Cooking Pumpkin

 I feel like such an accomplished cook! I have officially cooked a whole pumpkin and pureed it into homemade "canned" pumpkin puree! And let me tell you, it's so much tastier than store bought. And it's actually way easier than it sounds! And it's cheaper! We got this pumpkin for $4, and I got over 8 cups of pumpkin puree. One 16 oz can at the store is usually about $1.50. Which would be $0.75 per cup. Cooking your own is $0.50 per cup. And when you love pumpkin as much as I do, you tend to use a lot, and therefore spend a lot... 

 Anyway, back to cooking :) It's pretty simple. Wash your pumpkin and cut it in half. Scoop the seeds out (make sure to save them for roasting! A recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds is coming soon!). My friends from Columbia will be happy to know that I conquered my fear of pumpkin guts and scooped all the seeds out by myself!

 Put your pumpkin halves face down on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for at least an hour. Test it with a knife and when it is soft you can take it out. Let it cool and scoop the flesh out of the shell.

 It'll be pretty thick and stringy, so I put mine through the blender to make it more pureed. 

 Worked like a charm! It's so delicious! Stay tuned for pumpkin recipes!

#ODP13 Day Two

Here we are at Day 2 already! Yesterday went SO fast. Probably because I didn't wake up until 10, but whatever... Sorry for the poor quality of these photos, but they were taken before I headed out to my 8am class, so you get what you get... Today I'm wearing The Dress, my plaid shirt that I've had forever, a black and silver cross necklace, my watch, a bracelet I've had forever, red earrings, and white flats. Stay tuned for tomorrow's outfit :) I'll have more time to get ready tomorrow morning so it'll most likely be more complicated.

#ODP13 Day One

 Day One! I kept it simple for today, there'll be plenty of days to layer! If you missed my post yesterday, you can read how I altered the dress here. You can see all of last year's outfits here. Today I wore The Dress, my pink and blue plaid shoes ($6 at Payless like 5 years ago), my new rose gold watch (Walmart, $13), vintage pink earrings (thrift store, $0.53), and my stained glass-esque elephant necklace (mall kiosk, $1).

Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes with Caramel Icing

These cupcakes are incredible. There's no other way to describe them. SO GOOD. The best apple flavored food you'll ever eat. I'm not even exaggerating. For reals. I made them the other day for a church dinner and they were a huge hit! I found them on Pinterest, but the recipe was on the picture and didn't connect to a blog so I'll just copy the recipe here.

Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes with Caramel Icing

1 C Flour

1 t Baking Soda

1/2 t Salt

1 t Cinnamon

1/2 t Nutmeg

Pinch of Cloves

1 C Sugar

1 Egg

1/4 C Oil

2 C Peeled and Sliced Apples

Icing

1/2 Stick Butter

1/2 C Brown Sugar

1/4 C Heavy Cream

1 t Vanilla

Makes 12 cupcakes. Preheat oven to 350. Mix together all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl cream together sugar, egg, and oil. Mix the wet and dry ingredients until just combined. Add the apples and mix thoroughly. The batter will be really thick, so you'll want to mix the apples so they let off some of their juice. Scoop into baking cups and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. While the cupcakes are baking prepare the icing. In a small saucepan melt the butter and heavy cream on medium heat. Add the brown sugar and bowl for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Let cool. Drizzle over cooled cupcakes and enjoy! 

P.S. This is my 150th post! Crazy, right??

October Dress Project 2013: Altering The Dress

Has October sneaked up on anyone else? I feel like yesterday it was August and the first day of school! However, tomorrow is the first day of October and thus the first day of The October Dress Project! (more information on the project here) This will be my third year doing the project, and I'm really excited to do a maxi dress this year! The first year I did a red dress (I hadn't made the blog yet so I don't have any posts including that dress), which was pretty challenging, but not too bad. Last year I did a short black dress (see all of last year's posts here), and that was pretty easy. So I thought I'd do something more difficult this year. Enter the maxi dress :). 

 I would have shown you how it looked on, before alterations, but you probably don't want to see that.. It was QUITE the v-neck. I got it at Salvation Army for a few bucks, thinking that if I could add some fabric to the top it would be great and if not, I didn't waste too much money. Well once I got started, I decided the velvet needed to be taken off too, so it turned into kind of a long project, but I really like the way it turned out!

 Top, before.

 I had a black tank top that I thought I'd just add to the existing top. After seeing how that looked, however, I decided I needed to cut the top out first, and then sew the lace to the tank top, then sew the tank top to the skirt again. 

 Sorry for the blurry pictures, but at this point it was like midnight so it was pretty dark in my house.. After the lace was tacked to the shirt I just sewed it back onto the skirt (which I had taken the velvet off of. If I ever seam rip another seam it will be too soon!). You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the finished result as I haven't taken any pictures of the full dress yet! See you tomorrow!

It's Just Lunch

Hi guys! I'm still alive! I haven't posted anything in forever because I've been so busy with school and work, but I'm getting back on it today! If you hadn't noticed, I've missed the "It's Just Lunch" post three weeks in a row (yesterday being the third week), so I'm making up for it by posting one late, and giving you a lot of dessert recipes this coming week :)

So I started making my own dressing about a year ago and I will never go back! Homemade dressing is so much tastier than store bought. I actually have an entire Pinterest board for dressings.. I'm kind of addicted. Anyway, I made this Raspberry Vinaigrette a while ago when it was still raspberry season. It was gone quite quickly!

 I also have this really awesome dressing container that has recipes on the side of it as well! I got one as a going away gift from a dear friend at church and loved it so much I grabbed another one when I saw it at a yard sale!

Raspberry Vinaigrette (found here)
2 C Raspberry Jam (we made our own fresh but I suppose you can use store bought as well)
1/2 C Rice Wine Vinegar
1/4 C Olive Oil

Mix well and enjoy!

DIY Thrift Store Shoe Fix

Those shoes look pretty darn good, don't they? That's what I think too. But look what they used to look like:

Hmm, not so great, huh? 

 I didn't really mind the little scratches, most of my shoes have them because I buy mainly from thrift stores. But I was about to do my nails and I thought "hey, my shoes are that color red, I wonder if I could paint the scratches so it wouldn't show." And guess what....it worked! And I thought of it all by myself without the aid of Pinterest!! 

 You can still see the spot where the material was pushed up, but it's not nearly as noticeable as it used to be! I'm pretty proud of myself, I'm not gonna lie.