20 Minute Meal: Smoked Sausage & Veggie Pasta Delight

The name may not be innovative, but the fact that this dish is SO quick and SO tasty trumps the lack of creative title!

We’ve all got busy lives. Between my fiancé and myself, we are juggling a lot right now (less than 2 weeks until our wedding!!), so when I come across a meal that is 1-quick, 2-easy to clean up, and 3-is coined a “repeater” (aka “make it again!”), I’m in. And I believe that “sharing is caring” so I wanted to pass this one along to you to give it a try.

 

Smoked Sausage & Veggie Pasta Delight

Ingredients:

½ package of Smoked Sausage (we like Johnsonville)
1 ½ cup spinach, chopped
1 green pepper, diced
1 plum tomato, diced
_1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups uncooked pasta (I like bowtie for this dish)
¼ cup parmesan cheese (fresh is good, but all I had was Kraft)

Directions:

1.       Bring medium pot of water to boil. Add pasta

2.       Slice sausage in half (long ways) and cut into 1” chunks. In a skillet over medium heat, cook sausage until slightly brown, (approximately 5 min). Remove from skillet.

3.       Add olive oil to pan and toss in green pepper, tomato and spinach. Let cook over med-low heat for 5-7 minutes.

4.       Add sausage to veggie skillet, toss.

5.       Drain pasta (do not rinse). Toss pasta into skillet. Reduce heat to low. Add parmesan cheese, stir, & cover (lets the flavors come together nicely).

6.       Serve hot.

This made for a super simple Friday night meal. During Step #5, when the flavors were coming together, I washed up the cutting board, knives, pot and colander. So after dinner, all we had to do was wash up one skillet and put our plates/forks in the dishwasher.

It’s always a good feeling when you see your fiancé smile a big grin and say, “Oh, yeah, this is a repeater!!” J

Gettin' Crafty: Wedding Fingerprint Tree

Though the 'fingerprint tree' isn't totally unique these days anymore, it seems like such a more fun, personal, "off the beaten path" approach to the typical guest book at weddings.

Most of the time at weddings, guests start with the drinky drinky BEFORE they do the write-y write-y, which results in misspellings, sloppy handwriting, and writing rather inappropriate comments in what is otherwise thought of as a "nice, sweet" guest book.

So to combat that, we decided on a simple fingerprint tree in lieu of our wedding guest book. I had some unexpected "extra time" at home over Christmas, so I made it my mission to create this tree from scratch.

Some options on Etsy.com were about $50 for a custom, personalized tree (no frame). Again, I'm not cheap, I'm frugal, and that paired with my desire to be crafty, this was the perfect project to tackle.

Supplies needed:

• Printed copy of what you want your tree to look like (I blew mine up on 11 x 17 paper)
• Illustration board (pick the size you want based on the frame size you want. I made the - rookie - mistake and picked a 15 x 20 illustration board from Hobby Lobby... then realized that picture frames are 16 x 20 and I would need to get a custom frame or get creative with my matting)
• Wax paper (large enough to cover the entire tree size you printed out)
• Permanent Marker (fine tip Sharpie worked best)
• Mechanical Pencil (no "lead" needed, just the pencil instrument)
• Masking tape
• Brown art marker (medium tip worked well)
• White paint pen (optional)
• Sticker letters (optional)
• Picture frame

Step 1: Trace Tree

• Tape printed out tree to a clean table (one small piece of tape per side is suffice)
• Tape wax paper over tree to secure it from moving around
• Trace outline of tree with Sharpie on to the wax paper. (Note: trace it exactly how you see it, it will make a future step easier)

Step 2: Transfer Trace to Illustration Board

• Lift wax paper off table/tree
• Remove paper tree
• Place Illustration board on table
• Tape illustration board to table to secure it from moving
• Tape wax paper over illustration board
• Use a mechanical pencil (no lead needed, just the plastic tip is needed) and begin to press along the sharpie lines you made in Step 1. This creates an "indentation" in the illustration board that will be used as a guide in Step #3. (Note: When in doubt, trace on the inside of the sharpie lines. If you go wider, you end up with some really, really thick branches/twigs in Step #3.)

Step 3: Fill in Tree

• Remove wax paper
• Trace over the indentation on the illustration board with the brown marker.
• Fill in the outline using smooth, long strokes so the tree looks natural.

Step 4: Personalize Tree

• Use a white paint marker (fine tip) to draw the heart in the center of the tree with Bride & Groom's initials.
• Lightly draw a straight line (pencil) under the tree for the Bride & Groom's name and another line for the date.
• Place stickers (or use a pen, depending on your handwriting skills!) to spell out the names/dates.
• Erase any extra markings on the illustration board
• Insert into frame (preserves picture from random dangers (small children, pets, dust, etc.) before the wedding!

Illustration board: 2.99
Brown pen: 1.99
White paint pen: 1.49
Picture Frame: 18.75
Total Cost: $25.22*

*Note: I used 50% off coupons for all items above, and had both a 50% off a single item PLUS a 25% off entire order for the picture frame! Double score!

As far as ink goes... this was a struggle to figure out. After countless web searches and hearing from fellow brides encountering the same problem, I just decided to "wing it" with some ink I found at JoAnn Fabric. I'll find a picture of the ink and the stamps and post it so you see what I'm using.

