High Five for Friday: Thankful Edition

1. I am so thankful to have spent an amazing Thanksgiving Day surrounded by family and friends. Not everyone one I love could be there, but I love everyone that did attend.

2. OK I just love this necklace from Ann Taylor Loft. It definitely completed my outfit for the holiday! 

3. My mom and I took a cake pop class at my favourite Pittsburgh bakery, Dozen. We had a fantastic time and made the cutest treats!

4. I am actually thankful that I worked on Black Friday. I didn’t even get the chance to go shopping, which is a great thing because I’ve been a bit buying crazy lately! And of course, I’m thankful for my job!

5. I am thankful that my parents are happily married, 32 years strong. I know many happy and complete families that have divorce in them, but I have such good role models for a successful marriage, and it truly makes holidays much easier when 

everyone gets along!

QUINOA-STUFFED ACORN SQUASH RINGS

My dinner table has been pretty awesome this fall. A number of things have helped make that happen…1. Pinterest, 2. my CSA box, 3. motivation!

My CSA is full of seasonal, local produce. Just as I was intimidated with a butternut squash, I was scared of an acorn squash! Luckily, I was born into a time when Pinterest exists and found this easy and DELICIOUS recipe!

Original Recipe

Quinoa-Stuffed Acorn Squash Rings

Ingredients

• olive oil mister
• ½ c. quinoa
• 1 c. vegetable or chicken broth
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 apple, cored and diced
• ½ c. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• ¼ c. dried cranberries
• 2 tbsp. dried chopped sage
• 2 tbsp. chopped almonds
• salt + pepper to taste
• 1 egg, whisked
• 3 small acorn squash, cut into ½-inch slices (remove seeds & guts)
• 1 tbsp. butter, melted
• 1 tbsp. maple syrup

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray two rimmed baking sheets with cooking spray or oil and place squash rings on sheets.
2. Cook quinoa in broth according to package directions. Cool slightly.
3. Heat olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add onion. Cook about 10 minutes, or until onion is just beginning to brown. Add apple and cook about 5 minutes more, until apple is softened. Allow to cool slightly.
4. Combine quinoa, apple and onion mixture, cheese, cranberries, sage, and walnuts in a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in egg.
5. In a small bowl, combine butter and maple syrup. Brush tops and insides of squash rings with butter mixture; season with salt and pepper.
6. Stuff quinoa filling into the center of each squash ring, pressing down to fit as much stuffing as possible without overflowing. Spray centers of squash rings with oil or cooking spray. Bake 30-40 minutes, or until tops are golden brown and squash is tender.

High Five for Friday

MY HIGH FIVE FOR FRIDAY

To celebrate the fact that it’s Friday (even though technically with my work schedule it’s Monday) here are a few of my favorite things from this week!

• Celebrating Light Up Night in Pittsburgh with my family!
• My adorable puppy in her new sweater for the cold weather!
• I’m producing a video for Comcast and got to be part of a great day honoring Veterans. WV Senator Jay Rockefeller (like Rockefeller center, Rockefeller!) supported the effort, as well. 
• I really love this month’s Birchbox!
• Ohh how I love fall drinks…caramel apple-tini!

Butternut Squash Lasagna

More and more I’ve been trying to cook seasonally. Having a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, has been a huge help in achieving that! This week I got a butternut squash in the box…and to tell you the truth, I was a little intimidated. I come from a family of great cooks and there’s a lot to live up to. I’m still in the beginning stages of learning how to cook. Given my novice status in the kitchen, I thought that using this squash would be complicated. Luckily, I was wrong! I came across this great recipe for Butternut Squash Lasagna on Pinterest (my favorite site ever) from Better Homes and Gardens. It took a bit of time, but was relatively easy and tasted AMAZING (so amazing that the Ginger had four pieces!).

Here’s the recipe I used:

Makes: 8 to 10 servings

Prep: 45 mins Bake: 375°F 50 mins

Roast: 425°F 25 mins to 30 mins

Stand: 10 mins (this step is super important…it’s too runny to serve immediately)

What you need:

- 3 pounds of butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cut into ¼ to ½ inch thick slices

-3 Tbsp olive oil

-½ tsp salt

teaspoon salt

-¼ cup butter

-6 cloves garlic, minced

-¼ cup flour

-½ tsp salt

-4 cups milk

-1 Tbsp fresh rosemary

-9 lasagna noodles (no boil or do like me and boil them) 

-1 1/3 cup shredded Parmesean cheese

-1 cup whipping cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Lightly grease a 15x10x1-inch baking pan. Place squash in the prepared baking pan. Add oil and ½ teaspoon salt; toss gently to coat. Spread in an even layer. Roast, uncovered, for 25 to 30 minutes or until squash is tender, stirring once. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees F.

