GIVEAWAY: Ada Avenue

If you follow my blog, there's a good chance that you come here for the food. Ha! So, in an effort to gain some exposure for my decorating design website, I'm offering a GIVEAWAY which includes some chocolate chip cookies with fleur de sel (and trust me, they're delightful)! The other winner will receive a custom design board. Eek, I'm so nervous. Anyway, I would REALLY appreciate the support. 

You can enter the Instagram giveaway by following me here and then tagging three friends. If you want an extra entry to win the chocolate chip cookies, all you have to do is subscribe to my newsletter by going to my website. That's it! It's really simple and there's a good chance you'll win since I'm just starting out and I don't have a lot of followers yet. Hurry! The giveaway ends Sunday (1/31) night!

Thanks to all those who have shared my business with others on Facebook, Instagram, etc. I love you all and genuinely feel so grateful for your support to me. XOXO

sweet + sour chicken with sesame green beans

You know what I can't stand? [Uh oh, I feel a rant coming on.] I see so many delicious looking entrees on Pinterest or in cookbooks that I want to make, but then I feel a little bugged that I have to think of a green vegetable side dish that will pair well with it. I try really hard to always include some sort of green veggie with our meals and I really prefer something that "stands on its own" rather than trying to hide spinach in some sort of concoction. I think it's important for kids to learn how to eat their vegetables, and that they can taste amazing! That's why I made this Sweet + Sour Chicken with Sesame Green Beans. Louisa devoured the green beans and I couldn't shovel them in fast enough! The other best thing about this meal is that it's in one pan (technically, a wok), except for the side of rice (I used Jasmine). And really, how easy is it to throw some rice in a rice cooker? I think you and your family will love this!

1 pound chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 eggs
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 pound green beans, cleaned and trimmed
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce
3-4 green onions, sliced (for serving)
1 teaspoon sesame seeds (for serving)
2 cups rice, cooked (for serving)

Sauce:
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Combine sauce ingredients in a bowl and whisk until well combined. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs and season with salt and pepper. In another bowl, add the cornstarch and set aside. In a large wok (this is what I have and it has served me faithfully for over 8 years - I love it!), heat the oil over medium high heat. Dip each piece of chicken in the egg and then the cornstarch, shaking off excess, and then set carefully into hot oil. Fry each piece (you may need to do this in a couple of batches), turning once when golden brown, until cooked through, about 7 minutes. Remove chicken from wok and drain on paper towel. Drain wok of excess oil but don't clean.

Reheat wok over medium high heat (don't clean it) and add green beans, sesame oil and soy sauce. Stir and cover with lid. Cook until al dente/crisp tender (about 5 minutes), stirring occasionally. Remove beans from wok and garnish with sesame seeds. Don't clean pan.

Add sauce to the wok and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring continuously, for 1 minute until the sauce starts to reduce. Add chicken and stir to coat with sauce. Make a cornstarch slurry, by mixing 1 teaspoon cornstarch with 1 teaspoon cold water, and add it to the sauce to thicken.

Serve chicken over rice with green beans, sliced green onions and garnished with sesame seeds.

Adapted from Damn Delicious

honeybunch, sugarplum, pumpy-umpy-umpkin

Can we talk for a minute about this fat little baby cakes and how I want to go back in time and ask her to stay this little fuzzy-headed, chunky monkey forever, knowing full well that she will grow up way too fast? I wouldn't mind holding her again at 2 a.m. with my exhausted body as long as I can get that new baby smell back in my arms and hear those sweet, gurgling coos as I nurse her in the dark. Sheesh! Babies have magic. It's witchcraft!

spinach artichoke dip

Do you love rich, decadent, hot spinach artichoke dip? Me too. That's why I'm sharing this recipe with you all. So, we can indulge and be indulging friends via the interwebs. There are lots of good recipes out there that range from sans artichoke types to cold spinach dips but I prefer a hot and melty, cheesy dip with the tang of artichokes. Because I was a little short of Parmesan this time, I used about 3/4 cup of Beecher's flagship cheese (cause, you know it's heavenly) and it was a great addition! Straight Parmesan is yummy too and I bet a little Gruyere would be good.

2 cups baby spinach, coarsley chopped
1/2 onion, diced finely
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups Parmesan cheese
1 (14 ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
2/3 cup sour cream
1 cup cream cheese
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 shakes hot sauce
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat oven to 375. In a medium saucepan, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat. Saute onions until translucent (about 4 minutes) and then add garlic and spinach. Cook until the spinach is wilted (should only take a couple minutes) and remove from heat. Squeeze out liquid and set aside. Stir in the rest of ingredients and mix well.

Pour into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes. Serve with pita chips, slices of baguette or bagel pieces.

ada avenue home interiors

Hey friends, I wanted to share some big news with you all. Many of you have been reading my blog for a long time and have become dear friends. I've met a few of you in real life and I just have to say, the internet is the BEST! Anyway, when you have big news, you share it with your friends... so, I hope you'll all be as excited as I am about this news.

