The Freedom Tower

I pass the Freedom Tower at least twice a day going to and from my (still new) job downtown. Yesterday I passed by four times! The first time I noticed a tiny corner of shiny glass and was in awe of how it finally looks more like all the computer generated images of what will be in 2013 than the orange skeleton that's been rising into the sky.

Today even more glass has been installed and it is breathtaking to watch the progress and what the completion will symbolize for many people with a direct connection to the events of 9/11.

I am way behind...

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I last posted and that wasn't much of post at all. I'm undecided if I should continue blogging since Facebook has become a blog-like forum for me and everyone else in the world and FB is a bit easier to update than blogger. Hmmm... I'll keep thinking about this for awhile before I make any kind of major decision.

Now to what's been going on at Casa Tocci...

Christmas Tree Acquisition (December 12, 2010)
We got our Christmas tree. This year we decided to try Lantier Tree Farm in Monroe Twp, NJ and we were very pleased with the selection of trees and the tree we got.They have acres upon acres of trees and our tree, a blue spruce, was perfect for hanging ornaments but blue spruces are prickly as heck! It was a bit painful to hang the lights, beads and ornaments but in the end we have a gorgeous. Hopefully all the needles will fall off before we have to un-decorate the tree.

 

Baked Christmas Cookies (December 18, 2010)

I made our usual of Chocolate Thumbprints, Mexican Wedding Cookies and K Bars. Shared some with co-workers, friends, family and my husband's belly.

My sister-in-law got engaged (December 18, 2010)

Yes she got engaged while I was slaving away making cookies. She just bought a house with her fiance this year (before they were engaged) so the engagement was expected but it's always so exciting when it finally happens and the wedding planning talk begins! It's going to be a very busy 2011. 

Christmas Festivities (December 24-25, 2010)

Christmas was a bit of a bummer this year, I was sick all through the events. I went through it in a bit of a haze and no appetite but still had to prep a bunch of food and show up when all I wanted to do was sleep. Now on day 6 (Dec 28) I finally feel better but just a bit congested. 

Hopefully the last snowstorm of 2010 (December 27-28, 2010)

We had a heck of a lot of snow this year.  Two HUGE storms days apart in early February and most recently, the day after Christmas we get hit with a Nor'easter. We got about 20 inches of snow!

Happy Birthday Hubby!

Happy Birthday to my dear husband! 

Wishing you a wonderful day and many many more. 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Nick and I aren't dressed up today; too much to do around the house. Last night, we did the dress up thing. We had a Halloween party at our friends' house and went as John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Helps that hubby looks bit like John and I got the Asian thing going to be Yoko Ono.

We used a lot of what we already had for the costumes and picked up a few things to finish up them. For Yoko I bought a hat (she likes hats), some 70s-ish sunglasses and some sweater-like stockings (that you can't see in the picture). For John, I made Nick some pretty kickin' bell bottoms out of an old pair of jeans and added the 'wings' to make them belled out; he bought a wig and got a pair of glasses. Nick also went and shaved his beard off! Talk about hard core for Halloween!

Gorgeous Morning

I took the day off to accompany my dad to the hospital. He's having a procedure done as part of overall treatment for his cancer (I'll post about this long ordeal another day).

On my way into NYC to Columbia University Medical Center, I had the pleasure of sitting in some traffic on the George Washington Bridge. Thankfully, instead of being angry about the traffic I was able to enjoy the sun rising upon NYC. Here's a couple of pics from my cell phone while stopped on the GWB (ignore my dirty windshield).

I had no idea I married a contractor...

 Nick's been super busy around the house lately. He's made an attic hatch in the garage so that he can access the wiring of the house as easily as the attic stairs he installed in the upstairs hallway.

He's been upgrading our electric to copper since we discovered most of electric was aluminum (it was legal to use aluminum when our house was originally built and then they found out it was no good).

Nick's made a couple of holes (and messes) through out the house but I am being as patient as possible since once it's done it'll be done. While working on the massive electric project he had to pause for about a day to fix our leaky dishwasher thatch/seed our lawn.

