The Good Life: Celebrating the Style of the Past

Check out this book by Lesley Blume and you will find some fabulous references to an era that celebrated artful living and simple gestures of style and appreciation for the details that we seem too busy to partake in these days.  Like when was the last time you wax sealed a letter - let alone sent a hand written letter? The author states, "there are many delights to be dusted off and enjoyed once again." 

The point of this blog is to share recipes of food, life, style, and perspectives that encourage living fabulously with simple effort; take common items and repurpose them or take a bad situation and see the good through it. 

So in my daily quest, I am on a mission to find pockets of joy, beauty, celebration, enjoyment, intrigue, and entertainment - all for $5 and under - or better yet free. (There are temporary splurges allowed in this experiment from time to time.)

Today, I chose to accessorize and celebrate an era when men and women added flare to their outerwear with either fabulous hats or hair ornaments.  My selection to odorn both my mood and my look was a simple clip with a peacock feather and a flower; it made all the difference in my day. Try this.  Put on something that transports you in time, that decorates the landscape of what others experience in your presence.  Add fabulousness to all the spots you visit through out the day with a tip of a hat to the past.  Tomorrow? Maybe I'll put on a brooch or stockings or I'll try my hand at whipping up some homemade butter. The past is where it's at in my opinion of fabulous, artistic, classic living!

Peacock Feather Clip
Handcrafted by local Austin artist

available at Parts and Labour, Austin, Texas

www.partsandlabour.com

Dinner No. 2 - Italian Stuffed Red Peppers

The Italian says, "You need to make this dish again." And so it is, Dinner No. 2 - ringing in at a whopping $4.50 makes the cut in my daily experiment of $5 and under wonders!

The Italian, by the way, is my sweetheart. To please an Italian's pallet (and one who has a mother that is the most amazing cook ever) well, it is the highest compliment and testament to a meal if he says it's good...and then goes for thirds! This meal is a keeper.

Italian Stuffed Red Peppers

4 red peppers, tops off and de-seeded

1/2 package or 1/2 lb of ground turkey

1 cup of slightly cooked orzo

4-5 cloves garlic - diced

1/2 onion finely chopped

1 egg

1/2 cup italian breadcrumbs (optional)

finely chopped oregano and fresh basil

1 can of tomato sauce

(optional additions:  provolone on top melted at the end... shredded parmesian.... dash of heavy cream mixed into the red sauce last 5 minutes of cooking)

Mix turkey (or hamburger or no meat at all) with all ingredients above (except tomato sauce)..... add salt and pepper, dash of garlic salt and italian seasoning in addition to fresh herbs.... stuff peppers till overflowing in a nice cupcake rounded shape.  Place in deep dish with room to add additional meatballs made from the mixture (you might have 3 or 4 meatballs left over after stuffing the peppers).  Pour red sauce around the peppers, covering the sides and bottom of the pan.  Sprinkle more salt and pepper and italian seasoning on top and bake (I cover for half of the baking time)  at 350 degrees for at least 50 mnutes up to 75 minutes depending on lots of conditions...like your pan...your oven...or the thickness of the stuffed peppers.

Take out, put any italian cheese on top and serve immediately....it's a meal unto itself...no need for salad.  Just savor the hearty goodness! 

Serve up with an Italian Red and a little Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin in the background!



Chicks Instead of Chicken on the Menu of Fabulousness Tonight

Some of the best gifts come in the most unassuming of packages.  Tonight mine was in a cardboard box with $3.75 written across the top in pencil. 

And inside? Two Ameraucana 4 day-old baby chix. Wow. My man knows the way into my heart. Give me something little, with some fur, blinking eyes, and I melt! (We took in a homeless pup and called her our own last month!)

These little furballs will be added to our flock of Maran chicks - giving our urban farm 13 chickens in total, four cats, and one amazing dog.

So tonight - I had planned on posting my recipe for Italian Turkey Meatballs with Orzo in a Tomato Cream Sauce...but after holding my new baby chick - I was not in the mood to cook anything with feathers; we ate Thai takeout instead (Total: $9.25 divided by 2) ...still sticking to the experiment! A day of $5 and under fabulousness!

Cheap Cheap!

Dinner No. 1 - Chicken Basil Coconut Soup

The Fabulous Life Experiment begins here, with a day spent seeing the world a little differently - a little sweeter - a little more colorfully. 

In European countries, sometimes the planning of a meal is the main purpose for the day...to procure needed items not for the whole week but just for that meal. 

So in the pursuit of living well today, I made the procurement process part of the experiment.  Simply stated, I avoided rushing into a busy grocery store to snatch a dozen items off the shelves to then bustle through the checkout's conveyor belt in the 10 items or less line. 

Today, I didn't breeze past the flower bin...I stopped...I enjoyed...and I moved on. 

I knew that for my first blog post recipe - it would be the Chicken Basil Soup with Coconut...a sweet yet hearty and colorful expression of one-pot-wonderment. 

My journey into the market was different today. I have a mission now - to report and share and bring life to what was otherwise a mundane task in my life.

I might have been the only person today in the potato section taking pictures of a bin full of yams (see photo below) but today I let the grocery store's cornucopia of shapes and colors be canvasses of art rather than items on a list. 

