Free As a Bird

Meatless Monday's - Greek Quinoa Salad

My family loves Quinoa and we eat it quite often as a replacement for brown rice or add it to recipes to get protein with our vegetarian meals. The link has lots of good nutritial information on Quinoa. Here is one of our favorites that is pretty regular on our meal rotation.

Greek Quinoa Salad

It it really simple to make and a dinner I can easily throw together on a busy family night. Here's what you do:

• 1 box of Quinoa (we get it at Trader Joe's - any color is fine, but my kids only eat the grain colored one, I think the black and red was one step too far)
• 1 box of CousCous (Trader Joe's)
• 1 diced cucumber
• black olives or kalamata olives
• 1/4 of a red onion - diced
• cherry tomatoes cut in half
• a tub of crumbled goat cheese or feta (vegan you can omit the cheese)
• Dressing

Make the Quinoa and CousCous according the package directions and let cool. After it is cooked, I mix them together in a bowl to cool and drizzle with a little olive oil so it doesn't turn into a big clump. While cooling, chop up all your veggies and then add to the Quinoa and CousCous. Add dressing (see below) and mix together. If you have time, stick it in the fridge and let it all marinate together for an hour or two. If you don't have time, put your cheese on it and serve it up! I always add the cheese right before I serve. 

This is great to serve with cut up fruit and flat bread!

Same recipe, just added some left-over chicken from a roasted chicken, I have also added grilled tofu and fake chicken, but usually we eat it just as I posted above, no chicken or tofu.

Dressing:

I usually make my own. It's easier than you think if haven't done it before. 

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Vinegar (white wine, coconut, or red wine all work great for this)
• salt and pepper
• fresh and dried herbs
• garlic

The classic ratio for dressing is 3:1, oil:vinegar. I have a little canning jar and pour my oil and vinegar into the jar, add a pinch of salt, a little pepper and some herbs, pick your favorite (oregano, basil, thyme, etc) and a little crushed garlic or garlic powder. Shake it up really good and pour it over the salad.

Thanksgiving Planning

This year I am hosting Thanksgiving for my family and a few friends so, I am already planning the most important part, table decorations! It's our first Thanksgiving far away from family and friends and I want it to be a special day for all of us.

Some ideas (click pictures for links)

burlap table runner - I know! burlap is overdone but I love the dots

eek! no source, can't find one, the link is broken. Anyway... thinking this with cranberries in the bottom and no raffia. OK, be honest is this 2010 - burlap and mason jars? May need to keep lookings for inspiration!!

 and some fabric pumpkins by *cough* ME!

 

Pin'd It, Did It - Personalized Coasters

We love Pinterest! Although sometimes when I get idea I think is totally original, I go to Pinterest and see it's been done 100 times over. That always kind of bums me out. Like just about every creative type out there I have tons of pins of crafts and projects.

I saw this these Personalized Coasters on Pinterest done a couple different ways and thought they would be a fun and easy craft. I did them two ways, one with acrylic craft paint like here on Martha Stewart and with paint pens from Popular Pix. You can go to either website for full instructions.

Here's mine:

I got the coasters from Michael's a pack of 4 for $1.99 

Martha's were really easy to do and and the results were crisp and sharp - I would expect nothing less from Martha. I found that painting was kind of difficult to get the paint to spread on the cork surface and that sponging the paint on was much easier. These would be a great craft for kids to do to for a gift for grandparents! These also took about 10 minutes to make 5 coasters. P.S. I love on Martha's instructions it says, "give with a bottle of booze." 

Popular Pix took a lot longer but also very easy. I also think it depends on what design you want to draw on your coasters. I did not love the way the silver pen looked on the coasters and I liked the white a LOT more. I'm curious how other paint pen colors would turn out. 

The coasters are super thin and my two year old got his hands on one and tore it up in about 3 seconds. To stop this from happening, I traced the coaster on felt and hot glued it on the bottom. I liked it and made it feel more finished.

These would make a great little hostest gift or gift with a bottle of wine or wedding gift with a set of glasses... you get the idea.

 

Currently...

Hi All,

We will be trying to give you monthly unpdates on what's currently happening in and about our lives. Here's our first shot...

 

STACIA

Listening/Watching: Ink Master

Eating/Drinking: Cadbury Scream (cream) Egg

Feeling: Excited for my friend coming to visit for the weekend!

Wanting: A new place to live/rent -- more space needed.

Needing: More time with God.

Thinking: "...That egg was bomb!"

Enjoying: Watching t.v. and blogging. :)

JESSICA

1. listening to Luke and Liam play together. I love hearing boys being boys and Luke can really make Liam laugh hard.

2. eating/drinking green smoothies. I am obssesed! This is my go to mix: big handful of spinach, cup of frozen strawberries, a little frozen mango, some frozen blueberries, a banana, water, & Trader Joe's Green Juice to blend. This will make a couple smoothies. If you are nervous about adding spinach, I promise, you won't even taste it!

3. feeling a little amprehensive. I'm at one of those, don't know how I'm going to do it all moments. I can't really think about my list of things to do, just put one foot infront of the other times of my life.

4. wanting beautiful Frye Boots.Specifically, Frye Veronica Back Zip boots. Only $368 so, these will be on my want list for a REALLY long time.

