Kitchen Chalkboard

Hey Everyone!

It's time for another DIY project! Woop woop!

It's been a while since I've blogged about a DIY and I've been slowly but surely working on this particular project, not because it takes a long time, but because I am so scattered brain that it takes me a while to finish certain tasks.. haha. So, without further ado here it is....

Ta ta daaaa!! tadatadatada ta daaaaaaa!!

A chalkboard!

Pretty darn cute, huh? Best part? It cost lest than $20. Try buying a chalkboard for less than $20, it's just impossible. So I decided to make my own to hang in my kitchen. I've been wanting to re-do my kitchen "decor" to have more of a farmhouse feel but with a little glam, and since I rent, I can't really do much about the actual kitchen, I can only add things to make it look pretty, but I can't paint or replace the million different things I want to get rid of. Ugh.

So for my chalkboard I headed to Home Depot. After looking around for a while I found that they sell a pretty big slab of chalkboard for $10. I almost bought that and had them cut it down to the size I wanted, but I wanted something a little sturdier and I didn't know what I would do with the extra chalkboard. So I bought a piece of wood that was the perfect size (2x4) for $6. The particular wood I bought is one that is made as a base for drawers. So if you have some old drawers laying around, go ahead and pull out the sides and use that flat bottom part.

I also bought a spray can of chalkboard paint for $4 and these detailed wood borders for $2 each (I only needed 2 of them). The borders I sized and cut at Home Depot since they have the saws you can use for free at work stations in the wood section. I made sure to measure the length of the pieces I needed and cut at an angle, so when I would glue the borders to the chalkboard, the ends would fit like puzzle pieces and not overlap each other.

That process took a little bit of time, since the saws weren't perfect for cutting the border and I needed to carefully line up the edges to make sure each side would fit properly.

I also bought a can of metallic silver spray paint for $4, a bottle of Elmer's Wood Glue and some picture hanging brackets.

After I left Home Depot, I went home and cut up some old paper grocery bags to lay out as my work station on my balcony for spray painting. I then primed the wood with some primer paint I had and waited for it to dry before I began to spray paint the surface with the chalkboard paint. I probably did about 3 full coats of chalkboard paint just to ensure everything was covered. I carefully moved the chalkboard aside and laid out new paper bags for the border. I didn't want the fresh chalkboard paint on the bags to get on the border. I spray painted the borders with the metallic paint, no need to prime these,  and waited for that paint to dry as well.

I waited at least 24hrs for the spray paint to dry before I added a coat of Martha Stewart's glitter paint to the borders to give it a more glam look. After a few hours of drying, I went ahead and lined up the border on the chalkboard and began to glue it using Elmer's Wood Glue. I waited few hours for that to dry just to make sure everything was secured and began to measure the chalkboard to see where I would install the picture frame brackets.

The brackets were pretty straight forward to install. I just measured and screwed in the screws. I measured the board so that each side was at an equal distance from the center of the board, that way it hangs and holds firm and steady.

I haven't officially hung my chalkboard yet because I am having some repairs done in the kitchen. But I can't wait until the kitchen is ready so I can make full use of it and do some meal planning! 

Do you have a chalkboard? If so, what do you use it for?

Saving My Container Garden

If you've been reading my blog the last few weeks you are probably already aware of the struggles I've been facing with my container garden. But for those of you that haven't (or can't remember) I was recently fighting a battle with aphids. A battle so tough, that I thought my garden was done for.

And I bought new pepper plants to replace the ones badly wounded.

But then my bf and I decided to take pictures and sample leaves to the "plant wizard" over at the Merrifield Garden Center in VA before calling it quits. We call him the plant wizard because he knows anything and everything about plants, and you can usually find him reading massive botanical books or looking under his microscope at what plants people have brought to him for advice. And I am so glad we visited him. The wizard told us that the plants not only were dealing with aphids, but also with some sort of fungal disease. So he directed us to some sprays we could use to try and save the plants. So for the last 3 weeks, I've been spraying my plants with Bonide spray. And my plants have come back to life.

Slowly but surely the plants are now growing new leaves and blooms. They look 10xs healthier than they did 3 weeks ago, and bigger too! Unfortunately the disease spread to the entire balcony garden, so I've had to spray my entire garden once a week and wait for the disease to be completely gone. I had some casualties with flowers that were overtaken by the disease and the tomato plants have struggled a little bit, but overall the garden is looking healthier and I am sure it will fully recover in another week or 2. The lemon tree was also affected by it, but it is pretty resilient, so other than not dropping fruit yet, it has managed fairly well.

