Category — Holiday

The one bummer about St. Patrick’s Day is that it always falls during Lent. I nearly always give up alcohol for Lent, so it’s a bit of a letdown. Maybe next year I’ll just give up green beer!

Here are three St. Patrick’s Day recipes that won’t let you down! Plus, you can find more by clicking on the “Complete Recipe Index” over there on the left and scrolling down to the “Holidays” heading, and then scrolling to “St. Patrick’s Day.”

Have a wonderful day and be sure to partake in “The Wearing of the Green!”

Irish Pizza

Stout and Irish Whiskey Cupcakes with Bailey’s Irish Cream Frosting (aka Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes)

Duffy’s Irish Soda Bread

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As of 4:30 PM yesterday, my house is nearly back to normal. With a boat-load of help from Connor, Christmas is packed up and put back in the crawl space.

I still need to clean up my sitting room, which served as “the wrapping station” this year. Since I was using a walker during the time I was wrapping, it looks as though a bomb went off in that area. I’ll get that cleaned up today and all the regular “decor” put back into place. Then I am done!

So what’s with that photo above, taken of stacks of apples at Costco, you ask?

You see, my husband, David, eats an apple every single morning. Seriously! Every. Day. He rarely gets sick, so I suppose it is true, that an apple a day does keep the doctor away.

Costco sells apples in these wonderful little domed containers.  Back in October, I began to save them with the thought that they would be perfect to hold and store Christmas ornaments.

They are perfect!

The space between every two apple rounds doesn’t come up completely, so you can even place long ornaments there and take up two spaces.

Next, I placed a sheet of bubble wrap on top to prevent items from slipping and jiggling. Then I just closed and sealed the lid, and everything is safe and sound.

Turns out, the container is perfect for my delicate bottle brush trees too. No crushed or damaged trees to deal with next year!

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I saw this beautiful loaf of bread, more like a bunch of rolls actually, on Pinterest, and instantly knew I wanted to make it ASAP. The wonderful blog it originated from is called The Italian Dish. Check it out, I know you’ll love it.

I had to hold Dave, Marissa, and Connor back from diving into this when it came out of the oven. I did not bake it for them – I brought it as a hostess gift to the lovely Joanne and handsome Mark, who had us over on New Year’s Eve.

Use you imagination, and you could take this basic recipe, shape the dough into balls, and make any number of designs.

From a festive tree for next Christmas to a heart, for Valentine’s Day.

Thank you, Mark and Joanne, we had a fun evening, even if I was a bit sore and tired which resulted in us leaving before midnight.

Which reminds me – I have not given an update on my pelvic injury in a while – I am doing so much better! I have been walking on my own, without the walker, since last Thursday. I’ve even ventured upstairs a time or two when I’ve needed something up there. Most importantly, I’m driving, so life is just about back to normal! I should be completely healed in about two weeks.

Thank you again for all your kind deeds and lovely thoughts and prayers. God is good and so are you! xoxo [Read more →]

My New Year’s wish for you is that you’ll know exactly what you need to do to make all your dreams come true!

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This is the final tablescape of 2012.
Heck, it’s the final post of 2012!

It’s New Year’s Eve! TIME to Party!

We are going to a neighbor’s home for New Year’s Eve cocktails and dinner this evening.

Prior to my fall from the ladder, I was planning on having a little New Year’s Eve gathering of my own, but we were very grateful when we got the invite to another party. Especially one that we don’t have to drive to!

In all honestly, the main reason I wanted to host a celebration of my own, was so I could set a pretty table.

Crazy, I know!

I have seen clock face plates all over the web recently and have been so sad that I missed out before Pottery Barn and Ralph Lauren sold out of them, the past couple of years. If you ever see anything similar to any of these, please let me know! I’m dying to get my paws on some!

Back in October, I tried to make some knockoffs – using a clock patterned fabric and Mod Podge.

Umm, they didn’t turn out so great.

Then I saw a photo on Pinterest using a paper clock-face image, set between a large charger and a clear glass plate …

Bingo!

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Being laid up this Christmas forced me to slow down, take it easy, and back off on the usual excess.

I’m sure you are now expecting me to say something along the lines of, “Man, slowing down and taking it easy sure did feel great! I’m going to try and do that next year and in all the years to come!”

Um, No!  In fact, it didn’t feel all that good. I love going crazy at Christmas! I thrive in the excess, the excitement, and the commotion. I am in my element in the hustle and the bustle.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still thoroughly enjoyed this Christmas.

How could I not? My injury is minor compared to what it could have been! Both of my kids are home, which is, and will always be, the best present of all! We still went to Christmas Eve mass and had my mom and sister over for Christmas Eve dinner.  We still relaxed and hung out on Christmas day with my dad.

But, I’d planned to do so much more. Create, grocery shop for, and execute two big meals. Decorate more! Be creative and make more crafty Pinterest-worthy homemade stuff.

That’s OK. Next year!

So, this year, instead of the usual crown pork roast on Christmas Eve, we had a HoneyBaked Ham. (Thank you, sweet Amy, for picking that up for me!) We served the ham on King’s Hawaiian rolls with my homemade mustards and horseradish.

Marissa and Connor worked together to make our favorite Brussels Sprout Salad plus a Haricot Verts Salad.

Sloane brought over a bread pudding and I made a simple rum sauce for it. We served that along with the Freezer Eggnog Pie for dessert.

All of it was simple, festive, easy, and delicious.

Sadly, we did not have our traditional potato rolls and they were sorely missed.  Thankfully, I did have enough of the dough leftover from Thanksgiving, that I had frozen, so we still had our traditional Cinnamon Rolls and Brown Sugar Bacon on Christmas morning.  The only difference – Marissa made the sweet rolls this year ~ and they were perfect!

