This was originally posted on kimschoenherr.wordpress.com on November 3, 2011.

 I was asked to post more recipes, so while I’m waiting for my butter to thaw (I’m making sugar cookies), I figured this was the perfect time to share my favorite burgers. The recipe is originally from startcooking.com, which is a great collection of recipes (some better than others) Anyway, you can find my slightly adapted recipe at the bottom (I pretty much just added fennel and left out the dumb, obvious stuff)

Basically, you just mix together 1 lb of ground beef, some onion, chili powder, ketchup, cheese, salt, ground pepper, and fennel in a bowl. Simple, right?

Divide it into 3 or 4 (we did 3 here, for some big burgers, but I did 4 at a later date and they were still filling), then form the burgers. My mom taught me a great way to pack burgers.

They have to be packed pretty firmly, or else they’ll fall apart while they cook, so you have to roll them into a ball, flatten it out, then turn and press, turn and press, turn and press (firmly) until it’s not flimsy and doesn’t feel soft anymore.

Fun fact: raw meat used to freak me out until I started working the grill in the cafeteria at school. I had to get over that really fast.

Then you cook them. I would definitely suggest cooking them in a pan or on a George Foreman (they’re actually really great on the George Foreman) unless you want to lose all of your cheese to the grill.

I haven’t made the sauce that’s mention below, so I don’t know if it’s any good, but I included it anyway in case someone wants to try it. Honestly, I’m too lazy to go out and buy the can of chiles.

By the way, fresh onions from the garden are WAY better than the ones you buy in the store.

Recipe:

• 1 pound of lean ground beef
• 1/3 cup of onions – minced
• 1 tablespoon of ketchup
• 1/2 teaspoon of chili powder
• 4 ounces of shredded Mexican cheese blend
• 1/3 teaspoon of salt
• 1/3 teaspoon of ground pepper
• 1/3 teaspoon fennel

Sauce

• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 1/3 cup of ketchup
• 1 can of chopped green chilies (4 1/2 ounces)
• 1/4 teaspoon of hot sauce (optional)

Mix together the ground beef, minced onions, ketchup, chili powder, shredded cheese, fennel and the salt and pepper.

Shape into three/four patties.

In a non-stick, pre-heated frying pan, set to medium high heat, fry the burgers for 4 minutes on each side. Or put them on a George Foreman.

Serve on a toasted roll with Tex-Mex Burger sauce (Or don’t).

Tex-Mex Burger Sauce

Stir together all ingredients. Cover and chill until ready to serve. Makes 1 cup

What recipes do you want me to try? What are you eating?

This was originally posted on kimschoenherr.wordpress.com on November 2, 2011.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive compensation.

Yesterday, I was stumbling and I came across this. “This” is pictures and ideas of 40 different living rooms, and from “this” (ok, I’ll stop doing that) I saw four awesome photos of collections that I love.

I especially love the first one, with the silver platters on the wall. I’m not a big fan of the texture on the wall, but I collect silver, and would love it if I could do this on a wall in my house (you know, when I get one). It’s a great way to feature an odd collection (such as plates or silver platters)

The second one is awesome because I love letters. You can find type setters blocks at antique stores, giant letters and places like Marshall’s and TJMaxx, JoAnn’s and Michael’s have paper mache and wooden letters that can be painted, decoupaged, whatever. I’ve seen giant letters at Pottery Barn, West Elm, and everyone has mugs and pretty much anything with a monogram.

I love clocks. And I love knowing the time in other cities. I first saw this here years ago while stumbling, but I also really love this way of displaying clocks:

I actually plan to do this at some point, if I can ever find cheap mechanical alarm clocks!

Finally, I’m in love with frame collages. Young House Love has an entire hallway of picture frames, collaged together, and I WILL do this.

You can see more of this here. And here. Now, I’m off to do more NaNo sprints.

What inspires you to design? Do you like these ideas? How to you feel about textured walls?

This was originally posted on kimschoenherr.wordpress.com on November 1, 2011.

Happy November! Happy Birthday to me! Happy Dia de los Muertos!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ6PgiS4FgI&feature=colike]

Anyway, today is the first day of NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month, in which people all over the world (don’t ask why it’s “national” if it’s worldwide. I guess WoWiNoWriMo doesn’t sound as good?) write at least 50,000 worlds in a month. It sounds simple, about 1666 words a day, every day, in the month of November. The website has some tools, like a word count chart, where you can track your daily progress (like, if you go under or over your 1666 words a day, it recalculates how many words you have to write the rest of the days) and some forums where you can talk to other people participating in NaNoWriMo.

This is my second year attempting 50,000 words. I started at 12 last night and I’m 1,612 words into my novel. I actually think this is further than I got in the whole month last year. It helps that this year, I’m following @NaNoWriMo and @NaNoWordSprints on twitter, getting inspiration from that, and I’ve been planning this novel for… well, years. I hope to finish, and I hope to edit it in December. I hope to submit it for publication soon.

