From The Nest

Happy New Year Topped off with Angel Pie!

Happy New Year! The table is all set...I am having a dinner party tonight for 6 folks to celebrate New Year's Eve....after taking down all the red and green Christmas decorations, I decided to go with a blue and white theme for the table setting tonight...using my blue and white Dedham Pottery dinnerware, blue Mexican glasses and for the old sugar mold centerpiece I made little arrangments using blue hydrangeas and white carnations in between the candles, tied vintage gold balls with a thin blade of grass from an old millinery shop to the napkins with a ribbon, using my silver with the bone handles from the Portobello market in London along with white woven place mats and white napkins..little more formal for the New Year.

The handmade tablecloth is from Croatia and I bought it at a market in Split from a little old Croatian lady who had actually crocheted it. She didn't speak any English, but somehow we negotiated the price of the tablecloth. She was very sweet and I think it is such a lovely piece.

This is just another view of the table so you can see the place settings closer.

The menu for tonight is roast spring leg of lamb with roasted potatoes and mint jelly, homemade popovers, green beans with almonds, acorn squash baked with butter and brown sugar and for dessert my Mom's famous Angel Pie that I am about to share with you now.

It is so easy to make and everyone OOOHHH's and AHHHHH's when you serve this....and it is absolutely delicious.

Mom's Angel Pie

Preheat oven to 300 degrees
butter lightly and flour a regular size pie plate
beat 4 egg whites stiff in a mixer, gradually adding 2/3 cup of regular sugar to the mix along with 1/2 cup of xxx sugar
add a pinch of salt
beat until stiff and peaks form

add into pie plate and swirl around to cover the plate making the crust

bake for 1 hour in the 300 oven

let cool

then whip in mixer 1 pint of all purpose cream along with 2 teaspoons of sugar, beat until whipped

pour onto the baked meringue shell

then grate a Hershey bar over the top of the whipped cream, breaking up some of the chocolate in slightly larger pieces to go around the edge of the pie.

refrigerate until served...and boy is this good!

enjoy.

Butter and lightly flour pie plate

Beat egg whites stiff......adding sugar slowly to the whipped egg white mix

Scoop meringue mixture into pie plate covering the bottom and edges to make like a crust for the pie.

swirl around the mixture to completely cover the pie plate

The baked meringue after 1 hour in a 300 degree oven....let it cool.

I just use all purpose cream with a few teaspoons of sugar and whip it in the mixer until it is stiff, then fill the meringue pie crust with the whipped cream.

Then grate the Hershey chocolate all over the top of the whipped creme, breaking off a few larger pieces to put around the edge of the pie for looks.

This is the finished Angel Pie, ready to go into the refrigerator. Looks good....tastes even better!!

Refrigerate and serve after dinner with a cup of coffee or tea and you will receive such accolades as it is a wonderful, light dessert that tastes just fabulous. A favorite in our family, I hope you will enjoy it as well.

Have a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Hey Ellen...this one's for you and I didn't even need to wear an apron for this one!

more later in 2008,

carol

My Girls

One of the many joys of the holiday season is that we get to spend a lot more time with our girls. Here is a shot of me with Sarah. We actually bought matching plaid cropped jackets with faux fur collars that detach. Quite cute! You know how it is when you go Christmas shopping...."one for them and then one for me..." funny how that seems to happen.

Here I am with Amy on my right and Susan on my left....after a long day of Christmas shopping in Boston where we had a wonderful time together. Had our hair styled with gorgeous crystal combs and embellishments, had lunch at the new Taj on Newbury Street, tried on tons of new tops at Anthropology and had lots of fun poking in and out of all the cool stores in town.

How lucky we are to have 3 such wonderful girls....beauty, brains, talent and all with happy lives and each with 3 little muchkins .....that is where our 9 munchkins come from. More love to go around which is really nice, don't you think?