Above you can see her mixing the cinnamon and sugar together before sprinkling it onto the dough she rolled out into the perfect 10-inch by 16-inch rectangle.  There on the island, in the background, is the bacon, ready for the oven.

And instead of the usual beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner, we had fondue! Blue Cheese Fondue, and it was delicious and fun! Marissa made the fondue and Connor helped with the dippers, the prep, and clean-up.

I have the best kids in the world!

Yes, I adore them, today and every day! They even posed, trying to reenact a portrait that they sat for some 19 years ago. At 21, Connor doesn’t quite have that 2-year-old pout down anymore, but they’re still cute!

OK, enough about how fabulous my kids are and what we ate!

Time to get down to business – the tablescapes!

Since I wasn’t able to help much with clean-up, I went low-key on that too. None of the usual hand-washing of dishes on Christmas Eve, everything was dishwasher-safe.

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If you’ve read from this blog before, you most likely already know that I am NOT a baker. If I bake something, and it turns out, and I post it here, and I call it “my own” – you can rest assured that it is a fluke, a miracle, or a lie!

The exception, the fluke, if you will, is my carrot cake. I did “create” that. After making carrot cake after carrot cake over many years (and many years ago) I finally got a perfect carrot cake that I truly believe is the best you will ever have.

I do make a pretty mean cheesecake, but not because I’ve created anything new. But because I’ve discovered, while making many cheesecakes and by reading many other people’s opinions about cheesecake, and then stealing the best of their various ideas and putting them together, how to make a fool-proof cheesecake. My cheesecakes always turn out perfectly! For my three “must-do” steps/tricks, go HERE.

Aside from that one cake and cheesecakes in general… I would no more be able to create a new and wonderful baked dessert than I would be able to take apart a car engine!

All that being said, I’ve found a woman, a blog, and a cookbook with pretty fantastic desserts! It’s called Sprinkle Bakes and I made the following Very Impressive, Very Beautifully Photographed, and Very Delicious cake from her very lovely blog for my cooking series last month.

In all honesty, I should just stop now and send you directly there. I’ve pared down her recipe to make it a bit more manageable, but I haven’t really changed it at all. Also, I should not post my photos, as they were taken with my iPhone at Les Gourmettes, in the rush of a cooking class for 16 students. Photos of food are not top priority in those moments. Cutting the cake and serving it to the lovely paying students, is!  But I made the gorgeous decadent cake, so you shall suffer through my photos, then go over and see Sprinkle Bakes’ very professional photos and her very helpful step-by-step photos and be inspired and amazed!

Now, be prepared, not only is this cake a mouthful, but so is the name of the cake!

On a quick side note: Congratulations to my friend, Larry Fitzgerald, who received a Man of the Year award yesterday. It is beyond well deserved. Now I wait for him to receive the overall NFL Man of the Year award when it is announced during Super Bowl week. Fingers crossed.  Larry lives up to his press, he truly is a wonderful man!

Oh, I almost forgot – Merry Christmas Eve! xoxo

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She Cooks She Made Something!

Yeah, I was going to say that I cooked, but then as I was typing up the recipe, I realized I didn’t really cook at all, but I did put together a freezer pie! No true cooking was involved, but I did stand at the kitchen counter, use the walker to maneuver around the kitchen and pantry and I made something from scratch! That’s saying something after two full weeks of kitchen nothingness!

I made a quick and easy Eggnog Pie. The recipe makes two pies, so one went to our Annual Lorts’ Christmas Party last night, and the other will be served either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, here at home.

Lorts is my mom’s maiden name, she is the oldest of eight, so it’s quite the bash! My Uncle Mike (#6 of the 8) and Aunt Sylvia always host in their beautiful Paradise Valley home. There were three generations represented. My mom’s generation, mine, and my kids. We do the “white elephant gift stealing thing” which, as you might imagine, gets a bit out of hand. Good Times!

Then this morning, Marissa, Connor, and my daughter-from-another-mother, Alyse, went to Oink Café for breakfast. There, the four of us split two bacon doughnuts. Yes, you heard that right, Maple Glazed Bacon Doughnuts! So rich and decadent that half if more than enough! OH, SO Good!!!

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Due to my fractured pelvis, Christmas decorating has been severely scaled back this year. In fact, if it weren’t for the help of my very patient (I can be kinda bossy, I’ve been told on more than one occasion) and ultra kind BFF, Peggy, there may not have been much more than a tree. Peggy decorated at least six different areas of the house for me in those first couple of days after my return home from the hospital.

Another day, I had my dad take me to Home Depot to buy a couple of fresh evergreen garlands and a huge boxful of free fresh-cut greens (cast-off trimmings from trees they had sold), and a couple of handfuls of little tree truck rounds that had also been discarded.

I used the fresh greens throughout the house and put the rest in the canvas cart on the front porch.

A couple of other new additions to the porch are this vintage sled and ice skates, not that we’ve ever had or will ever have enough snow or ice to sled or skate here in the desert, but they do look darn cute and festive.

Plus, this huge red lantern I found for a steal, back in November, at Home Goods.

Come on in. The first thing you’ll see is the decked-out Chinese wine barrel that sits in the center of the entry. To create something similar in your home, you just need to find some used whiskey barrels and then you can create a number of different decorations in your home. Barrels can make lovely decorations, especially when they’re designed correctly.

Atop it is a cute and easy idea I stole from Pinterest. So easy – just use double-sided tape on a candle, then sprinkle glitter on the tape. Turns a plain-Jane candle into a Christmas candle in a matter of minutes. After the holiday, just peel off the tape.

If you venture in a little further, you’ll run into the sofa table. One of the garlands graces it, along with a few more new little touches.

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