Friday Favorites

(Welcome to Friday Favorites: a series of posts to share my favorite recipe, blog, design item,and general stuff I love from the week.)

I hope that you already make this regularly, but if you don't, you must try the tastiest version of asparagus.  This is not your Grandma's recipe that is boiled to high heaven and taste like mush.  These are more like little asparagus fries...minus the fried part. Here we go.

Crank your oven up to 500 degrees.  Simply wash and snap off the ends of each stalk.  Lay the asparagus on a sheet pan, making sure they are in a single layer.  Drizzle olive oil over the top and toss with your hands.  Don't add too much.  Just use enough to coat them, otherwise they'll get too soggy, and no one likes soggy veggies!  Sprinkle them with Kosher salt.  You can really use the salt of your choice, but I like the grittiness of Kosher salt. Throw them in the oven for 10-

12 minutes until tender.  Take them out, and watch them disappear off the pan before you can get them  to the table.  Seriously though, that has happened to me.  If you're not in the habit of roasting veggies, I encourage you to start.  There's no better way to eat them!  Even tomatoes taste lovely when roasted with olive oil and Kosher salt.

I love everything about this image I found.  I could look at it all day.  I wish it was in my kitchen or dinning room.  Now that I think of it, this would make an interesting chandelier--in Holden's nursery!

If you read nothing else, now is the time to pay attention.  If you are keeping a blog of your family, if you love to take pictures, or if you want a place to keep all your recipes, it is time to check out blurb books.  You can import all of your blog entries and photos into your very own book.  I have never kept a baby book for the kids, and I'm not a crafty mom that keeps creative memories photo albums, but these hard cover books seem just right for me.  Thanks, Klassens, for introducing us.

 This painting from Kathe Fragas makes me happy.

I have always dreamed of a dinning room/library combo.  I think this one is stunning. 

If you're in need of a good cry, read this post written to her mother.  Very well done.
Read the entry on lost bird found.

Like I said earlier, I'm not crafty.  At all.  I want to be crafty, just like how I want to be a runner, but alas, I am neither of those things.  But with the end of the school year quickly approaching, I'm trying to decide what to do for Jack's teachers.  I thought this was cute, whimsical, and not too tricky. (Read "I don't need a glue gun to make this.")

Now here is the inside.

Doesn't everyone want some version of this in their desk?  Here's where I found the idea.

I'm still trying to loose the weight I gained while I was pregnant.  I have 16 pounds to go.  This article gave me yet another reason to stop eating chocolate!