Monthly Archives: May 2015

Food

Lemon-Garlic Shrimp With Israeli Couscous & Broccoli

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Last night I decided to make a recipe from my Weight Watcher Weekly handout and it was nothing short of delicious. It’ll definitely be added to the rotation for future meals! Therefore, I wanted to share it with you. I am always looking for more ways to get fish and shrimp onto our meal plans. We eat chicken A LOT! 😉

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Lemon-Garlic Shrimp with Couscous and Broccoli

{Weight Watchers Weekly ~ May 10-16, 2015}

4 cups low sodium chicken broth, divided

1 cup uncooked Israeli couscous {got it at Trader Joe’s}

4 cups broccoli florets {got it pre cut in a bag}

2 tsp EVOO, divided

1 pound large shrimp, peeled & deveined

1 large shallot, minced

2 tbsp minced garlic

1/8 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

1/4 cup dry white wine {I used Chardonnay}

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

1 tsp grated lemon zest

3 tbsp minced fresh basil {I used thyme}

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, bring 2 cups broth to a boil over high heat. Add couscous and broccoli to pan; cover, reduce heat to low, and cook until broccoli is tender and couscous is cooked, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

Meanwhile, in a large nonstick sauce pan, heat 1 tsp oil over medium-high heat. Add shrimp and cook, flipping once, until lightly seared and cooked through, about 2-3 minutes per side; remove to a plate.

Add remaining teaspoon oil , shallot, garlic, and hot pepper fakes to pan; cook, stirring a few times, 1 minute. Add wine; stir and scrape up browned bits from the bottom and sides of pan. Add remaining 2 cups broth and increase heat to high; cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced to a thick sauce, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add shrimp to pan; stir in lemon juice, lemon zest and basil.

To serve, spoon shrimp over couscous-broccoli mixture. Yields about 3 1/2 oz shrimp and 1 cup couscous-broccoli mixture per serving. {4 servings, 9 pointsplus/serving}

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I hope you enjoy.

Happy Monday!

Family, Fiestas & Fetes, Friends, Fun

Rolling Into Double Digits ~ A Skating Party

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Let me start off by saying, “Second post in as many days.”  It’s a miracle! We have a rainy afternoon and the kids got out early….that translates to perfect blogging conditions.

Last weekend we celebrated Elliott’s 10th birthday. I wanted to combine it with Mother’s Day weekend since my mom would already be in town {her actual birthday is May 29th}. We talked about what kind of party she’d like and since this was a milestone birthday we decided to go big! I suggested going to the roller rink since that’s what I did as a preteen/teen back in the 80s. At first she turned her nose up at the idea, but then seemed to warm up to it. I promised her that it would be FUN! Mind you, she had never roller skated before. She has ice skated several times and was pretty good at that, so I figured she’d catch on to roller skating quickly. I had intended to take her skating before the party, but that never happened. Oops!

I ordered her invites through Merriment Press on Etsy to make things simple…

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These were formatted as 5X7s so they cost a little more to print {I did Target Photo, but had them sent to my home which was a lot less expensive than printing them to the store. If time permits, I suggest doing this!} and the envelopes were harder so source. I went the most economical route by grabbing some small manila envelopes at Dollar Tree and trying to pretty them up….

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She wanted to do a little photo booth so I found these Kate Spade photo props at Home Goods…

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The party was held at Northridge Skateland. We ended up doing a shared party which means that the rink was closed to the public, but there would be 2 other parties going on at the same time as ours. Turns out there was just one other party so that was great and made it less crowded.

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We were allowed 50 skaters for our party and were given wristbands to hand out. Once the guests had their wristband, they were free to get their skate rentals and hit the floor {literally AND figuratively!!}

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The party was from 5-7pm so I wanted to serve “dinner”. I was pleased to find out that you were able to bring in your own food. The only outside food not allowed was pizza. I went ahead and made things simple and ordered pizzas there and brought some snacks and drinks on my own. Elliott wanted to have her favorite, Chex Mix, and I made a couple trays of 7-layer dip for the adults to enjoy. I brought water bottles and 2-liter bottles of soda. They supplied ice which was great.

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The birthday girl requested a Red Velvet Nothing Bundt cake…

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She was afraid that everyone wouldn’t like red velvet so she asked for some mini 2-bite cupcakes, as well…

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After we sang, she went into the birthday blaster and was able to grab little papers with numbers on them to trade for tickets and redeem for prizes.

