Whoooohooo - I'm a Finalist!!

Yippee!!  I just found out I am a finalist in the Lil Blue Boo / Dharma Trading Design Challenge.  The judges narrowed the field down from 154 entries down to 15 and I feel so honored to be part of this group.

The dress that was chosen was my first entry, "The Gracyn" (Finalist #12).  Head over to Lil Blue Boo and check out the other finalists and cast your vote for your favorite dress.  There are some other incredibly talented women in this group!

For more information about this dress, click here.

"The Gracyn"

I'm so excited!!  Eeeeeeek!!

tomorrow night and a sneak peak

tomorrow night i’ll be here…

the tory burch store at phipps plaza.

and i’ll be hanging out with jennifer boles from the peak of chic blog.  she’s hosting a great blogger event.  i’m looking forward to meeting her as well as other local atlanta bloggers. 

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i’ve also been working on updating my entry table.  here’s a little sneak peek of what it looks like.  i’m loving it.

LiveJournal Tags: tory burch,the peak of chic,my home

Honey-Dijon Pecan Crusted Salmon

I have been in such a "fishy" mood lately.  I found wild salmon on sale at the grocery store the other day and just had to buy it.  I think the fact that it is Lent right now has really gotten me in the fish mood.  At The Cottage Home Lent = no meat on Fridays, so I really started putting my mind to work coming up with some tasty "no meat" dinners.

I really wanted to try something new with the salmon I had bought at the store.  My husband and I have a grilled salmon recipe we LOVE, but that is more of a summertime dish, so I decided to come up with a new recipe and here it is:

Honey-Dijon Pecan Crusted Salmon

Ingredients:

4 medium-sized fresh salmon fillets

1/4 cup honey

1/3 cup Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons water

1 cup pecan pieces

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1/3 cup parmesan cheese

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix honey, dijon, and water together in a small bowl.  Add more water if necessary - you want it to look like a honey-mustard dipping sauce that you might get in a restaurant.

Mix pecans, butter, and parmesan together in a seperate bowl.

Lay salmon fillets on a cookie sheet.  Brush salmon fillets with honey-dijon mixture and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.

Top each salmon fillet with pecan mixture.  Divide the mixture evenly among the four fillets.

Place salmon in a preheated oven for 15 minutes.  Salmon is perfectly cooked when it flakes easily with a fork.

Serve salmon with rice or potatoes, green salad and/or a steamed green vegetable - YUM!

Cottage Mama's Note: The topping for the salmon would be delicious on many varieties of fish including tilapia or halibut.

a little decorating fun

about a month ago i couldn’t sleep one night so i put together an inspiration board for our family room/dining area.  creating these boards for clients has become one of my favorite things to do, second only to selecting fabrics.  i’m sure our family room won’t end up having every item from this inspiration board but hopefully it will have some of the more important pieces…like that lee industries sofa.  :o)  it’s one of my favorite sofas.  i used some of our current artwork and furniture to create the inspiration board as well as new pieces.  i want our house to have an industrial but comfortable feeling, and i want it to be filled with lots of character.  i’m so indecisive when it comes to my own home though.  things could change before it gets completed, but hopefully after we get our tax money back we’ll have a family room that looks something a little like this.

LiveJournal Tags: our house,lee industries

Cheesy, Delicious - Hash Brown Casserole

Hash brown casserole is SO yummy!  I'm sure many of you have a version of this recipe, but if you don't I think this is a tried and true dish that should be in everyone's cooking repertoire.

Hash brown casserole is a perfect side dish for any steak, chicken or fish dinner.  It is incredibly easy to make and can be made up to a day ahead of time and kept in the fridge until it is time to bake.  If you are looking for a dish to take to a pot-luck, this one is a guaranteed crowd pleaser.  This is also a wonderful brunch dish as well! 

If for some reason you have never tried this dish, please, please give this recipe a try - you will love it!!