Here are some pictures of the habanero plant and the tomatoes. You can see the damage the disease and aphids caused as well as the healthy new leaves growing in each plant. The San Marzano tomato plant dropped some fruit, but one of them has some sort of fungus growing on it. So I have to continue to spray all of the plants until I know they're good to go.

This is the Bonide spray I have been using. It works on fighting disease on the plants as well as aphids and other harmful insects. I was hoping to stay organic all season, but the organic sprays I was buying weren't working against the disease. So I had to give in and buy this. In the future though, I will be sure to spray all of my plants at the beginning of the season with organic spray if I can, as I now believe one of my plants had the disease prior to arrival at my garden and spread it to the rest.

On a happy note, that giant stick growing out of my pot that was supposed to be a blackberry, looks a lot more like a blackberry plant nowadays.

OOHH YEEAAAA!!

Call me the blackberry wizard.. haha jk.

But to end this post, I now have even more pepper plants than I know what to do with. 15 pepper plants total. I see a lot of pepper recipes in this blog's future. Just take a look at the pepper my banana pepper plant managed to drop despite the disease and aphids.. and it is still growing.

I am a happy gardener now =)

Veggie Pizza with Balsamic Glaze and Honey

Hi Everyone!

At this time of the year I would be very excited about the progress my container garden was making and blogging all about it, but this year has been quite the struggle. My plants have been fighting an aphid infestation and also a fungal disease. Needless to say, it hasn't been a good growing season. So to cheer myself up, I bought some fresh veggies at the farmer's market for some homemade pizza and popped in a movie and sat on my couch like a fatty eating pizza and ice cream. And it felt great. Until the next day, when I realized I ate over half a pint of Ben & Jerry's (damn you, brownie batter). Yikes.

Did my garden and I just break up?

Not really. I bought some organic fungicide and it has been helping my garden come back to life. I will write a post with all the details later this week. But I sure was sad enough to eat that much B&J in one sitting, so it sort of felt like a break up...

Although I did that again last night while watching the Miss USA pageant on TV. I was so intrigued by their answers to the final question. Actually, I was just shocked and embarrassed. It is sad that those are the women who are out there "representing" my gender and generation. What happened to our education system? Are those the type of people the system is pumping out? Because holy smokes, that's embarrassing. And don't get me started on the girls that clearly had an eating disorder. I am pretty sure I saw one contestant's entire skeletal system while she strutted in her bikini. There's a difference between being lean, healthy or skinny and just plain sick. I should send her all the B&J I have in my freezer.

Speaking of eating, here is my awesome pizza recipe for this week. It is a veggie pizza with balsamic glaze and honey. I added my favorite vegetables, but you could add whatever vegetables you'd like.

1 store bought pre-made pizza dough (I buy Trader Joe's pizza dough or sometimes Whole Foods)
1-2 eggplants, sliced
1 bottle of pizza sauce (whatever brand you like works great. I use Trader Joe's)
Shredded Mozzarella and Pecorino cheese
1 container of black olives, halves
1 container of artichokes, cut into small pieces
1 bag of sundried tomatoes
1 red pepper, sliced
honey
balsamic glaze

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. I then rolled out the dough to fit the size of my pizza stone. I add a little semolina flour to the pizza stone to help the pizza slide much easier. Once the dough is stretched, I add as much pizza sauce as I want. I don't use an entire container of sauce, but if you like very saucy pizzas go for it! Although you will want to make sure that the fillings don't spill out to the sides of the dough. I then add the cheese followed by all of the veggies except for the sundried tomatoes. Depending on the size of your pizza, you might need more or less veggies. My pizza was enough for 2 people with plenty of left overs. Cook the pizza for about 20min or until the dough is crispy.

I add the sundried tomatoes once the pizza is done and out of the oven. I tried cooking the pizza with the sundried tomatoes and they actually ended up getting burnt. I also then drizzle balsamic glaze and honey on the pizza, let cool a little bit, and serve.

I like to drink sparkling lemon water from Trader Joe's with my pizza. It is such a good deal, you can buy a bottle for $.79. At Whole Foods, it is $2.14 for some lemon flavored sparkling water! I like the orange flavor too, those two are my favorite. Definitely give them a try if you live close to a TJs.

Anyone else have any good pizza recipes?

