The past few months have been a mixed bag of some good, and some less good things, but now I’m back and ready to get back to the swing of things here at Seefoodplay. Life threw a few things at me, some planned, some unplanned, and I’ve definitely taken this blogging break to re-focus on what’s really important, and in doing that I realized that it all comes down to one thing: balance. I’ve been missing it. A lot. That’s ok, though, and sometimes we need to slow down to realize what’s really important. Don’t worry though, it’s not been all bad (or even mainly bad) and I’ve got lots of super fun travel posts and some delicious recipes to share over the next few weeks, so stay tuned!
So I’m all about starting fresh these days, and what better way than with a homemade lemony body scrub! If you’re reading this from Europe, then you could probably use a bit of sunshine in your life right about now, and this stuff smells like summer in a jar ☀️ – give a try!
This body scrub is super easy and doesn’t require lots of ingredients, so it’s a perfect DIY project if you want an all-natural beauty product for the cost of a few lemons and a cup of sugar. For extra smooth legs, this scrub works wonders! I would not use this as a face scrub, however, as the sugar might irritate the skin, which might lead to breakouts. Give it a try, and let me know what you think!
Ingredients & supplies:
1 cup sugar
Juice from 2 lemons
Liquid soap (I used Cetaphil)
1 glass jar, with a lid (I used the 50cl ‘Korken’ jar from Ikea).
Combine everything in a container with a lid, and enjoy! I store mine in the fridge, just make sure you label the jar if you do the same.
Hey ya’ll! I’ve really been looking forward to making lasagna because it’s one of my all-time favorites, and it was also one of the first recipes I really learned to do well. Besides, it’s just one of those feel-good comfort foods that you can make anytime, so you never need to justify this dish — just do it!
Before I got married, my lasagna recipe was pretty much tomato sauce, a bit of cheese, spinach, mushrooms and lasagna noodles. I almost never used meat, and always jam packed it with as many veggies as possible. Alas, now that I need to work with Jonathan’s more meat-loving palette, I’ve integrated more meat into the mix, albeit in small amounts.
This recipe is a somewhat lighter version than your classic lasagna because it’s not smothered in cheese and cream, but doesn’t skimp on flavor as a result — it’s perfection. In France, lasagna is usually made with a béchamel sauce… soo good, but soo much butter! My version can also be made without the sausage and it’s pretty good, too, for a vegetarian option. I just double the spinach and add about a cup of chopped cooked mushrooms to the filling instead of the chopped sausage.
Give this one a try and let me know what you think! And if anyone knows where to find curly-edged lasagna noodles in the UK or France, then please leave the details in the comments below 😉
Also you guys, I’m super excited to tell you that I have teamed up with a few other bloggers to post about 4th of July & summer entertaining recipes and ideas!
200 grams of ground sausage (any sausage is fine, though I use only turkey or beef).
1 cup of fresh spinach
2 cloves of minced garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Topping:
½ cup of shredded mozzarella
1 cup of tomato sauce
Basil for garnish (optional)
Instructions:
Put a pot large enough for your lasagna noodles on high heat to boil.
Prepare your baking dish with a layer (about an inch) of the tomato sauce. Set aside until you’re ready to assemble the rolls.
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Combine the three cheeses in a bowl, then add in the egg and garlic powder. Stir until uniform.
Heat a skillet on medium heat, then add in the olive oil and minced garlic. Sautée for 1 minute, then add in the fresh spinach. Continue to sautée for 4-5 minutes, stirring often, until the spinach has cooked down, then add the cooked spinach to the bowl with the cheese mixture.
In same skillet used for the spinach, add in the ground sausage.
By this time, your water should be boiling and it’s time to add in the noodles. Boil them until they are al dente – not mushy! For my noodles, this takes around 6-7 minutes.
Once cooked, drain the pasta well into a colander removing all excess water & pour on a very small amount of olive oil to prevent sticking. Don’t add too much oil, otherwise your rolls won’t hold together when you bake them!
While you allow the noodles to cool down a bit, lay down a piece of wax paper (or a clean & oiled cookie sheet) to place your noodles on for assembly.
Once cool enough to not burn your fingers, place the noodles on the wax paper.
Thinly layer on the cheese & spinach mixture evenly, all the way to the edges of the noodles.
