Monthly Archives: February 2013

Top Chef: Seattle! (Spoiler: We were there!)

Posted in 2013 Pinterest Lifestyle, Food by

A few months ago, Top Chef was in Seattle, filming season 10. As luck would have it, I was invited to attend Restaurant Wars with a good friend and my husband. Hands down the best way to spend a Monday morning/afternoon ever.

It's us! On Bravo!

It’s us! On Bravo!

We showed up in our “upscale casual chic” attire (required dress code, we interpreted it as dark skinny jeans and flow-y shirts) and hung out in the backstage/holding tank area with everyone-who-is-anyone in Seattle’s culinary scene. Thankfully a friend of mine at the Convention & Visitors Bureau was there and pointed out all of the local celebrities. There were so many of them!

Close up!

Close up!

 

We waited about an hour and a half to be seated and we were in Kristen’s French restaurant: Atelier Kwan (menu photo below). We enjoyed six courses of food and they were pretty good. We also enjoyed wine with each of the courses. Like I said, the best way to spend a Monday morning/afternoon ever! While we were eating, Brooke came out to chat with us and she was really nice. She’s been our favorite ever since and now she’s in the final two!

Tomorrow is the season 10 finale, and in honor of that, our ‘Pinterest Challenge’ meals this week include our take on Brooke’s most delectable dishes! I made the first one last night, a weeknight version of Smoked Salmon, Forbidden Black Rice with English Pea and Parsnip Puree. I like to Instgram my meals (and my cats) and I tagged Brooke (@ChefBrookeW) in the following photo post and she LIKED it! EEEEEEEEEEE!

Voila!

Voila!

I doubt ours tasted like Brooke’s, but it turned out pretty well.

We’re putting our own spin on Brooke’s Grilled Hanger Steak with Smoked Onion Figs & Cauliflower Puree for the big final on Wednesday.

Happy TV watching and eating!

Top Chef Seattle menu

Top Chef Seattle menu

Cookie Monster!

Posted in 2013 Pinterest Lifestyle, Food, Homemade by

It’s me again. Look at that: two posts in a row! I’m on a roll!

This post is about cookies. It’s fitting, since it’s the Girl Scout Cookie time of year.

Nom. Nom. Nom. Butter free too!

Nom. Nom. Nom. Butter free too!

I just pulled some delicious, delicious cookies out of the oven. And the best part about them: they’re “healthy.” (At least when it comes to cookies.) These cookies have oatmeal and don’t have butter! (They use canola oil instead of butter.)  Even more healthy? The batter is so oily and nasty that you don’t even want to touch it, let alone eat it.

I was skeptical at first, with the oily batter and all, but these cookies are FANTASTIC!! They’re crunchy, soft and not oily at all. I’d highly recommend making a batch for yourself!

Half Baked Hostess, I love you! These oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are now on our favorites list! Thank you!

I also discovered a recipe for homemade samoas. (Yes, please!) Find it for yourself on the Just a Taste blog. I’ll make them soon and report back.

Now, I’ll leave you with the real Sesame Street Cookie Monster in this “Call me maybe” spoof while I got scarf down a few more cookies.

I’ve got Midas-itis

Posted in Uncategorized by
This is my navy owl. He needs a name.

This is my navy owl. He needs a name.

Hi. My name is Megan and I’m addicted to spray painting.

It’s a new-ish addiction of mine and I just can’t stop! I started with this owl I found on clearance at Target (the color doesn’t look that bad online, but in ‘real life,’ it wasn’t good). So, I made him navy! He’s been on the dining and living room tables and now he lives on the wine cabinet with three glassybabies. (Have I mentioned my glassybaby addiction yet? I have one of those too. Lucky for me they’re a Seattle company and have ‘second sales’ of their slightly imperfect models a couple times each year.)

From Pinterest. Our vote? FAIL.

From Pinterest. Our vote? FAIL.

I quickly jumped from navy spray paint to purple and tried out this pin from my new Pinterest lifestyle challenge.  We’re in the middle of the seemingly-never-ending process of painting our house, so I decided to paint this mat purple, similar to the color-to-be of our front door. We tried it for a few weeks and this pin goes in the FAIL category. After a few weeks of the purple door mat, the paint wore away and I repainted the mat with a hammered black spray paint. The black seems to be holding up and I like the metallic hammered sheen.

Purple turned black. Pinterest FAIL.

Purple turned black. Pinterest FAIL.

The new and improved hammered, metallic black welcome mat.

The new and improved hammered, metallic black welcome mat.

Since I’ve been spending so much time in the spray paint aisle at Home Depot, a new color/style of spray paint caught my eye: metallic gold. I had high hopes when I bought this spray paint and it hasn’t let me down! I have spray painted the following in the past week: a glass shell, a mason jar, two plastic dinosaurs and a glass vase and picture frame today for next weekend’s Oscar party. Like I said, I may have a problem. In search of the Oscar party supplies today, I even wrote “things to paint gold” on my list for the Goodwill. Brandon saw the list and called me out, don’t worry. Gold photos will be forthcoming! 

As I went out to spray paint the latest items this evening and as I was walking out, Brandon coined my ‘addiction’ as Midas-itis. So, do you have Midas-itis too? Are you into spray painting? I’d love to hear about it.