The Captain and I are very fortunate to have such a wonderful family. We send holiday wishes to you and your family at this special time of year and hope that you are enjoying those wonderful moments with your family as well.

more later,
carol

Merry Christmas Everyone

Thought you might like to see a few photos of our Christmas tree and decorations Christmas morning. Everything looked quite festive and bright bringing lots of holiday cheer to all our guests. Santa was very good to all of us and we had a wonderful day. Hope you and your family had a wonderful holiday and sending wishes to you for a healthy and happy New Year!

Also, I will be a guest hostess on the creative connection blog www.justbeconnected.com from December 31st-January 4th so be sure to check it out.
Happy New Year!

more later,
carol

Peppermint twist

With all the little munchkins around looking for some holiday fun, you might want to try something like this!
Buy a bag of the small peppermint red and white candy canes and let the kids make their names by breaking up pieces of the candy canes to form the letters.
This peppermint twist candy name was made with love by a little munchkin named Joshua who is only 4 and a half............with some help from his Nana!
Simply break up the small candy canes into pieces....for example, for the "o" we just broke off 2 of the hook parts on the top of the candy cane and then put them together to make the "o" shape. Then you can just lightly "glue" down each letter with a dab of royal icing to hold in place.

It is a really fun project that is both interactive and very sweet and delights both young and old......and just look how cute it is.....
after proper display time......it all can be eaten.....and or along the way the broken pieces of the candy canes that don't end up forming the letters can find their way into your tummies.....

Peppermint Twist!!

more later,
carol

Sweater ornaments

As we are taking out the Christmas ornaments to decorate our tree, I found a few samples of some sweater ornaments I designed for Department 56 a few years ago. The inspiration for these were the beautiful Norwegian sweaters that my Nana had knitted for me. She had made me one when I was a small child in a gorgeous slate blue color with reindeers around the neckline. Then when I was in college she made me this navy blue snowflake sweater that I still have today. I have folded it and I am placing it under the tree....just love the idea that something she created is represented in my holiday display.

The time and energy that went into knitting these complicated patterns so perfectly shows her incredible expertise and talent. She could knit up a storm while watching TV well into her late 90's!
In thinking about those sweaters one day I was inspired to create the little sweater ornaments and I decided to put them on hangers so they could easily hang from the tree. They just worked out so well and look so cute hanging on the Christmas tree.

Inspiration is all around us...ideas knitted with love that make loving memories as wonderful sweaters and then become charming Christmas ornaments.

Look around you at this holiday time especially for love and inspiration...

more later,
Carol

I'm back and look what just arrived.....

I am back from my trip to Michigan and visiting with my little munchkins. Had a wonderful time and when I got in last night look what was waiting for me.....my new Department 56 bikini snowmen candles.....I mean how cute are these...

the details are so amazing and their happy smiles are just as I drew them!

have to unpack and get organized...more to tell tomorrow.

later,
carol

Christmas in the kitchen

I love to decorate my kitchen during the holidays and sometimes that room gets forgotten by people who focus more on the living room and where the tree is.. When you think about it, I bet you spend a lot of time in the kitchen especially Christmas Eve and Christmas Day making dinner and cookies and other goodies for friends and family, so why not have it be a festive place too!

Here is my kitchen sink area that has a greenhouse window above it. I take off all the little photo frames that are usually sitting there and put my wooden Santa Claus collection on the window sill during the holidays. I get to look at them everyday, it brings me a lot of holiday cheer with the red colors and makes the sink area a lot more festive than it usually is.

Note over the top of the sink up where the light is.....I tied ribbons and hung up 6 of my vintage cookie cutters from the overhang....just looks so cute and fun and the wooden handles just happen to be red and green, how appropriate.

On the large center island we have I put a small feather Christmas tree. It is filled with vintage ornaments, glass birds, pipe cleaner clowns and angels, tinsel, bells, all items from the 50's and 60's. I have it sitting on an old silver tray that also has some snowmen, old glass ornaments, candles and of course my wonderful holiday bird's nest. All of that sits on an old piece of marble that my Aunt Helen used to make fudge on and boy was that ever delicious!! That way I am never too far away from all my favorite treasures while I am baking cookies or cooking holiday dinners.