Spoon on the ground sausage in the middle of the noodle – if you go too close to the edges, it will just fall out.
Roll up each noodle and place it in the prepared baking dish.
Once all of your rolls are in the dish, spoon more sauce on top of each roll, then sprinkle on the shredded mozzarella.
Bake uncovered for 25 minutes, or until the cheese is browned.
Notes: The options for non-pork sausage are quite slim where I shop, so I usually get whatever they have available, which are usually in the form of sausage links. To mince them, I just throw them in my stand blender and pulse a few times to get a nice uniform ground sausage. I hope you enjoy, because these spinach lasagna rolls are the bomb!
I don’t know about you guys, but I have a bad habit of under-estimating tasks that I take on. Organizing my wedding was one big fat example of that…times 100! For some reason, I got it in my head that I wanted to DIY everything that I could because I wanted things to be unique. The only way to make sure no one else was going to have the exact same decorations, or invitations…? To make them myself, of course! So, I made a big to-do list and got to work. We had 130 guests (of those, nearly 30 kids!) so just imagine the number of invitations, thank you cards, center pieces, and wedding favors we needed. All DIY’ed, of course.
The wedding guest gifts were one of the most challenging things to choose, because I wanted something personalized but that wouldn’t break the bank. There’s some cool stuff out there, but if you have more than 100 guests like us, it can get quite pricey. I looked into ordering monogrammed favors online, but everything we found that was actually in our budget looked pretty cheap. Then, I ran across a tutorial on Pinterest for homemade candles and I had my Eureka! moment. Miniature DIY candles it would be, personalized with special labels and ribbons and stickers and stamps and scents… you get the idea. My 10-year old self was revived, and I pretty much immediately raced to the craft store to get my supplies. I set aside a Saturday afternoon to knock out the “candle project” and planned to tick this off my list just as quickly as the idea came to me.
Reality soon set in, though, and this one was definitely a much bigger project than I anticipated. Partly, just because making 100 candles takes some time time if you’ve never actually made candles before, but also because I didn’t properly estimate supply quantities, and I had a mishap which caused me to junk a whole batch of about 30 candles. I’ll explain what went wrong, and hopefully how to help you avoid making my mistakes! I really enjoyed DIY’ing so much of our wedding and writing this tutorial brought back all those pre-wedding feelings ❤️. If you decide to take on a project like this one, I’d love to see photos! Did you DIY any of your wedding favors? I would love to see photos of those, too!
If you’re making one candle, then this tutorial will be an absolute breeze and will take you around 15 minutes all together (plus drying time). Candle making is super fun, and how cool is it to give them out as little gifts, or to have your very own homemade candles around your house!?
Let’s get started! (Please read through all of the notes at the bottom for helpful tips)
Materials:
Containers for your candles
Candle wax
Candle wicks
Strong fast-drying glue or glue gun (to hold the wick in place)
Prepare your work area – even if you’re careful, you will get wax on stuff. Avoid an area with carpet! I used our dining room table, covered in my “craft cloth” and a bit of newspaper.
Next, set out all of your supplies (ie, wicks, glue, candle containers). Glue your wicks in the center of your candle containers. Mine are narrow so we had to be careful to get them properly centered. This is important because if they’re off-center, the wick will look crazy (in a bad way) once the wax is in! Depending on your containers and the length of your wicks, you might need to cut them down a bit.
Allow the glue to set as needed (over-night if you want to be sure), then start melting your wax.
To melt the wax, pour your granules into a pot over a low heat. I used disposable chopsticks to stir the wax and break up chunks to help the melting process. Important: hot wax is just that… HOT! Be careful and wear a long-sleeved shirt and pot holder when handling the wax.
Once melted, add in your desired scented oil and give the mixture a little stir — I used vanilla scented oil for this project.
Next, pour your wax into each container leaving about 1 inch of wick visible.
Your candles will start to set quickly, so now’s the time to make sure your wicks are centered in the wax. Once they’re about half set, gently move the wicks to the center of your candle. This might mess up the wax a bit but that’s ok – you’ll add another layer of wax to cover that up!
Once your candles have mostly set (about an hour or two), a dip or indentation will have formed around the wick. To get rid of that, simply pour in enough wax to cover it up and let them completely set, this time overnight.