So in keeping with my experiment to make a scruptuous dinner for $5 and under, I purchased one yam (.74), fresh spinach (.50), one small yellow squash (.54), one can of coconut milk (1.54)and I used 1/2 a chicken that I had roasted the evening before (2.52).  If you are adding, you will see I went over budget a few cents on this one.  But there will be enough left over for lunch so I will let that slide for the experiment...it will be even more fabulous tomorrow anyway!
Note:  I am starting this experiment in Spring in Austin with a healthy herb garden (basil, thyme, sage, dill, chives, oregano, and rosemary). 

Recommendations for making this a fabulous culinary experience: 
1. Enjoy the hues of the yam juxtaposed to the green basil.  Lay them out on your own pallet before cutting...just because.
2. Music - with this meal - I love Zydeco or Cuban (the Buena Vista Social Club.)
3. Serve with: Brown Rice and a lemon sorbet or fresh berries after the meal...for added color fusion! 
4. The conversation:  keep it light...fresh...hopeful...playful...
5. Afterwards...curl up on a sofa and watch a movie or read a book that has been calling to you - you know the one that is sitting next to your nightstand that you haven't opened in along time - yeah - that one.  (Tonight it was a raining. I heated up left over brownies and drizzled hot fudge on top with a dash of cream.) 

This is a good sweet life. 

Chicken Basil Coconut Soup
4 chicken thighs
1 yam - cut into cubes
1 yellow squash (cut into cubes)
onion optional
garlic - lots (like 4 cloves)
handful of spinach
4-6 sprigs basil
1 can coconut milk
(2 cups rice optional)

Simmer chicken till tender in 4-6 cups of water...with salt and pepper and 1 cube chicken boullion.  (Take chicken out and debone.) Add cut yams and then add squash 5 minutes later. (When yams are soft but not too mushy...add spinach and basil and cook another 5 minutes.  Turn off heat. Add coconut milk and stir in. Serve immediately (over rice optional for thicker consistancy).  Salt and pepper to taste - a little tabasco is good too! (Total cooking time about 40 minutes)

  Life is yummy!

Stop to Smell the Sunflowers

I stopped and smelled the roses today...sunflowers actually.  Just another ingredient down the isle of fabulousness.  Didn't have to buy them....just enjoyed them.

Day One: The experiment

So it starts out as simple as this: when you have lemons, make lemonade. When it rains, jump in the puddles. When you're stuck on a plane for five hours, share your pretzels. 


The good life that we seek is right in front of us most of the time.  The problem? We get in our own way...and make it difficult to see at times the simple things that are more enjoyable than we could have imagined.


I credit a few inspirations to starting this blog and what will become an experiment in living differently than I have ever done before.  


One inspiration is a friend who shared with me recently that she was living a fabulous life.  Curious as to what that could entail, I probed, "What do you mean by that?"...Her answer - "I induldge in what's available to me, like standing at the freezer in my pajamas in the middle of the afternoon and eating chocolate icecream straight from the container." So it wasn't her burgeoning career or her real estate holdings?  Was it fabulous because of the pajamas or the ice cream? Or both?  Either way, I liked how it rolled off her tongue and floated in the air a while and all I thought was..."I want some of that fabulousness too."


The other inspiration comes from a myriad of amazing college students I teach right now in a counseling skills course.  Here I am at the front of the room describing what the pursuit of happiness looks like or the quest for contentment or the "finding yourself" lecture; yet it is through their personal reflections they have shared where I have found in fact discovered MY OWN definition of seeking and living a good life. Thank you guys!


And then last night, as I wrote a detailed email to my dearest penpal Mindy, I got lost in an adventurous description of my evenings spent cooking delicious meals that cost less than $5 to prepare. My fabulous life was unfolding in front of me and for 5 and under! 


I translated this formula into other areas of my life and realized that long gone were my expensive tastes, my unrealistic expenditures on frivilous nothings; gone was my infatuation in the "new and improved" thing.  Rather, my current holdings and interests resemble more of a thrift shop gone wild, a bohemian boutique of other people's forgottens that have become my treasures. 


I recognized in myself that I have been "treasuring" items that are - for lack of a better word - used and abused until I breath new life into them with a creative twist or good intention. 
Wow.. Am I thrifty?  I had never associated this word in my personal vocabulary before.  I had to try it on...see if it fit...and guess what, it did; but I prefer the hybrid term that I have designed CRIFTIVE....a mix of crafty and thifty and creative. I love to make up my own words.


And so begins the experiment...  My attempt to embrace what I already have, make it better, use what exists, change that which I can and accept what I can not. So this will translate into all pockets, closets, and cabinets of my life in the coming months as I embark on a $5 and under quest to integrate snippets of fabulousness into a life I share with my best friend and life partner. He is excited for this experiment because it involves me cooking - a lot - and saving money! 


Join me daily as I post recipes for living well - including delicious and easy to prepare meals, wellness tips, design thoughts, crafts, music, entertainment ideas, date night suggestions, love advice, and other $5 and under ideas for attainable fabulousness.


Here's to the Good Life.