I’ll talk more about my NaNo novel later this month, and keep you updated on how things are going.

What are you writing? Are you participating in NaNo?

This was originally posted on kimschoenherr.wordpress.com on October 31, 2011.

 Happy Halloween!! I mentioned the other day that I’m totally in love with Halloween, so I’m going to continue talking about it.

I like to plan parties that don’t happen, possibly because I’m crazy, possibly because when I do have a kick-ass Halloween party, I want it to be kick-ass. Obviously, part of an awesome Halloween party is awesome, spooky, creepy decorations, or else it’s just a costume party. I want the best, spookiest house on the block, and that’s all in the details.

Martha Stewart has some of the coolest Halloween craft ideas on her website, though some of them are cutesy kid stuff. If that’s the kind of party you’re having, go for it, but I for one probably won’t be using the idea for the glowing ghosts or the tin-can jack-o-lantern any time soon.

I do, on the other hand, plan to use the spider egg sac as soon as possible.

Midwest living also has some great ideas, but more of theirs are grown up. There’s tons of recipes out there for Halloween, and I’ll be featuring those soon. I probably should have started this series before Halloween, but now you can start preparing for next year!

What are you doing for Halloween? Are you excited for my birthday? What did you get me?

Edit: HELLOOOOO to the people who find me through Stumble Upon!

This was originally posted on kimschoenherr.wordpress.com on October 29, 2011.

 I love Halloween! Not just because of my birthday (which is a major plus), or the free candy (also a plus), or being able to dress up and be whatever you want to be. I love fall, and Halloween decorations, and pumpkins! Recently, I’ve been looking at ideas for Halloween decorations for a house I don’t own, for parties that aren’t going to happen any time soon, and I’ve fallen in love with some pumpkins.

I think these are from Martha Stewart and Midwest Living, or something like that. I really love the painted pumpkin tree on the book shelf. It screams “fall” to me, and you can still use them to make tasty, tasty things with later.

Clearly, I’m a big fan of white pumpkins, and I really love the spider web one. The carved twigs on the bottom left are adorable, and make me smile whenever I look at them, and the bottom right, which is actually images decoupaged onto a pumpkin, made me fall in love. It’s creepy and pumpkiny all at the same time!

I actually went overboard at the pumpkin patch this year and bought two huge pumpkins. I only carved one, and the other one sat there in its 20 lb glory, mocking me, laughing at me because I live in an apartment and can’t even display jack-o-lanterns outside. I gave it to my 2 year old nephew today because he’s an awesome pumpkin carver.

This was originally posted on kimschoenherr.wordpress.com on October 26, 2011.

 I recently stumbled across a site with Redbox codes, where you can get 1 night rentals for free. You can find that here if you’d like. I cancelled my Netflix account when they started all that price raising crap, and free movies are always awesome, especially since I often go to Walmart and completely empty the $5 movie bin into 2-3 carts, searching for new movies… I might have a problem.

So last week, I rented (free, of course) Sucker Punch, which came out this year.

I wasn’t expecting much, but it was a surprisingly good movie. Not one that I’ll pay full price for, but I definitely plan to buy it when the price is right. It’s a story about a girl who is institutionalized after accidentally killing her sister. It has one of my favorite Bjork songs in it – Army of Me, which is always a plus.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56s50H0UWas&NR=1]

The girl goes to the home, and is scheduled for a lobotomy, then while she’s in the chair, starts fantasizing about how she’s really in a strip club/whore house, where she fantasizes about a series of tasks leading to the escape of her and a few of the other girls from the whore house.

I’d definitely give it a solid 3/5 stars, because it was good, but felt more like it was trying to be a live action anime and a video game at the same time. If it was a game, I’d totally play it.

I’m probably going to post a few more movie reviews, because my movie collection is formidable and I have a lot of movies to review. I’m always buying more (some that I’ve never seen before) at Walmart if they look interesting. I have over 100 movies, and I’m always watching them (or at least have them on in the background while I do something else) so there will be a number of reviews on my end soon.

I should be posting some more recipes soon as well, so watch for those.

What are you watching? Have you seen Sucker Punch? What did you think?

This was originally posted on kimschoenherr.wordpress.com on October 25, 2011.

A few months ago, my friend Mike introduced me to Swagbucks. Basically, you sign up, search (like google), play games, watch videos, whatever, and earn points. These points allow you to buy things like gift cards, electronics, jewelery, makeup, games, just about anything.

Also, you get points for referring people, so I’m about to make my shameless referral. It doesn’t cost you any money (unless you buy things, which will just get you more points), so click below and sign up!

Did you sign up? Did ya? Did ya did ya did ya?