Now, you can decorate your candles however you want! You can leave them as they are because even as plain simple candles, they’re adorable. Or you can add twine, ribbons, tags or stickers to the candle container to jazz them up a bit!
To decorate these candles, I used:
Twine
Ribbon
Card stock paper for the tags
Stamps & black ink stamp pads
Notes:
I ordered the wax to make my candles online. I got lucky with the first batch because it was a beautiful creamy off-white/ivory color. Because I didn’t order enough of the stuff the first time around, I had to buy more: it looked the same (same stuff, different brand) but oh was it different! Instead of that beautiful creamy white, it was a cheap-looking semi-transparent horribly-textured version of the good stuff that I ordered the first time. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the difference right away because the wax takes on a different color when it’s melted vs solid. Oh the regrets…!
Tip: Quantity – If you’re making a lot of candles, buy a small sample if possible and make sure that the color matches what you’re after. Then, make sure there’s enough stock of that brand to get you through your entire project. If you’re making colored candles, then this might not be an issue for you.
I needed 8 x 1kg bags of wax to make around 115 candles. Yes, 8 kilos of candle wax. My original order was for 3 kilos and even then I thought I had over ordered! I would suggest trying an online calculator to determine how much wax you’ll need for your project.
Tip: Candle wicks – there are a few different options for candle wicks, and I’m glad I got it right the first time around in that I chose pre-waxed with sustainers (ie, the little metal base that holds the wick in place). Some wicks aren’t pre-waxed and don’t come with a base… don’t even think about using those for this project unless you like hours of frustration trying to get them to do what you want.
Tip: Time savers – Making a lot of these? I worked in batches of about 20 because I had so many candles to make, so use your judgement if you need to do the same. This gave me enough time to properly adjust each candle wick, to correct any wax issues, and to set aside to dry. For around 115 candles, we spent about 4-5 evenings making them (going at a leisurely pace).
What a weird couple of weeks I’ve been having: first my motorbike was stolen (twice…), then I cut my finger pretty badly (on my new food processor, literally after about 2 minutes of taking it out of the box), and now our oven exploded last night.That’s right – the glass door totally exploded and shot glass all over the place! I heard the loudest noise ever coming from the kitchen, so I raced out there only to find that the oven I had been preheating to make our Sunday roast chicken looked like a scene from an action movie. Jonathan wasn’t hurt thankfully, but it was pretty scary. We’ve been having some pretty questionable luck lately, so maybe now’s a good time to play the lottery, just in case my luck turns…!
So until the flat management company sorts us out with a new oven, my recipes will be 100% stovetop (or crockpot). However, I was lucky enough to have finished this lovely snack-food recipe earlier in the day (ie, prior to my kitchen turning into the set from Die Hard with a Vengeance). As I do sometimes on Sunday afternoons, I got a little over-zealous in my potato peeling for our mashed potatoes that I was prepping for dinner, and had a few extras than I needed for the mash.
Then the light bulb went off: I’ve been meaning to work on a few healthy snack recipes that are not sweet for me and J, and I’ve had this baked chip idea in the back of my mind for weeks. Now, I’ve tried baked potato chips before and they’ve all been gross (sorry, but it’s true!). For some reason, though, I got it in my head that I could do better than those cardboard pieces of I-don’t-even-know-what I was paying a fortune for (why do healthy snacks always cost so much more, and taste so much worse…?).
So out came my handy mandoline (these things are seriously amazing!) and I sliced up a potato in about 20 seconds and popped the slices in the oven – ready in about 5 minutes! These are surprisingly easy and taste likebetter than their fatty pre-bagged cousins that you find in your grocery store’s snack aisle.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 potato
1 teaspoon sea salt
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to around 400 °F / 200 °C
While your oven is pre-heating, wash and thinly slice (and peel if you prefer) a medium-sized potato, then rinse the slices under cold water in a colander until the water runs clear to get rid of that starchy residue.
Coat a large baking sheet with olive oil (or non-stick cooking spray), then evenly spread out your potato slices. I have a tiny baking sheet, so I do mine in batches.
Cook for around 5 minutes or until golden brown. Don’t walk away from the kitchen while making these because they go from whoa-totally-amazing to horribly-nasty-scorched in the blink of an eye. I should take my own advice, though, because I always burn the first batch…
Sprinkle them with the sea salt, throw them in a bowl and enjoy!
