Easter Sunday in the Kitchen - Pesto Stuffed Eggs

Happy Easter!

Every year we follow tradition and as part of our Easter celebration we color eggs.

While Easter is a Christian religious holiday, using the egg as part of the holiday celebration has its roots in the pagan festivals of spring as the egg represents an emergence of new life. From the Christian perspective, the egg represents the emergence of Jesus from the tomb and his resurrection.

The coloring or dying of Easter eggs can be traced back to at least the 13th century, when eggs were forbidden during the lenten season and people dyed or decorated eggs to mark the end of their penance.

When I was young, the Easter Bunny hid the real eggs...so with three kids and usually about 24 hard-boiled eggs, the hunt didn't last too long.

When my kids were small plastic eggs populated the stores and I hopped on board and bought about a 100! Our Easter egg hunts went on for quite a while as the Easter Bunny had to be pretty darn creative to hide 100 eggs around the house...sometimes we found those elusive well-hidden eggs days later!

Even though the kids have grown up and we don't hide eggs any more, we still color eggs. Then we spend the next week (at least!) eating them. Here's a great recipe to put some of those hard-boiled eggs to good use:

PESTO STUFFED EGGS

8 hard-boiled eggs, halved

1/3 cup basil leaves

1/4 cup mayonnaise

2 Tablespoons butter or margarine, softened

2 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese

2 teaspoons pine nuts

1 small clove of garlic

3 Tablespoons warm water

Pine nuts and basil leaves for garnish

Place the eggs yolks, basil, mayonnaise, butter, Parmesan cheese, pine nuts and garlic in a food processor or a blender. Process mixture until smooth. With the machine on, add the warm water. Taste for seasoning, add salt if needed. Using a pastry bag or spoon, fill egg white halves. Garnish as desired with pine nuts and basil leaves.

Enjoy!

52 Ways to Joy - Focus on now

"Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity, but in doing it."

~ Greg Anderson

Busy, busy, busy...aren't we all busy?

We have a hundred things on our schedules every day, from our jobs to our families to our volunteering or hobbies. Most of us need a calendar of reminders to keep up.

Every task, large or small, requires some kind of focus to the details to get the job done right.

My question for today is...how much joy in our day is lost to focusing on something else?

How often are we so consumed with what we have to do next, so what we're doing now doesn't get the attention it deserves. Multitasking may be a badge of honor to some people (or a desirable trait) but are we giving the things that need our attention the short end of the stick?

Add in the writer's world where we're in a constant state of plotting, editing, and listening to the voices in our heads...yowza!

Adding a little bit of joy into your day may just be a simple matter of learning to be in the moment - to giving 100% of yourself to whatever your doing or whoever you're with.

Don't think about what's for dinner while you get your child ready for school...talk about them and their day ahead.

Don't call your mother on the phone at lunch from work while you're writing out your bills and wolfing down a salad.

Take the extra few minutes to be engaged, to show up and give your all! Focus on the here and now and the small joy you might miss if you aren't paying attention.

Now, this isn't an easy task, because let's face it, it's just not how we've been programmed. Society demands our full plates and how lucky for us our cell phones can be set to send us reminders every fifteen minutes of what our next deadline is or where out next appointment is. We're bombarded with texts while we eat dinner or wake up to them in the morning from bosses and friends that work into the wee hours of the morning.

Don't let it suck you in. Enjoy that morning cup of coffee without reading your email. Talk to your significant other without the phone in your hand. Really pay attention to the moment and the people in it. Look for the joy - you just might find it!

Wishing you a joy filled week ahead wherever your travels lead.

 *52 Ways to Joy is a weekly post to celebrate the simple ways to bring joy into your life and those around you. It's about the small moments that makes memories and give us all a sense of contentment in the crazy world we live in. If you're joining me here for the first time, by clicking on the label  "52WTJ" you can read the previous posts!

** Because I love my readers and am grateful you choose to spend some time with me each week, all comments from March 1 to March 31 are automatically entered into my monthly drawing for a 3 pack of mini travel-sized handmade soaps. Details and the scents for the month can be found on the "contest rules" page.

Goodbye Google Reader and Feedburner

I'm sure by now you've all heard that Google Reader is about to go the way of the dinosaurs and be extinct in a few months.