2. For sauce:: Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, heat butter over medium heat. Add garlic; cook and stir for 1 minute. Stir in flour and ½ teaspoon salt. Gradually stir in milk. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Stir in squash and rosemary.

3. Lightly grease a 13x9x2-inch baking dish or 3-quart rectangular casserole. To assemble, spread about 1 cup of the sauce in the the prepared baking dish. Layer three of the noodles in dish. Spread with one-third of the remaining sauce. Sprinkle with 1/3 cup of the Pamesan cheese. Repeat layering noodles, sauce, and Parmesan cheese two more times. Pour whipping cream evenly over layers in dish. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese.

4. Cover dish with foil. Bake for 40 minutes. Uncover and bake about 10 minutes more or until edges are bubbly and top is lightly browned. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Trick Or Treat

After five years as a couple, the Ginger and I took a big step…we did couple costumes for Halloween! We had a great holiday with two parties to attend. If either of them had a prize for best dressed, we would have totally won! You decide:

Can you guess who we went as? I’ll give you a hint…

We even dressed up our puppy, Lucy for the season. She was pretty wiped out after the Halloween fun!

I can’t wait to have kids one day to trick or treat with, but for now I love being a 25-year-old, hanging out with friends, drinking tequila, playing beer pong and being ridiculous!

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"I feel like an adult"

The Ginger got mad when I said this - I get why, I am in my twenties with a solid marriage, a college degree, full-time job in my field, a house, etc. etc. etc. I should have felt like an adult a while ago. But it wasn’t until this weekend that it finally hit me!

We took a day trip to the Christian Clay Winery in the Laurel Highlands with my parents this past weekend. It was a great day - wine, food, autumn - and it really felt like I have grown up. This trip seemed like something my parents would have done with my grandparents. A wine tasting isn’t something you do with your parents until you’re of age, most likely. Well, I guess I have been to a winery with my parents before, but I was about 12 years-old on vacation and I had grape juice instead. This trip just really felt adult. And I have to say, I liked it!

I’m enjoying this new relationship with my parents, a more grown up one where we don’t bicker as much and I’m not as embarrassed to be around them (sounds cruel, but you have to know my parents, or maybe you can imagine the shouts and cheers echoing the gym while I performed for Winterguard in high school). I’m looking forward to more days and trips like this. 

Year Two = Cotton

Autumn has always been my favorite season, and now for the third time, I love it even more! On October 1, 2010 I married the Ginger, my best friend.

Like last year, we tried to follow the anniversary “themes”…year 1 = paper, year 25 = silver, year 50 = gold, etc. Cotton is for year two, and I think we did a pretty great job of following that! We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast in the South Side of Pittsburgh, called the Morning Glory Inn (cotton sheets, towels…our version of the theme!).

Our room was in the attic suite, with tasteful and antique furnishings, very unlike it's past as the servants quarters in the 1860s. The best part about the inn was outside of it. An amazing little courtyard is encased by the historic building with plants everywhere and twinkling lights. It’s obvious to see why so many Pittsburgher’s choose to marry in the space.  

Even though it’s only been two years, I love that so far we’ve tried to make our anniversary special. I get that as we get older, our lives will become more hectic in different ways (ie. kids) and it will be harder to keep this as important but I really hope we try to still celebrate the comittment we made to each other.

Now I’ve gotta starting thinking of ideas for next year…year three = leather (umm…I feel like either a hormonal 15-year-old boy or a dirty old man when I think about gifts for this theme!)

TAKING A MENTAL PHOTOGRAPH (AND REAL ONES TOO)

Sometimes I look at an amazing view or experience an amazing moment of love and joy, and I close my eyes real tight and tell myself that I’ll never forget this moment. 

