Mmm Spicy Mayo! (Skill level: Insanely easy)

In one of my Food Network binges, I was watching Giada De Laurentiis make a yummy Cailfornia chicken sandwich. The sandwich was pretty easy and basic, but what stuck in my mind was the spicy mayo she made.

To make a custom flavored mayo in about a minute, just add cayenne pepper to about a tablespoon of mayo. Add the cayenne pepper little by little until you find the right spiciness for you.

This is the easiest recipe I have ever used, but it is always a huge hit!

 

An Impromptu Lunch (Stress free please!)

I never pass up the chance to celebrate something or at least add a little flare to the day, so I'm always looking for quick and easy ways to do this. I finally got to try some of my ideas out when I made a last minute lunch date with a good friend.

The best thing I ever bought for my kitchen are the white dishes I own. Along with a set of square white dinner and salad plates, I also have an all white sushi serving kit from Crate and Barrel that has proved to be more versatile that I ever could have imagined. These white dishes can serve as a base for just about any and every event from small and informal lunch to a full course dinner with the family.

My husband hates (sorry there is no nice was to put it) my collection of baby food jars and tin cans. So every time I get to break them out and use them I feel better about my hoarding habits. Here I served up regular mayo along with a spicy mayo that took seconds to make (check out my next post for the how-to). An old crushed tomatoes can was lined with wax paper to serve up some potato chips for our lunch. The makeshift tray for the extras is a square shadow box from The Christmas Tree Shop that cost me $5 and has definitely been worth the cash. When it's not a tray, its decor and I love it as both.

All in all I think it took me about 30 minutes to get everything together, including chopping up the chicken that was left over from the night before. With two little girls at home, that about all I can spare during the day, and it was definitely time well spent.

A Wonderland Invitation

I can say without any doubt that it is easier to design something for someone else than it is to design for myself. It's easy when someone can show you what they like or don't like, or at least have some idea. But I'm a Gemini, and true to my sign, I can never make up my mind. By the time I sat down to work on the Alice in Wonderland invitation for my daughter's third birthday, I'd had image after image of inspiration in my head and trying to mush them all together into a design I was happy with wasn't easy. I didn't want something I had already seen, but I wanted it to fit into the Wonderland theme and design for the party. Finally after a few frustrating hours, I was able to find the direction I wanted the design to head in.

And so here it is! A Wonderland Invitation - now to finish the entire printable set to create a truly unique, non-commercial Alice in Wonderland party...(someone pass me a glass of wine!)