Spiced-up Photo Album

A good friend of mine recently did a little spring cleaning, and brought me a bag of various unused photo albums. Being a photography buff, he had acquired too many over the years, so he decided to throw some my way as I'm just getting addicted to photography. They're a good size, not too big, and very nice on the inside, but overall simple on the outside:



The black outside is nice, but a little too plain for me :)

So I pulled out some paper! I had this awesome technicolor camera paper that I picked up once at Paper Source on clearance, and it was perfect!

However, I decided to first start with a red on the spine of the album...



And then I Mod Podged the camera paper on the front and back covers, making sure to wrap around the edges. I let sit for a day, and then I finished with an all-over coat of Mod Podge to seal. It was a super quick and easy photo album makeover!





Not everything has to be a big project, even the littlest things can be spruced up with Mod Podge!

My Favorite Things... Mother's Day Edition!

Today, in honor of my mother on this wonderful Mother's Day, I thought I'd do a special edition of My Favorite Things! In this post, I'll feature something in each of the Food, Wine, & Mod Podge categories from my mom!

My Apron



This apron is truly one of my favorite things because of the story behind it. My mom has almost an identical apron in style, but in blue. This apron was her mother's, my grandmother, and it is the most practical apron ever. It's got a huge pocket (great for my camera!) as well as a dish towel sewed right into the waist. Absolutely practical in every way! And then it's cinched at the waist so it's adorable on.

My mom knew I loved this apron, so she offered to make me one of my own for my birthday one year. Since she only had her own apron as a guide, she pulled in my father's mother, my other grandmother, to help figure it out. My grandma is a farm woman who grew up in Iowa and has been sewing all her life, so she's pretty good at making things without a pattern. The two of them worked so hard to make this beautiful apron for me, and it is so special.



I wear it nearly every time I cook, and every time it makes me smile! This is so special because the original design is my mother's mother's, and then my mom and my father's mother helped bring it to life for me! I don't think there's a more special object to bring up on Mother's Day!



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Anniversary Wine Bottle Lamp

My mom is the queen of meaningful gifts. This is actually a trait that I treasure in myself which she taught me. There's giving somebody a gift that's just a gift, and there's giving someone something that touches their heart, makes their eyes sparkle, or makes them smile from ear to ear. I've been blessed to have received many gifts along the years from her that fit into this category (see apron story above!) but another that comes to mind is the wine bottle lamp she had made for me.

She bought a lamp that looked essentially like white christmas lights strung through the bottom of a wine bottle as decoration for her house at some home store one time. Though it was never an actual wine bottle, it was just for looks, that got her thinking that maybe she could have a special wine bottle made into a light as a gift. Having no glass cutting tools of her own, she actually did research and hunted someone down that was willing to do this for her!

Now to where this story comes to me. I had been holding on to the bottle from the wine that Chris and I shared for our first dating anniversary. This is a bottle of 2003 Trefethen Chardonnay, and it's something I hold dear to my heart. Well, she took this bottle of mine, which was just sitting there collecting dust, and had it made into a beautiful light!





This is a great addition to our home, and now something we can cherish forever.

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and finally....

My Creativity

I owe so much of my creativity to my mom. She always helped create fun new things, whether it was getting consumed with scrapbooking, splatter painting my bedroom walls, or nailing patterns into tin for a vintage kitchen cabinet redo. She always taught me that if you get an idea in your head, you can always figure out how to do it.

Even now, even though she's miles away, she helps out whenever possible with my creativity. About a year ago, I decided to make a wine label decoupage, and to help out with this massive effort, she saved all the labels of all of the wines she and my dad drank and mailed them to me. Also, just recently, she helped with the great Mod Podge Filing Cabinet Overhaul, shown in a post just a month or so ago. I can only imagine what projects we'll come up with next!

So thank you, Mom, for being such an influence in all the parts of my life!

My favorite bolognese sauce.

I've been waiting to post this recipe because it is very beloved. To me.

That's right, I LOVE this recipe.

Ok, I'm really not that self-centered, but here's the deal. Hubby and I make amazing meals together. The two of us in the kitchen are unstoppable. But separately, meh. We're ok alone. He is good at seasoning and cooking the main dish meats, I am great at side dishes and prep. Together we're a force to be reckoned with. Apart, we're just ok.

Except for this one dish. Alone, I can make this phenomenally, and it's one of my top 3 favorite meals ever.

My bolognese sauce is based off of the bolognese sauce my host mum made when I was living with her and her family. She wrote it down for me when I left, and I have been making it ever since. While it's different every time, it is always a variation of what she made with love for us time and time again.


