XOXO Valentine's Cupcakes

As usual, I found inspiration on Pinterest this week.  Check out these cute XOXO cupcakes!

I was racing to prepare donations for the youth group's Valentine Dessert Auction, and decided these would be quick and easy.  I even took a short-cut by ditching the piping bag and opting for frosting in a can.

I think the frosting would have looked a little nicer if I hadn't taken the shortcut, but not bad for a quick treat!

Oreo Truffle Pops for Valentine's Day

I was enlisted to help a friend make truffle pops for a wedding shower.  When I figured out that they were easy, cute AND delicious I decided I'd better find a reason to make another batch.  Thank goodness the youth group needed donations for their Valentine Dessert Auction!  You might need this "fancy" trick up your sleeve, too.

To make truffle pops, you'll need:

• One regular size bag of Oreos
• 8 oz package of cream cheese, softened
• One bag of chocolate chips
• Sprinkles
• Cake pop sticks (from Michael's)
• Clear treat sacks (from Michael's)
• Cupcake papers
• Decorative wire garland or ribbon

1.  Place cream cheese and all the Oreos in a food processor.  Pulse until combined and lump free.

2.  Shape dough into balls about 1 1/2" in diameter.  Place truffles on a baking sheet lined with wax paper.  Insert a stick into the top of each truffle.  Refrigerate for about 20 minutes. 

3.  Using a double-boiler (or your microwave), melt the chocolate chips to a consistency that will be good for dipping.  Dip each truffle into the chocolate until uniformly covered.  

4.  Shake on some sprinkles while the chocolate is still wet.  Return truffle to the baking sheet.  When all the truffles have been dipped, refrigerate for another 15-20 minutes.

5.  Slip a cupcake liner into the bottom of a treat sack.  Add your truffle pop (stick side up) and secure with a piece of wire garland.  You can twist the ends of your garland around a pencil if you want them to have some curl.

Happy Valentine's Truffle Pop Day!

DIY Tablecloth

A nice dining room set is currently on our wish list.  In the meantime, we get along just fine by covering up our sad old table with a nice tablecloth.  I went out and bought a formal white tablecloth and a festive tablecloth for the holidays, but was wanting something more casual for everyday.  Not seeing anything that fit my criteria (1. must love it, 2.  must be able to afford it) I was biding my time.  

And then I stumbled onto this Tablecloth Tutorial on Pinterest: 

Photo & Tutorial from Hamburger Panda

Duh!  I own a sewing machine.  I can sew straight lines with it.  Therefore, I can make my own tablecloth.

About a week later we were helping Jim's family with an estate sale at his Aunt Judy's home.  Judy was an avid seamstress and had an enviable stash of fabric.  Low and behold...there it was...perfect tablecloth fabric for $1 a yard!  

I like it when Pinterest teams up with the Universe to send me important messages. Make your own tablecloth, Nicole.  Seriously!

When my mom came to visit in February I felt confident that I had the back-up necessary to fire up the ole Singer.  In one afternoon (which was more measuring and ironing than actual sewing) I was able to whomp up our new tablecloth.  

Ta da!  Of course, my initial attraction to the fabric might have been motivated by the perfect match with our Peacock and Scarlet Fiestaware.

I like to call them Ms. Peacock and Miss Scarlet.  We have Mrs. White, too.  Looks like any future Fiestaware purchases will need to be Plum, Mustard, or Green...

Nicole did it.  With the Singer.  In the Dining Room.  

PS - The Hamburger Panda tutorial was great - very easy to follow and lots of good photos.  

PPS - Whomp up is Montanan for make.  As in, "bein as I'm hungry I oughta whomp up some dinner."  

Window Washing Made Easy - Really!

I sure love Pinterest.  Recently, I pinned instructions for Streak-Free Window Cleaner.

Photo: One Good Thing by Jillibee

Seemed like it might be too good to be true, but I figured I'd give it a shot when the sun came out this afternoon.

Ya know what?  IT WORKS!  Really well.  Zero elbow grease and/or squeegee-ing required.  Too good not to share.

I had no idea how grimy our windows had gotten over the winter.  It's like the outside world came into sharper focus!

