Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Nail Art

I was inspired by this picture for my latest nail art design.  I'm rather new to nail art but this design was pretty easy, even with my shaky hands.  I didn't have a lovely sea foam green like in the picture so I used my favorite silver.  It's hard to tell but I also used a very dark navy blue. 










I love them!   I also used the teabag repair method on more than on of my nails.  Can you tell which ones??  I'm not telling :p  Fixing a nail with a teabag tutorial can be seen here if you anyone is interested.  It really works!

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Vegetarian Sloppy Joes

While looking for new vegetarian recipes, I came across this one.  I was very intrigued!  I haven't had a sloppy joe in years!  I wanted to try this idea because I remember as child, my grandma would make sloppy joes from time to time.  When she didn't feel like making a big family dinner.  She almost always had ground beef around so that was a quick easy meal.  I was soo excited about making vegetarian sloppy joes!  I went to the farmers market over the weekend and pick up some lovely yellow squash and a very large green zucchini.  It's October now so I'm trying to enjoy as much fresh vegetables as I can right now!  I think I'm going to go back soon and stock up on lots of squash to freeze.  I found a website that explains how to freeze squash to use in the winter!  I have to try it!  So, back to the joes.  I didn't have any celery and honestly, the husband isn't a celery fan unless he's eating some wings and needs a cool bite.  I did pick up a big green head of cabbage at the farmer's market so I substituted chopped cabbage for the celery.

First I sauteed chopped carrots, onions and green cabbage until soft.  I took them out of the pan and added the grated yellow summer squash.  After sauteing add to the rest of the vegetables.  I love the texture the grated squash gives to this recipe!

Next I added half a package of meatless ground beef.  I used Trader Joe's brand.  I really like this product! It has a nice meat-like texture and it works wonderfully in this recipe.  I'd definitely buy it and use it again!

Next I added the tofu.  I crumbled it up the night before and marinated it in ketchup, a little squirt of mustard, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder and water.  I also added a little bit of my homemade buttermilk ranch because I'm slightly addicted to it and can't help but put it in/on everything.  You can leave that out ;)  That's where the creamyness came from.

I forgot to take a picture when I added the vegetables back in.  I also added an extra little squirt of ketchup.  Add bun and a little sharp cheddar if you want.


The final product was soooooo good!  It has a great flavor and texture!  It's sloppy and delicious.  I love this recipe because it's so easy to add or replace ingredients.  Beans would make a nice vegetarian addition, or even eggs, boiled or scrambled.  I love it because it's so full of vegetables.  This recipe could also be used with ground beef or turkey.  It would be a great way to get children to eat vegetables.  Chop everything a little smaller and your kids probably wouldn't even notice!  I served this tasty joes with zucchini fries.  If you've never tired zucchini fries then you should!!!  I didn't have breadcrumbs so I had to improvise.  The only crackers I had in the house were goldfish so I crushed some.  I cut the zucchini into chunky sticks, dipped them into egg/buttermilk mixture then into crumbs.  I baked them at 400 until they were crunchy.  I think this is my new favorite way to eat zucchini!  My husband even loved them!  I'm definitely going back to the farmer's market this weekend to pick up a few of those huge zucchini!