I am enjoying the lull after Christmas, finding it a bit hard to get back into the swing and routine of everyday life.  But bills need to be paid and laundry keeps coming, so today is my “get all the little piddly stuff out of the way” day.

But before I “get” to do the nuisance things, here’s a recap of our holiday.

The cookies were eaten.  Santa left his annual letter, responding to the hilarious ones the children still write for him. His large footprint was in ashes on the living room fireplace hearth.

My son was all decked out in his holiday suit for opening presents.

Baby Jesus was in the cradle, surrounded by Mary and Joseph.

There were presents under the tree and the stockings were filled.

We probably say this every holiday, but the tree this year was so beautiful.  It is still very fresh and fills the room with the smell of pine.

As you know, I am such a novice painter, but I tried my hand at my second holiday painting.

Some presents for the children included a painting of my daughter’s dog, Sox. Elisabeth absolutely LOVES this dog, who has been part of our family since 2007. I’ve discovered that animals are hard to paint!

Each child receives a snow globe (until age 21), so here is Julianna’s last one for her collection.

It was an ambitious project but I made two Christmas quilts for the girls, which I will write about later.  During the sewing process, I had lots of help.

After opening presents, we put the ham in the oven.  Instead of a formal sit down dinner, we elected to have a buffet of ham sandwiches on croissants, a salad, and leftovers from the charcuterie and vegetable platters. Very casual and very appreciated…

My son and I baked a cake together.  This recipe did not disappoint.  It is from Tessa Huff’s Layered cookbook, the Red Currant Chocolate Cake. The buttercream was flavored with a raspberry/currant curd and creme de cassis.

We are still enjoying all the lights and decorations and will do so until the Epiphany on January 6th.

I love this time between Christmas and New Year’s where the world seems to slow down a bit.  Enjoy each and every minute.  There’s a New Year right around the corner….

Every year we host our neighborhood board for a holiday celebration.  We have the most wonderful group of neighbors who spend countless volunteer hours maintaining the integrity and character of our North Central neighborhood.  I always feel so lucky to welcome them into our home to celebrate them and the holidays.

Typically, I would love to think I have the time and energy to make everything from scratch, but realistically that’s not always the case. What did we do before Costco or Sam’s Club? This year, I capitalized on all the wonderful things available at Costco for the hors d’oerves, flowers and desserts.  With a little imagination you can take ordinary items and turn them into something special with these entertaining shortcuts.

As you know, I think the carnation is the underdog of flower choices, but they are affordable, hold up well and provide a burst of color.

With some evergreens from our Christmas tree (or greens from your yard), you can make them look like this.

Costco has a gourmet food section with an extensive assortment of salami, proscuitto, and cheeses. The French brie, Isigny Ste. Mere is from Normandy and is so delicious.  The Cambozola blue cheese was only $8.00 for 2 wedges! Their Cranberry Cinnamon goat cheese is so festive.

With a very large tray and some effort (I had my son’s assistance), it can look like this! We added olives, nuts and fruit for a beautiful display.

Pre-packed vegetables trays are available in most grocery stores.

With a few added tomatoes and sprigs of herbs (I used thyme, but rosemary or parsley would also work), the vegetable tray can have a holiday theme.

I love making Christmas cookies, but I’ve had no time this year.  Costco has a very good selection and I especially like their Holiday Stollen Bites.

Though the picture isn’t great because I took it after our guests started arriving, you can see how I arranged the desserts.

In addition to beer and wine, my son made a Christmas sangria.  Our non-alc0holic options were water and hot mulled cider, which was a perfect choice on a chilly December night.

The cider is from Trader Joe’s.  Simmered with mulled spices, the presentation was made pretty by adding mini Rome apples and whole cloves.

By using a skewer to pre-poke the holes, the cloves are easier to insert.

A crockpot full of Trader Joe’s party size mini meatballs and their Bold & Smoky Kansas City Style BBQ sauce rounded out the appetizers.

The back porch is the perfect location for larger gatherings.  With the fireplace roaring and the ceiling heaters on, it was a lovely evening with neighbors.

What I didn’t know before writing this post, is that Costco delivers!  It appears they can do so in a few hours or a few days~~that opens up so many new possibilities!

Taking some entertaining shortcuts during this holiday season is a way to lower the stress and still provide a warm and welcoming environment for your guests.

Happy Entertaining!

 

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  It was so nice having all the children home and the house filled with their friends.  Today, as I take all the Thanksgiving items and store them away until next year, here are some random musings about the holiday.

We had the biggest turkey ever~~a whopping 28 lbs, delivered by Jimmy from Personal Gourmet, a local company who specializes in restaurant grade meat and fish. Typically, we have done this to our turkey:

But this year, my foodie son suggested we dry brine the turkey for 24 hours.  Honestly, I have never heard of dry brining and was a bit skeptical but it was so easy.  After patting the turkey dry, we sprinkled the bird with a combination of salt and baking powder.  This apparently changes the pH of the skin. We refrigerated it uncovered for 15 hours (can do up to 3 days).

Instead of a roasting pan, we put the bird in a V-rack on a cookie sheet.  According to Serious Eats, this increases air flow for even cooking.  In order to have the dark meat cook at the same rate of the white breast meat, we placed the cookie sheet on a preheated pizza stone.  You can find all the details on how to do this by clicking here.

