Mrs. C Does Stuff

As I mentioned before, we are preparing for the birth of our first child.  Since we are having a boy, Mr. C wanted to do the nursery using a New Orleans Saints theme.  He is a huge Saints fan.  To accomplish this, we wanted to paint the walls a brown color and accent the room with black and white.  The furniture is all black. The crib was ordered from Babies R Us online.  It is the Tuscany crib in black by Storkcraft.  This is a 4 in 1 convertible crib, meaning it converts to a toddler bed, as well as a full size bed.  This crib comes in several other color options, but black worked best for the look we were trying to achieve. While strolling through Ikea one day, we came across this dresser.  We purchased the Hemnes 3 drawer chest in black brown.  We plan to also use it as a changing table by adding a changing pad on top of it.  Now here comes the fun part, painting the room.  When our house was built, all ...

This is the recipe we use to make shrimp fried rice at home.  The best part of the whole recipe is that it contains no msg.  To make the recipe more healthy, you could substitute the white rice for brown rice if desired. Ingredients: 2 eggs, scrambled 1 shallot, chopped finely 1 medium onion, chopped finely 2 stalks of green onions, chopped 1 teaspoon of minced garlic 1 pound of shrimp, peeled and deveined 1 cup of carrots, chopped 1 cup of peas 4 cups of cooked rice (use day old cold cooked rice for best results) 1/2 cup of soy sauce salt and black pepper to taste Scramble two eggs in a skillet and set aside for later. Chop the shallot, onion,  and green onion and throw in a pan.  Add the minced garlic and brown.  If the seasonings start to stick to the bottom of the pan, use a bit of water, about a half a cup, to deglaze the pan. Add in the shrimp and let cook until the shrimp is thoroughly cooked. Then, add...

Baked tilapia is a staple around our house.  It is a quick and easy weeknight meal and it is quite tasty.  I usually serve it with potatoes or rice pilaf.  It's also great with green beans. Ingredients: Paprika Parsley Salt Black pepper Oregano Thyme Lemon juice Butter (a 1/2 teaspoon for each piece of fish) You can use fresh or frozen tilapia for this recipe.  If using frozen, allow the tilapia to thaw. Sprinkle on the paprika, parsley, salt, black pepper, oregano and thyme on the fish.  Then pour on a little lemon juice, just a few drops on each fillet. Put a half teaspoon of butter on top of each piece of fish.  Bake the fish in the oven at 350 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes. 

We had these awesome jalapeño hamburgers once at a family member's house.  I am not quite sure of the brand, but they tasted great.  After that, I started wondering how I could do this at home.  Since I normally make my burgers with ground turkey, I thought, I will have to see how these jalapeño turkey burgers turn out. The picture above illustrates how the burgers look when finished.  Don't mind the massive piece of lettuce on this burger, the bottom of the bun is actually underneath it. Ingredients: 1 lb. ground turkey 1 jalapeño pepper, finely diced Paprika to taste Salt to taste Dice the jalapeño as small as possible.  You want it to be fine so you don't bite into a huge chunk of jalapeño pepper once mixed into the burger patties.  However, if you would prefer bigger pieces, feel free to chop it differently, according to your tastes. Discard the seeds of the pepper. In a bowl, add the ground turkey, jalapeño pepper, paprika ...

Here is what our patio looked like when we started after prepping the ground .  It was still a work in progress.   We decided to make pavers for the patio using a mold.  This is a mold made by Pathmate in the Belgian style.  This seemed to be the simplest method for creating the patio.  By using the mold we saved money on the purchase of individual pavers, and saved time because we did not have to design and layout a pattern.  To use the mold, we simply mixed concrete and poured it into the form.  Smooth off the top of the mold.  We allowed the concrete to set for a couple of minutes.  Then, gently we removed the mold. This is how it looked when the mold was filled with concrete. After letting it sit, we lifted the mold. You can move on to the next mold setting immediately after lifting out the mold. This is how the pavers looked as we moved along. This project obviously took several days to complete.  We di...

This is one of the major projects we have been working on the past few weeks.  Since moving into our house, we have discussed this patio.  We have spent a great deal of time planning the entire outdoor living space.  This space will be done in stages.   The first stage is laying a patio with pavers.  The second stage will consist of us building an overhead cover.  We are still working out the design elements and a plan of execution for that stage.  The third and final stage will be to build an outdoor kitchen area.  Because there is a pond behind our house, we would like to create a place where we can not only barbecue, but also clean and cook any fish we catch.  About a month ago we finally began working on phase one of the backyard, the patio.  The hardest part of this project is leveling the ground.  The first thing we did was mark the area with stakes. Then, we had to dig up the sod.  At first, Mr. C thought he co...