HTPC Experience

Hello Blog-readers and Tech Nerds.  It's been a while since I've contributed so on Pie day (which so many of my friends have pointed out is only observed by real nerds), I thought I'd write a techy post on my Home Theater PC experience...hence the title.

The market is being flooded by new digital means of watching TV on your big screen.  From the Apple TV to Google TV, the Boxee Box to integrated Apps built into your favorite flatscreen, companies are finally trying to tap into what many of us have been doing for years.  Watching TV on a computer.

I built my first HTPC in 2006 out of the best components I could afford off NewEgg.com at the time.  It was a great box that looked like an old school audio receiver with volume knob and buttons on the front.  Even had an LCD you could have display almost anything.  I ran that system all the way till 2010 (almost 24 hours a day) till the motherboard fried.

For the last 2 years I've been running a much smaller machine and I have to say, I'm quite impressed with the quality.  Asrock put together some bare bones systems built mostly on laptop parts that really handles the graphic requirements a new HTPC needs (that's for the suggestion Brain).  Costing me less than $500 for the hardware, I have a high definition system connected to my Flat Screen that when coupled with Windows running Media Center and a Tuner Card will record and play TV almost out of the box.

What You Need:

1. Asrock Barebones Computer
2. A version of Windows (suggest Windows 7 64bit with Home Premium or above for Media Center)
3. A USB TV Tuner (This one looks pretty good and does digital)
4. A HDMI cable to connect your TV (assuming you have a HDTV with HDMI input)
5. You probably want an external hard drive cause you're gonna fill up the built in one with recorded TV
6. If you buy the Asrock that doesn't include a remote, pickup a MCE remote with infrared receiver
7. If you like to have the keyboard an mouse handy, a wireless set makes it easy to hide

The Setup:

1. Boot up the Asrock and install Windows (use a password you can easily input with the remote).  Connect to the internet and run windows update.  I'd throw the following software on there too:
1. Chrome for Browsing
2. FlashPlayer
3. VLC (for watching odd codex)
4. ffdshow (Free open-source codex to process video and audio)
5. Make sure the Graphic Card drivers are the most current and up-to-date
6. Logmein or another remote desktop client
7. Virus Protection (use something free with good ratings, Norton will just slow the whole thing down)
8. I'd setup Netflix while you have the mouse and keyboard connected to make it easy
9. Install your external hard drive, format and name it if you so desire
10. Install your Tuner Card
2. Now, connect the computer to your flat screen (if you are using the built in infrared, make sure the box is in direct sight of your remote, otherwise locate your IR receiver in a good location)
3. Make sure the tuner card is connected to your cable or cable box
4. Boot the system and run Media Center.  You will now walk through all the steps to properly display MCE on your TV and setup the Tuner Card to work with your service provider. (Note: if you are using a cable box things get much more interesting with IR blasters and trying to get windows to control your cable box.  I just gave up and use the basic cable and avoid the mess of cable boxes)
5. Setup MCE to record your favorite TV shows.

There are of course many issues that can arrise and having your own HTPC isn't for the faint a heart.  But lets be honest here, having something you don't have to pay for, that records TV and will display whatever online content you want on your big screen is pretty awesome.  It's really just a huge computer so go ahead an throw on The Daily Show through Chrome and full screen it...looks better than Netflix most of the time.  YouTube and Vimeo, with HD streaming you won't know why you ever just flipped channels for hours looking for something to watch.  

DIY Boot Straightener

Droopy boots get me down. They flop over in the closet, looking messy and creating extra creases and slouchiness in the boots I'm trying to get a lot of life from.

Solution? A pool noodle. I grabbed this noodle at Target for $2 (too bad they haven't shown up at our Dollar Store just yet). I cut it into four sections and straightened up my black and brown boots in nothin flat! Regular scissors work fine - this was a two minute project.

Happy Saturday!

DIY Ornament Wreath

There are gobs of cute ornament wreaths all over Pinterest, and I finally got around to making my own!

