on the top. Apparently a lot of people liked that idea because it’s one of my most popular post. Maybe we’ll still do that someday but for now, I repurposed a small coat rack from IKEA, painted it the same teal as my home office nook and hung it below my Are You Happy? flow chart. Quick easy solution.

1 Comment | Art, Art: interior design, Art: modern design | Tagged: coat area, coat hooks | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Home Office Part 4: Decorating & Customizing

11/02/2010

Since my last update on the coat-closet-turned-home-office I have (all by myself!):

• painted 3 walls teal … with a brush, using watery old paint. It took 3 coats.

• hung my second monitor on the wall. Jason? Please help me re-hang it straight and centered.

• mounted under cabinet lights below the shelf to shine on my desk. Currently the right one is shining on my monitor because it’s not centered. Jason…?!

• hung my silver @, my bulletin board and clip board for quick inspiration and fun designs

• relocated my printer to the bookshelf in the living room where it’s connect to our airport extreme so we can access it wirelessly. The brown fabric box below the printer holds all the printer paper and accessories. Apparently I have a mess of cords that I need to do something about.

2 Comments | Art, Art: Closet Office, Art: graphic design, Art: interior design, Art: modern design, Family, Family: Me | Tagged: coat closet, hall closet, home office | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Smoky Mountain Getaway

11/01/2010

Jason was in playing in Pigeon Forge, TN for several days last week and the week before. Since it’s not too far from Nashville his boss was gracious enough to allow all of the wives and families to come out and join the guys for the weekend. I got there Friday night and had a nice dinner date with my husband. Saturday and Sunday we spent the day at Dollywood where the guys played three back to back shows to a packed theater. Saturday I hung out backstage with the band wives and kids. That was neat but not as cool as sitting in the front row for all three shows on Sunday. (The day I left my camera back at the hotel.) The concerts were so fun. And it was wonderful to watch Jason get to do what he loves to do. I’m so proud of him! Plus, it was super cool to sit so close to the stage where I could keep catching his eye and making him smile.

Sunday night our party of 20 had a fabulous dinner at the Peddler. I ate until it hurt. It was good! Even though Jason and I don’t have any kiddos the adults were still outnumbered 9 to 11! On Monday Jason had the day off so we drove up into the Smoky Mountains. Wow! If you ever want to visit the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, I highly recommend October! The trees were AHHHHHmazing! Words don’t do it any justice so on with the pictures…