March Recipe 2: Salmon with Pesto

I kept with my seafood theme this month and cooked salmon for the first time.  I used an incredibly basic recipe that I got at a local farmers market where I bought homemade pesto.  Basically, you coat the salmon with pesto and stick it in the oven for 20-ish minutes.

So easy.  So delicious.  The photo does not justice at all.

The last time I had salmon I had just rode the Whitepass & Yukon Railroad in Skagway Alaska with Hubs.  We had lunch in Liarsville on our way back to the cruise ship. 

I miss Skagway Alaska.  Someday we will go back. 

Random Thursday

1.  Hubs made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies yesterday and they were DELISH.
2.  We went swimming tonight at the gym and dreamed of our future selves lounging in our backyard pool summer 2013.  It's going to be a-mazing.
3.  1 more night of my city's winter parking ban =1 more late night walk to move my car.

Getting Scrappy

I have been making progress on my wedding scrapbook.  I've got several pages on the go and I'm proud of it.

Getting started with my wedding scrapbook was challenging.  I was too focused on thinking about pictures and events chronologically.  This "order" mindset was keeping me from ideas I had for future page layouts farther out in the process.  For example, I knew exactly what paper I wanted to use for our cake cutting photos when I saw it at the store weeks ago.  I finally took the time to put together this layout and it works just as I was picturing it in my mind!   

I've been skipping around from pre-wedding, to ceremony, to reception photos and it's been working out nicely for me. I've also found that focusing on 2 page layouts at a time to get paper and photo layout down is key to getting started.  Sometimes it takes time to figure it out and I may play around with papers and layouts for a couple of days here and there until I finally jump in and go for it.

I haven't finished 100% of any page layouts.  My goal is to get several pages (or maybe all?) blocked out with paper selections and general layout before getting too focused on embellishments and journaling.

Here's an example of the most recent layout I put together. I toyed with this paper for awhile.  Originally, I thought I would use it for "the kiss" ceremony photos. After playing around with the photos, I found that "the unity candle" photos worked better with the color. 

I had an old odd length piece of offwhite lace that looked great on the paper and added texture. I spent awhile moving the lace around to figure out where to use it.  I ended up using it symmetrically on the outside edges of the layout.  I didn't have quite 24 inches of lace so I improvised adding an offwhite block of fabric to disguise that the lace wasn't 1 continuous piece.

I'll probably end up adding journalling or embellishments to the white blocks of fabric. 

Apologies in advance for the poor photo quality.  I hope to someday purchase a new point and shoot camera for better blogging!

BEFORE

  
AFTER

March Recipe 1: Pasta With Shrimp & Eggplant

I have been on seafood kick recently.  I have never cooked with shrimp until I tried this recipe.  I purchased shrimp that were already peeled, deveined, and cooked so that I didn't really need to worry about correct prep.


The recipe is from The Woman's Day Everyday Cookbook.  

The recipe calls for olive oil, eggplant, pasta, red and yellow bell pepper, red onion, dried oregano, shrimp, olives, feta cheese and parsley.

I used homemade pasta that I picked up at the local farmer market a few days before. I used red and green pepper since I couldn't find a yellow pepper at the grocery store.  I skipped the olives and I skipped the parsley garnish. 

I added the feta cheese after I took the photo below.

Ouila!

Learning to Run

I have recently connected with a co-worker on the subject of running.  She asked if I was a runner and I mentioned that I am a "want-to-be."  I have tried running.  I've run outside and I've run on treadmills but I have never really stayed with it.

One of my 30/30 goals is to run a 5k color run.  Why a color run?  Because it makes running look like more fun.  Seriously.

My vision of this event is that I'll be able to run it at my pace the whole 3.1 miles of it without stopping. 

I've recently connected with a running group here in Vermont based out of an athletic store. The group I joined is a beginners group.  We meet on Wednesday nights to run outside together.  We have a training schedule.  We are invited to run together Saturday mornings and Monday evenings to stay motivated.

If you have never run with a group, I recommend it.  For me, it is motivating to have other people running beside me at my level.

I'll admit, I was skeptical about running outside in February/March/April Vermont weather.  I mean, I'm normally bundled up in sweatshirts and slippers inside with the heat on so I had reason for concern.  Much to my surprise I actually like running outside in this weather.  Once you start running, you don't even notice the cold or the snow.  Okay, you might notice the snow.

I'll be training with this group through the months of March and April.  In early May the group will run in a 5k race together.

Soon thereafter, I hope to run in a 5k color run!