5. needing to set-up and finish unpacking my bedroom. We've been here two months and my bedroom is kind of drepressing not decorated and just piles of stuff.

6. thinking about everything I'm missing back in Bakersfield. It's not the town, but the people. Our best friends/cousins celebrated a big birthday Saturday and it was the first big thing we weren't there for.

7. enjoying the fall weather. Cooler tempatures, changing leaves, chilly mornings, love all of it!

Out and About - Edwin Warner Park

I'm excited to share all the new places we discover in the Nashville area (or Middle Tennessee as it is called out here). Please let us know if you have any suggestions for us!

Saturday we went and explored a very small portion of Edwin Warner Park and took about 1.5 mile walk/hike. We fell in love! Our family will be frequent visitors and we have already gotten out the map and have planned our next trail walk. Best part is it's free, so for a Saturday afternoon of running around and playing for the whole family, you can't beat that! 

At first the park looked like a "normal" park, lots of grass, wide walkways, busy road, but we turned the corner and it was like we stepped into the national forest. And it's only 10 minutes from our house!

The fall colors were just starting to peak through and we can't wait to go back when Autumn is is full bloom. It's going to be AMAZING! In the top left hand corner picture there was a deer on the trail. We also saw a bright green tree snake. Paul wanted to play Jeff Corwin and tried to catch it but it was way to fast for him.

I think the kids and Paul had the most fun looking for and catching bugs.

Paul caught a grasshopper and it poo'd on Paul. I didn't know they did that! Yet another reason why mom does not catch bugs.

It was such a great place to spend the day and it was so nice to be out of townhouse for a little while. The kids miss having a yard to run around in and dig holes. This filled-up their kid tank for a couple days. It was also great for Paul and I to spend time together, I love anyplace I can walk around with Paul and hold hands.

-Jess

 

Fabric Pumpkins

I wanted to add a touch of fall to our home this year. For the first time we are living in a place that actually has four seasons and it has inspired me. It always seamed weird decorating for Fall when it was 95 degrees outside.

Here's how I made them:

First have your almost 2 year old roll all over the fabric you just cut, because you got out your camera. Good thing this doesn't need to be all ironed and perfect to work!

Cut your fabric 2 times as long as wide. Depending how big you want your pumpkin. I did mine 24" x 12". It makes a nice medium size pumpkin. 

Fold you fabric right side together and sew up the longer side (machine or by hand). Then without a back stitch, sew up 1 of the short sides. Then gather the short side by pulling one string and knot it off once it is nice and gathered. turn it right side out and fill with batting.

Hand stitch the top closed, I just used a running stitch and pull to gather. You'll have 2 kind of points, bring those together and sew together and tie-off. You'll have a weird, misshapen ball.

Now you are going to make this lumpy ball into a pumpkin. Using an upholstery needle (nice and long to go all the way through your pumpkin) thread a long piece of yarn. Go through the top straight through the bottom and then loop your yarn around the pumpkin and go back through the top, pulling tight. Continue all around your pumpkin till you have as many segments that look right.

Make all your cute pumpkin accessories! For the stem, make a mini-pumpkin. I cut a little rectangle of brown fabric and folded it wrong sides together and just hand stitched a running stitch along the side and bottom, flipped and stuffed and hot glue gunned it closed. Cut out a leaf, glued it on top. For the little squiggle, I cut a length of florist wire and put a dot of hot glue on one end and wrapped it with brown yarn - glued the other end and twisted it around a pencil to get the curl. Hot glue all your accessories to the top of your pumpkin and you are finished! Now go make a bunch and start your fall decoration collection (or add to it!)

 

Wine Time

Stacia and I went to a winery here in Nashville, Arrington Vineyards, with a group of fun ladies from Stacia's work.

Pretty much everywhere we go right now we are meeting new people and trying new things. Part of the fun of moving 2000 miles across the country. It can also be part of the hard part of moving 2000 miles across the country. More than just about anything, I am so thankful that we (my family) has Stacia with us to experience it all!

Arrington Vineyards was beautiful! It was unlike any vineyard I have ever been to before. Rolling hills, tons of trees and families everywhere. Picnic tables and tree swings, families hanging out and eating. Seriously, buckets of KFC to go with their wine. We are in the South! ha! Relaxed is one word I would use to describe life here.

Can't you just see yourself with a glass a wine and someone special on that swing?

Great place to take a walk and enjoy an afternoon outside together.

-Jess

 

 

Start of Something New

Admit it, when you read "Start of Something New" you started singing High School Musical. This is the start of something new, feels so right to be here with you... No? Just me? P.S. Have you seen Zac Efron lately? WOW! The years have been good to him!

Celebrate! Here we go, the start of something new! Time to stop talking about it and start doing. Here are a few things that will be coming your way:

• Pictures on the blog
• Facebook page
• Regular blog posts

and drum roll please....

• an Etsy shop

Eek!! We are so excited to be embarking on this great adventure and can't to see where it takes us.  We are going to see many great things happen through Free as a Bird, more than just selling our crafts and art, and we cannot wait to share those stories and adventures.

So, welcome to the party! We're glad you are with us!