My Favorite Bolognese Sauce, Ever.

Start with an onion.



Coarsely chop it, quarters are fine.



Now grab a bell pepper. I am using green bell pepper for this recipe because they were on sale, but red bell peppers are wonderful as well.



Coarsely chop that as well.

Now grab some celery. You'll want to use at least 6 stalks, and up to a whole bunch. Chop in the same large chunks.



Hey, look at that! It's the holy trinity!



Throw it all in a food processor, along with a couple teaspoons of water, and pulse until nearly pureed.





Once it's all nice and finely chopped, grab two tomatoes. Quarter those like you did the other veggies...



and add to the food processor...



Pulse pulse pulse in the food processor, and...



Once it's ready, dump it into your pot.



Turn the heat on medium-medium high. As it's warming up, grab your other ingredients:



- 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
- 1 tin tomato paste
And approx...
- 1 tbs worchestershire sauce (gives a slightly sweet tang - omit if that's not your thing)
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1-2 tbs brown sugar
- 2 tbs white or rice wine vinegar

Not pictured, 1/2 cup water.

Dump it all in the pot with the veggie mixture.



Let it all begin to simmer together, and turn your attention to the meat part of this sauce.

Start with approx 1 lb ground meat. I say meat because I've used ground chuck, ground sirloin, and even ground turkey. Whatever floats your boat!



My big belief is that you should season the meat as it cooks. So add a little salt and freshly ground pepper during the raw stage so the flavors cook into the meat.



Then add to the simmering sauce, and throw in a little:



Crushed red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and italian seasoning. Feel free to add as much as you want, and whatever else you want! When it comes to seasoning, there is no perfect combination. Cater to your tastes! Just be careful with the red pepper flakes, they go nuts when cooked at length, as we discovered in the great spicy roasted tomato pasta debacle of 2009.

Bring it all to a simmer.



Now cover, turn down to a light simmer, and leave for 1-2 hours.

Finally, once all the flavors are melded together and the veggie base broken down, you have an amazing sauce!



And the best part is that this sauce really is pretty darn healthy. Starts with veggies, and doesn't add any oil, butter, or lard. A little fat is added from the ground beef, but that doesn't hurt anyone.

Now, serve up!





Though I'll be honest, the pictures above were not taken the day of the making of this sauce. That's because I generally make this sauce on a weekend and freeze it all for future meals. This sauce is wonderful because it holds its flavor even during reheating. Also, the recipe makes so much that you really have no chance of eating it all in one sitting anyway! So I put it in tupperware in the freezer, and slice off a chunk when I need a quick meal. All you have to do is cook some noodles, and simultaneously reheat the sauce. Suddenly you have an awesome home-cooked meal that's significantly healthier and tastier than that jarred pasta sauce!

When to hold and when to drink

How do you know when you should hold a wine for a long time, and when you should just drink it?

This by no means is an exact science, but there are some handy tips to help you decide.

At IntoWine.com, they break down the types of wines that generally age well, and those that don't.


Rittmaster has some suggestions. “White wines like German Riesling, French Vouvray, and Australian Semillon can age effortlessly for decades if they are in balance at the beginning,” he says.

Cabernet Sauvignons can be kept for two years and beyond, depending on the vintage and where they wine came from. Those from Bordeaux in France, Coonawarra in Australia, and even some from California’s Napa Valley do age well...

Wines that do not benefit from aging are Merlot, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay. Since there are many different styles of Chardonnay, treat each one as if it were a different varietal. All of these wines, in general, should be consumed young or only stored for under five years.

So now that you have an idea of which types of wine are good to hold and which to drink, this is still a little too much of a generalization. Next, you can break it down further by region and year.

Wine Spectator publishes a new vintage chart each year to help consumers make the call to hold or to drink. This chart lays it out by region (Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, US) as well as by year. They even have a handy pocket-sized Wallet Chart to print and keep with you.

Another yearly vintage chart is published by Robert Parker (aka Wine Advocate). I recommend you check out both charts, because they sometimes can be very different in their recommendations. Since there are many subjective factors that go into these recommendations, it's worth seeing what different authorities think. A warning though, the Robert Parker vintage chart is a little harder to read, but also provides more guidance than Wine Spectator's "Drink" or "Hold."

Sometimes it's a hard decision, but hopefully the resources above, as well as your own research, will help make it a little easier.

The next post on wine will take on the actual aging process. Once you've picked your wines you want to age, how do you do it? We'll go through a brief overview of the why's and how's of aging wine.