Food: Winter Citrus Salad

With gray skies and snow on the ground, I start to find myself in a slump this time of year…anyone else? Lauren here, and today I’m excited to share a recipe to cure your winter blues. 

This salad is pretty much like sunshine on a plate: refreshingly bright and colorful, and packed with good-for-you citrus that's plentiful at the market right now. Serve it alongside grilled fish and veggies for dinner or as part of your next brunch spread—it really works any time of day! Keep reading for the super simple recipe…

For the salad:

1 ruby red grapefruit

1 blood orange

1 cara cara orange (or navel orange)

1 clementine

1 meyer lemon

Handful of unsalted, shelled pistachios, finely chopped

Handful of dried currants

A couple leaves of fresh mint, cut into very thin strips 

Lime zest

 

For the dressing:

1 teaspoon good maple syrup

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Juice from half a Meyer lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

Kosher salt

Freshly ground pepper

Instructions:

1. Cut off the ends, then remove the peels and as much membrane as possible from all the citrus. Cut each into thin rounds and layer on a plate. 

2. Sprinkle pistachios, currants, mint and lime zest on top. 

3. Combine maple syrup, Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar and Meyer lemon juice. Slowly whisk in olive oil, then season with salt and pepper. Drizzle a small amount of the dressing over the salad.

-Recipe and images by Lauren Craig

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Evolve + Manifesto

How cute is this t-shirt I'm wearing? it says Evolve. 

I'll tell you more about that in a bit, but first my super stylish friend Meg is off to her new venture; a line of t-shirts. Each month she will add a new word to the line, and for this month of January the word is 'Evolve'. She asked if I would be part of her new lookbook & to describe what this word meant to me. My favorite part of this comfy t-shirt is Meg's lovely handwriting in gold! 

I'm a great example of a person who has evolved. And I'm not speaking of APES TO MAN, but instead the evolution in my own life. With my work background being in modeling & random marketing jobs to owning 2 online businesses, this is a big deal for me. In fact it is a HUGE jump for me & certainly one I'm glad I made. My faith had so much to do with my evolving. So, this t-shirt was quite fitting, no pun intended. 

You can read more here about why & how I evolved. 

I'm no FASHION blogger - but the aviator glasses I'm wearing are by Stella McCartney & the faded skinny jeans are from Zara.  You can take a look at Meg's new Manifesto look book here.

-images by MadeByGirl

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Vogue Homes

Have you caught a glimpse at all the gorgeous homes being posted on the VOGUE site? Below are some of my recent favorites. A lot of the homes I chose have pink in their decor. But....don't worry husband - I'm not going to bring it to our home. Need inspiration??? You can see more here.

All images via vogue

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Kim & Scott's Home Office

Hi there! We're Kim & Scott from Yellow Brick Home, a Chicago duo living, working and playing in our teeny second floor walk-up - and sharing those adventures on our blog, Yellow Brick Home. Together with (little!) help from our four-legged kiddos, Jack, Maddie and Libby, we've spent 5 years transforming our 675 sq. ft beige box into a warm, colorful, inviting and lively place to call home. 

Since starting our blog, we've been inspired by the powerful DIY community, and with that support, we continue to share everything from quick and easy tweaks, whole room overhauls, art, photography and travel.

 
Two years ago, I began working for myself full time as a working artist, creating mini, modern paintings of your pets. In 2010, The Pet Shop, a tiny division of Yellow Brick Home, was born (a job made possible by the overwhelming support of our readers!), and since then, I've spent my days working from home.

 

 Because the business grew rapidly, Scott and I knew we needed to transform our second bedroom/bike storage/office into my very own painting studio. The challenge? The room is 8'x10', with only an 8' square of useable space.

Like most storage solutions in our home, we needed to think vertically. Our home was overwhelmed with paint supplies, shipping boxes and the like, and we'd need a practical place to house those items. At the same time, I wanted the space to be beautiful - girly, even - since I would be spending every working hour in this room. 

Pulling images from around the web on my Stu-stu-studio Pinterest board, I quickly realized that I craved pink! Well, pink, white and gold - and bold patterns mixed in. With that in mind, we started with a pale pink base on the walls (Olympic's Diana) and moved forward from there.

 
Over the course of 6 months, we carefully selected art for the walls, repurposed a shoe bin as paint/media storage, built a floating credenza (with knobs brass knobs pulled from MBG!), DIY-ed a wall of shelves and added in an inherited chair, a patterned FLOR rug and a gold-dipped painting table. 