Servings: It’s roughly one potato per person, so adapt as you see fit!
After moving to France, there were a few things that I missed sooo much food-wise that I would really stock up on during my visits back home to Detroit. Over the years, I got used to French products and relied less and less on my precious stock of American goods. I remember once during my first year in Paris I literally came back with an entire suitcase of American goodies like peanut butter, Kraft mac n cheese, ramen (yes, I brought Ramen to Paris because…French food wasn’t good enough for me), and lots of salad dressing. I’m a huge fan of blue cheese, cesar, ranch, thousand island… I love dressing!
Let’s take a step back though, because you might be wondering “…what do French people put on their salads if you had to import dressing??” The French do it the right way. They don’t add a bunch of fatty creamy sauce to their salads: they mix up an olive oil & vinegar dressing (or vinaigrette, I suppose, to be precise) and season it with a bit of salt and pepper, and that’s all she wrote. And it is good. So good. Once my ramen-noodle taste buds grew up a bit, I learned to really appreciate a great vinaigrette and stopped drowning my salads in store-bought dressings. Sometimes, though, a good ranch dressing is the perfect accompaniment to a fresh salad or pita, wrap, or even just as a veggie dip.
Now, fast-forward to this weekend as our grocery delivery was hopelessly delayed and our cupboards were desperately bare. I didn’t have much to work with for dinner, so really needed something simple but with strong flavors. I always have ingredients to make pasta with a nice tomato sauce, so that was a no-brainer. But there were also a few fresh ingredients available, too: romaine lettuce, a tomato, red onions, cucumber and black olives. Since we were having a relatively simple meal, I really wanted to dress it up a bit with a bit more than our classic vinaigrette. Then the light bulb went off: Ranch! Now, I have tried many times to duplicate that classic ranchflavour, never really succeeding to create something I liked. Some things just aren’t the same when they’re from scratch. My goal was simply to throw the ingredients I had together for a creamy garlicy sauce, but it ended up tasting pretty close to the real thing, albeit way healthier! Let me know what you think. Bon appetit!
Wet ingredients:
1 cup of greek yogurt
¼ cup of mayonnaise
1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon of Dijon-style mustard
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Dry ingredients:
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
1 teaspoon dried chives
1 teaspoon dried dill
Instructions:
Combine all of the dry ingredients, then add in the wet ingredients stirring well to make sure everything is nice and mixed together. The dressing can be used immediately, but the longer you wait, the better it tastes! If you can make it overnight, then even better. Also note: lots of homemade ranch recipes call for fresh garlic – this is way too strong for me and really overpowers the dressing, but if you love garlic, then feel free to add a clove!
Note: if you can get dried buttermilk, then add 1 tablespoon of that as well. I can’t get it locally, so I’ve left it off the ingredient list.
Tip: If you combine only the dry ingredients, you’ve got Ranch-flavored spice mix, which can be used for all sorts of delicious recipes.
I must be craving a taste of home these days because most of the recipes I’ve cooked up in the past few weeks have been my own homemade versions of some of my favorite childhood treats. One of the easiest, most-delicious ways to make chicken is shake-n-bake! The flavour is where it’s at, it couldn’t be easier, and is a sure bet to having deliciously moist baked chicken. And it’s fun to make, so great if you have kiddies that like to help out in the kitchen. In my case, that would be my better half 🙂
I keep my shake-n-bake mix on-hand so that I can always just throw this together in a few minutes when I’m short on time and/or inspiration.
I’m a big fan of recipes that can be adapted to what you happen to have in your pantry. If you don’t have some of the ingredients – don’t worry! Just use what you have and it’ll still come out great.
Homemade shake-n-bake
Recipe Type: Pantry item
Author: Veronica | seefoodplay.com
Prep time:
Total time:
A DIY homemade version of shake-n-bake, without all the preservatives. Simple recipe using ingredients you probably already have in your cupboard | seefoodplay.com
Ingredients
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion power
1 tablespoon Dried thyme
3 tablespoons Dried parsley
1 pinch of chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 cup crushed corn flakes
1/2 cup bread crumbs (homemade or store-bought)
Instructions
Combine all of the ingredients for the shake-n-bake, and store in an air-tight container for up to 4 weeks.
