Easy Coconut Shrimp Curry

I am a huge fan of both Indian food and curry in general after living in Scotland for a couple of years.  We typically have some sort of curry at least once a week.  What I think is surprising though is that my husband and I both agree that we enjoy our homemade dishes almost more than ordering take out or going out to eat.  This dish is definitely feels more Thai than Indian, but if you enjoy curry and coconut, it is super easy to make and delish.  If you aren't a big shrimp fan, you can easily substitute chicken (which we have done many times). Another plus, this is a one pan dish (with the exception of the rice) so clean up is a cinch.  This was another one of our favorite dishes from the dearly departed Scratch DC meals we loved so much.  

What You'll Need:

Salt and Pepper 

pinch of Cayenne

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 cup Basmati rice

1 tbsp butter

Canola oil

1 cup of canned, diced tomatoes

1 cup coconut milk (canned - found in International aisle)

1 cup frozen peas (you can cook from frozen)

1 cup onion, diced

1 tbsp garlic, minced

2 tsp fresh grated ginger

1 tsp coriander

1/4 tsp tumeric

1 tsp curry powder

What You'll Do:

First you need to marinade your protein for about 20 minutes prior to cooking.  Put your shrimp or chicken in a ziplock bag, season with salt and pepper and pinch of cayenne, and lemon juice.  Set aside.

Cook the rice in a medium pot according to package directions.

In a large pan, add canola oil.  Add onion and cook for 3-5 minutes.  Add ginger, garlic, coriander, tumeric, and curry powder to onion mix and season with salt and pepper.  Add more canola oil if needed to avoid spices sticking to the pan.  Add tomatoes and coconut milk and bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer.  Add shrimp or chicken and heat until cooked through (this will obviously be a much shorter cooking period for the shrimp and I strongly encourage you NOT to overcook the shrimp).  Serve over Basmati rice.

Note: if I were making this, I'd have added chopped fresh cilantro at the end as the recipe originally called for but my husband hates cilantro so I didn't buy a whole bunch of it just for me to put on my plate.  But, garnishing with some chopped fresh cilantro would be delish if you are so inclined!

Darker Dining Room with one of Behr's 2018 Color Trends

As a follow up to my post earlier this week, I'm charging right ahead with my 2018 organizational goals.  This is the first step towards completion of goal # 3.  Behr recently released its 2018 color trends.  I picked up some color samples recently and ended up deciding to paint our tiny dining room in one of their newest colors - Unplugged.   It is this VERY DARK, really complex shade of brown that in some light looks brown, other lights looks nearly black and then other times almost feels an incredibly dark shade of army green.

Our house has a very small room in the back that I am sure was meant to be a breakfast nook.  It is right off the kitchen and has two walls of nothing but windows so it gets great natural light.  It also has two really cool built in corner hutches.  Originally I decided to make this little nook the playroom for our kids however after about 4 months in our house, we totally outgrew the space.  So, we made a swap and put the playroom in the room that should be the formal dining room.  Definitely not a move I ever thought I'd make (you can read about my decision to do that here) however for this time in our lives, it has dramatically improved how we live in this house.  So, the breakfast nook is now our dining room.  It's small but it can easily seat six for a dinner party so with the limited amount we are entertaining these days, it works for us.  Unfortunately, it has just been sort of neglected as I focused my efforts in getting the playroom and more "living" spaces in our house set up first.

To say this color transformed our space is an understatement.  I've got a few things to do to get it picture ready (namely a new light fixture) but in the meantime, you can get a gist of the color from these spaces:

Here's a swatch of it on our wall so you can see a sneak peak of the drastic change that is going to take place!

Happy weekend everyone!

Salt Dough Fingerprint Magnets for Valentine's Day

Yesterday's Valentine's round up really got me in the mood for Valentine's Day.  The kids and I made these super easy salt dough magnets to give to our family.  I love that they can be used year-round on people's fridges and that their little fingerprints make it so special.  I got the inspiration from Pinterest (which led to this Messy Little Monsters post) however, as usual for me, it turned out to be a major #pinterestfail.  The recipe I found for colored salt dough called to mix in paint instead of half of the water and instead of a bright, red color that I was looking for, the dough came out like a rusty, dusty light pink.  Not the look I was going for at all.  So, I doctored it up with a little red craft paint, added the gold paint to enhance the finger prints and voila! 

Getting both kids aged 3.5 and 1.5 to cooperate with their fingerprints was the hard part.  The idea was that two thumb prints form an interior heart on the magnets but I actually love how they all turned out different.  Some have just one thumb print, others have one from each kid and some have two from the same kid.   I put a little tutorial at the end of this post.

I already had some supplies on hand to put together Forrest's Valentine's for school so I used the clear baggies, filler and ribbon I had on hand to wrap these up to deliver to family in the next week or so. 

And on that note, I have to show how cute Forrest's little Valentine's for school turned out  That kid always does give me a "raisin" to smile!

I got the tags as a printable from LoveLucyDesign.  I adore all of her precious invitations and cards. 

We put together a little care package for our friends in DC that we used to have our nanny share with.  Forrest loved packing everything up to send to his buddy Archer and his baby brother.  The little glow sand Valentine's are from Target. 

Salt Dough Fingerprint Magnets

Tools:

**I used this salt dough recipe.  It was super easy and fail-proof, even for me.  I recommend doing this and skipping the coloring of your dough in the dough-making process.  Just paint the things afterwards. 

**I used these cookie cutters.  I love that you had three different sized hearts to play around with. 

**Pick any color paint you like but I went with this red and this gold. 

**You will need a rolling pin.  I add this in because I had to make a special trip to go out and buy this one from Target because I.do.not.bake.

**Modge Podge I recommend getting the gloss finish.

**Parchment paper.  Ever since this happened, I use the stuff for everything.

**Magnet backers.  I got mine from Michael's but something like this would work fine if you, like me, are an Amazon junkie.

Steps:

**Make salt dough and roll out until it is about an inch thick.  I found it easier to split the dough into fourths and then roll out one section at a time.  I cut the dough using all three sizes of the heart cookie cutters. 

**Place the heart shapes on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.  Have your child place their fingerprints in the hearts in the desired location.  (Good luck with this.)

**Bake the magnets low and slow at about 200 degrees until the dough is hardened.  Check the underside to make sure they are hardened all the way through even if they look done on top.

**Paint the entire heart red.  It took me about three to four coats until the color was as saturated as I wanted it.  Fill in the finger prints with the gold.  I just used a small paint brush and made circular strokes.

**Once all the red and gold paint has dried, paint a coat of Modge Podge over all the magnets. 

**Adhere the magnetic backing.

Enjoy for years to come! 

Valentine's Round Up for Little Girls

It's February 1st!  This means that we a) survived January (thank goodness!) and b) Valentine's is coming up.  I've become a bigger and bigger fan of Valentine's Day lately.  I think it is because with the house feeling so blah after Christmas, I look forward to having a little holiday to celebrate and it gives me a chance to do a little holiday decorating again.  

In honor of the upcoming holiday, I put together a round up of heart-inspired gift ideas for the little sweethearts in your life.  Speaking of sweethearts, here are a couple of pics of BUSY baby Gray modeling these cute Old Navy PJ's they have in stock right now, perfect for Valentine's Day!

xo, 

Cameron

*items listed clockwise from left

1. Heart Pajamas (these come in blue too for the little boys in your life!)
2. Heart Mobile
3. Heart Applique Tee
4. Multi-colored Heart Pillow
5. Conversation Heart Soaps
6. Felted Heart Tassels