Crock Pot Girl: Slow Cooker Style

It's Crock Pot season. In actuality, a new era of slow cooking started here a month after baby Vivie arrived. We were beside ourselves trying to balance three kiddos and our basic human need to eat. The great take out food nightly debate was making us cranky.

Then one evening, after the babies were all asleep and Brett and I had dined with the toaster and some English muffins,  I noticed several friends "liked" Crock Pot Girls on Facebook.

Intrigued and hoping to overcome my self perceived status as a failed homemaker because I couldn't possibly mother three girls and cook nightly meals, I "liked" and made this:

Balsamic (Crock Pot) Chicken 

4-6 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts

2 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes

1 onion thinly sliced (Not chopped)

4 garlic cloves

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

2 T olive oil

1 tsp each: dried oregano, basil, and rosemary

1/2 tsp thyme

ground black pepper and salt to taste

Pour the olive oil on bottom of crock pot

Place in chicken breasts, salt and pepper each breast

Put sliced onion on top of chicken

Then put in all the dried herbs and garlic cloves

Pour in vinegar and top with tomatoes

Cook on high 4 hours, serve over angel hair pasta

We haven't looked at a take out menu since!

Which means that at the top of my wish list there's a new crock pot of all things. If it's going to be sitting on my countertop every day, I want it to be prettier.  Unlike this bad boy, which we received for our wedding 14 years ago.

It could be the ugliest thing we own. It has a forest green ceramic insert and an ivy trellis, I do believe.

So, I'm dreaming about an upgrade. A crock pot  Slow Cooker that costs $175. All stainless steel and white ceramic yumminess.  Available at Williams Sonoma.

I wonder if they have a leasing program?

Designer Crush & Wisconsin Native: Kristen Buckingham

I saw a blurb in the February/March 2011 issue of Elle Decor and was reminded of decorator Kristen Buckingham. She has a store in LA's La Cienega Design Quarter which features her debut line of upholstery, case goods, outdoor furniture and lighting.

I first saw Kristen's work in Elle Decor a few years back, when they featured the Brentwood home she designed for her family. 

Kristen was raised in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, so I'll proudly claim a Wisconsin connection to her.

The stunning living room of her home is familiar to many after the Elle Decor magazine spread and the subsequent coverage.  

Kristen cites that her philosophy is in part influenced by Albert Hadley's "chic suitability." 

I love her style, described by her husband as "traditional and edgy."

I secretly want to be more edgy... I'm taking baby steps.  

Love that she cited that she wanted her own home to feel "human scale," livable and authentic.  

Even her kitchen has the look of a home built in the 1920's with updates, not one from the last decade. Sigh, those floors!  That little alcove back there. 

Anyway....back to her "news"....Kristen's debut line has some beauties...

And can you believe this divine wingback chair is a part of her outdoor line? 

I'll take a pair of each, to start! 

Pretty, Kid-Friendly Dining Room Chairs

Via Material Girls 

I currently have a combo of white slipcovered chairs and Ikea's white Ingolf chair at our dining room table.  The pair of Ikea chairs came into play when I realized my little girls would be wiping their hands (and coloring) on the slipcovers more than even I could keep up with on the washing/bleaching front.  

The look remains classic and clean but still a girl gets to dreaming. Those blue and white bistro style chairs which I love, however, might just have too many crevices! 

I never thought I'd consider a dark brown upholstery like Katie Lee Joel's chairs in her Nate Berkus designed apartment, above, but maybe? And the kids could wipe their hands on the fabric and you... might not know? 

The Novogratz home - featured on Bravo's 9 by Design - had a similar style chair - upholstered in white pleather. Really pretty amazing idea, and with seven kids, they should know! Much more practical than just hoping a dark color "hides" the dirt. 

That table top looks pretty indestructible, too. 

Image via Made by Girl by Jill Slater

For now, I'll keep bleaching and the Magic Eraser is always close by. And in another ten years, maybe we'd be ready for something like this? 

Gwynn Duggan

Who am I kidding? More like twenty years....

High Gloss Magazine Debut: Wednesday's Kitchen

Photographed by Grey Crawford for High Gloss

Another great new online magazine has launched: High Gloss Magazine.

Loving it, inspiration fills the pages. I've just been reading it over breakfast with my girls.

I loved Tia Zolden's Los Angeles home and that rug in the kitchen has me scheming.  I'm just not sure how practical it would be in my real life.

Regarding her quote on the photo...I don't think anyone would ever doubt my kitchen is lived in!
Ever.

Careful! Don't trip on that sippy cup!

P.S. Those pendants...they're hot right now, showing up everywhere...the Hicks Pendant by Thomas O'Brien...were just featured on one of my favorite blogs Shelter.