I followed a very nice tutorial from Andrea, and there are plenty of others out there so I won't bore you with the repeat here.  I found these fun silver ornaments at Winco (of all places!) and they were even cheaper than the dollar store options.  I used 70 ornaments total.  The best part?  The globe snaps into the hook on the ornament so there was none of the tedious gluing required on the other tutorials.  I think Winco is also called Cub Foods in some areas (wink wink Minnesota girls!).

Our door is super tall so standard over-the-door wreath hangers weren't working.  We found a really nice decorative metal Command Hook at Home Depot and adhered it to the door.  It's sturdy, but removable so I'm not worried about damaging the door surface.

Come knock on our door!  We are super festive!

Pinterest Project: Glittered Light Bulbs

I finally made something I found on Pinterest:  Glittered Christmas Bulbs!  Though the instructions were minimal, the project was easy, inexpensive, and fairly quick.  The gratification was big =)

What you need:

* Old Christmas bulbs
* Glitter
* Modge Podge or Decoupage
* Paintbrush
* Paper plate
* Cookie Sheet
* Waxed Paper





Both Recollections and Martha Stewart make Extra Fine Glitter.  It was perfect for this project - good coverage, and not  as chunky as regular glitter.

Each bottle is $4-$5 each, but I hoarded Michael's 50% off coupons and spent $6.50 total.  I do love to save!

Martha's glitter was more expensive, but I didn't really see a difference in the quality.  Both lines have awesome color choices.

Let's get this show on the road!  Remove the bulbs from their string.  I scooped up this set at a garage sale and paid 50 cents.  Again with the savings!  Of course, they were grimy from life in someone's garage so I had to wipe them all down first.  Still worth it.  

Using the paintbrush, apply a medium layer of Modge Podge over the colored surface of the bulb.  I chose to leave the metal base exposed.

Working directly over the paper plate, shake glitter over the bulb.  It was easy to miss the pointed tip so I had to go back and catch those little bare spots.

Still over the paper plate, tap the excess glitter from the bulb, allow it to dry just a bit.

Lay them on your wax-paper covered cookie sheet to dry completely.  I left them overnight just to be on the safe side.

Return the remaining glitter to the jar.  Covering 24 bulbs used very little glitter so I have plenty left over for other projects.









And that's all there is to it!  I'll be exercising a lot of restraint to keep these in the closet until after Thanksgiving =)

Welcome to Monica & Chandler's!

We made it!  We're IN our new home!  Thanks to the world's greatest friends our new place is painted, every last thing we own has been schlepped, furniture's assembled and beds are made.  It's a pretty exciting time here at Hotdish Central.  Every day one of us turns to the other to say "can you believe we own a house?"  Our first mortgage payment isn't due for a whole month so we are love-love-loving home ownership!

Do you know what that means for you?  In addition to our here-and-there ramblings about cooking, crafting, choral music, and canines, we'll have all sorts of home improvement and DIY projects to trot across the blog.  For our debut project, I'm only showing you the front door.  =)  

If you run in our circle of friends, chances are good that you can quote episodes of Friends like it's your job. Seriously, if some struggling cable network ever works up a Friends Trivia Hour our people will be the champs!  Move over, Ken Jennings, we've got the game show domination thing in the bag.  We spent the last couple years bringing Jimbo up to speed by rewatching the entire series, so it was his proud graduation from the Friends Academy when he suggested we frame our peephole.

Genius!  Why didn't I think of that? For a quick second we googled "Monica's Door Frame" and found that you can buy replicas online for upwards of $30.  Are you kidding?  I can do better things with that $30!  Perfect opportunity to do it ourselves. 

Enter the cheapo frame from TJ Maxx:

This gold finish did NOTHING for me so I took a page from Mrs. Lovely's book and bought sent Jimbo to Home Depot for my first can of spraypaint.  Even better?  He also picked up this swell plastic trigger.  Now my spray-finger won't be sore or covered in paint!  

One coat of Rust-oleum Colonial Red, a little double-sided adhesive tape, and done!

Mmmmmm....shiny & red.  These are good things.  

Never one to be left out of the action (but easily bribed with a biscuit to do what I ask of her), Sugar volunteered to show you our entry.  I once heard  that your photos should always have someone in them...

 Welcome!  Can't wait to peer through that cute peephole at all our future visitors.  

