My New Favorite Dress

Glasses: BonLook

Dress: Trove Vintage / Similar

Belt: Vintage / Similar

Flats: Rocketdog / Similar

I think I can speak for everyone when I say that last week was a doozy. Man, was it rough. In my personal life, all I really had to deal with was a grain beetle infestation (ugh.), but the news was full of one awful thing after another. It was a hard week. I got sucked in, internalized too much, and didn't figure out why I was feeling so crummy until three quarters of the way through the week. Fortunately, once I figured out WHY I was feeling so awful, I got to talk it out over nachos with an awesome friend of mine. So that was really nice.

In other, less depressing news, I'm taking a class right now called Change One Room, Change Your Life, which is being taught by amazingly talented friend, Hollis. I'm two weeks into the three week course and am feeling so inspired! I'm going to be tackling my living room, so I've been spending hours poring over inspirational photos and furniture websites as well as rearranging my furniture to finish getting my plan in place. If you're in the Seattle area and looking to redecorate any rooms in your house, I would highly recommend this class Hollis will be teaching it again starting in September, and if you're interesting in signing up you can register here.

Other than spending a lot of my weekend rearranging furniture and looking at couches, I had brunch with a friend, hit up the farmers market, and hung out with Katie! Katie and I have both recently cleaned out our closets, so we gathered up a bunch of our clothes to sell at Buffalo Exchange. I did quite well, which I attest to the outfit I wore, which you can see above. Seriously, I feel like when the buyers like your style they buy way more of your stuff! 

This dress is absolutely my new favorite. I picked it up at Trove Vintage in Ballard earlier in the week before seeing Guardians of the Galaxy (which was great, btw). I instantly fell in love with the print, but the style was not necessarily love at first sight. When I put on the dress, I actually laughed out loud at the Judy Jetson-esque shoulder detail on this puppy. See that stitching details on the shoulders? Yea, that's the shoulder pieces folded in half. They were huge!!!! Fortunately, I saw a spark of hope for this dreamy dress, folded the shoulder pieces, and knew I could tack them into place to make it the cutest dress ever! Now that it's fixed up, I don't think this dress will be worn less than twice a week for the rest of the summer.

So that's my report! Did you guys get up to anything fun over the weekend?

XOXO

Becca

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Blueberry Peach Pie

Is anyone out there NOT a fan of pie? Because if you ask me, pie is one of the very best foods- up there with waffles and doughnuts. As I was getting ready to go blueberry picking a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that I had not baked a single pie all summer. ALL SUMMER! NOT A SINGLE PIE! What is wrong with me? Well, I can assure you that this problem has since been fixed as I have made not one, but TWO pies in the last two weeks. True story.

This Blueberry Peach Pie is real tasty. I'm fully aware that it's not the prettiest pie I've ever made, and yes, I dreamed of making a pie with a lattice top, but ya know what? I was challenging myself, so it's ok. Yep, this dreamy, delicious, tart, fruity pie was a bit of an experiment because it was my first vegan and gluten free pie. I can assure you that you will not miss the gluten or the dairy one bit when you give this a try.

I will warn you, making a gluten free and vegan pie crust definitely has some challenges- the big one being that the crust is a little tricky to handle. We'll talk more about that later, but if you stick with it, I promise it will be worth it!

Alright, pie time!

Blueberry Peach Pie: Makes 1 pie
Gluten free, vegan.
Crust adapted from this recipe.

Ingredients:

For each crust (top and bottom)(in other words, you'll make each crust separately, and the amounts listed below are the amounts for 1 top crust or 1 bottom crust):
- 1 1/4 cups gluten free flour (I used the Trader Joe's multi-purpose)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 6 tbsp cold vegan butter (I used Earth Balance)
- 1 1/2 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer plus 2 tbsp warm water to make 1 "egg"
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

For the filling:
- 4 generous cups of blueberries (fresh picked if you can swing it!)
- Scant 3/4 cups sugar
- 2 medium peaches, pitted and chopped- skin on is fine! (about 2 cups)
- 3 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tbsp fresh squeezed orange juice or lemon juice

Make the pie crust!

1. An hour or so in advance, start making your dough! Begin by whisking together the flour, sugar, xanthan gum, and salt.

2. Cut the cold butter into pats and then work the pats into the flour mixture until it's crumbly, with some larger, pea-sized chunks of butter remaining. Then, place this mixture in the freezer to keep cold.

3. Whisk the egg replacer, warm water, and vinegar together until very foamy. Pull the flour and butter mixture from the freezer and mix the vinegar mixture into the dry ingredient. Stir until the mix holds together.

You can add 1 to 3 additional tablespoons of cold water to the mixture to help it come together if necessary, but I would advise against it if you can help it. When I was experimenting, I found that adding water to the mix made for an overly moist pie crust, so do without if possible.

