Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Anybody going to brave the crowds on Black Friday? I think I'm gonna pass on that this year. I've never had very much luck with Black Friday sales in the past. So I'm just enjoy gonna my nice, warm bed until I'm nice and ready to get up. Ok, that's all for now. I'm signing out for the week. Have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING, everyone!

It's turkey time!

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching. This year we're having Thanksgiving at my house (eek!) rather than at my parents'. Today, I have to tidy up my house and run to the grocery store. My plan is to start prepping and cooking tomorrow. Hope everything turns out ok! I'm SO glad my uncle is making the turkey again. It's one less thing for me to worry about. It just seems like such a huge responsibility! What are your plans for the holiday? I hope everybody has a great holiday!
(via The Party Dress)

Chicken & Spinach Quesadillas

I made these quick and easy quesadillas for some friends last night, and they were a big hit! Seriously super easy and delicious. I bought a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and shredded it by hand. I topped the quesadillas with a delicious mild salsa from Trader Joe's that was so fresh and tasty. I changed up the directions to how I made them. (photo via Real Simple)

Ingredients

• 1 rotisserie chicken, meat shredded
• 1 bag pre-washed baby spinach
  
• 1 bag shredded Mexican blend cheese
  
• 10 large flour tortillas
• 12 oz. store-bought fresh salsa
• 1 avocado, diced (optional)
• 1/4 cup sour cream (optional)
  

Directions

1. Heat skillet to medium. Sprinkle cheese, chicken and spinach evenly over a tortilla. Cover with another tortilla.
2. Heat the quesadillas until the cheese has melted and the tortillas are crisp, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Serve with the avocado, salsa, and sour cream.

New-to-me blogs I'm following

Here are a few blogs I just started following. Simple + Pretty is all about pretty paper and pretty things. Jack & Izzy makes the cutest party packages. (I must say...something I wouldn't mind doing after planning Kyoung-hee and Sam's baby shower...) The Party Dress has some gorgeous event decorating ideas.

Jobie: my French bulldog/beagle

I'm not someone who uses terms of endearment often...if at all. But Jobie is my baby, sweetie & cutie pie. I love her affectionate nature and her on-the-verge-of-ear-shattering, howling whines when we come home. (Friends who know her, you know what I'm talking about!) How can you not love her?? She keeps me toasty when I sleep at night. Her crazed obsession with squirrels drives me nuts. I love how she's so needy. Haha. Sadly, Jobie isn't the most photogenic when she's awake (she's adorable when she's sleeping.) So I was happy to have snapped this picture of her. She was looking out our backyard for...you know it!...squirrels.


My sister-in-law just sent me this photo of Jobie from 2006. She was only a few months old and terribly cute! The photo below was taken last week when the SIL was in town for a visit. She was trying to duplicate the pose in picture #1. Doesn't she look so different? I told you she isn't photogenic! Her nose isn't actually so huge!

ello there: definitely delightful!

These wedding invitations by ello there are so stinkin' cute and delightfully simple and to the point! This just shows that invitations don't need to have all that formal stuff. They're kind of refreshing. =) Hmm...that's a lovely font. Doncha' think?

An Organized Kitchen

In this month's MS Living, Martha helped Living's editorial director organize their kitchen cabinets. It inspired me to reorganize my own cabinets and maximize the little space I have in my kitchen. I ran to the nearest Container Store the next day. Oh how I love organization! Thanks to Grace for my MS Living subscription!
[photos from marthastewart.com]
I bought a couple of these white cabinet shelves for my plates and bowls.
And this is the double shelf for the platters and punch bowl. The photo below is of the other side of the same cabinet. I'm definitely liking how the shelves are making use of the vertical space. My corner cabinets are kind of oddly shaped. I have to stick my whole torso in to reach anything in the back...after I've taken everything out in the front of the cabinet. The shelves make life a bit easier.I bought a few more shelves for my other cabinets, but you get the gist of it. No need to show anymore poorly-taken photos. I don't get much natural light in there. =) Oh, I also went to Bed, Bath & Beyond for some shelves, and took advantage of those awesome 20% off coupons. I love how they accept expired coupons!

Ingenious gloves!

Since I finally joined the smart phone bandwagon, fingerless gloves make so much sense now! But the convertible mitten-gloves I've been seeing the past few winters just doesn't make ANY sense though since the thumbs are still covered. You can't text with those big thumbs! These Anthropologies ones are pretty darn cute though...
Then you have the fingerless glove option where your fingers and thumbs are fully exposed to the elements. Burr...I say. My fingertips are what I need to protect from frostbite. Now that won't work. No siree Bob!
I finally found the best option EVER yesterday. I mean, INGENIOUS! I was getting ready to check out at Target when I quickly scanned the winter accessories section. I must say, they have some cute stuff. Then I found them... These gloves allow you to expose just the index finger and the thumb up to the first knuckle. You just button them back (the picture doesn't show that for some reason.) How simply ingenious is that??