The best (only in hindsight because he's fine) was when I heard a crash and came out to the garage to see his leg (for just a split second) dangling in the hole. Now it's a great extra place to throw down some cut wires into the garage without having a ladder in the way like the entry hatch has.

Dzwilewski Wedding Projects

The wedding has been over for a week. I am still recovering from all those evenings and weekends planning and making wedding stuff. I actually had a dream that we forgot something... it's never good when you have dreams about whatever it is (especially someone else's wedding and work).

The first of many projects and the most complicated was the wedding program. There was so much design work that went into matching fonts, creating the anchor and leaning everything up just right. Also the religious/church related practices that I have no clue about but learned quite a bit about and what order they

Then the seating cards which were so easy once I set up a merge between an excel guest list with the table name. (I love technology!)

Then the bride had some backorder issues with a guest book she wanted but found one at Hallmark but we both felt it was too plain. So add some ribbon and a hot glue gun... presto chango!

I also made, as a gift to the bride, a money bag to collect all her wedding cards. I had kept the details to this a secret because I had wanted some design freedom (a.k.a. no wedding pressure). I made this out of barely off white satin, it's lined in the lightest pink with navy blue ribbon ties and embroidered in navy with Bride and Groom's last and first initials. Needless to say, she LOVED it! I was a little sad to give it up because it's one of the nicer things I made.

There's a whole bunch of other stuff I did but seriously can't remember (or I am blocking it out). I am just thrilled they're married and honeymooning in Italy while I regain some order in my life. 

Congratulations Chris & Amanda!

One more week!

Chris and Amanda's wedding is less than one week away and I have a busy, busy bee helping them out. I've done and will be doing quite a bit that I can't even keep track of it myself anymore.

I've made...

• wedding programs
• seating cards
• table names (instead of numbers - see picture below)
• embroidered bridal party gifts
• stickers for wedding favors
• guest bag notes from the bride and groom

As much as I enjoyed helping, I can't wait to have my free time back and for this wedding to be done. More pictures of the finished projects when I take pictures at the wedding.

A Whole Lotta Stuff Going On

I admit it, I've been kinda lazy with the blogging lately but I have about 100 perfect excuses! It's been a very busy summer between work, the house and me getting a new job. I am just plain exhausted. On top of that I am an "honorary" bridesmaid for my husband's best friend's fiance (did you get that mouthful?). I've been helping her stay sane by helping with the stuff that comes easy to me. I've so far embroidered some beach towels for her bridal party, designed stickers to put on anything and everything, designed the table names (instead of numbers) and have a few more things to do for the wedding.

This wouldn't be a proper blog if I didn't throw in some pictures, so here is the photographic evidence of my busy busy summer...

Instead of baking zucchini bread in loaves, I decided to experiment with cupcakes! It works and hubby says it's got all the best parts all over...I think that's the crispy bread crust stuff. I wouldn't know, I don't eat it... I just make it.

Then I spray painted my office closet doors. The before of the au natural wood and now (a much cooler) black color. I went through THREE cans of spray paint.

Also had the cousins and siblings over a few times each. It's been a very busy summer and I think I'll be thankful to go into fall. For now I have to say good bye to co-workers I've had for the last 3 1/2 years as I end a chapter in my career and move onto bigger (and hopefully, better) things on August 30th.

First Tomato Salad (from July 19 2010)

So I am a bit behind posting to the blog. A lot has breen going on in the lives of Nick and Jenny but most importantly we have been enjoying amazing tomatoes for a few weeks now.

Frog in the Pool

My brother, Frankie and his girlfriend, Alice, had dinner with us and then we jumped into the pool. After a couple hours we decided we needed some Sonic shakes and started cleaning all the toys out of the pool. We realized one toy was missing. Some of the toys have a new habit of drifting into the chamber where the filter basket is so that's where we assumed it was. Hubby reached into the chamber and had a mini-freak out moment because he felt something in the chamber and it wasn't a toy.