This was, hands down, the most delicious turkey we have ever had.  The dry brining was SO easy.  I did add some herb butter between the skin and the breast meat before roasting, but other than that, we hardly basted it (maybe once).  The skin was so crispy and it sealed in most of the juices. We declared this a winner and this will be the recipe of choice when we roast a turkey in the future.

Thanksgiving Day started with blood orange mimosas.  We found the oranges at Whole Foods and it was a nice alternative to regular orange juice mimosas.

Every year, my husband makes his famous pumpkin pies.

And my son, Benjamin and I make a cake from Tessa Huff‘s incredible cake book, Layered.

Presenting (drumroll)…..the Butterscotch Bourbon Cake.

With the table set and ready to go, we enjoyed a delicious meal with family and friends.

Friday was a relaxing day (thank goodness as I was pooped) and, as we do each year, watched the Wizard of Oz, which is my favorite movie.

And took our annual family photo~~it seems to be more difficult to get everyone looking somewhat normal at the same time.  Of course, the battery was low in the camera and hopefully with some editing, we will have a Christmas photo for our card.

Hope you had a relaxing Thanksgiving.  Today, all the autumn decorations come down and onto Christmas! I leave one Christmas related item out all year long and this sits on the mantle in the breakfast room.  I purchased this Christmas car waterless “snowglobe”from eBay.  Created by artist Alicia Reiner, each is hand signed and numbered.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear November,

I will not forget you.  Even though the stores have moved onto Christmas I refuse to ignore your importance in the calendar year.

My blog post today will focus on this wonderful month.  To me, it’s the quiet time before the holiday rush ~~I’m a traditionalist about starting the Christmas holiday the DAY AFTER Thanksgiving. Please take time this month to enjoy the change of season and the calm this month offers.

My sister and her husband took this photo in New Hampshire~~such gorgeous colors!

I have been so swamped with opposing a local zoning issue, I have had little time to do much else. When stress levels rise, I tend to bake.  Being in the kitchen comforts me.

During our last trip to see our son in Virginia, I purchased several varieties of apples from Carter Mountain Orchard and stuffed them in my roller bag.

My first baking adventure was an apple pie.  Pinterest has featured so many innovative pie crusts that I thought I would attempt this. I used my go-to pie crust recipe which you can find here.

What I learned:  Layering the leaf cut-outs was fun, however, the top “crust” was too thick.  If I were to do this again, I would make sure my leaves were rolled very thin. However, it was still delicious and so pretty when I took it out of the oven.

With more apples in the refrigerator, I thought it might be fun to use my Pocket Pie mold from William Sonoma, which has been sitting unused for years. I made the crust recipe on the back of the box which includes quite a bit of butter.

The hinged plastic mold cuts (with some level of difficulty) both sides of the pocket pie pastry.

You can add whatever filling you want as the recipe suggests canned pie filling.  However, since I had fresh apples, I made my own.  Initially the apple pieces were too big and needed to be cut down.

Add a few tablespoons of filling, egg wash the edges, add the matching top and crimp.

In retrospect, these pies were a bit of a pain in the neck to make.  The dough is much easier to use while it is cold.  Once it warmed up, it stuck to the mold and the pockets were hard to handle. William Sonoma doesn’t offer this mold any longer, however they have other types. After making a couple of dozen I would have gotten better, but I quit after making 8.

Please enjoy this month.  We still have Thanksgiving to look forward to where we will share our gratitude with family and friends.

A year ago today, I sent my first blog post of Life at Bella Terra.  It was an intimidating moment, because I thought “who would ever want to read this?”  I don’t consider myself a very good writer and I’m really trying to improve upon that.  But your words of encouragement have brought me back to the computer to post again and again.  If it wasn’t for your kindness and support, it would have been easy to just quit.  Thank you for your loyalty and feedback and comments. Truly. From the bottom of my heart.

Each time I send out an email letting you know I’ve created a new post, I am praying you find it interesting, enlightening or even motivating.  I try to share a small piece of loveliness in hopes that I can brighten your day. As I look out into the world, I believe we each need to find sources of joy and create our own beauty.  Whether it be feeling the warmth from a freshly picked tomato, or the scent of a homegrown flower, these moments of perfection can only help feed the soul.

Blogging for me, is a chance to stop and capture a sliver of time, an exquisite photo or a recipe that bursts with flavor. Plus it is forcing me to attack those cluttered corners of the house or undone projects while showing you my progress. But I can honestly say, I am still a long way from feeling confident about creatively illustrating that to you. But I will keep trying.

So here is a look back at the year and some of my favorite photos and posts.

My very first blog post was about the New York Times Bestselling author, Rhys Bowen and the fundraising English tea we had here at Bella Terra.

And other events we happily hosted here…..

Recipes shared…..

My Renovations and Restorations….

Travel and leisure…..

Decorating and Design…

The holidays….

Cleaning, Organizing, and Updating…

Sharing our home and yard….

My attempt at art….

Flower arranging..

Our pets…

And a few DIYs….

My online store….

There is still so much to learn, especially better photography, writing and getting my watermarks the same size on every photo.  So thank you again for following me and sharing my blog with others.

PLEASE send in your comments~~What area of interest would you like for me to expand? What are your favorite topics? How often should I post (trying to do a maximum of twice per week)? What can I do to be better for you?  My goals for the next year are to do a contest or giveaway and conduct a real survey into your likes and interests.

Here’s to one year and onto the next!! I couldn’t have done it without you.

 

 

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