A Spicy 4th of July

Do you have big plans for Independence Day?

Hubby and I plan on staying home

where it's nice and safe.

I'm looking forward to having a nice

quiet 3 day weekend and

sitting on the deck reading a good book.

Hubby will be grilling up some burgers on

the grill and I will be making some

Homemade Restaurant Style Salsa.

This salsa recipe comes together quickly.

No slicing, dicing or chopping by hand.

Make it mild

or spicy, which we prefer.

This salsa is so much better tasting

than store bought salsa.

Hands down the best I have ever made.

It is the BOMB.

Do people still say that or am I dating myself?

Anyhoo, if you love salsa you have to make this recipe.

The secret to this salsa tasting so great is using

Fire Roasted Tomatoes.

HOMEMADE RESTAURANT STYLE SALSA

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

1/2 jalapeno seeds and ribs removed, chopped 

10 ounce can diced tomatoes with green chilies (I use Rotel original)

14.5 ounce can crushed fire roasted tomatoes

pinch of sugar, optional, it helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon dried cilantro

juice from 1/2 of a lime, or more to taste

2 - 4 tablespoons white vinegar, start with 2 and add more to taste

Instructions

Add the peeled onion, garlic and jalapeno to the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times

to chop until desired consistency.

Drain off the liquid from the can of diced tomatoes with green chilies and discard the liquid.

Add the tomatoes and chilies from the can to the food processor, pulse until the salsa reaches

your desired consistency.

Pour the salsa mixture into a large bowl.

Add the can of crushed fire roasted tomatoes with the juices from the can into the bowl of

the salsa mixture. Stir to combine.

Add the remaining salsa ingredients and stir to combine.

Taste salsa with a tortilla chip and adjust the lime juice, vinegar, salt, or sugar as needed.

*This recipe makes a medium-spicy salsa.

**For a mild salsa, omit the jalapeno and substitute a can of regular diced tomatoes without green chilies.

***For a spicy salsa, add the whole jalapeno with seeds.

Recipe adapted from: kristineskitchenblog.com

Whether you plan on having a mild or spicy

4th of July, we hope that you

enjoy your day and have

a safe holiday.

Until Next Time,

Veronica

Crystal Ball Gazing

Hello there.

How is your part of the world looking?

Our's is starting to look up.

We still can't get out and do much,

as for being in public places, but

we are able to get outside and enjoy

our beautiful weather.

I have a new obsession.

I know, I know.

How can she possibly have another obsession?

It's true though.

It's called lensball photography.

It's basically taking pictures

through a crystal ball.

Since our weather was so beautiful

this weekend I thought I would get outside

and play with my new obsession

and try to snap a few pictures.

Welcome to our little part of the world.

How cool is that!?

So I starting walking around our yard

scoping out cool images to snap.

Our spring this year was a little cool so our peonies

didn't produce as many buds this year but I was

able to capture a few images.

Our clematis.

I believe that this is a jasmine bush.

Not really sure because it was here

when we moved into our home.

These next 2 images are of our hanging basket of geraniums.

One of our potentilla bushes.

I hope you enjoyed gazing into our crystal ball.

That's it for this week.

Stay safe.

Until Next Time,

Veronica

How to Transform a Dresser

Last week I showed my latest dresser transformation.

BEFORE

AFTER

This week is all about how I transformed this dresser

and what products I used.

This is not a sponsored posts. I wasn't compensated

for any of the products that I used. All of my

opinions are my own and unbiased. Some of the

products that I mention are ones that I have used

numerous times and some are new to me that I

was impressed with the quality and ease of use

and thought that they deserved being mentioned.

Before I start, I want to mention that I didn't

take many pictures during the transformation

process. I tend to get caught up in the moment

trying to figure things out

and forget about taking pictures. Hopefully,

you will be able to follow along anyway.

So, lets get started on this transformation.

Once I started working on this dresser I realized that the sides

were just a piece of 1/4" wood veneer 

and the top piece

was pressed board with a layer of  wood veneer over it.

All of the veneer was removed from the dresser.

The sides and top piece were completely removed and

Hubby and I created new ones with

pieces of solid birch wood.

After removing the damaged veneer from the

drawer fronts I discovered a big chunk of the

wood was missing from the 2nd drawer.

Dang it!

I couldn't just sand the drawer fronts and

be done with them.

I filled in the hole with wood filler, let dry,

and sanded it smooth.

New wood veneer needed to be applied

to each drawer so that they would all

have the same wood grain finish.

I knew that I wanted to stain this dresser and not paint it.

I had to order new wood veneer for the drawer fronts.

Each drawer was sanded and cleaned and ready

to apply the new wood veneer.

When the new veneer arrived for the draw fronts

I was surprised that it came

in a box rolled up. I was expecting it to be a flat sheet.

This is the wood veneer that I used for the drawer fronts.

If you're not familiar with what wood veneer is,

it is paper thin cuts of natural wood

that is applied with glue and can be

stained or painted.

I had never used wood veneer before and was a

little intimidated by it. I pulled it out and unrolled it

and laid a sheet of plywood on top of it for a few

days to try and flatten it out. I really didn't have to

worry about flatting it out. This veneer was so

incredibly easy to cut and apply.

It adhered so smoothly without any cracking or bubbling.

Using a utility knife I cut out each drawer front and applied.

Super, super easy to apply. I was very impressed with this veneer.

Here is a close up of the drawers with the new veneer applied and stained.

You can't even tell that there is wood veneer on this dresser.

To create the new sides

Hubby used (2)  2' x 4' x 1/4" sheets of birch plywood

and roughly cut out the leg opening.

The sides were then adhered using wood glue and set to dry overnight.

Once dried and secured I was able to sand the leg opening

smooth to match the leg shape.

The top of the dresser was created using a piece of

3/4" 2' x 4' piece of birch plywood. I wanted the top

of the dresser to be a 2 inch thickness. In order to have

a 2 inch thick top Hubby built it up using scrap wood.

To finish the edges of the top to look like a solid piece

of wood I used this veneer edge banding.

Can you tell it's not a 2" thick piece of wood?

The final step was to apply the veneer edge banding around the front of the dresser.

Using the same edge banding, I applied it then trimmed it down to size using

a utility knife.

Once all the veneer had been applied, I lightly sanded the entire

dresser down and applied the stain. I combined 2 different

stain colors to achieve the look I was going for.

I first applied 2 coats of Minwax Special Walnut.

The color was a little too red for me so I then

applied 2 coats of  Minwax Weathered Oak.

By applying the weathered oak it knocked down

the red tone to a nice warm brown color.

Exactly what I was aiming for.

Minwax Special Walnut and Weathered Oak.

To protect all of our hard work,

I applied 3 coats of water based Minwax Polycrylic

in Clear Satin to the entire dresser.

Hubby drilled new holes and added the new

handles (which I ordered off Amazon)

and just like that, we were done.

By investing a little bit of sweat equity

we now have a beautiful new dresser.

How appropriate is my sign that I made 2 years ago?

That's it for now.

Until Next Time,

Stay safe.

Veronica