Hash Brown Casserole

Ingredients:

1 bag frozen, shredded or diced hash brown potatoes (2 lbs.), thawed

1 onion, chopped

1 can cream soup (cream of chicken, mushroom, celery.....whatever you have)

1 8 oz. container sour cream (I use light sour cream)

1 lb. shredded cheddar or monterey jack cheese

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 cups crushed corn flakes or 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1/4 cup melted butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grate cheese (or you can use already shredded bagged cheese) and chop onion.

Then add your hash browns, cream soup, sour cream, cheese, onions, salt and pepper in a large mixing bowl and stir until combined.

After all ingredients are combined, spoon hash brown mixture into a greased, glass baking dish.  Top hash browns with crushed corn flakes or seasoned bread crumbs (I used bread crumbs here) and drizzle melted butter evenly on top.

Bake for 35 minutes, covered.  Remove foil and continue to bake an additional 10 minutes.

Hash Brown Casserole - hot out of the oven!!

Serve with salad and Honey-Dijon Pecan Crusted Salmon (recipe to come!!)

Cottage Mama's Note:  To make hash brown casserole into a main dish entree, consider adding cubed ham or chicken and adding additional vegetables such as diced bell peppers, peas or broccoli.

weekend fun and more progress

this weekend my best friend stephanie and her boyfriend zach came into town for a visit.  before they came into town though, billy and i were working hard to try to get our guest bedroom somewhat put back together.  {working full-time doesn’t leave much time for getting my own personal projects completed.  that’s why our guest room has taken over a month and a half to complete so far.}  we started trying to install the crown moulding weekend before last but ran into a slight complication.  it seemed like a pretty simple task.  weekend before last i went out and bought the piece of crown moulding that we needed.  i measured, marked and billy and i cut.  i found out while trying to install it that i marked my angles and cut them while the crown was upside down.  when we went to fit it up on the ceiling it was too long and too short in the wrong places.  by the time we figured out that i had marked the wood wrong it was too late on sunday evening to start everything over.  so, the project went unfinished for yet another week. 

saturday morning was mine and billy’s last chance to get the crown moulding installed before steph and zach got into town.  we made sure that i had the angles correct this time.  we measured, marked and cut again.  when it came time for the install all was going well…that is until the guest bed that i was standing on BROKE!!!!!  i guess all of the moving we did to my grandmother’s antique bed wasn’t too good for the railing because it literally broke in to.  having a functional guest bed in our bedroom for our guests was much more important than getting the crown moulding up.  luckily we had an extra bed frame in our storage unit so we were able to disassemble the broken bed and assemble the new one.   unfortunately the crown had to wait once again.

once stephanie and zach got here we had a fun day of running around atlanta.  they had never toured the sweetwater brewery so we took them down there to taste some good beer and go on the tour.  it was so great to visit and catch up with them.  they had tickets to a concert last night so billy and i took it easy while they went to their concert.  today we all had brunch, and then billy and i got back to work on the guest room. 

i am happy to say that the after 2 long weeks of trying to get the crown moulding installed it is finally up!!  now i have a little caulking to do to finish it up.  well actually lots of caulking to do, but i’m just really happy that i’m one step closer to getting the guest room finished.

i promise that i’m going to post pictures as soon as it’s all complete.  i’ll also give a girl’s tutorial on how to install crown moulding.

how was your weekend?  anything exciting happen?

LiveJournal Tags: guest bedroom furniture,guest bedroom

Challenge Dress Giveaway Winner!

And the winner is "Savvy Saving Momma" who won with comment number 33 where she said;

"I follow your blog"

She also said in her previous comment, "I enjoy your crafting and sewing blogs! If I won I would love to get the Matilda Tutu dress!

So here it is, The Matilda Tutu Dress:

Savvy Saving Momma, I emailed you to your blogger account email, so hopefully you have received that so we can discuss where you would like me to ship this cutie patootie little dress.

Thanks so much to all of you who entered!  This was so fun, I will definitely do another giveaway soon!!

Happy Friday!