paper heart.

maybe you didn't already know, but i have an almost unhealthy obsession with paper products. when i was younger i would spend most of my allowance money buying packets of stationary to write all my friends long letters with. most of these friends lived no more than 15 minutes away from me, but at the time it seemed like they might as well have been in a different country.

unfortunately, snail mail has become a thing of the past, replaced by emails and texting and as a result, most of my unused letter sets have been stored away. however, my love for notebooks has lived on strong. my current favorites are from oh joy!. their pretty scalloped edges, sweet prints and small size make me want store all my thoughts within their pages. they quite pricey ($13.50 for one) but i managed to grab the one above on sale for $4 from anthropologie.

i will probably continue to build my collection of cute paper goods (i already have boxes of them at both my current apartment and at my parent's house) and i only hope that i will continue to have thoughts and lists and doodles to fill them with.

first meal.

now that the bf and i are all moved in (90% done), i wanted to t ry out our new smaller kitchen. what it lacks in size, it's made up in brightness so i feel like it's more of a trade rather than a downgrade. for our first meal, i decided to make chicken with artichokes over angel hair pasta. i used canned artichokes because 1. it's cheap. and 2. it probably saved me about half an hour of prep time. this dish also comes with it's own sauce which is always a plus.

just add broth. yes, it's that easy. if the sauce reduces too much (which it did for me) just add more. the recipe called for only about a cup of broth, but i ended up using almost an entire can (around 2 1/2 cups). if it's too watery, just keep it over heat and let it reduce. you can really play around with this until it gets to the consistency you like. no worries about the chicken burning, the liquid prevents that from happening and keeps the chicken juicy.

serve over angel hair pasta and garnish with some fresh parsley. i always thought of parsley as a useless herb, just thrown onto meals for purely decorative reasons, but it actually has a really nice fresh flavor. will definitely be adding it to more meals.