Over the years I've subscribed to a lot of blogs and Google Reader was an easy way to keep up with them all (of course I did that from my iGoogle homepage...which is also soon be gone *sigh*)

A few of the blogs I follow tossed out some recommendations on replacements for the Google Reader and I made a quick choice to go with Feedly...for now. I signed up (it's nice and free!) and within a few minutes all my Google Reader feeds were integrated. So far, I like it.

I'm sure there are others, I've heard Bloglovin is another one that people seem to like.

As soon as I got my feeds squared away and I was happy again in blogland, another hitch came my way. My Feedburner counter which has been steadily going up over the last month (thank you and welcome to all my new readers!) now reads a big fat ZERO.

So, off I go to Bing, since I'm a little annoyed at the moment at Google, to research why I've suddenly lost all my subscribers. According to those in the know about such things, I haven't actually lost anyone...but feedburner just isn't counting them right now. A glitch. Well, it's happened before and I don't like it! Also according to this information, Feedburner is another Google product that they just aren't maintaining and is probably headed in the same direction as Google Reader.

Makes me wonder how long Blogger will be around?

With my Feedburner subscriber chicklet flashing that big fat ZERO and making me crazy, I went off again on Bing to find a free alternative (because I'm all about free!) and I found Feedcat! So far it looks like a good service, also offering all the usual ways to subscribe to my blog feed and also offers an email subscription option - yay!

If you subscribed to my feed before, and want to make sure we haven't lost touch, I hope you'll consider hitting that "subscribe" button on the right sidebar!

As of today, I'm down two Google products, not sure how I'm feeling as I've always been a Google-girl. Maybe a little let down? But, change is good and I'll be ok.

How about you? Do you have a favorite source to read your blog feeds?

52 Ways to Joy - Guilty Pleasures

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." ~ Bertrand Russell


Part of being an adult is being responsible and serious. And let's face it, sometimes it's pretty easy to get caught up in that serious world of obligations.

There are bills to pay and deadlines to meet, it's not hard to get lost in the day to day rat race.

Since I believe life is all about balance - I think everyone needs a little time for themselves to indulge in a guilty pleasure. Why a guilty pleasure? Because unlike admitting on Facebook or Twitter you just ate a whole carton of fudge ripple ice cream...it's a little harder to own your secret addiction to The Bachelor or Survivor. That makes it so much more fun. Your secret indulgence. Just the idea of having that little guilty pleasure is mysterious, it's a secret and it's FUN!

Does anyone really care that you curl up on the couch and haven't missed an episode of Dancing with the Stars since it's debut? Maybe your co-workers will judge you and your choice of how you spend your down time, but what do you care what they think? (They're probably hiding their own guilty pleasure!)

If it makes you happy and refills your well with a little bit of happiness at the end of a long day...GO FOR IT!

Be guilty of eating that ice cream while you watch Billy the Exterminator relocate alligators and raccoons. Put your feet up and root for Barry to finally make some money on his locker in Storage Wars. Maybe you sit in bed with your laptop and play Farmville for hours...haven't you earned the right to an hour of "you-time?"

Most of us work hard, don't get nearly enough vacation time, and juggle kids, cleaning and writing books (and if you don't write books, that's ok too!)...don't we deserve an hour to get lost in something that brings nothing but joy?

Sitting down at the end of a hard day and feeling good? What the heck is wrong with that?

Go ahead and let that joy in. Enjoy your guilty pleasure and think of me when your spoon hits the bottom of the ice cream carton!

My guilty pleasure?  Anything with Russell Crowe, Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr. or Gerard Butler. Or cooking shows for the kitchen-challenged, like me!

May the road you travel be filled with joy and guilty pleasures this week!

 *52 Ways to Joy is a weekly post to celebrate the simple ways to bring joy into your life and those around you. It's about the small moments that makes memories and give us all a sense of contentment in the crazy world we live in. If you're joining me here for the first time, by clicking on the label  "52WTJ" you can read the previous posts!

** Because I love my readers and am grateful you choose to spend some time with me each week, all comments from March 1 to March 31 are automatically entered into my monthly drawing for a 3 pack of mini travel-sized handmade soaps. Details and the scents for the month can be found on the "contest rules" page.

Sunday in the Kitchen: Shamrock Martini

Shamrock Martini

Happy St.Patrick's Day!

