Happy New Year!

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yes, I made this in PowerPoint.  I'm high tech like that.

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Tiny Houses

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Ladies' Home Journal recently featured an article on Tiny Homes , about 3 different families living in small spaces. The average American home is 2,400 square feet (223 square meters) as of 2010 ( source ), while the homes featured in this article were 128 sq ft (12 sq m), 960 sq ft (89 sq m), and 336 sq ft (31 sq m). average size of an American home through the years The families ranged in size from a married couple to a married couple with 2 kids, and for the most part, they were happy with their decision to downsize and live in smaller digs. While I think the two super small homes are a little extreme, a family of four living in a 960 square foot home sounds doable. The most important thing is that the house be well designed for that scenario.  Mr. G and I lived in a house that was just under 1100 square feet and had ample space. Every room had a good size closet, the kitchen cabinets went right up to the ceiling, and there was no wasted space in the floor plan . . b...
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Vegetarian Version of Olive Garden's Chicken Gnocchi Soup

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I love Olive Garden's Chicken Gnocchi Soup.  Love, love love!  In the past, I would gladly eat two bowls of it, about 5 breadsticks, and take my whole meal home!  But I've had to skip it since becoming vegetarian and that sucks.  So I found a copycat recipe online , and tweaked it to make it vegetarian.  (I am so grateful for copycat sites!) Surprisingly enough (not), the original recipe calls for chicken ... I added boiled potatoes to take their place.  You could probably cook the potatoes right in the soup - just make sure to add them early enough that they finish cooking before everything else goes soft.  That might be too much potato in one soup for some people (is that even possible?).  :)  You could bump up the amounts of the gnocchi or other veggies in the recipe, or add corn, bell peppers, or soy "chicken" if the extra potatoes don't float your boat. Any other ideas for taking the place of the chicken? Start by chopp...
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Houlihan's Asian Chop Chop Salad

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Happy Friday! I'm so ready to sleep in tomorrow :) Have anything fun planned? Mr. Giraffe and I recently had a date night and went out to dinner. My appetizer was nothing to write home about, but my salad? Amazing! Houlihan's bills it as the Asian Chicken Chop Chop Salad, so I used one of my vegetarian eating-out tricks and asked for the chicken on a separate plate. (Mr. G gave the chicken two thumbs up.) Unfortunately, at $15, it wasn't the most affordable meal, but I plan to make it at home for much cheaper.  It's lettuce, cabbage, carrots, snow peas, bell pepper, jicama, peanuts, sesame seeds, and wonton strips or tortilla strips. All fairly normal (except the jicama - this was my first time trying it, tastes like a raw potato), but I never would've thought to combine them myself. (The asparagus was part of my husband's meal that he kindly gifted to me.)  I didn't sample the salad dressing - see more of my weird food aversions  here  - but it was s...
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