Food Fun Friday- Tortillini Salad to Go

I'm off to a family reunion tomorrow... about 4hrs away. WHAT TO MAKE AND TAKE...
I ran across Cathy here and she had this wonderful recipe. Not my taste (buds), but seems everyone else likes these.. AND easy AND a great Make & Take:

Tortillini Salad to Go thank you Cathy
I’m all about simplicity and minimal ingredients. I always make too much of this recipe and then get to enjoy it for lunch the rest of the week. For the large bowl as shown in the last photo I used 3 times the tortellini, beans and tomatoes. This is what I took to a 4th of July barbeque on Saturday.
For a lunch serving for 3-4:
One large bag of frozen cheese tortellini
One can (yeah, can) of cut green beans, drained
One basket of cherry tomatoes
One bottle or less of Italian dressing (I prefer to make mine using balsamic vinegar)You can adjust the ingredient quantities, you can’t really mess this up. You should resist the urge to add other ingredients, such as olives, etc. Trust me, this combination is time tested.The night before serving, cook and drain the tortellini. Coat with about 1/3 dressing and chill overnight. The next day, add tomatoes (I prefer to halve mine), drained beans and the remaining dressing, stir and chill until ready to serve. You should make extra for yourself, seriously.

before & after Guest Room

This is the before picture: just a little bit country, a little bit hodgepodge with our "newly" married life and a little bit of his furniture and mine and whatever linens fit at the time. Well, inspiration has struck and I'm -done- with country! so.... i took the bed apart and FILLED IN ALL THE LITTLE HOLES that were "banged" into the wood to make it look "distressed" MAN did that take forever. then.. I wood puttyed the country carving in the center of the bed. and then sanded that....

I painted the whole thing, head board & foot board a Shinny Modern Black......

And *Viola* Sleek, Modern and hopefully richly elegant & relaxing.

here is a closeup of the bed and all the wood-filling and sanding. hmmm although since it is black you can't see all the smoothness of it! oh well.

and my cute little table that I "made" my girlfriend buy at a yard sale and her husband threw a fit and said was so ugly so I spray painted it black and it looks great and she is sorry now!
Crystal lamp is yard sale find for $3.00. Lamp shade/walmart with antique trim glued on.

An old unfinished "country" table I had, that I painted black and turned the Heart cut out toward the wall.

These are the same curtains... and I think I am going to try and find material to put a swag up (again black and gold stripe) and use these to hold it:

Wednesday Wisdom

I believe in taking a positive attitude toward the world.
My hope still is to leave the world a little bit better than when I got here.

Jim Henson (1936-1990) Muppets creator

I love yard sales

disclaimer:
I live in a small town (2hours from Seattle) where 65% of the population is over 65. There are a LOT of yard sales ...for many reasons: downsizing is most popular, death, moving to nursing home and just plain boredom. Speaking of boredom 80% of the 65% go to garage sales out of boredom, and buy more crap for their family to get rid of when they move or die. Most garage/yard/estate sales are on Friday, (us working stiffs are slaving away) I do hit up a couple during my lunch hour, but I really like getting to the sales early in the morning.

This weekend (4th of July) the garage sales were few and far between. There were only 4 on Friday, luckily I had the day off. I found these:
curtains for $2.00. I liked the color/pattern and thought what the heck

well ... they look great! We had brown blackout curtains (see them behind the "new" ones.) So now I'll just chop off the bottom and they will look springy/summery and we'll STILL have the black out curtains for husband =who has to go to bed early.

there here are my assortment of other things:

2 bulletin boards for my monthly craft class (50cents each).

book on slipcover & upholstery for $3.00

6 jars to organize&fill with beautiful things ($1.00 for all of them)

and a little silver vase to fill with roses from the garden (25cents)
and yea! found more old ornaments to make my wreaths! and they weren't even red, better colors! The whole box (4 boxes of ornaments, junk I threw away, lights and a round table cloth) for $3.00

Food Fun Friday-Roasted Red Potates with Bacon & Cheese

Here, the 4th of July means having to attend one getting together or another.

I made this for our neighborhood BBQ last year and plan to make it tomorrow! It is EASY and turns out great and gets gobbled down fast:

Roasted Red Potates with Bacon & Cheese

1/2 C Ranch dressing

1/2 C shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 C Bacon Bits

2 lbs small red potatoes, quartered

1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 350. mix dressing, cheese and bacon bits in a large bowl. Add potatoes, toss lightly.

Spoon into a lightly greased 13 x 9 baking dish, cover with foil.

Bake 40 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Sprinkle with parsley.

Wednesday Wisdom

Forget conventionalisms;

forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place;

think your best thoughts,

speak your best words,

work your best works,

looking to your own conscience for approval.

Susan B. Anthony

Another present for baby

I feel so lucky, I won a "contest" and it was for a darling hooded towel, and of course ...I... don't need one, so its a present for the new baby! (Lauren picked out the cute animal motif)
Its from twolittletots.etsy.com and she makes the most soft and cute children's things. and FAB bows and clips and crayon roll ups too. If you have little ones around you'll have to check it out.