I've never been a big fan of parades. Even living less than 2 hours from New York City, I have no desire to venture out, stand with thousands of people on the street and watch people walk by...Not. For. Me.

But, that doesn't stop me from celebrating here at home.

I will be wearing green and drinking my Shamrock Martini today.

And before I toss out the recipe for the lovely green drink...here's a fun few facts about the color green:

Green is the color of nature, youth and fertility.

Green is the second most popular color after blue.

Green is the national color of Ireland.

The floors of the Egyptian temples were painted green because it was considered a sacred color signifying hope and joy of spring.

Kermit likes being green, but doesn't find it easy.

Greenback is slang for the U.S. dollar.

Green is the color of the melon liqueur used in the drink recipe below!

The Shamrock Martini

1.5 oz. melon liqueur

1.5 oz. vodka

1 oz. club soda

green sugar for rimming the glass

Fill a shaker half full with ice. Add the melon liqueur, vodka and club soda (If your melon liqueur isn't green, you can add a dash of green food coloring!) DO NOT SHAKE. STIR!
Wet the rim of the martini glass and dip in the green sugar.
Pour the contents of the shaker into the glass and Enjoy!

Please remember to always drink responsibly!

What are you doing with your time?

Hourglass

One day.
24 hours.
1440 minutes in a day.

Time doesn't discriminate based on your gender, your height, your color or your economic status.

We all get the same amount of time - every day.

It's what we do with it that counts!

I think we're all guilty of saying and thinking there just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done. And while many of us DO have more on our schedules than we have the time to accomplish...sometimes it's about priorities and not wasting the time we have.

You say you don't have time to write? How many words could you have added to your manuscript in the time it takes to read this blog post? (Not that I don't want you to come and visit me, I'm just making a point.)

This week I loaded The Productive Writer by Sage Cohen to my Nook because I admit I often let too many minutes of my day go by without capturing them in a productive way. I realized I need some help in figuring out a plan to get more done.

Author Sage Cohen suggests we keep track our our day to see where those free moments can be turned into something more productive.

She also suggests stepping out our comfort zones. You think you need absolute quiet and six hour block of uninterrupted time to write - but is that really the case?

Maybe you think you can only be creative at the crack of dawn, drinking coffee and listening to Mozart.

Are you a night owl and think you do your best work after midnight with a glass of wine at your side?

These rituals may be comforting and you very well may do your best work under your own ideal circumstances...but being a productive writer means sometimes we HAVE to write when there isn't a full moon and the stars haven't aligned.

The question today is...what are you doing with your time? Can you write in a notebook or on a pad for fifteen minutes of your lunch break? Can you dictate a scene into your phone's voice recorder on the way home from work? Can you sneak in fifteen minutes to write instead of playing Farmville?

I think we can!

For the next few days why not pay attention to the moments that click by - the free minutes you might be missing to be a little more productive towards your dream of reaching The End. I think you might be surprised where you CAN find the time you thought you didn't have.

I know I did!

Good luck and happy writing!

** Because I love my readers and am grateful you choose to spend some time with me each week, all comments from March 1 to March 31 are automatically entered into my monthly drawing for a 3 pack of mini travel-sized handmade soaps. Details and the scents for the month can be found on the "contest rules" page.

52 Ways to Joy - The Daydream

"Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind." 

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I've been a daydreamer all my life. In fact, it was written on my report cards frequently during my school years. Over the years every psychic I've ever visited (and there have been a few!) quickly labeled me as a daydreamer.

Of course, when the teachers wrote that I spent a lot of my day lost in my own world, it wasn't a good thing...

Forty years later and I still haven't lost my penchant for getting lost in my own dreams. There's just something magical about staring out a window or closing our eyes for a minute or two and imagining a different world, a different life.

Sometimes it's in those moments you find the answer to a question or a path becomes more defined. As a writer, I cherish those moments of reverie, those moments my wind wanders down a path of sights and smells that awaken ideas.

Most of us spend our days working, thinking rational and productive thoughts to complete our jobs or our assignments. We rush here and there always with the next task on our mind...it's pretty easy to get burnt out. But, ahhhh, toss in a daydream and it's like a power nap for your soul!

A few minutes letting your mind wander, free from stress and obligations and who knows where it might lead...maybe to a few minutes of unexpected joy in your day?

The trick is to NOT think about it, to simply let the it happen. Take a minute to stare off into space, gaze out an open window or close your eyes and take a deep breath. Let the peace of the moment wash over you and LET THE JOY IN.