After three years of doing e-design through this blog, I finally decided to go for it and really dedicate myself to my decorating designs business! I would love it so much if you would take a look at my new website, Ada Avenue Home Interiors. I've put my heart and soul into each design that I've done in the last few years and feel excited and nervous about the future at Ada Avenue (mostly butterflies-in-my-stomach-excited). I hope you'll check it out and pass it on, if you feel so inclined. I'm also on Instagram at adaavenuedesigns where I'll post some of my favorite designs, inspiration, design tips and sources of some of my favorite products. I'll still be blogging here at Lizzy Write but I felt it was time to separate my lifestyle blog from my design work.

Thanks everyone for your love and support through the years! I sincerely feel so grateful to have made connections that have carried me during the difficult times and helped me celebrate the good times. Three cheers for virtual friends! XOXO

house tour: basement closet

I have no other name for this spider-infested closet in our basement, except the "Harry Potter" closet. Which is really no big surprise since I'm a big Potterhead! This tiny closet is currently storing some chairs and is the home to lots of spiders and other critters, I'm sure. We keep the door closed all the time and try to keep the kids out of there as much as possible since David had to rip off some drywall to fix a leak. I don't want the kids messing with those pipes so we put a bookcase and the piano in front of it on the other side of the wall.

There are all kinds of ideas on Pinterest for ways people are using closets similar to this one. From mudrooms to homework stations to food storage to playrooms, but for our purposes, I'd like to have it be a small reading nook. Just somewhere cute and cozy for the kids to hang out. William is an introvert and really needs his own space sometimes to be alone and recoop. Especially since he and Fritz share a room, I feel like a private little space would be helpful for him. And honestly, I would like to be able to use it sometimes too!

There's not a ton of work to do in here since it's such a small space but I still created a design board to help me visualize a plan (BTW, if you're looking for some help with e-design, check out my design page). I've been wanting to use this dog wallpaper somewhere in our house but wallpaper is expensive! This tiny little space would probably be small enough to afford it. Plus, my kids are obsessed with dogs so I think it would be perfect. I also love how it's a pretty classic pattern that feels very English to me.

I love the little yellow chair. I feel like it's small enough for this little closet but I wouldn't mind putting in a built-in bench against the back wall with a cushion and some pillows. However, I think adding in some carpet and then laying on top a faux-sheepskin rug would majorly add to the cozy factor in here to allow for seating. And I've had my eye on that stripe ottoman forever! It would also work as extra seating.

Then I'd love to put some IKEA spice rack bookshelves on the wall along with a frame chalkboard, colorful art and, if space allows, maybe a small basket for stuffed animals (since we have a million and they're all over my house). I love to use pretty baskets to corral blankets and toys around my house. It makes keeping things tidy so much easier!

Sources:
Dog Wallpaper
Yellow Chair
Faux-Sheepskin Rug
Buffalo Check Pillow
Stripe Ottoman
Framed Chalkboard
Animal Art
Hello Beauty Full Art (which I'll probably make myself)
Star Pendant

house tour: kitchen

I feel bad for posting this because I know everyone will be REALLY jealous of our kitchen... har har. No, but seriously, it has potential! That's what I keep repeating to myself every time I can't fit the groceries from the Costco run in our fridge, or water spills over the too-small sink onto the floor or I glance at my feet and look at the floors... and then, I think - hey, I have a kitchen! There's food in my fridge! There's clean, running water and why do I care that I don't have gorgeous counter tops? Honestly, none of this matters but it's still fun to talk about it and work toward our dream.

Anyway, enough justifying. I don't know why I feel so guilty about wanting a gorgeous kitchen, especially since we'll be doing this on a very modest budget. We've toyed with the idea of doing a mini-renovation because I am SO sick of not having any prep area and would love to buy this island to use until David can build a permanent one during our full renovation. I think it would repurpose really well in our laundry room to use as a folding station after it's served its purpose in the kitchen. However, we'll see how things unfold as we work on all the other projects.

So, let's start with a tour of how the kitchen looked when we bought it. It was a tiny little square with a wall that separated it from the living and dining room.

Before we moved in, David ripped that sucker down and it really opened everything up! Then he temporarily put down some vinyl pieces to fill in the gap where the wall was and that's what we are rocking right now. Other than that, we haven't changed anything in here (except we changed the light over the sink temporarily because the other one was broken).

Some of the highlights of the current kitchen (and there are some incredible ones!) are as follows:

1. This hardware in the center of the door. I mean, what?! It's so bizarre and they're kind of atrocious. I will NOT miss them.

