After more than a month of clean (enough) eating I am getting pretty sick of eating salads and plates of veggies.  Don’t get me wrong, I have always liked and eaten my veggies but thinking that is all I can eat is making me rebel.  I want to eat normal food again.  So I have been busy tweaking all of my old standbys so I can have my cake and eat it too .

For this recipe you’ll need:

1 lb. extra lean ground beef

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup red wine

1 tablespoon flour

1/2 cup skim milk

1/2 cup low-fat sour cream

sliced mushrooms (pint or about 2 cups)

2-3 teaspoons beef bouillon granules

4-6 cups cooked egg noodles

Cook the onions and garlic until tender in the olive oil.  Add the ground beef and brown.  Drain off any fat.  Stir in flour and beef bouillon granules.  Add washed mushrooms and wine.  Cook until the mushrooms are tender and mix is thick.  Mix in skim milk and sour cream.  Mixture should be thick but if it’s too thick you can thin it down with a bit of water.

Let the stroganoff simmer.   In the meantime, cook the egg noodles according to package directions.

I like to drain the noodles and then rinse them over the pot they were cooked in.  The pot fills with a little hot water and keeps the noodles warm.  I also like to stir a little drizzle of olive oil over the noodles so they don’t stick together.  I didn’t tell my family that I fiddled with the original recipe before they ate it.  I asked them if they could tell the difference when they were finished and everyone said it tasted the same as the full fat version.

No, I’m not going to tell you how to get your kids to stop fighting or how to always smile when your husband’s annoying habits are getting under your skin.  I want wanted to share one of the lessons I learned in design school.  Harmony in design is bringing different parts together to create a whole.  It is balancing unity and variety into a pleasing arrangement.

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you know how much I love black and white.  I have used this color combo all throughout my house.   Black and white goes with everything.  I can move one piece from room to room and mix it with the other black and white pieces.  So, each room can stand on it’s own but each room works together to make our house a whole.

Okay, I have unity with the use of the black and white color combo but how do I achieve variety?  I think the easiest way is to mix patterns.  If you do mix patterns a good rule of thumb is to have one large-scale, one medium, and one small-scale pattern.  I also think it’s easy and fun to mix shapes.  For instance, I would like to do a permanent mantelscape in my family room.  I would love to do a white ceramic Buddha head and some black candle holders, or maybe antique black gears, or maybe a white ceramic deer head, or maybe….  Well, I think you get the idea, just play around with your stuff.  If you don’t have enough stuff to bring a room or your house together you can go a long way with scrapbook paper or fabric.  They are often grouped together in coordinating colors and/or patterns in the store making harmony easy to achieve .

     I have done more than my fair share of decorative wall treatments in my day.  I was queen of sponge painting back in the day.  When Ralph Lauren came out with the denim wall treatment I had to try that out on my kids’ bedroom walls.  I have also stenciled, painted stripes, squares, circles, polka dots and free-handed tree branches with  blossoms.  I love paint and I am always excited to try something new.  Today, I wanted to try a linen/grasscloth look on the wall behind the bed in my bedroom (this is where the good idea goes bad).  I figured the linen look wasn’t that far off the denim look (which I was successful at even as a complete novice).  I have a linen brush that I purchased at Home Depot years back when they still carried Ralph Lauren products.  I had the glaze mixed and ready to go.  I followed the instructions, but my project didn’t turn out right.  I think maybe I used too many different tints of glaze and didn’t let each coat dry completely between coats.  Anyway, I ended up with cock-eyed stripes instead of beautiful linen or grasscloth look wallpaper.  So, what am I going to do now?  I don’t know.  I will paint over the faux linen mess with some of the leftover wall color for now.  Maybe it will stay that way until I can afford the original plan for the wall, brick.  Guess I’ll have to chalk this one up to “lessons learned the hard way”.  Thank goodness it’s easy to get a do-over with paint!  Hope you are heaving a better weekend than me

      Sometimes I like a very soft and subdued color palette.  Sometimes I don’t, but I always love to mix lots of patterns.  This design board is my dream office.  I guess it actually does look a bit like my real life office space (minus the washer, dryer, exercise bike and litter box).  Maybe one day I can have a quiet and non-stinky office.  Until then I will keep dreaming over at Oilioboard.

      This past summer I was lucky enough to get a special tour of this Utah Valley Parade of Homes model.  This model is special because it won “Best In Show”  for decorating.  And I am very proud to say that my sister-in-law, Lyndee was one half of that winning design team. 

      I don’t even think I can begin to tell you how much I loved this house.  I mean just look at that view.  I love that this great room is flooded with light.  And I love the sleek and modern (but comfortable) feel of the place.

      I often dream of having a clean and streamlined room like this, maybe because it is opposite of what I have now.  With four kids everything is always rumpled looking (and often downright messy).

 This stairway speaks right to my love of all things Industrial.

      And I will leave you with the view from the living area into the adjoining kitchen.  Yeah I’m going to be mean and make you wait until next week to take a closer look at the gorgeous kitchen.  Thanks for stopping by for this week’s “Inspiration”, hope you all have a great week!