Also, I'm hesitant to have guests actually use their fingers for this, so I found some really cute 3/4" rubber leaf stamps (Hobby Lobby) ($1.49each @ 50% off) so guests don't walk around with a green finger all night!

Gettin' Crafty: Personalized Wedding Champagne Glasses

It's time for another installment of  "Gettin' Crafty"! Here we will do a quick overview of how to make personalized champagne glasses for the reception.

God bless Pinterest. I mean really. Addicting? Sure. But it's saved me a hundred times when I get stuck on being creative. Now it's time to pay it forward and share some more for this craft. Someone posted a cute idea of having "Bride & Groom" written in rhinestones on champagne flutes for the reception. Cute idea. But I got to thinking: isn't the wedding party a huge part of this, too? So I set forth on this fun project....

Michaels craft store has the best rhinestone letters. It's perfect because the letters come as rhinestones so you don't have to carefully place the rhinestones in the shape of letters - score! Plus, Michaels either has their supplies on sale, or you can use a 40% or 50% coupon.

We got our champagne flutes from Ikea (6pk = $4.99).  Luckily we have a smaller wedding party, so a 6 pack of glasses covered all of us!

Be sure to put a piece of clear Scotch Tape as a guide for the letters so they look straight.

Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy! Total cost: $13, total assembly time: 15 minutes.

Gettin' Crafty: Wedding Card Box

The title of my blog is "Meredith on the run", but there's so much more than just running/training entries here. I'm currently a runaway bride!

With 15 days leading up to my wedding, I thought it would be nice to post some of the wedding projects I've been working on to make our special day extra special.

I'm frugal - not cheap. So when it came to making my wedding special, I wanted a few finishing touches that really made guests think, "Boy, I never knew Meredith was so crafty... how did she manage to do such incredible projects AND manage to keep a full-time job and train for a marathon AND buy a house AND..." you get the picture.

Below you'll find a brief "how to" for a Card Box (for envelopes/cards at the reception). I've had time to work on a handful of other projects, but let's start here. (I'll post more later). For now, let's break down how to make the Card Box:

Card Box. There are about a million varieties of card boxes out there ranging from cute and simple, to really intricate and complex. Mine falls in the middle. I was inspired to make one that resembled one from Etsy.com.

Note: I like things to look good, but I'm not a perfectionist. And I did not take pictures of the process along the way. Yes, pictures help the learner figure out what to do a LOT better than words, but it wasn't until recently that I decided to blog about these projects - sorry! Hopefully this at least gives you a starting point. If you have questions, message me and I'll be happy to help!


Step 1: Buy materials. Hobby Lobby had the best selection for shiny fabric (resembling silk, but not expensive!).

• 1.5 yards of navy fabric
• 1 roll of 1.5" ribbon
• Clear Tacky Glue (any fabric glue will work) 
• 2 square boxes with lids, one larger, one smaller (we found ours at Hobby Lobby)
• 2 Flower Clips (found at Michaels that matched our ribbon PERFECTLY!)

Step 2: Measure & Cut Fabric

• Lay out the fabric on a large, clean table
• Place bottom section of box at the edge of fabric
• Hold fabric to edge of box and roll the box until entire box is covered with fabric (this lets you see how much fabric you need)
• Cut fabric, giving yourself extra on all sides (you can trim later)

Step 3: Glue Fabric to Box

• Glue edge of fabric on corner of box
• Hold fabric in place until it's semi-dried (when it can stay on it's own, you're good)
• Glue next corner, wrap fabric over corner
• Repeat for all 4 sides
• Trim remaining fabric and glue if necessary
• For the top & bottom, cut a slit in the fabric so you can wrap the fabric smoothly inside the box and on the bottom.
• Repeat for remaining bottom of box and lids

Step 4: Cut boxes

• In the lid of the larger box, cut a square hole just smaller than the size of the bottom of the smaller box. (Remember, the smaller box will sit on top of the bigger box, and you want the envelopes to fall through to the bottom, so leave yourself enough room for the envelope to clear into the bottom of the big box)
• Cut a square hole in the bottom of the small box so that there is still enough room to glue the little box on top of the big box lid.
• Cut a long, narrow slit on the little box lid. This is where guests will put the envelopes. Remember to glue down the remaining fabric so it looks clean and classy!

Step 5: Glue boxes together

• You don't want to take any chances with anyone stealing envelopes (sad, but true, people steal). Be sure to glue the big box lid to the big box. I'm using industrial Velcro to glue the little box lid to the little box. That way, it's hard to open (people might think it's glued), but I won't have to destroy my Card Box after the wedding like a pinata!

Step 6: Finishing Touches

• Glue ribbon around bottom of each box
• Add embellishments (flowers, ribbons, rhinestones, name labels, etc.)

If I had to do it again, I would have gotten different sized boxes (perhaps 3 shorter ones like the original inspiration), but other than that, I LOVE this project!! I feel so accomplished and it doesn't hurt when you look at the cost of the one on Etsy ($110 vs $17). See? I'm not cheap, I'm crafty!

(Note: Hobby Lobby, Michaels and JoAnn Fabrics ALWAYS have sales/coupons. I have not purchased anything full priced for any of my projects. Sales associates can sometimes help you by letting you know when items will go on sale. Example: ribbons go on sale every 3-4 weeks at Hobby Lobby. If they're not 40-50% off when you're there, check to see when the next sale is, or bust out your phone with the Hobby Lobby app to use a coupon!)