DIY Marble Magnets

Last night the Girls Team made DIY Marble Magnets! To make these magnets you will need decorative accent marbles, flattened on one side (we found ours at Michael's), 1" magnets, a hot glue gun, Mod Podge, white cardstock and a reliable color printer.  

Decorative clear marbles, flattened on one side. 

I decided to make magnets featuring my favorite cities and places I've lived. I used yellowmaps.com for maps with a vintage vibe. My mom used an old atlas to make magnets featuring some of the National Parks she has visited. We printed our images and glued them to white card stock for reinforcement. 

We used a circular scrapbooking tool to cut perfect 1" circles.

I chose the four cities I've lived in: Pacifica/San Francisco, Folsom/Sacramento, Rohnert Park/Sonoma and Seattle, WA. I also decided to include two of my favorite cities: Lake Tahoe and San Diego. 

Spread a thin layer of Mod Podge on to the images and then secure them to the flat side of the marbles. Let them dry for at least 30 minutes. 

Once the images are securely stuck to the marble, use hot glue to secure the magnet to the marble. 

My DIY city magnets. 

My mom's DIY National Park magnets. 

On the fridge! 

These magnets were by far my favorite craft project that we have made since starting Make It Happen Mondays!! They were simple to make, but even more importantly, a great project to personalize without looking tacky. The possibilities for gifts are endless! I can't wait to personalize magnets as gifts for my friends...and make more for myself too :)

Lemon Love

After a trip out to the lemon tree today, the Girls Team returned to the kitchen with over 50 lemons! Here's a peek at what we whipped up: 

Fresh, homegrown, juicy lemons. 

Lemon bars. 

Powdered and ready to eat!

Chicken Piccata.

If you are interested in any of the recipes, email the Girls Team or post a comment below! 

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

This Monday marked the beginning of Chinese New Year, the year of the dragon! We celebrated this Monday by making some home made pot stickers. The recipe we found was from Martha Stewart of all people! So of course this recipe was clear, concise and easy to follow. The result was a delicious batch of pot stickers.

                              

        The finished product.

For the filling we mixed finely chopped napa cabbage, ground pork, fresh minced ginger, chopped green onions, soy sauce and sesame oil. 

We used store bought, round wonton wrappers. 

Working with them one at a time we spooned one teaspoon of the filling mixture into the middle of the wrapper. Then we wet the edges and folded the wrapper in half. 

We carefully pressed the edges together, making little pleats.

We stood them up on their sides, and covered them with a damp cloth so they didn't dry out. You also need to keep the package of wrappers under a damp cloth so they don't dry out while you work.

 Now the process got easier and more familiar. We browned them in oil for just a few minutes. Until the bottoms were a nice golden brown.

We added about one half cup of water and put the lid on the pan. We let them steam until the pot stickers were almost translucent, and the water was gone.

MMMM..looking good!

This recipe made so many we put half of them in the freezer to cook later!

 We also made a nice asian salad with almonds and mandarins.

Our finished meal!

This was a fun recipe to make as a team! They were so light and fresh tasting, not heavy or salty at all. I'd say they were delicious and definitely worth the few extra steps it took to prepare!

In Chinese astrology, the year of the dragon is the luckiest one in the zodiac and people born in the year of the dragon are seen as being very special. Unbelievably neither of us were born in the year of the dragon! We are just simple animals, an ox and a rabbit! 

Gung hay fat choy!

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

One of the things we had talked about doing when we started our "Make It Happen Mondays" was to try some vegetarian recipes. 

Tonight it was just the girls team for dinner, a perfect opportunity to forego the meat and put a twist on the traditional baked potato! After seeing a recipe for stuffed sweet potatoes in the Food Network Magazine, we thought we would try it, but tweak it just a bit.

After assembling some super foods, sweet potatoes, garlic, broccolini and shallots.

We microwaved the two sweet potatoes for about twelve minutes.

While we waited for the sweet potatoes, we sauteed some shallots in olive oil and set those aside. 

We sliced some shitake mushrooms, broccolini, and garlic.

 We sauteed the broccolini with a little kosher salt. After a few minutes we added the mushrooms, garlic and a little red pepper flakes.

We also mixed one quarter cup of ricotta cheese with two tablespoons of finely grated parmesan cheese.

