Tuna and Ginger Burgers (Gwyneth Paltrow)

Confession: I bought Gwyneth Paltrow's Cookbook.
Second Confession: I LOVE IT.

I am not going to sit here and tell you how much I either love or hate Paltrow, because, honestly, it's neither. I bought the cookbook because I got the chance to thumb through it at a friend's house and I did so without any judgement or preconceptions. I forgot instantly that it was written by an Oscar winning actress and blogger and mom and rock star wife. I also don't mean that I like the book in spite of her - that's not true either.

I just think it's a great book. It's not built around some kitsch idea like "cook for a day, eat for a month" or "17.43 minute meals!" It's clearly a labor of love, beautifully presented by someone who knows and loves food. It's a lifetime of favorite recipes painstaking curated from family vacations, parties, friends, relatives, holiday traditions and Cape Cod clam shacks.

People mock the book saying she is a name dropper or an elitist snob, but I think, were any of us to sit down and write our book - our collection of recipes from the people and places that have left their indelible wine stains and tomato sauce splatters on us- it might not look much different.

Sure, Paltrow talks about Jamie Oliver giving her a cooking lesson, or having dinner with the Spielbergs and Stella McCartney, or relishes the memory of some exquisite meal in Umbria. But if I replace those examples with the time my grandfather taught me to make coq au vin or the most perfect fish with melt away shoe string potatoes that I will never forget from that teeny restaurant in Normandy, France, I know she is not intending to be ridiculous and showy.

She just loves food. And food people remember everything. We cant help it. Because food isn't really about food. It is about people, laughter, wine, travel, love, family, and comfort. But mostly love.

And, P.S. those tuna burgers? The ones you see right there on a bed of peppery arugula, caramelized shallots and soy-sesame mayonnaise on a toasted wheat bun? Yeah, they knocked my socks off.

Meet my new best friend!

My husband had to buy tools this weekend which I tagged along for under the condition that he then accompany me to the grocery store. Which he did almost willingly! Anyway, bad planning on his part because while he debated over a $18 ball pein hammer purchase, I found this:

Come to my house, please!

This little baby is the Kenmore Elite 21 cu. ft. French-Door Counter-Depth Bottom-Freezer Refrigerator. Phew! That's a mouth-full. The reason this is so thrilling to me, is that my kitchen is a square, and my old fridge stuck out into six precious inches of space. It was also a side-by-side, which means I could fit nothing of any size in the freezer, and I could only see the first six precious inches of shelf space when I opened the fridge. This mean that I threw away four containers of sour cream today and found out that I'm the proud owner of three pounds of unsalted butter (I knew I had already bought some!).

Anyway, we got it 20% off, additional 10% off that and then an additional 5% for opening a Sears card. I know, I know. I hate store cards too. But it was worth it for what we saved on this baby.

Anyway, I absolutely adore my new fridge. All of my food fit into it perfectly with room to spare - especially after I threw away a small fortune in dead herbs and dairy products that I found in the back of the old one.

Speaking of my old one: don't worry, I didn't have it hauled away to the dump, or put it on Craigslist. It will be enjoying a second life at my house, thanks to my husband's ingenuity.

It will soon be: A Kegerator! I hope it looks like this one:

Seared Tuna with Arugula and Fettucini

I really love Bon Appetit, and have bought both of their large cookbook collections, The Bon Appetit Cookbook and Bon Appetit: Fast Easy Fresh. The Cookbook is more of an anthology of all their best recipes. FEF is a collection of their "Fast, Easy, Fresh" column that appears in every issue of their magazine.

I chose this recipe for Seared Tuna over Fettucini with Green Olives and Arugula because I wanted something really fresh and a bit strong tasting. That sounds weird, but after eating out a lot, I crave food that really tastes like what it is - simply and cleanly. This dish is just that.

I chose to use whole wheat pasta because I truly do love the flavor - rich and a little earthy. The tuna is simply seared with a little lemon zest, salt and pepper. All you have to do is boil the pasta, stir in the bruschetta spread and a little lemon juice and cooking water to smooth out the sauce.

My only tweak with the recipe was to not add additional oil. I cooked the tuna misted with an olive oil spray and a dry cast iron skillet. I made my own bruschetta spread since I couldn't find it in the store. I'm glad I did, because I will be mixing it up all the time. I just used a mix of pitted green olives, sundried tomatoes, capers, lemon juice and oil. The sundried tomatoes came in oil, and I felt that was enough for both the oil in the tapenade, and for the pasta.