PS - you can have your own swell rug (in a few other nice colors) from Costco =)

PPS - I'm hoping to provide better photos (not taken with my phone) soon.  It's a long story for another time, but my camera took a swim this summer and I just got a replacement.  So glad Santa came early so I can really document important things like spray paint triggers!

Quick & Easy Brown Rice

We eat a lot of rice and, about two years ago, we switched to brown rice to be a little healthier. The only problem is that cooking brown rice takes 2-3 times as long as cooking white rice.  Throwing a quick stir-fry together is nearly impossible when the rice requires an hour to cook!  For those nights when we'd really like a quick side of rice, and don't have an hour to let it cook, we started buying Trader Joe's Frozen Brown Rice.

The box holds three microwavable packets - each with about two servings of rice.  Perfect for the two of us!  However...at $3.50 a box, the price of convenience seems a little steep.  So, we came up with a great cost-saving DIY solution.  Want to hop on board the frugalista bandwagon to make your own?  Read on!

Here's what you need:

1. Long grain brown rice (I purchase in bulk. Cheap, cheaper, cheapest!)
2. Bouillon of your choosing (we like Knorr's chicken or vegetable)
3. Quart-sized freezer bags.  Regular sandwich bags don't hold up as well for this process.
4. Rice maker {or a saucepan to cook your rice on the stove.  Stove-top cooking instructions can be found at the end of the post}

For our small rice cooker, I use two cups brown rice and one bouillon cube.  Knorr's cubes are double-sized, intended to be used with two cups of liquid.  If you are using smaller traditional buoillon, you may want two cubes.  It's really a matter of taste - I like a little flavor, but don't want it to overwhelm the main dish.

Add four cups of water.  Brown rice requires more water than white...keep your water-to-rice ratio at 2:1.


Pop on the lid and let this handy-dandy appliance do it's job!  An hour later your rice will be ready.

Allow the rice to cool a bit so you don't burn yourself (or melt your freezer bag!)

Divide the rice into 3-4 servings, putting each serving into a freezer bag.

Flatten the rice a bit so it fills the whole bag with a fairly uniform thickness.  This will make it easier to stack your bags in the freezer and will allow the rice to defrost evenly.  

  

Place the bags in your freezer.  When you are ready to use them, open the zipper about 1 inch (to allow the steam to vent) or just puncture the bag with a fork.  Microwave on high for about 4 minutes, and enjoy!

{Stove-top instructions}  
1.  In a medium saucepan bring 2 cups rice, 4 cups water, and one bouillon cube to a boil.
2.  Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook 55 minutes.  
3.  Remove from heat and fluff with a fork.   

Wedding Reception Photo Booth - BRILLIANT!

At the risk of sounding incredibly Bridezilla-esque, I had one really awesome wedding planning idea. The best part is that it actually turned out as well (or better?!) than I'd imagined.

Behold the Photo Booth:
Okay, so it wasn't my own original idea...I saw it on the wedding blogs first...but I tweeked it my own way so I'm claiming it. The PB was a cheap way to liven up the reception and ensure fun candids of something other than cake-cutting.

In truth, it wasn't a booth. It was a wall. We found a big piece of red fabric at a discount warehouse in Minneapolis and taped it to the wall. We set up our own tripod and digital camera (since the last thing on my mind that day was snapping pictures) and took a few test shots to ensure the lighting was okay.

Behold the test shot:
I raided my costume bin and that of an equally well-provisioned friend, and then added about $14 of silly stuff from the party store.
I grabbed a couple cheap frames from Goodwill and spray-painted them black (ala Mrs. Lovely).
And tossed in a couple cheap dry-erase boards (lots of people were using chalkboards for this on the fancy wedding blogs).
But the best part comes to us from Her Royal Craftiness, Martha. Her Moustache-on-a-Stick idea (with a few modifications) won the day!

(This *may* have been their family holiday card)

We made the moustaches out of thin stiff felt (found at Michael's) and hot-glued them to small dowels (also found at Michaels).

Good times had by all! And these are going straight into the guestbook =)


Saved for last, my favorite PB shot:
If you've ever met my crazy step-dad this makes all kinds of sense. Sometimes I look at it just for a good laugh.