A Recipe To Dress Up Your Peas

Most people that I know don't particularly like peas. My husband Mark would be one of them. Until... I made him these. Again this is a family recipe from my italian grandmother, Mama. 

For this you will need: 

extra virgin olive oil 

garlic

green onions

1 bag of frozen peas

salt 

pepper

Shop your green onions and garlic. Then pour enough olive oil to lightly cover the bottom of the pan. (I never measure just when it looks like the oil will lightly cover the whole pan.)

Once you have this done you can put all of you green onions and garlic into the pan. You want to cook  the onions and garlic till it is very lightly browned, allowing all the flavors to come out. Be sure to use a low heat setting. This will help in not cooking the onions and garlic too fast. Be very carful... you DO NOT want to burn the garlic.

After the green onions and garlic have started cooking down pour in all the frozen peas. No need to thaw them before you put the peas in the pan. 

I like to put a cover over the pan. This allows the moisture to stay in from the defrosting peas, and helps it cook faster. Every so often be sure to stir the peas, making sure none are sticking to the bottom of the pan. When the peas are hot then they are done! (I find the best way to test doneness is to just taste it.)

These peas make a great addition to any dish. I  love them with red sauce. In this case we had spaghetti and meat balls! 

I hope that you will try these out. 

ENJOY!

Idle Dogs...

I just wanted to share this with y'all..... Yesterday I could NOT keep Dutch inside. He just really wanted to be outside. Normally this isn't a problem. We have an 8 foot fence so I am not worried about him jumping over it, and although we have a pool I am not concerned about him getting in that since ironically my water dog doesn't like water. So I let him out. He seemed to be having a fun time out there, until I come outside and realized why he was having such fun out there. This is what I saw....

He had COMPLETELY ripped up my lawn chair cushion. I have been meaning to get new ones, so I guess this just makes me have to go out and get new ones. Good thing he is cute.

This is what I get to wake up to in the mornings..

Tasty Tease

If there is something that you need to know about Mark and I, it is that we LOVE food. We like to cook new things at home, we like to explore new restaurants, and we love being with friends while eating.

The reason this is called a tasty tease is because I wanted to share my delicious dinner with you that I had this evening.

Tortellini with a tomato red sauce

This was sooo delicious I just had to share. I did not make the tortellini this time. I have made them before, and if fact while Mama (my Italian grandma) says it isn't worth it to make your own pasta, I think making tortellini and ravioli is a good reason. These however have been purchased from the store. I like to get the ones in the refrigerator section. Now the tease part is the sauce. This is our special family recipe. The interesting part is that while Mama has given each member the recipe they all differ slightly. This is the one she gave my family. I am not prepared at this time to release the recipe, but I do want to offer a little advice. It is ALWAYS ALWAYS better to make fresh sauce and well worth the effort. Mine takes 2 hours to simmer in order to allow all the flavors to really meld together. I know this is a lot of work, so I have a solutions so you can still have fresh sauce without having to make it every time. I like to make a large batch and then freeze it. 

Pasta sauce ready to be frozen.

I like to break it up into smaller amounts, so I could make anything from 1 to 4 servings without unfreezing extra sauce. 

I hope this inspires you make your own fresh sauce.

Wreaths in the making...

Lately crafting has become something that takes up a bunch of my time. I am not sure if it is the advent of pintrest.com (Boy do I wish that was around when I was planning my wedding.) or if I have just started to meet people that have a really creative side. Either way crafting seems to be something I am doing a lot of these days and last Saturday was no exception.

Recently I have met a new friend named Alex. She is so much fun and we have so much in common, so it made sense that when we found out each other liked to craft that we would have a craft day. And that is just what we did! We decided to make a wreath. Well at first..... So we went to Micheal's to get supplies. While there the ideas just exploded on us. What started out as one wreath became two. Frankly, I am just happy that we ended up leaving with just the small amount of supplies that we did. It is dangerous to group shop.

Here is what we made: (I took these pictures off her blog lunde-land.blogspot.com.)

Alex set up all our paints and made a wonderful spot for us to start out day crafting.

First we made a Valentine's wreath. This one is truly a Julie/Alex creation. We came up with these ideas from scratch.

First we took foam hearts and used Mod Podge to apply a variation of scrapbook paper on them. 

Now this being our first craft day I didn't know this, but evidently Alex has a thing with spray paint. So we made sure to spray paint the base before we started assembly.

 We decided that wrapping a portion of the wreath in ribbon would really add something.

 This is Alex! She is in the middle assembly.

We found these great cardboard hearts and thought they would really add some dimension to this project. We applied some molding past to them for texture. I have been dying to use it and I will say it is for sure something that I will be using again.

And..... Ta Da! Our finished wreaths. They just turned out lovely! Mark thinks they look store bought.

Our next wreath was for spring. This was is inspired by one Alex found online. We started out with all the same supplies but each wreath turned out our own. I think that is really interesting. 

This is Alex's wreath. I really love the spring sign on her.

 

She added texture to these cute little pots then tied them on the wreath.

 This is mine! I just really like the spring colors.

I painted the pots in these great colors that I created. I just really thought they matched the spring feel.

That was the end of our craft day. It got so late there was no other option but to go home. We had a wonderful day getting to know each other and having fun making the wonderful creations.

About Us!

Me - Jewlz

Hi! I am Jewlz. I am a born and raised Texan. Although that might be misleading. I am from Dallas, so I am really more of a city girl. I do love my great state of Texas though. I went to college at Kansas State University and LOVED it! I have a bachelor degree in Computer Engineering. That is where I met my wonderful husband Mark. 

Mark

We met in the marching band, "The Pride of Wildcat Land". He also has a bachelor degree in Computer Engineering. I got him to move down to the great state of Texas and we got married a little under 2 years ago! It has been wonderful starting a life with him. In January 2011 we got a spirited puppy. 

His name is Dutch. He is now an 88lb chocolate lab. We think he is just the cutest puppy in the whole world. I am starting a blog to document our lives and adventures together. I love to DIY/craft, paint, sew, and have started getting into photography among other things.  Mark and I both also really REALLY love food. We would (and hopefully will) travel the world in search for great food whether it be at a dive, in a five star restaurant, or just something delicious we make in our home kitchen. I hope to share all this and more with you. 

I hope that you enjoy this small glimpse into my family.

 

Have a WONDERFUL day! 

New Blogger...

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I am Jewlz! I have a wonderful husband, Mark. We also have a 1 year old chocolate lab named Dutch.  Mark and I have been married for just under 2 years. It has been a blast. I love being married to him and he truly lights up my life.

I set out a while ago to start a blog. It has been something that is a touch more challenging then I thought that it would be. It is hard to put your life into words for people to read online. I am in general a technical person, which I know isn't really an excuse, so my writing skills often leave something to be desired. I really wanted to have a way to allow friends and family to see updates of our lives, and to meet new blogger friend in the process. I also really admire all the blogs that have "how to" posts and fun craft and decorating ideas. I wanted to become apart of that community. 

A fellow blogging friend that I really admire started something that she said I could adopt. In order to keep the privacy of my friends and family I will not use their names, instead I will use just their initials. 

With all this in mind I am FINALLY start my own blog. I hope you enjoy!