Slow Cooking and Wreath Making

Today was a wonderful Sunday. Saturday night I soaked 2 lbs of Great Northern Beans and this morning cut up wonderful veggies and ham to put into our new slow cooker!

This is a great slow cooker! I am glad it is a big one because this reciepe filled it to the brim!


Here is the recipe, I made it a double batch so everything was doubled in our crock pot.

Crock Pot Great Northern Beans

1 lb Great Northern Beans
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons veg. or chicken bouillion (my suggestion would be to not use bouillon if you are adding ham, ours ended up being pretty salty)
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup olive oil
1-2 tbsp butter
salt & pepper to taste

ham is optional

Add 1 cup of water and cook all day on low in crock pot about 10 hours.

towards the end the liquid decreases and becomes a bit creamy as some of the beans break apart

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Very savory and tasty. A little bit too salty for me next time I will not add bouillon if I add ham, and even then I will probably only add half the bouillon of the recipe if I don't add ham!

My opinion is salt can be added per person depending on how you like it. But over all a great recipe it really hit the spot and we have tons of left overs!!

Maybe thinking of adding a bit of water to make it a bit soupy and to dilute the saltiness!

We also went to Michael's to get some wreath making supplies. I really wanted to make a wreath!

I had a great time making it!! And I hung it on our apartment door! I know a lot of people will probably not see it, but it will bring me joy every time I walk into our apartment!

So sparkly and golden. I loved creating my own handmade wreath. With a jingle bell :)

Hubby help me take pictures while I made the wreath, and he is work on making a mosaic wall hanging! I will certainly be helping too. I love art projects!

I also washed the linens and put on our new duvet and down alternative comforter! It is very beautiful in our bedroom and perfect for fall! Can't wait to climb into bed to sleep in clean sheets! Oh the little things in life! :)

Goodnight and Sweet Dreams.

Yams are Yum

Wednesday and Thursday nights were nice and relaxing! Wednesday I should have gone to my Ashtanga class but for some reason I just felt like staying home. I know that is not a good excuse at all, and I should really have any excuses, but I just didn't go. I will be more accountable next time.

Wednesday night I marinated pork in herb and garlic maranade and then cooked it in the grill pan, veggies were fresh orange, yellow and green peppers sauteed with okra with a little bit of butter. They tasted so good! And yams! I bought two yams at the store and I am glad I only made one for Justin and I to share because they are so filling and pretty big. I cut them thin, sprinkled a little bit of salt and a lot of cinnamon and then popped them in the oven at 375* for about 25 mins! Perfectly savory sweet!

Thursday I subbed for a music class at Suncrest Primary, it was fun. I enjoy making music with children and teaching them dances! After work I went to Hot Vinyasa for the first time! And it was very hot! I don't know exactly what the temperature was in the room but it felt hotter than 80* inside. I loved the class! You sweat out lots of toxins in your body, and I love that our teacher comes around a spritzes some aromatherapy for each person it smelled so good. I should ask what combo of essential oils it was. It smelled a little like rose, but something was heavy about the scent. It was great.

I cam home and whipped up another pretty tastie dinner! with...more yams!

Don't mind the hot dog, I didn't have time to maranate some pork so we had hotdogs, but they are actually not bad, quite salty though.

We had roasted garlic and olive oil couscous, this time I cooked the rest of the frozen okra in a little olive oil and then sprinkled in some Italian bread crumbs, so it was like faux-fried okra. genius! And of course more delicious yams! prepared in the same way. I like making the yams this way it is fast easy and gives lots of flavor with out tons of fat!

Tonight Justin and I are going to Happy Hour Yoga at BlissBlissBliss! I am so excited he is coming with me! It is a donation class so people with all kind of experience..or no experience can come! And you decide the price of the class!

Not sure what is on the menu for tonights dinner, but we are doing "Eat In Novemeber". Which means we are not going out to any restaurants this month! Unless it is someone elses treat. We won't turn you down if you want to take us to dinner! But for our own health and finance we are challenging ourselves not to go out to eat at all for one month! It is pretty fun, and we might do it again!

I hope you all have an amazing weekend! Anything exciting planned?!

OH I also forgot to post about my birthday! It was great! :) I guess it is a little late to post about...oh well! Here is a picture guess how old I am now!! :)

Off to Happy Hour Yoga!!! :)

Turkish Bazaar!

Let me first say...I am a jewelry freak. I love all kinds of styles of jewelry and especially semi-precious stones, basically to many things to say I like.
So when I saw a flier in the schools about a Turkish Bazaar where there would be all kinds of jewelry from Turkey and also scarves and shawls. I was so excited! So I went yesterday and it was awesome they had so many great beautiful sterling silver pieces and I bought several because the prices where so great!
I also found out that it is a husband and wife that go to Turkey very often and bring back all this jewerly and the proceeds go to help missions and to help build gathering places where Christian can worship and supplies for children for school. What a wonderful way to help raise money for their missions. So that made me want to buy even more! I got a few pieces that I loved! 

I love this huge ring! It fits my middle finger and it is all I need for some serious bling to any outfit!

I just love they design and pattern of these pendants they are beautiful.

I love earthy jeweley.

I have always want to have a tree of life pendant this was $5! With beautiful turquoise!

A bracelet I can actually put on myself. I am not a huge bracelet person, but this won me over. I love the moonstone!

Moonstone and topaz earrings!

The picture doesn't give the moonstone justice.

I love these not sure what the circular green stone is but the tear drop is peridot.

wearing these today!

I had a blast! After the bazaar I went to a Core Strength Vinyasa class at BlissBlissBliss!
 It was a great class! I always feel so good after yoga I am planning to go the rest of the week and to Hot Vinyasa on Thursday which I have never done!

After yoga I drove home and fixed dinner! We had fresh sauteed peppers (green, yellow, orange) with Italian sausage on top of Parmesan couscous! A super fast and easy dinner. It was delicious!

Tonight I am going to make Yams, now I have made sweet potatoes but never yams so it should be interesting! also on the menu pork and some assortment sauteed veggies! :)

Two days off in a row for subbing I hope I get called in tomorrow, but it did give me a chance to blog and to clean up our place a bit! :) Off to clean some more!