Flowers

flowers for my new vase

peonies

graptopetalums
my new vase

Christmas Morning

a happy Jack

a happy sophie

a very dramatic mommy after trying to get photos from the previous post

daddy and sophie.....

it was great until i tried to take photos with them in their christmas outfits....

oh the madness.

christmas photos

this is classic

moon dough

my kids got some crazy swedish moon dough and my husband gave it all to them unsupervised. i would have had a shit fit if i had carpet.

Dreams

the other night i had a dream about being in a pasta shop. so of course i have been craving pasta. so i made pappardelle egg noodles in a sauce of onions garlic capers lemon juice and zest in olive oil and butter with grated parmesan. i wish i had so now.

cookie boxes

these are the tags sophie and i make a few weeks ago for packing up our gift and cookie boxes. these were also the first of the cookie boxes to go out to the girls at the post office. they are always so helpful and nice when i show up with a million packages and my two wild kids.

cayenne shortbread

here is another one of the holiday cookies i make. they are delicious. they are cayenne shortbreads made with cheddar cheese pecans flour and butter. they have a sandy texture and melt in your mouth. they are nice because you can make a log and bake them off as you need them. a box of these with a nice bottle of wine makes an excellent gift or hor d'oeuvres before your dinner party.

Last Night

I had a little holiday party with some of my blogger friends which are now real life friends. How awesome is that? Who is that lady in the window?

Nothing was heart healthy last night. I made these bacon things. they are a water chestnut soaked in soy sauce dipped in sugar and wrapped up in a half a piece of bacon and then baked on parchment paper. Christina and i even ate some of the hardened sugar and bacon fat from the pan. It was like bacon candy....wrong so so so so wrong. The good news is i didnt really eat that many or too much last night.

Here is my pork loin roast. I cut it open flat and then stuffed it with sauteed onion garlic chopped dried cherries and bread crumbs. yum!

Say hello to steve....kims husband. He made an awesome guacamole with avocados from their tree or rather the neighbors tree. i guess a huge branch broke off in the crazy wind and they collected like fifty avocados. I am so jealous. Steve also made an awesome key lime pie in the summer for our pie contest. That seems like a million years ago. We also drank dos eqius dark....you know because we are the most interesting people in the world.

Favorite picture of the night of christina. Dont worry no one will recognise you on the street. She brought cider and chocolate and cheesecake. Thats why we love her...you know for the food.

Here is the pork again. this time you can see its inner swirl of goodness. We were all talking so much i forgot to cook the green beans. What a nerd, right? So we had pork and mashed potatoes and wine.

Here is kim and sid. Arent they cute? Kim is the awesome owner of the etsy shop and blog jikits. She brought me a fabulous gift that i opened this morning. i have to photograph it so i can share. Thanks kim!!!!

The kids painted and glittered pinecones last night too. Kims kids also collected some extra sticks and rocks for everyone to paint. They were a hot a mess but they had a great time and thats all that counts right.

Here they are all cleaned up and eating their dinner with little tiny glass bottled coca colas. Such a a joyous time last night...it makes up for everything else that has gone wrong. Hope everyone is having a great holiday season so far!

Last Friday Night

This was my view out my kitchen window as i was finishing up my doughs for baking saturday morining. look at that moon! there will be more posts tomorrow i just have a million plant orders to pack up right now.

meyer lemon meltaways

i used lemons instead of limes because its what i have. they turned out delicious. i love these ice box rolled types because you can freeze the logs or if you are going to be baking over a few days just cut off what you need. there is a link to the recipe here.

peppermint twists

so here are my favorite holiday cookies....they are flavored with peppermint extract....

they are candy cane cookies but i make them into twists so they dont break as easily....

this weekend was our first batch of homemade cookies to go out to those we love at the post office and supermarket. the recipe is from my martha stewart cook book. if anyone wants the recipe email me and i will give. im too lazy to type it. sorry.i thought maybe it was online somewhere but no.

Hope Your Holidays Are Going Well....

This weekend we did our decorating for the holidays. Sophie and I made a paper star garland for the ceiling. Her and daniel also decorated the tree together while jack ran around in circles to the christmas music and we all drank some hot chocolate. We get an itty bitty tree every year. I dont know maybe when jack is older we will get a bigger one because he is worse than the cat to it. I think when we are doing stuff together as a family that is my favorite gift of all. Tomorrow night we are taking a walk around the neighborhood to check out all the lights children in tow in the wagon. My sincerest hope is that my children will remember and cherish the simple things we did together as they are the are things I hold so closely to my own heart. Do you know what sophie wants for christmas? a heart as big as her grandfather, which is why she is my darling wild girl. So I need to get to my annual holiday baking soon in between packing orders from the nursery. Hopefully we will get together with some friends soon for drinks and some good food! Any takers? Let me know when you are available? Kim? Christina? I have a rolled pork loin roast with shallots and dried cherries in our future and need help eating it! I also read some great blog posts today...very thoughtful stuff.... Up a desert backroad and SkySkinEarth Go read and enjoy! What have you all been up too?

Rosemary Lemon Chicken

i thought about dinner with christina when i made this yesterday...

here is the chicken and roasted lemons onions and garlic on top of mashed potatoes with butter and cream....so wrong but so right.

this is a mixture of chopped garlic rosemary lemon zest butter salt and pepper. i put it under the skin of the chicken. there is a a bit left over which i used some to saute left over chicken with onion and tomato for pasta....

the juices....yum i spooned this over the chicken and potatoes....

getting ready to put the bird in. i have a chicken pan that you put wine in so i cracked open that rose yesterday....

me sampling the goods....

Roasted Beet and Onion Salad

so basically i took 3 beets and cut them up pretty thin and two red onions and cut them into wedges. i tossed them in two tablespoons of olive oil and salt and peppered them.

they were roasted for about an hour in a 400 degree oven but i was stirred them several times to keep an eye on everything. when they came out of the over i poured balsamic vinegar in the pan to deglaze it. I then poured the whole thing over a bag of spinach in a bowl and tossed to help wilt the spinach a little bit and finally added goat cheese crumbles and toasted pecans.

my father and stepmother gave this bottle of rose as a gift this weekend. this is what i wanted to drink but had to drive with the kiddies so no drinks. oh well. i did have some yesterday though.