 The sweet potatoes looking perfect! Fluff them up with a fork!

They smelled great! We topped each sweet potato with one tablespoon of the cheese mixture.

Then we added the vegetable mixture and another layer of the cheese.

Topped it off with the scallions. Perfect!

We added a salad to complete our dinner.

The original recipe used pancetta rather than scallions and also had a little nutmeg in the cheese mixture. We decided to take the pancetta out to make them meatless. The nutmeg was left out because it was forgotten at the grocery store. 

These sweet potatoes will definitely stay in our recipe file. They took a total of twenty minutes to make, were sweet, savory and delicious! We definitely liked this twist on the traditional baked potato.

Yum!

Garden Party

Tonight the Girls Team let our green thumbs glow in our first gardening project since the creation of Make It Happen Mondays! Check out our Paperwhite and Mini Basil plants! 

Paperwhites are good indoor flowers because they do not require chilling to bloom and bloom for a long time, providing a pretty, fragrant flower during the depths of winter. Planting our Paperwhites was simple as we followed these steps:


Step 1: Get the materials. We bought two long, skinny, clear vases (they are about 4 inches tall) and mini river rock pebbles at Michael's. We got our bulbs at Orchard Supply Hardware.

Step 2: Fill the vase with pebbles, one inch deep. 

Step 3: Fit as many bulbs as possible into your vase. No need to be gentle. Shove them close together, sitting directly on the pebbles. 

Step 4: Cover the bulbs with pebbles, until only the stems are sticking out. Then add water, just enough to touch the bottom of the bulbs. If you add too much water, the bulbs will rot. Remember this as you water your bulbs daily! 

Step 5: Pick a home for your new Paperwhites where they will receive some sunlight (but not direct sun) and wait 6-8 weeks for them to bloom! Updated pictures to come as ours bloom :) 

After planting our flowers, we planted Mini Basil in biodegradable temporary pots. Once the basil gets large enough, we will re-pot the basil in a permanent pot. Planting the basil was easy, but we'll see how it grows...

After filling the pots with 3/4 dirt, sow the seeds one inch apart in the seed starting mix. This was almost impossible to actually measure due to the seeds small size. We ended up sprinkling seeds around :) Then put more dirt on top, water and set aside to grow! With some TLC and water, the basil should grow in 4-6 weeks. 

Indoor gardening was a fun (and warm!) winter activity that would be great for all ages because each project took about 15 minutes and was as simple as following a set directions :) 

Are you guys avid gardeners? What's your favorite flower to plant?! 

Family Traditions

Last week, the Girls Team took Make It Happen Mondays on the road where we reunited with the third founding Girls Team member, my mom's sister Claire! We spent three days in LA, hanging out with our cousins, watching football, visiting the La Brea Tar Pits and eating delicious food! A post-Christmas visit with our cousins has become a tradition over the past few years, so in the spirit of holiday traditions, my mom, Auntie Claire and myself decided to whip up a few traditional family dishes. We spent the day cooking, soaking up the sunshine in the backyard, playing ladder ball and snacking. It was one of the most enjoyable and relaxing days of our holiday break :)

Irish Bread has been a staple in our family for decades. Don't believe me? Check out this original recipe note written by my grandma many years ago!

We made two loafs of Irish Bread: one without caraway seeds (I don't like them) and one with soy milk instead of buttermilk (my cousin's girlfriend is vegan).

Traditional recipe without caraway seeds.

Vegan edition with caraway seeds.

Warm, fresh Irish Bread with butter :) Mmmm!

We also made deviled eggs and artichoke dip - family favorites! 

Enjoying Fat Tire's Snow Day beer seemed ironic as we spent one of the last days of December soaking up the warm Southern California sun.

Another traditional dish in our family is Orange Jello Salad, which we have as a side dish on special occasions. For the final meal of our visit, my mom made this to accompany chicken, roasted potatoes and salad. 

We got a little too excited before dinner and forgot to take a final photo of the Orange Jello Salad until after we had eaten some of it...ooops.

Traditions and food are a great way to connect with family. We are lucky to have so many traditions and fun memories in our family! The Girls Team hopes everyone had a great Christmas and a happy start to 2012! 

If you are interested in any of the recipes, post a comment and I will send them directly to your email :)