Joyful Abode

They’re ready, and in the shop! The baby is hanging from the tailhook of the jet, which is appropriate since the T-45 is the plane used to learn how to land on carriers with the arresting hook.

Woo!

I like the way they turned out, but what do you think?

Remember to use coupon code BLOGFRIEND to get 15% off of your shop purchase!

First of all, there were some ERRORs involved in this… the cheese didn’t mix in very well with the rest of the stuff (I added it at the “raisin beep” on my bread machine), which resulted in a lot of it being on top and bubbling over, burning in the machine. Also, it seems to be in clumps in the bread rather than streaked throughout…

So next time, I will probably just make the dough in the machine or in my kitchenaid mixer, then add the cheese manually, let it rise again, and bake it in the oven. (Feel free to suggest temperature/times because I don’t know!) It could be regular bread-shaped, or as dinner rolls or breadsticks or whatever… mmm.

Here’s the recipe, which I adapted from a basic bread recipe. (T. is tablespoon, t. is teaspoon)

• 1 1/3 cups water
• 1 T. butter
• 2 T. cream cheese
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 T. sugar
• 1/2 t. Italian seasoning
• 1 t. dried basil
• 2 t.minced garlic
• 4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted (you can substitute 1 cup for whole wheat flour if you want)
• 1 T. active dry yeast
• 3 cups of any kind of shredded cheese (I used half cheddar and half Mexican mixed)

Add everything (except the shredded cheese) to your bread machine in the recommended order, and let it do its thing. Add the cheese at the “raisin beep” … and hope yours mixes in better than mine did. I wonder if you’re supposed to take the dough out and mix it in yourself… maybe the machine isn’t supposed to do the mixing at that stage? Input?

Then let it bake. Cool, then slice. If you try to slice it when it’s hot, you’ll get frustrated, I promise.

Sooooo delicious! But see how the cheese kind of stayed mostly on one side?It would’ve been nice if it were more marbled. VERY good garlicky flavor though.

Edited to add: I just looked at the user’s manual for this machine (which my mom sent me via PDF), and you’re not supposed to have to take the dough out at any stage… the “raisin beep” tells you to add stuff, and it’s supposed to knead in itself. So I did what I was supposed to… the machine just couldn’t handle such tasty bread I guess.

This is how the garden looked a few days ago… lots and lots of monkey grass, a weird bush thing on the left (which was actually 3 separate plants), and a bunch of weeds.

So we pulled up a lot of the monkey grass, that ugly bush, and all the weeds.

And put in lots of yummy sun-loving plants… 2 lantana plants, 2 sun coleuses, lots of salvia and 5 gerbera daisies. We surrounded everything with cedar mulch and soaked it really really well.

I think in about a month, everything will be much fluffier and happier, and it’ll start looking nice.  But for now, it’s still a vast improvement. (That ugly black thing covers the water meter. Why couldn’t they put that somewhere else?) The two lantana plants are cut off in this photo, but this is the basic idea…

Zora helped us, too. Check out her bling.

I love eggplant parmesan, when it’s done correctly! I’m not saying my way is “THE Right Way” but it works pretty well for me… what I DON’T like in an eggplant parmesan is bitterness or too-tough-ness due to undercooked eggplant. Soggy breading is also a downer.

So here’s how I avoid those pitfalls.

First, bitterness. What I always knew to be “the way” to take bitterness out of the eggplant was to sprinkle it with kosher salt to draw out a lot of the bitter juices… wait about 20 minutes, then rinse off and pat dry.

But in my research for this article on blanching (which I wrote to be published at StartCooking.com), I learned that blanching can also take bitterness out of things, like broccoli rabe.

It also starts the cooking process for things like broccoli and cauliflower… that you might want to throw into a stir-fry but don’t want to stir-fry forever (because it’ll get limp and soak up a lot of oil). So I decided to blanch my eggplant slices to combat too-toughness from undercooking AND sogginess from over-cooking in the breading.

I had read on a chart that for 3/4 inch slices, you should blanch them for 3 minutes, but I think that was a little too long. I’d probably do 1.5 to 2 minutes next time.

Anyway, you throw them in the boiling water for a couple minutes, then into ice water to stop the cooking.

(Here, I’m pushing the slices into the boiling water with my tongs.)

The skin kind of shriveled, but that wasn’t an issue in the final product.