I do have to warn you that daydreaming should be done with caution, as the psychic once warned me, "no daydreaming while driving!" So, please daydream responsibly!

Wherever your travels take you this week, I wish you moments of joy.

  

 *52 Ways to Joy is a weekly post to celebrate the simple ways to bring joy into your life and those around you. It's about the small moments that makes memories and give us all a sense of contentment in the crazy world we live in. If you're joining me here for the first time, by clicking on the label  "52WTJ" you can read the previous posts!

** Because I love my readers and am grateful you choose to spend some time with me each week, all comments from March 1 to March 31 are automatically entered into my monthly drawing for a 3 pack of mini travel-sized handmade soaps. Details and the scents for the month can be found on the "contest rules" page.

Sunday in the Kitchen - Focaccia Bread

I hope everyone had a great week!

Me?  I've been stuck in my writing cave trying to hammer out the last two chapters of my current WIP. (I even missed blogging on Thursday...oh my!)

Today I'm sharing an easy recipe for one of the favorite snacks in my house whether we're watching TV or just have a few friends over.

Easy Focaccia Bread

1 Package (10 oz) refrigerated pizza crust (the kind that comes rolled up in a can) OR you can use your own crust.

2 garlic cloves, pressed

2 Cups (8 oz) shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
Grated Romano Cheese
Dried oregano leaves or Italian seasoning
2 Firm plum tomatoes, sliced thin
1 small onion, sliced thin (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375. Roll out the dough. Sprinkle with the garlic. Sprinkle some Romano Cheese over the crust. Cover with half the mozzarella cheese and some of the oregano (or your Italian seasoning.) Top with the thinly spliced tomatoes and onions. Cover with remaining cheese and oregano. Sprinkle some romano cheese on the top.
Bake approximately 20-25 minutes or until golden and bubbly.
Cut into squares.
Enjoy!

52 Ways to Joy - Say the Nice Word

"It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice." ~ John Templeton

I can't speak for everywhere in this world, but I can tell you that in my little corner of the universe and the places I've traveled lately - people are rude.

And as if most of us don't have enough insecurities all on our own - those around us are often willing (and able!) to tell us all about our flaws. Isn't that nice of them?

I don't know about you, but I think a nice word might go a long way toward spreading a little bit of joy quicker than pointing out a flaw or a mistake.

 It's way too easy to get caught up in the negative world of pointing out what's wrong - maybe if we all take a minute or two to find something nice to say instead, we can spread a little less hatred and a little more love.

My mother always said "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything." I think that's line one in the "mom manual."

But how often do I think about it and choose the other direction? Too often.

Or how often does the thought to say something nice cross my mind? Not often enough.

This weekend a friend and I discussed this very thing. Why do people feel that they can only elevate themselves by putting others down? Why as a society do we find it so much more difficult to point out an attribute? Does it diminish our own smile if we comment on the smile of another?

Over the past year I'm not ashamed to admit I've seen a few more gray streaks, okay, a LOT more gray streaks, running through my hair. I've also been "blessed" with an unruly head of hair that seems to have a mind of it's own on most days. To say it's hard to control would be an understatement. My hairdresser does wonders in suggesting hairstyles that control it and also go a long way toward keeping me in style. My hair lately has been a sensitive subject for me.

This weekend at a conference, I was sitting with a woman I admire (actually the woman giving the workshop) and the first thing she said to me? "You have great hair!"

One nice thought.

It doesn't even matter if she lied. She seemed sincere to me and in the second it took to say the words, my day was better and it cost her nothing. It didn't make her hair any less fabulous.

The power of a nice word.

Your mission this week is find the nice words to say before you point out the flaw. Make someone's day. Spread the joy one nice word at a time!

 *52 Ways to Joy is a weekly post to celebrate the simple ways to bring joy into your life and those around you. It's about the small moments that makes memories and give us all a sense of contentment in the crazy world we live in. If you're joining me here for the first time, by clicking on the label  "52WTJ" you can read the previous posts!

** Because I love my readers and am grateful you choose to spend some time with me each week, all comments from March 1 to March 31 are automatically entered into my monthly drawing for a 3 pack of mini travel-sized handmade soaps. Details and the scents for the month can be found on the "contest rules" page.