Currently Admiring: this organized wall display

I really like how all those cards, invitations and photos are displayed on a string (or wire) with mini clothes pins. It's very charming. If only there was enough wall space in my study to do that...

Congratulations, Sam & Kyoung-hee!

Claire was born late Friday night (after midnight), so that technically makes her a Halloween baby. So here's a fall-inspired baby announcement for little Claire Yi. We're so happy that she's finally here! Congratulations, S&K!

Spinach, sausage, and provolone pizza

I got this recipe from my Real Simple magazine (Oct '09). It's quick, easy and delicious! The recipe says to buy pizza dough to make the crust, but I just bought a pre-made, Boboli pizza crust to save some time. I also added some extra vegetables (mushrooms, grape tomatoes, onions, and basil) for variation. I've already made this pizza a few times since it's such a crowd pleaser. :) It's seriously super easy to make! Here's the recipe...

• 1 Boboli pizza crust
• 2 links Italian sausage, casings removed
• 1 small bunch of spinach (I used a bag of pre-washed spinach)
• 1/2 lb thinly sliced provolone (I love Jewel's provolone. It's light, not strong like Dominick's.)
• vegetables of your choice

Heat oven to 425°F. Cook the sausage in a large pan, breaking it up with a spoon, until no longer pink, 4 to 5 minutes. Add onions, mushrooms, and spinach until cooked through about 2 minutes. Top the pizza crust with a layer of cheese, the sausage mixture, and halved grape tomatoes (optional.) Bake until the crust is crisp and the cheese has melted, 12-15 minutes.

Please excuse the partially cooked spinach. These photos are from the first time I made this. I added a few extra leaves of spinach right before popping it into the oven...thinking they would cook. Umm...that didn't quite work out. But it still tasted yummy!

Etsy Find: Handmade Felt Accessories

I came across A Alicia's Etsy shop in the blogosphere last week (eek, I forget which blog...sorry!) She makes super adorable felt flower brooches & hair accessories among other things. Check it out!

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

The night before Halloween, I decided to try to make Pumpkin Spice cupcakes using this recipe I found on TasteSpotting (my new favorite recipe site.) Make Me Hungry's blog has awesome photos of her food that definitely drew me in. I just had to try the recipe! They turned out surprisingly well since they were made from scratch. Everybody loved them! Yay! My chocolate spider webs definitely didn't turn out as pretty though. Gotta work on that step. But the cupcakes were super moist and had the perfect amount of spice. I must say though, baking from scratch takes a heck of a lot longer..

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 stick butter, room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 large egg, plus 2 egg whites
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup low-fat milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg in a large bowl. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk the pumpkin puree and milk. Set aside. Cream the butter in an electric mixer. Gradually beat in the sugar and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, once at a time, and add the vanilla. Turn mixer to low and alternate the addition of the flour and pumpkin (start and end with flour. Example: add 1/3 of the flour mixture, then half the pumpkin mixture, half of the flour, remaining pumpkin, and rest of the flour mixture). Mix until just blended.

Using an ice cream scoop, fill cupcake pans lined with muffin cups. The batter should fill 2/3 the way up. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely on a cooling rack before icing.

Cream Cheese-Mascarpone Frosting

( I didn't add mascarpone, but I'll try it next time!)

• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 8 oz mascarpone cheese, room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Cream the mascarpone, cream cheese, and vanilla in electric mixer on medium speed until light and well combined. Turn speed down to low and add the powdered sugar. Spread a generous amount over cupcakes.

:TIP: To make a chocolate spider web, melt 6 oz of chocolate in the microwave for 1 min or until melted well. With a piping bag, draw a pea-sized dot in the center of the cupcake, then 2 rings around it. With a toothpick, drag the tip through the chocolate from the center dot to the edge. It is best to do this immediately when frosting the cupcakes… if you let the frosting sit too long the chocolate will not smoothly spread and the frosting with have crystallized and become chunky.

Ta-DA!!

Oh my...it's November already?

Hope you all had a fun Halloween weekend! I finally got a chance to take a picture of my fabulous "One Charming Party" Halloween banner. It's been siting pretty on my mantel all month. Thanks again, Brittany!