5. Shape the dough into a ball and chill for an hour.

6. Repeat steps 1-5 for your second pie crust.

7. Once the dough has sat for 1 hour, remove it from the fridge. Then, cut two pieces of plastic wrap and spray them with cooking spray. Place the dough between the two sheets of plastic wrap (sprayed side down), and roll out the dough until large enough to fit your pie pan.

8. Once rolled out, place one crust into your pie pan. You should be able to pinch together any tears, but if you're having trouble, re-ball the crust, put it into the freezer for a few minutes, and roll it out again.

9. Preheat the oven to 400°F

9. Add the ingredients for the filling to a large mixing bowl and mix until well combined. Then, pour the filling into your pie pan.

10. Top the filling with the second pie crust, crimp the edges, and cut a vent or two in the top. I just rocked an ice cream sandwich cookie cutter.

11. Put yer pie on a tin foil lined baking sheet (for easy clean up!) and bake for 45 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling.

12. Let cool and then serve!

XOXO
Becca

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Two Years with Buddy and Hank

Happy Adoptaversary to my favorite furry friends, Buddy and Hank! These sweet, troublemaking goofballs came home from the shelter with me 2 year ago today, and I couldn't imagine life without them. Buddy and Hank are brothers, best friends, and partners in crime. They're produce-loving weirdos (seriously. Bell peppers, watermelon, green beans, asparagus, avocado, cantaloupe- they love it all), bug hunters extraordinaire, extra enthusiastic meow-ers, and cuddle bugs through and through.They make me laugh, smile, and feel loved every single day and I couldn't be happier to have them in my life. Here's to many more years with these two goofballs!

XOXO
Becca

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Guest Posting: Everyday Feminism on Clear the Way

Hi everyone!

Today I'm very pleased to be guest posting over on Kate's blog, Clear the Way, as part of her Feminist Friday sub-series, Everyday Feminism. I'm talking about feminism, what it means to me, and how I live it out every day. It's one of my favorite pieces I've written, and I'm admittedly pretty proud of it, so I'd thrilled to have you stop by and check it out!

XOXO
Becca

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Hamming It Up

Glasses: BonLook

Dress: Anthropologie

Shoes: Nordstrom

Saturday evening I was sweating away in the kitchen working on a failed dessert recipe, when Katie texted me and asked me if I wanted to go for a drink. Admittedly my only plans for the evening were cleaning up the mess I had made, so I decided to say "Screw the mess!" and hang out with Katie!

Katie suggested we do some blog photos before dinner and at first I was NOT convinced. Ya'll, I was on day 3 of my shower cycle, I had been tromping around blueberry fields in the morning and sweating in the kitchen most of the afternoon. Needless to say, my hair was gnarly as hell, and on top of that, the thought of putting on real clothes seemed like the worst.

I ended up rallying, because hey! Sometimes my hair is a little gross and that's ok! Also, because this polka dot dress is so stinking cute and so easy to just throw on and go. It's so cute and comfy that you can wear it all damn day in the summer heat. I also love the back more than I can possible say. Any dress that has cute cut-outs in the back but still let's you wear  normal bra is a winner in my book!

We had a total blast taking these photos. I for one, could not do a serious pose to save my life. We had a blast hamming it up for the camera and then went and grabbed some delicious Indian food. Yum!

All in all, it was a great impromptu get together! Katie is the best!

XOXO
Becca

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Blueberry Picking 2014!

Hey guys! Are you sick of me talking about picking berries yet? CUZ I'M SURE NOT!

Saturday, my friend Hollis and I drove out to Duvall to do some blueberry picking at Cottage Gardens Blueberry Farm. I think Blueberry Forest would be more accurate! Unlike the neatly manicured rows I picked from last year, this place was full of huge, unruly blueberry bushes. You can see in some of the photos above how incredibly tall and close together they all were.

It would seem, I'm afraid, that I have a bit of a blueberry picking curse. Both times I've been blueberry picking, I've set out on a gorgeous sunny day, only to have it downpour. This year I got lucky in that the pouring happened before we arrived at the farm, but it was enough to soak the bushes, which meant that Hollis and I left the farm pretty soggy, especially since we were climbing under branches and pushing our way between rows to get to more berries!

At the end of the day, I picked about 4 pounds of blueberries, which will mostly be gobbled up by the handful. I did reserve some for a Blueberry Peach Pie that I cooked up yesterday. I'll be sharing the recipe either this week or next.

It was a really lovely day, and such a nice chance to get out of the city. Washington is really such a gorgeous state, and I love that a 30 minute drive can transport you to lush beautiful farm land. Maybe someday I'll even have some land for myself!

XOXO
Becca

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Thank You!

Thank you all SO much for your sweet comments and kind words on my posts this week. You've seriously made me feel like a million bucks. I appreciate all of you so much and can't thank you enough for all of your support.

XOXO
Becca

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