Nick expected some kind of dead creature because he found one in the pool about a week ago but thankfully didn't really let on. We popped open the top to the filter chamber and found this little guy swirling around in circles. It took a second to figure out what he was.Then came the yelps of, "It's a frog!"

So we scooped the frog up (and I dubbed him Kermit) and got ready to release him back into the wild.

Iron Chef New Jersey

Our garden has taken on mutant proportions. We have tons of green tomatoes, basil, and lettuce, but the one item that has been in great abundance is squash. We have zucchini and yellow squash galore!

Lately it's been like an episode of Iron Chef at our house with zucchini and yellow squash as the secret ingredient.

We've had it grilled (which is the go to) but I decided I needed to be a bit more creative with our meals.

So I became Mario Batali (but I have red Crocs) and made...

Squash with shell pasta, walnuts and raisins. The side was thinly sliced cucumber in a rice vinegar, sugar, salt mixture topped with sesame seeds. 

 My next challenge yielded stuffed squash for dinner. This was semi-homemade. Started by halving the squash and clearing the seeds out with a grapefruit spoon (those serrated edges are awesome). I had Nick grill the squash halves for a nice flavor and those lovely grill lines. I saved the seeds part and later sauteed them with some onion and garlic. Then on the side I ground pre-cooked sausage from Trader Joe's (the flavor was spinach and something) in the food processor then combined with seed saute adding pecorino romano cheese, garlic powder and mixing. Then stuff the squash with the mixture and throw into the oven on 375 for about 25 minutes to heat everything through really good.

Today I am making zucchini bread. I actually have it in the oven right now and need to kill an hour before it's ready.

July 3rd Harvest

4 yellow squash, a curved cucumber and a stunted zucchini.

Today's Harvest

Zucchini, yellow squash, big ass Japanese cucumber and two bush pickles

Mutant Garden

Some of you may remember the crazy zucchini we had from our garden from last year. This we've done the garden again but bigger and better!

We always have tomatoes and basil. We again have zucchini, added yellow squash, red leaf and romaine lettuces, red bell and banana peppers, regular and Japanese cucumber and Japanese eggplant. Last year we planted regular eggplant and they were destroyed by these eggplant loving itty bitty beetles. So far the Japanese eggplant looks great with no holey leaves.

The yellow squash. The yellow squash is thriving and we're going to be knee deep in this stuff.

This here is our very first tomato. 

Finally the lettuce and basil (and you can see a pepper plant).

The thing is we've probably only had this garden for about three weeks and we already have baby versions of a lot of the vegetables. It's really unbelievable how quickly we have baby veggies as I didn't expect anything until late July but I think we'll be eating things before the end of June from the garden (obviously some yellow squash).

What did you make... Jessica Tandy cake?

My husband couldn't remember the name of this cake and kept calling it Jessica Tandy cake.

Saturday was my sister-in-law's birthday party, her actual birthday is today. I offered to make her cake and having found out she was having a margarita theme (pizzas and drinks) I decided I had to do something by making her a cake. I played 20 questions to make sure she likes the cake and found out she wanted peanut butter tandy cake. My first thought was WTF?! So I googled it. I found the Betty Crocker recipe and figured I couldn't go wrong with Betty, she's been doing this a lot longer than I have.

I started out by baking the yellow cake and splitting them into two 9x9 pans. One with a little more batter than the other. 

To carry out the margarita theme I had to be a bit creative and it turned out pretty darn awesome. I started with Bakerella's basic cake pop recipe to get me going. I wanted to maintain the peanut butter tandy cake flavor so I compromised on the look of the margarita theme. Bakerella's cake pops usually use a light icing but I needed peanut butter flavor instead. I crumbled the cake and poked around the internet and found an easy way to make peanut butter icing on Epicurious. The I mixed some frosting in with the crumbled cake until it was dough-like and could be formed into shapes.

Peanut Butter Frosting

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter (do not use old-fashioned or freshly ground)
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 teaspoons (about) whipping cream (optional)

Put powdered sugar and next 3 ingredients in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat until mixture is smooth, adding whipping cream by teaspoonfuls if frosting is too thick to spread.

