Simple Stir-Fry

I've been cooking a lot lately, and figured I'd share a really easy dish I just threw together that was pretty tasty (a rare occurrence for me, but thankfully becoming less rare). Basically, I just put some oil in a pan and stir fried some finely chopped garlic, water chestnuts, thinly sliced carrots, broccoli, and diced onion for about five minutes, adding some salt, pepper, and soy sauce. Then I just served it over some rice. Yum!

Fall Themed Party

So the fall themed party for my church went really well! A lot of people came, and we served some really great food. We had games of cornhole and trackball, beer and wine, fall themed foods, and of course pumpkin pie milkshake! Anyway, it was a lot of fun to design and to attend.

Lentil Soup & Pumpkin Shakes

After a failed attempt at a lentil soup (...I didn't know what lentils were...) I made a second attempt with this Martha Steward recipe. It is fantastic—I used chicken broth, and a little extra garlic. Just figured I'd share it because I tried it and give it two thumbs up! :)

So for the fall party this weekend, I wanted to make something pumpkin themed. I Googled a pumpkin milkshake and this recipe was the first thing that came up. Little did I know I had stumbled upon the best dessert ever. Liquid awesomeness. :P (Pumpkin pie is my favorite dessert.) If you like pumpkin pie, you will love this milkshake. It's quick and simple and so delicious. All you need is canned pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, milk, vanilla ice cream, brown sugar, and whipped cream.

Fall-ing Into Place

I got really excited when a friend of mine asked me today to help her plan for a fall-themed party at our church. That means leaves, nature, burlap, and pretty colors! :D

The first two photos are of a decoration I want to hang a few strands of from the doorways. I found a wooden leaf at Michael's and used that to trace and cut out the shapes for the leaves on cardstock sheets with the color palette I picked. Then I just punched a small hole at the end of each "stem" and tied a knot so they wouldn't all fall into each other. This might even work with a tree branch hanging above them...if there's a way to get it to stay up there!

Next is a bouquet I picked out as a centerpiece. Michael's is having a 60% off sale for these flowers this week, so they came out to a great price!

The next picture is the container for my edible contribution...I'm going to make some kind of a smoothie or milk shake or something like that and put them in these cute jars! I thought the tag was a good idea so people can write their names and they won't get mixed up!

The next few pictures are of the candle jars I picked out—I really liked the texture on the glasses. I also thought this would be another good idea for a bouquet, which is even cheaper and includes the exact colors from the leaves. It's the same technique I used for the one on my dresser. Basically you just pick out some fallen branches, cut out some circles and string them on.

I also wanted to include a photo of these really cute pumpkin baskets I found. These were also on sale (yay sales!) at Michael's so I bought these for my own fall decorations. I love that they're made of such rustic elements like burlap, branches, and wicker.

For the tablecloths, I'm thinking a brown checkerboard with a burlap table runner. But we will see about that. I'll post more as I go along!