Toss the arugula in at the end, plate the pasta and voila! It was delicious and was super satisfying.

Enjoy!

I heart my office!

I work from home - so I really wanted my office to be a place that I didn't mind spending almost all of my time. And that's exactly what I do - often I even eat lunch at my desk just like the old days when I worked at my company's main office. But I also made it really comfortable and bright, and non-corporate, so often I find myself in here on the weekends, enjoying a DVRed show and a cup of coffee before hitting the real world.

I ended up with an office that I don't just not mind - I absolutely love it. Here it is:

This is my happy place.

My favorite things are: the green shades that I got on sale on Pottery Barn's website - and they magically fit exactly! My painting my husband gave me for the first Christmas we were dating (in the gold frame on the left) and my awesome houndstooth, caned back arm chair that my Nana found in an antique store covered in dust! I love it so much, I'll give it it's own post one day. I also love my cow rug from Ikea and the little needlepoint footstool my husband gave me for Christmas this year - it's a little bit of everything and it's a happy, creative place. And I do all my best thinking and a fair amount of neurotic stressing out in here. It's just my way.

So here's what I didn't like:

1. I'm OCD and I hate paper. I love paper in a feel-that-thick-cardstock-letterpress-makes-me-palpitate way. But I hate piles of it. I hate wasting it. So having a stack of it on my desk makes me go to a dark place.

2. I  love postcards, invitations, etc, but I don't want them in a stack on my desk. I want them displayed adorably. So I did what all super intelligent decorating geniuses with a budget do and I went to Ikea.

3. I do not love wasted space. See that big white area between the bookshelves, behind my desk? No good. There had to be a use for it. There has to or the universe will implode. (Yes, there is a lot wrong with me).

I bought the Spontan magazine rack and the Dignitet and Deka system of curtain rail and clips.

So after some drilling into sheetrock and a limited amount of swearing, here's where we ended up!

No more wasted space!

clutter and cuteness has a place to live!

All is right in the world.

Master Bathroom: Before and After

Thought you'd get a kick out of this. I'll post better pictures next week, but for now:

Before

After

YAY!

Saturday afternoon at Tuesday Morning

I have a love-hate when Tuesday Morning stores. They're like a dirty, dusty HomeGoods and you never know when the stuff is going to change. But today I thought I'd share a cute purchase:

I got four of these adorable Bodum Pavina with silicone grip mugs for $9.
They were originally $16 for a set of two. I'm not sure I needed glass mugs to drink coffee out of, but I like them. So there.

Have a fabulous weekend.

Home Improvement: Bathrooms

So, we love love LOVE our house. But the bathrooms are a little outdated. They have amazing tile from the 1960's, so we don't want to rip them out. Also that would cost a million billion dollars. Instead, we are updating them.

We started with the master bathroom, because you gots to look out for numero uno, ya know? I love the tile in the master bathroom. It's a really pretty, sunny key lime color. This is a picture from when the previous owner lived here with her lovely collection of bliss bath products. See how pretty the tile is? It even looks a little sad in this picture - it's really bright and pretty.

Part of me just didn't want to have to try to
find those lightbulbs when they burned out.

To see what that cabinet under the sink looks like - here's a picture from the identical one in our guest bathroom - the Mamie Eisenhower bathroom. That's a nice way of saying that the bathroom is pink.

Mamie Eisenhower says, "this cabinet would look better white."

So it's oak. Oak is not my fave. It's my un-fave. Not always, but for sure in this case. I hates it. It was too orange. The varnish was  bad and scratched. The little drawer pulls were a bit precious for me. It also had this mirror/vanity that is not my scene.

This mirror came down.
Inside were 45 half empty bottles of pink nail polish.

I just wanted to update it and make it look nice. The other thing I did not like was the old crystal ball faucet. No good. So I replaced it with this one:

Much, much better.
Price-Pfister faucet from Lowe's

 Now I feel like I'm washing my face in a pump well from a mountain spring. Like Heidi.

So I sanded. And sanded. And primed twice. And painted twice. And bought adorable matching bronze hardware. And this is what it looks like now!

I'm the prettiest sink in Sinkville!

Also, in case you care - that's a more accurate depiction of the color of the tile. It's creamy and pretty. Love it or else.

So next up, I have to sand and paint the bathroom walls again, since we had to drywall behind that old medicine cabinet, hang the new medicine cabinet, and then you'll get to see the new lighting as well! 

Yay! I love my new bathroom already.