Then I dried the slices off, and coated them in flour…

Then dipped them in an egg wash followed by Italian breadcrumbs (oops! Didn’t take pictures of those.) Then they go into the pre-warmed pan with pre-warmed olive oil. The ones in the back here have obviously already been flipped.

When they’re all brown and delicious looking, throw them into a baking dish with a little spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese on top. I only put a tiny bit of sauce (again, to combat the soggy eggplant parmesan problem). I can always add more sauce later on my dish, you know? Anyway…

Then stick the whole thing in a warm oven until the cheese melts. And you’ve got eggplant Parmesan! I made some of that whole wheat pasta too, and it was really nice together.

After a camera mishap (half of my pictures were GONE! WHY!?), I managed to photograph all of my napkin sets for the shop. These are gorgeous hand-painted sets of 4 napkins each, with several different color schemes so you can find your perfect match!

Annum is my year-of-seasons design, with a tree from each season. I have 9 different color schemes, so be sure to check them out!

My other design, “Wipe your hands!” is more lighthearted, with a pair of colorful hands on each napkin.

Each set is folded prettily and tied with a satin ribbon at the top, ready for gift-giving.

Remember to use coupon code BLOGFRIEND for 15% off!

Ooh… things you haven’t seen before!

Embroidered kitchen towels: 

Hand Stamped Market Totes: 

Also available with: “One Earth” “Reduce. + Reuse.” and “Not Plastic”

I LOVE the new shop! It’s so quick and easy to add new things that maybe I’ll finally get all of my inventory into it!

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I’m off to photograph napkins now!

I’ve been working hard, and I’m pleased to announce the new Joyful Abode Shop! Of course, it’s not totally full of everything I have yet, but it’s on a good start, with military stationery (birth announcements and moving cards), recipe cards, zip pouches, and crocheted accessories! Here’s a sneak peek.

And as a special gift to you, my loyal blog friends, use the code “BLOGFRIEND” to receive 15% off of your Joyful Abode order at the new shop! Just enter the code at checkout.

Enjoy!

So, things are looking a lot nicer around here, as far as home decor goes. Now that we’ve finally been home for a couple of weeks, we’ve gotten some pictures on the walls and everything!

Check out our guest room! Who wants to come visit??

The lamps don’t match, but that’s kind of lower priority right now.

One of our dining room chairs lives in here (and matches nicely). The basket on the dresser is full of soaps, lip balm, toothpaste, and other goodies for our guests. The dresser drawers (except for one) are empty for our guest’s clothes!

The elliptical machine lives in the guest room now (we’ve been going to the gym more than working out at home, now that we’re so close to it!) The beer bottles are gone now too (sent to my brother-in-law who brews beer, for recycling).

It’s a good thing the guest dresser is empty, because the (really big) closet is full! The right side of the closet hosts all of my Joyful Abode inventory. Blankets on the top; napkins, kitchen towels, grocery totes, accessories, and stationery on the next shelf; and lots and lots of aprons hanging up. On the floor, I have my light box stuff and my show kit.

The left side of the closet has some display and shipping things, plus all of my kids’ books, teaching books, and piano music. Plus about a million empty hangers.

The dining room is still waiting for the table we ordered… so we can seat 8 at the table and have nice dinner parties. But… I’ve recovered the chairs!

The chairs are covered with Modern Flora fabric designed by Jessica Jones for J.Caroline Creative. I chose 2 fabrics (peapod and herb) and did 4 chairs in each.

I also have fabric to make curtains for the dining room, also from Modern Flora. They’re “green sprig.”

Of course I also have plans for coordinating art in the dining room. Because it’s fun to do!

This is the left side of the dining room (if you’re standing in the front doorway). Our kitchen island has been re-purposed as a bar/buffet in the dining room. It’s so deep, too, that we’re able to display some of our family pictures on it without taking up the area we need for serving.

The baby gate is for the dog, of course… but she can climb over it now, so that’s no good! It still keeps her in the kitchen if we are home and keeping an eye on her, but she has to go into her crate when we leave.

This is the little hallway type thing leading into the kitchen. I guess technically it’s part of the kitchen. I strung up a clothesline for my favorite aprons here, so I can still see them every day!