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Party favors were funky knee high socks that I found at Dollar Tree and 99¢ Only. My mom also made some cute patchwork boxes and I filled them with candy and a little note of thanks…

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{I finished them off with pink and white baker’s twine.  😉 }

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{selfie with the birthday girl}

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I was extremely impressed with how the party flowed. I wish we could have had an extra 30 minutes because the crowd was just becoming more graceful on their skates and then all of a sudden it was time to go. LOL But everyone seemed to have a great time and couldn’t wait to go back. Our personal hostess, Christine, was awesome too. She helped set everything up, served the pizza, refilled the tortilla chips, cut the cake, bagged up the gifts and loaded the car with us.

Holden has asked to have HIS 10th birthday party there.

Success.

Many thanks to my friend Courtney and staff for an amazing evening celebrating our sweet Elliott!!

XO

Fabric {My "Crafty" Side}, Faith, Family, Fiestas & Fetes, Friends

Anchored In Christ ~ A First Communion Celebration

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Two weekends ago Holden made his first holy communion. Two years of CCD brought him to this point and he was looking forward to this sacrament….tired of “just” getting a blessing at communion and ready to receive the body & blood of Christ.

We worked on his banner together over Spring Break…he did the layout and I did the hot gluing.

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I spent months looking for the right dress pants, shoes and tie. One day while killing time I popped into Janie & Jack and found some brown trousers on the clearance rack for under $20. And while we were enjoying a holiday stroll through The Grove back in December, again, I ran into J & J and found some darling brown wing tip boots for half price. Once we settled on the anchor icon, I knew I needed to locate a tie with said symbol and found one in navy blue from Hobo Ties on Etsy.

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No photos were allowed during the ceremony, but here he is with Father Albert after mass…

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{Jay just happened to already have a dress shirt with anchors on it! I found Elliott’s sailor inspired dress at nautica.com for under $20. My skirt is Lauren Conrad from Kohl’s, top from Old Navy, pearl & gold statement necklace is from Target and fedora from Kmart!}

Holden had team pictures and a baseball game later that afternoon so we had a quick lunch at In N Out and shifted gears. For his special dinner, later that evening, he chose Lucille’s for ribs.

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We hosted a brunch the following morning to celebrate our sweet communicant.

I found some simple little anchor notecards at Target for the invitations and that quickly became the theme of his celebration brunch ~ a nautical nod to this very big faith milestone.

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I had a couple pieces of wood laying around in the garage and decided to make a sign with the Hebrews verse that prompted me to go with the anchor icon for this special occasion…

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I put a light coat of white on it to give it a beachy, white-washed look, hand wrote the design in pencil and then pained over it with metallic gold and navy blue paints.

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I don’t have a good picture of them, but the party favors were a faux succulent pictured on the mantel to the right of the sign and a little bag of peppermint Lifesavers. The succulents were a huge hit. Everyone couldn’t believe they were artificial and was glad they required absolutely NO water!

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I saw the Lifesaver idea on Pinterest for a nautical baby shower and had the little paper treat bags, but wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. The mints were perfect and I added a little label with the verse Jeremiah 31:24 ~ “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint”.

We have a huge vintage Cinzano poster in our dining area that I covered with wrapping paper to give this space a more cohesive and festive look…

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I also hung 2 of these navy paper lanterns over our huge dining table.

The paper plates, napkins, straws & cups are all from either Target or Home Goods. I picked these up months ago knowing I’d most likely go with navy blue & some shade of green.

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Fortunately being close to summer, it was easy to find anchor goodies!

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{large anchor from Marshalls and “Let’s Set Sail” sign from Home Goods}

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For the brunch, I tried to keep things simple. We had a couple baked egg casseroles {one with sausage, cheese & sourdough bread and one with artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, feta cheese and hash browns as the base} They were both a hit, however, I think most of the guests enjoyed the Mediterranean one a little more.

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I also made Monkey Bread and should have made two as this stuff is ALWAYS popular and the first to go…

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Fruit salad and mimosas are always a must for brunch…

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Lolo & Lola ordered a 10″ marble Nothing Bundt Cake and there wasn’t a crumb left!

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Holden was blessed with so many wonderful keepsake gifts of his faith, gift cards and a telescope from Gramma Kathy to look into the heavens!

It was another wonderful milestone on his faith journey and I am sad that it’s over. The next big one is confirmation in high school!

In the meantime, we’ll continue religious education and faith formation.

Glory to God in the highest.