My mental scrapbook includes a moment in Regent’s Park in London, a trip with my sister, seeing my Roman family at the airport, and my wedding day. Today I added to that scrapbook. It was a simple, but lovely day that I hope will always stay with me. Dad took me kayaking for my birthday. We have always loved to be on the water together going back to when I was around 10-years-old and he would take me canoeing at Maraine State Park.

Our journey today was to Layton, PA about thirty minutes outside of town. It felt like we were worlds away from the chaotic, busy life that I’ve been living lately! We kayaked seven miles down the Youghiogheny River, on one of the most beautiful days we’ve had this late summer. Taking our time, we stopped for lunch on a few big rocks and then meandered down the river letting the soft current guide us.

Dad told great stories about my ancestors and we just had good father/daughter time. Bickering in my family is always going to be a constant but we make up for our nagging with amazing days like this full of love!

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The Breadwinner

According to the 2009 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost 4 of 10 working wives outearn their husbands. I am one of those four women.

I’m so happy to have been born into a generation of more equality for women than ever before. We are, obviously, far from reaching total equality, but I know I have opportunities that women before me were denied. I am proud to be a strong, working woman, and I know my husband is proud too; however, it can sometimes be complicated.

Our pay scales are different, as one would expect with jobs at a local, independent AM news radio station and a television network affiliate. Regardless of the rational and feminist feelings my husband has in regards to being the secondary earner, he still gets down on himself about it sometimes.  There’s still so much I have to learn about marriage and how to eventually raise our future children. I know one’s upbringing has so much to do with these ideas. I grew up with two working parents, with a female breadwinner, and my husband grew up with the exact opposite. I hope my children won’t have to grow up with the notion that to be a man you have to be the breadwinner.

To help ease my husbands worry, I printed out this Time article from March and highlighted my favorite parts. Luckily, I know he is a feminist and will move past some antiquated feelings of earning.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109140,00.html

I Guess I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

Technical Directing

This week kicked off a crazy Fall season full of work. In addition to my full time job, I work in freelance television and Fall is a big time for jobs. Sports, sports, and more sports. Somehow, even with a family that never watched sports unless mandatory at extended family functions, I ended up earning almost half of my living working in professional sports!

I’m happy for the work, don’t get me wrong, but it’s only been a week and I’m beat. So much in my business, or any business for that matter, depends upon your reputation and part of that means being available. I try to take on as much as I can, but sometimes that’s too much. I’m having a hard time with scheduling sleep, let alone fun time. The schedules are made through the fall, but it’s my goal to slow down come winter. What’s the point in earning money if you can’t even enjoy it? Or even stay healthy (I’m already feeling achy like a cold is coming)? This is advice I’ve heard over and over again, but I really need to take it this time. I need to remind myself that I can still be successful even if I don’t work every job.

Date Night in the Burgh

I love going on dates. My husband and I sometimes get into a rut of just staying at home, so this summer we’ve really worked on dating more…um, dating eachother, obviously. With all the events in Pittsburgh during the summer, we’ve been pretty busy! Last night we had an amazing time at the Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket concert at Stage AE. It was my first time at the venue, and I have to say it’s pretty fantastic. It was so open and intimate at the same time. The size really creates a great atmosphere. The music was fantastic, and people really lost themselves in it. My favorite thing to do at concerts is to people watch. It’s amazing that music (and the 40 oz. beers and certain herbal products not sold by Stage AE) can let people lose their inhibitions, allowing them to really feel and move to the music. I really admire that, and I truly believe that music is the best form of therapy. So our theraputic date was a success, and today will probably just be a dinner and jeopardy night (sometimes I love not dating, too).

Watching Someone Else Grow Up

How I’ll always see my sister!

Today, along with my parents, I moved my younger sister into her college dorm to start her sophomore year of college. With six years difference in age, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to watch her grow up. She is so independent and strong, plus she’s one of the smartest people I have ever known, only behind my Pap-pap. She’s fearless and full of life, too. And while I know all of this and am so happy about it, I’m also sad to see it happen so fast. It feels like yesterday that I was helping her do her hair or fighting with her while playing pretend school (yes, we played school in our free time with homework and all!). I imagine that this mixture of joy and sadness is only a fraction of what a parent feels as they watch their child grow up, and it’s so hard to process! With all that said, I can’t wait to see who she becomes and how she gets there. Check out her Lovely Travels blog to read about her amazing adventures and thoughtful insight!