After creating the mixture I began to shape the pops. I had to make a cookie cutter out of a small plastic container that I cut the bottom of (I need to get me some cookie/shape cutters). Then use the candy melt that will coat the outside as a glue on the pop sticks before pushing them into the formed dough.

Now pop those babies in the freezer to set the candy melt glue and harden the cake mixture before dipping. Melt the rest of the candy melts in the microwave and then it's time to dip!

After the candy melt dipping I spun the margarita glass in light blue and purple sugar sprinkles to create the margarita salt. The "fruit" was made of Jolly Rancher jelly beans that I had lying around. I cut a little wedge out of each so they'd sit on the rim of the glass.

And voila the finished cake...

Update: A Spreader is not just a Spreader

I got the wrong spreader. Yup for my 3rd anniversary I got hubby the wrong thing. It was supposed to be the Scotts AccuGreen 3000 Drop Spreader. I should've known it was the one that sounded too fancy and slightly intimidating for a spreader. Honestly, they all looked the same too me except one that looked too small and a lot like the one we already had.

Heck it even looks intimidating. But hubby was nice enough to take the wrong one and receipt back to Home Depot and pick up the Caddy of spreaders.

Happy 3rd Anniversary

Happy 3rd Anniversary to my favorite (and only) hubby!

We made big plans for today - head to Philly and have us some Roy's. Roy's is a restaurant that we ate at with our friends and family the night before our wedding and loved it. It is also one of two small pieces of Hawaii that we have locally. The other being L&L Hawaiian but it's more of a fast food place than a proper celebratory venue.

Before we headed out... Hubby was wonderful and surprised me with a bouquet of calla lilies (from my wedding bouquet) that were the right shade of red! (If anyone remembers my bouquet's callas - they ended up pretty darn purple and I had a mini melt down prior to the ceremony). Leave it up to my husband and a local NJ florist to get it perfect - thank you!

My anniversary gift may not seem exciting but Nick wanted it and I think he deserves it. Something to make it a little bit easier keeping up after this big ass house we bought. Let me introduce you to Nick's new Scotts Deluxe Broadcast Spreader... he's got a spreader that's over 20 years old from my parents and it kinda just throws stuff everywhere with no regard as to what's around. This baby has controls and you can make the little orange guard underneath "block" where you don't want stuff to get thrown. For example, it's probably a smart idea to keep grass seed out of the swimming pool and vegetable garden. Plus this deluxe model holds enough stuff to throw around on 15,000 square feet... I don't even know if we have that much grass. Honey... what you do you think?

New Mailbox

Before you get excited... this is what it looked like before... kinda wimpy. kinda pathetic. Nick's fixed the hinges a few times each and we've had to get tetanus shots before getting the mail (just kidding about the tetanus) but it was a pretty rusty mailbox.

We had discussed several different mailboxes. First something related to Nick's favorite hobby, fishing. A large mouth bass...

or a lure...

Maybe something a bit more traditional...

We went traditional with the Mayne Westbrook Plus Mailbox, Post and Planter in black. Nick hit a few snags digging out the rusty ol' mailbox and the post we knew was still there. Turns out there were three mailboxes worth of cement in the ground right in a row. So I figure if the house is a little over 30 years old, three mailboxes ... it's safe to say that a mailbox probably lasts around 10 years.

Another issue we discovered a little late in the game is the space available for a mailbox wasn't exactly enough to be too traditional with the mailbox. You see the USPS, being a government agency and all, has rules. They have requirements and some of them are: the front edge of the mailbox has to be set about 5-6 inches back from the edge of the curb. USPS also tells you the mailbox should be about 41-45 inches from the road surface. Bossy bossy bossy. So due to the setback requirement we had to be a little crafty with our mailbox.

Yup ... sideways. Now it's unique without it being a lure or a fish. For anyone that cares I planted orange and yellow begonias in the planter. Another Tocci project accomplished.