More kitchen…

And more… no pictures of the inside of the pantry, but it’s HUGE! I’m not sure how I feel about the aprons as curtains here… it worked better in the old house with taller windows. Maybe I’ll take them down and make a simple valance or cafe curtain.

Zora’s crate is in the kitchen (in the little hallway part, across from the apron clothesline), since we spend a lot of time in there. She seems to be getting to like it.

Here’s the living room (those orange stickers are from the movers… we took them off since taking this picture). The TV console is our same entertainment center, with the top part taken off. Eventually we’re going to get one custom-built. It’s a pretty small living room.

This is our back patio (off of the dining room). On the table are my little herb seedlings from Meagan. I’m going to move some of them to bigger pots soon!

That’s enough for now! I’ll bombard you with more later, I’m sure. Right now the room that looks the least-finished is our bedroom… mostly because we’re still waiting for our bed to come, we don’t have a set color scheme yet so art is in limbo, and, well… I guess that’s mostly it.

So, here’s the timeline: We drove to Meridian May 16th, lived in the CBQ (base hotel) until May 25th. We lived in our empty house until the movers brought our things June 2nd. Then the guy was in California June 3-5 while I unpacked. June 6, we drove to South Carolina to stay for a week. June 14th we drove back to Meridian. June 15th, we got our puppy. 2 weeks later… we’re unpacked and settled, with the puppy mostly trained! Whew!

The plants are (mostly) thriving! I took these pictures several days ago, and they’re already outdated!

The first two plants (left) are my tomatoes. They both have had little flowers but no tomatoes yet… The left one looks kind of sickly compared to the right one, and I’m beginning to think that those two may benefit from larger pots. Next is the cucumber, which has grown even more and now has tons of yellow flowers! Today I saw bees buzzing around it so hopefully there was some pollination going on.

The far right is my zucchini plant. It’s doing great! It has several little zucchinis and one of them is ready to be picked any day now.

I actually had a dream about it last night… that I picked it, and then I wanted to taste it, but it was so good (and smallish) that I ended up eating the whole thing… nothing left for the husband, and I felt kind of guilty about that. haha.

On the left here are the two peppers… a bell pepper and a banana pepper. They’re not doing so hot. The guy thinks maybe we’re overwatering them… In the corner is the Japanese eggplant, which is doing pretty well! It’s grown a lot and has a lot of flowers on it, and one little eggplant!

The main problem with it (and the cucumber and zucchini) is that it seems to be watered more than once a day because it uses the water/it’s so hot out. The whole plant visibly wilts in the meantime… which I know is not a good sign.

Does anyone have any experience with these plant watering balls or other tank systems with outdoor plants? I know they’re supposed to work well with houseplants, but I think I’d need a huge one for these outdoor plants, with how hot the Mississippi summer is!

We also got 4 long planters from my mother-in-law, and planted green beans in them! They just sprouted a couple days ago, and look like they’re doing okay, as far as little tiny seedlings go. I hope they grow and produce a lot of beans! Mmm.

So I probably should’ve written sometime in the last couple weeks about this… but so much was going on! First, we went to South Carolina for a week, and since then we’ve been settling in and getting our newest family member used to the way things work here.

About a week before we went to SC, we went to the pet store to buy puppy things. We were planning on finding a dog while we were in SC, but instead adopted one the same day. Zora (previously named Belle) was there with the East Mississippi Animal Rescue and she captured our hearts! We went to lunch to think about whether to get her or to wait for one in SC, and decided on Zora.

This is Zora on her adoption day:

The girl who was fostering her told us she’d keep her until we came back from South Carolina, and get her spayed while we were gone, too. I couldn’t stop thinking about Zora through the whole trip!

When we got back, we went to pick her up. The poor girl had stitches from her spaying and fleas to boot! Not comfortable at all. The next day, we made a trip to the vet and got her stitches out, flea killer stuff, puppy shots, and all sorts of other good stuff. Zora was MUCH more comfy after that.

Zora quickly warmed up to the house and became more confident, and now she prances around the house with a pop in her step! She loves her chew toys and works hard for treats.

She loves tummy rubs and will play fetch when it pleases her to do so.

So this is what she’s been working on in a week and 2 days of training… we’ve been working on sit, down, stay, wait, roll over, shake, “crate”, go potty, and walking on a leash. Yesterday we added “spin around” but she doesn’t quite have that yet. Want to see how smart she is?