Weekly Recap

Hey Everyone!

Lately I've been busy with work but also working on projects that I will blog about soon including some new recipes, a chalkboard, and developments with my garden. But today I thought it would be fun to just blog about some of the adventures I've been on these last few weeks. I like to do a lot more than just chill in my garden and cook, I promise!

So here is the evidence.

My friend's backyard.. or Narnia.. 

He's been trying to get me to help him take care of his ivy problem...  I just don't know how I would even begin to tackle that.

Honky Tonk Central

The best live music bar I've ever been to in the heart of Nashville. I went here with some friends during the Indian wedding weekend extravaganza and it was a lot of fun. Definitely check it out if you're ever in Nashville. And be sure to order their chicken finger basket, they make their own batter and it is amazing!

Nashville Airport

There was a live jazz band playing in the airport terminal when we arrived in Nashville. It was a pleasant surprise. And we were so glad to get out of DC for the weekend. They should do this at every airport, it makes traveling feel like a vacation.

Space shuttle Discovery

The space shuttle discovery is currently on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center. This is part of the Air and Space museum in DC, but it is located just outside of the city in Dulles, VA by the Dulles Airport. It is worth the drive if you've never been, they have every airplane, satellite, missile on display that you could dream of. Including the Enola Gay, a stealth aircraft, and of course, the space shuttle. 

This was the beautiful wedding ceremony I attended 2 weeks ago. Best wedding i've ever been to. Hands down. This was inside the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN. 

Some henna to start off the wedding weekend! My mom had a meltdown thinking it was permanent. I had to reassure her that it washes off about a million times. 

I still can't believe that the Indian wedding weekend is over. It was such an amazing experience and so much fun. I wish I could relive it. The weekend away made me realize that I need to take more weekends away from DC. The city is just too depressing to be living in these days, with everything going on with Congress and the government, it really gets to be too much. I am looking forward to getting away this 4th of July to go up to Cape Cod with some friends. I know, I know, why leave DC for the 4th? Tourists. That's why. It gets so so so crowded it is really annoying going anywhere and dealing with the massive crowds of people. Plus this year, they aren't doing all the traditional festivities for the 4th because of sequestration, so there really isn't much of an incentive to stick around. 

Let's hope the cape isn't as crowded as DC for the 4th! 

Mutant Aphids

Hi everyone!

It has been a while since the last post! I have been traveling the last week or so for weddings and what not and it has taken me a while to get it together and write a post. Weddings are really draining.. seriously, every time I come back from a wedding weekend I am exhausted. I need a vacation from wedding weekends.

This last wedding was an Indian wedding, it was amazing, but 3 days of celebrations and ceremonies wiped me out. I will write a post about that amazing weekend and post pictures as soon as I decompress, but for today's post I have something a little bit more negative and sad to write about...

Aphids.

I have the aphids from hell. They just. won't. die.

I have tried anything and everything to get rid of these suckers. From organic pesticides formulated specifically for these a-holes, to homemade hot pepper sprays, to ladybugs. Yes. I bought a $10 container of ladybugs. And nothing. Those mofos are still coming around and spreading, now invading my tomato plants.

My pepper plants are close to being destroyed, the leaves are all crumbled up and the stems have been compromised as well. I may need to start over, I don't know if these pepper plants will be able to do a comeback. They took a hard hit. Barely growing in the last month. Granted the weather has been a bit cool for pepper growing in the area, but this aphid infestation really took a toll. I've had aphids in the past, but i have managed to keep them under control so they don't cause a lot of damage. This year, for some reason, they just won't quit. I don't know what else to do to keep them away. I may resort to non-organic pesticide, but i really wanted to stay away from the toxic chemicals.

Anyone out there a pepper plant whisperer?

I need serious advice on how to save these pepper plants, or at least keep this from happening to my tomato plants. What are some remedies out there that help get rid of these pests? Also, does anyone know if it is too late in the season to start over with the peppers?

These pictures make me so sad and angry. My babies were doing so well, and now look at them. =(

I am also angry at the ladybugs. The entire tub of them fled, not even staying for a few days. I phased their release over a few days thinking it would ensure they stuck around, but nope, they left me and my desperation.. with a garden full of aphids. Good luck finding a better feeding ground!!

This weekend I'll be going back to the Merrifield garden center here in VA to see if I can get some advice from them on how to save my pepper plants.. or in the worst case scenario, replace them =(

Anyone having trouble with aphids this season?