 

(Get the whole rundown on all those projects right here.) Not only do I feel so lucky to work from this space, but I'm incredibly honored that so many people share their pets with me every day.

 

Desk: Target (painted)

Office Chair: Wayfair

Floating task station: self made 

Framed Art: entire list -> right here 

Mirrors: flea market & Vintage Bazaar

Rug: Sophistikat by Flor

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Mackage

This past Christmas I bought myself a nice jacket.  I had originally wanted this one by Helmet Lang, but after trying it on, I knew it WASN'T FOR ME. It was gorgeous, but somehow I felt ODD walking around with HAIR ON MY BACK. Well, on the back of the coat that is...

So, after returning it - I decided to walk over to Mackage in Soho after church & BAM!!! There it was, the perfect jacket. If you scroll down, you'll see it in black, but I'm actually wearing the camel- colored style in the picture. The fit is awesome - and although it won't be warm enough for the freezing cold winter weather, it will be perfect for fall. Also, I saved a ton of money.


Mackage is currently one of my favorite go to brands for coats. It's a luxury brand offering trenches, coats & downs for both women & men. If you're visiting NYC or you live here - you have to hit the store, it's a gorgeous minimalist looking boutique situated in SOHO.

So, what do you think? Is Mackage a brand you could easily get into??

See you Monday!

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DIY: Brushstroke Lamp

Hi All MBG Readers, Jana Bek here & I'm so excited to share my brushstroke lamp DIY. My gourd was a sad shade of pink. 

Knowing I needed another layer of pattern for my bedroom, & drawing inspiration from the fabulous Bunny Willams Brushstroke lamp & Kelly Wearstler's killer custom wall paper, I took my little lamp to the next level.

Inspiration:

Materials:

Sad lamp

Spray Primer

Trash Bags

Patience

Paint in Pop hue

Sad, Bismol Pink Lamp:

Initial Steps:

Tie a plastic bag around the cord & the top of the lamp to protect them from primer & paint. Spray first coat of primer, let dry, then sand with fine sand paper. Depending on shade of your lamp, repeat, repeat, & repeat. I had to apply 4 coats of primer, be patient!

Next:

As the primer was white, I choose to paint my pink brushstrokes on the primer as I was OK with the color.

one more look at the inspiration 

Voila! Gorgeous brushstroke lamp!

-Post by Jana Bek

-Images by Erik Melvin

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Coconut Cake & Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Hi! This is Mat, Jen's husband. This is the recipe from a photo that appeared on Jen's Instagram last night. 

Jen is fasting from coffee and chocolate for 21 days, so by the end of the day she's looking for something sweet to and I thought this would do the trick. It's pretty easy to make from scratch but if you're nervous about the cake part, you can always substitute a mix. Plus it's also no milk, low fat & half the sugar.

(photo via instagram)

Also, this is a recipe for a very small batch. We're only a couple and making big batches is so wasteful so I prefer to make only a few at a time. This should make about 5 cakes.

Coconut Cake
1/2 C granulated sugar
4 Tbs unsalted butter, room temperature
2 egg whites
1 tsp coconut or vanilla extract
3/4 C cake flour (use sifted all-purpose if not available)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 C coconut, rice or soy milk
3/4 C shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease the sides and bottom of six cups in a cupcake tin with butter.  Cream the butter and sugar. Once creamed, beat in the egg whites one at a time, then add the extract. Add the flour and baking powder and mix until creamy, then add the "milk" and coconut and finish mixing.

Evenly distribute between the cups until they are 2/3 full. Bake for 17-20 minutes. Be sure to cool completely before frosting.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream
2 egg whites
1/2 C granulated sugar
12 Tbs unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cut the butter into 1 Tbsp chunks and leave out so it reaches room temperature. In a metal bowl, add the egg whites and sugar. Place the bowl into simmering water (leave on the heat) and whisk slowly until the mix is hot to the touch (about 140°F). Remove from heat, and using mixer with wire whisk, beat for 2 mins producing soft peaks. Change to a paddle mixer. Add 1/2 of the butter and beat for 1 minute, add the remaining butter and beat another minute. Add the vanilla and beat 1/2 minute more.

Once the cakes have cooled, you can frost them. The frosting doesn't have to be perfect - in fact just a nice spoonful on top of each cake served with some berries on the side works fine.

(photo via instagram)

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