2. The black cabinets are grainy and gross. I have contemplated working around them but they are so crummy. Beyond the fact that they're just really old, the drawers stick really badly and I'm not sure how well I could cover up the grain without hiring someone professionally to do it... and then I may as well just replace them. We have already priced out and designed our IKEA kitchen so we have a number that we're working with into our budget.

3. The sink and faucet... are not MFEO. I'll tell you that for free. This sink doesn't fit 90% of my pots and pans and has the disposal on the wrong side. The best part is the faucet whose bridge comes passed the front edge of the sink so if it's in a straight position, water will spill all over the floor. It's the best! I love it! Let me tell you, lots of bad words under my breath.

4. The lovely vinyl floors circa 1976. These are going soon and I cannot wait! David is ripping out all the flooring upstairs and replacing it with laminate wood flooring (real hardwoods will have to wait for our dream house someday). FYI - the green tape is where I've been measuring island size possibilities.

5. The fridge that came with the house is the same one I had in college. So, I try to fit all of our food for a family of 5 in this apartment size fridge. It's not fun but I just have to take deep breaths and remind myself how lucky I am to have a fridge at all. I will be happy to have a new refrigerator! Tell me your best tips for appliance shopping!

Lastly, as you can see from this picture, we'll also be taking down the "X"ed spots. The skinny wall on the right was the other half of the doorway from the wall David removed. Removing that will give us more counter space too as we move the fridge and elongate the counters. The "X" on the left is going to go when we replace the floors. It's currently a coat closet that we won't need anymore once the mudroom is finished downstairs, and will be a stair railing.

Now, for the pretty pictures. This is what I have in mind. I want to make sure I make classic choices that are modern, and that I'll be happy with should we stay here long term, but that will also be classic enough for resale. With that in mind, I feel like white cabinets are not only currently on-trend, but also really traditional. I'm envisioning a classic Shaker style cabinet with simple hardware. I love the look of dark blue painted lower cabinets but, because I am trying to be traditional, I am thinking that I may only paint the island blue. That way, should we sell the house in the next few years, I can paint it white again if we feel it might help sell the house a little better. Pacific Northwesterners don't always have my same style, which is maybe more Southern California/Texas. I don't know.

I found this blog renovation that is almost identical to our house layout. Seeing their before and after gave me so much hope! They started with essentially the exact same kitchen we have and I would like to copy most of this (thought I'd like to add just a little color here and there). Can you envision it???

I also love the brass/gold hardware with blue trend, but I need to make sure I find just the right style and hue, all while staying relatively inexpensive. Hardware can get really pricey but it's like jewelry, right? There are so many great options and, when it's actually time to choose, I'm confident I'll be able to find something that will work. This has been one of my favorite kitchens for a long time and I'd love to do some of these elements, like the blue lowers and white uppers, white subway tile with touches of wood.

via

that's a wrap: 2015

Well, another year has come and gone. I'll admit that 2015 was pretty rotten, in my book. It seems a lot of people felt this way and I'm glad to say "sayonara" to last year. I won't say that nothing good came from the year, because I did learn a lot of valuable lessons, but good grief! It was a rough year!

We celebrated New Year's with lots of food... like any of you are surprised to read that. I am definitely not at my ideal weight but you know what? Life is short and I am going to eat good food. However, my lack of exercise needs to up the ante. I'm joining all the other New Year's resolutionists and starting back at the gym until the weather gets nice again and I can resume my jogging on the trail. I've missed it!

New Year's Eve is always kind of a bust when you have little kids. It's nearly impossible to find a babysitter and we're all too tired to stay up late anyway! But, I did try to make it fun for our little family. I took a couple of pictures of these cute boys in front of the Christmas tree before we took it down. I'll miss the glow but it's nice to have things all cleaned up and back to normal!

I set the table and served a few appetizers throughout the evening. Pears, cinnamon toasted walnuts, Point Reyes blue cheese and raw honey was my favorite!

I made David's favorite, potstickers, as a nod to our New Year's Eve traditional Chinese food. They're always a big hit with my kids. I also made a crudite plate with some dip and then later, David grilled up some rib eye steaks for us after the kids went to bed. It was lots of deliciousness!

After dinner I broke out the glosticks, turned off the lights and put some music on and we danced our hearts out. It was so fun! I'm not much of a dancer (in fact, I'm pretty terrible) but when your partners are a 6-year-old, 3-year-old and 18 month old... they don't judge. Haha!

The next morning, I made granola parfaits with coconut pistachio granola for breakfast. I usually make æbleskivers on New Year's but I was out of butter (heaven help me) so I made them the next morning with buttermilk syrup. Worth it.

Then we drove up to Steven's Pass and tried to go to the ski resort to go sledding but could not get a parking spot! It was packed, and for good reason, because there was tons of fresh powder. So we drove down the mountain a bit and let the kids throw around the icy parts. Haha. They didn't mind.

Here's hoping that 2016 brings lot of health, happiness and memories for our family! We are really grateful for all that we have.