In my early twenties I used to wait tables at the Old Spaghetti Factory across the street from Pier 70 in downtown Seattle. It’s the type of family friendly restaurant where the energy is always high, flipping tables is a must, and the smell of spaghetti never washes out of your clothes. Most of the entrees are served as a budget-friendly three course meal. Free bread with garlic or plain butter, milk (tea, or coffee), side salad with your choice of dressing, entree, and a scoop of spumoni or vanilla ice cream for dessert. Back when I used to work there, all of this could be yours for under $10.
The most popular salad dressing choice was their creamy pesto dressing. Served on a bed of chopped iceberg lettuce and seasoned croutons, this salad dressing developed a cult-like following. People would come into the restaurant just to buy pints of this stuff! I used to spread it on bread, so good! [click to continue…]
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Throughout the last couple years I have been very fortunate to partner with some fabulous companies here on Savory Sweet Life. The companies (and their products) I choose to work with are ones I personally love and use regularly, making my partnership with them very enjoyable and easy to share with SSL readers. I am happy to announce my partnership with Spice Islands – a well known producer of the finest spices from around the world.
One of my most favorite things I would do at the grocery store when I was young was to go down the aisle with the spices and look at all the different varieties or spices and herbs in the Spice Islands bottles with the brown caps. I was always fascinated with spices and I still am today. I love experimenting with new recipes using different spices to expand my knowledge for personal enrichment. Working with Spice Islands is a natural fit for me and I am looking forward to sharing new recipes I’ve created for you to enjoy – starting with this Spiced Roasted Chickpeas. [click to continue…]
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With my favorite cranberry sauce cooked and a turkey brining in my refrigerator for tonight’s dinner, I am also making a few Thanksgiving inspired side dishes to go along with our pre-Thanksgiving turkey meal.
Even though it is not quite Thanksgiving yet, I can’t imagine eating turkey without butter topped mashed potatoes to go with it… and don’t even get me started about gravy.
Last year I posted a recipe on how to make creamy mashed potatoes using Yukon Gold potatoes and passing the potatoes through a metal mesh strainer. But today I would like to share with you a more traditional mashed potato recipe using Russet potatoes and a potato masher. [click to continue…]
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The last ten months has been a roller coaster of emotions, major life changes, and everything in between. We bought a new home and sold our old one. The girls started school and my youngest child started his first year of preschool two days a week for two hours a day. Add soccer practices, games, swim team commitments, play dates, and other family outings, by 10 p.m. I’m exhausted. By the time I get the kids to bed the only thing I want to do is watch Mad Men while eating ice cream.
Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t ask me how the unpacking and settling into our new home is going. The truth is, most of our things are still in boxes in the garage. My husband jokingly told me we should just donate all the boxes to charity and start over. I thought he was so silly for even suggesting this in jest a month ago but the idea is becoming more tempting by the day. Living out of boxes does have its privileges. Our house remains pretty clean because there really isn’t much to mess up. Eli’s toys are confined to a 18×18-inch box and most of the rooms are essentially empty. The great thing about living in an empty house is letting the kids and their friends literally run around in circles. I’ve also enjoyed cooking in my new kitchen, much more so than our old house. [click to continue…]
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2011 has been a roller coaster of a year for my family and I, one I wish I could have stepped off of before the year began. The year started as a blur, my mind in a complete fog. We buried dad New Year’s Eve and the following months would prove to challenge me in unexpected ways which I’m still dealing with and slowly processing. Mom moved into our “cozy” home, a home my husband and I bought eleven years ago. When we bought this place it was a complete fixer, pink bathroom tile included. It was a seller’s housing market back then and even the dumpiest of homes commanded premium dollars. But we were newly married with a determined vision. Together, we would roll up our sleeves and work on remodeling our house one room every year as our budget allowed. The sweat equity would eventually pay off as years went by. All my cake decorating experience would serve me well when it came to smoothing out drywall puddy. As a contractor friend once told me, if you can frost a cake smooth, smoothing drywall will be a cinch for you.
Slowly but surely our ugly, dumpy home started to transform into something beautiful and permanent. We gutted rooms, opened up walls, designed our kitchen, and added finishing touches like crown molding throughout the house. The process in which our home turned into a butterfly from a lowly caterpillar has been a remarkable journey of perseverance and celebration. This has been the only home my three children have ever known and our plans were to stay here until they were old enough to move out on their own. But sometimes life circumstances have a pesky way of changing plans. [click to continue…]
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