all for now, I am off to Michigan for a week to visit some of my munchkins and do all those wonderful "Nana" things you get to do....like visiting the local first grade and making 23 gingerbread houses as the "guest artist"....I mean, it doesn't get much better than that. It is like being a celebrity....you fly in and are welcomed with screams of delight because Nana is here....let the fun begin....this is what it is all about....
have fun decking your halls until I return!

back in a week,

more later,
carol

Christmas Recipe Cards

I thought it would be fun to design a holiday recipe card that you could bring to a friend's house when visiting for Christmas along with the baked goods. You know, make some wonderful meringues or frosted sugar cookies and put them in a pretty container tied with a holiday red ribbon and attach the recipe card to the ribbon. Makes a nice gift, don't you think? The little skaters worked great as an image since it looks like they are gliding their way across the top of the card.

After designing the one card I placed two on a page through the miracle of photoshop so that you can print out one page, just cut them up and have 2 recipe cards. Repeat as needed.

Download 2_recipe_cards.jpg

I hope that this works for you....never did this before...so give it a try and enjoy the recipe cards....please let me know what you baked for your friends....I love all the yummy holiday goodies and it is very special when someone takes the time to actually make something for a friend....shows love and thoughtfulness....!

more later,
carol
PS....seem to be having trouble with the size of these...don't know why or what I am doing wrong...but the 4 on a page printed out too small so I redid them with 2 on the page and they are still a tad smaller than the 3" x 5" size I would have liked. Just write small!!:-)

Deck the Halls....and then some

As you walk up into our garden and up onto our back porch, this basket is hanging right by the back door. Since we live in New England I like to convey that wonderful feeling of our area and use lots of pine cones and greens and flannel ribbon to give it a rustic village look. I also have an old wire star on a stake that is stuck in the back of the basket.

On the opposite side of the back door I have this basket filled with 3 mini Alberta Spruce trees, some pine cones along with some moss....notice that I let the ribbon just naturally flow around the top of the old wire basket...I liked the way it looked...no bow or tie....just sort of free flowing having a nice rhythm to it.

This little Christmas tree sits on top of an antique bench I have next to the back door against the back of the house. I thought it was so sweet and it makes the whole back of the house look quite festive. I loved the red flannel ribbon that I found at the local garden suppply....it has a blanket stitch around the edge in a tan color so I tied that to the pot that the tree sits in. Then I added the oversize pine cones I got on one of our trips to California around the base of the tree.

This flower box that was filled to the brim this summer with all sorts of wonderful flowering plants is now filled with evergreens that I held down with large beach rocks so that they won't blow away with the winter winds. I added the oversized grapevine balls to the top of the evergreens for color and texture. Not such a great photo but you get the idea.

The dining room table that just a few weeks ago sported turkeys and pumpkins is now decorated for Christmas. There is a hand made table runner from Guatemala in red and holiday colors that sits under the antique sugar mold. I then filled every other hole with evergreen trees and I topped them off with tiny red cardinals that I just think are so darling. The wrought iron chandelier above the table is strung with old mercury glass garlands and on each arm of the chandelier I hung a tiny silver bell. I replaced all the autumn colored candles with holiday red ones in all the candle holders and made little bobeches of tiny pine cones and red holly berries that sit on the top of each candle stick around the candle for color and interest.

Here is a closer view of the centerpiece that sits on the dining room table.

Next to the dining room table is an antique pine dresser where my favorite "Teents" box sits. I added the vintage silver tray and a cut glass bowl that belonged to my grandmother then filled them with all sorts of vintage ornaments and old Christmas tree lights. On either side of the tray I displayed my bakelite Santa Clauses, reindeers, Christmas boot and a variety of items from the 50's that I have collected over the years.

On the other side of the dining room I have an antique pie safe. On top of that is this beautiful hand made clay bowl with the blue mussel shells around the edge that I bought in Cape Breton last year. For the holidays it now holds a collection of vintage silver mercury glass ornaments.

This is a photo of the pie safe before I decorated the mussel shell bowl so you could see what it is. It actually was made so that women could put their pies in there to cool off after they baked them and was usually found on a back porch or back hall of the house. I have all my wine glasses and china in the pie safe now as these old Victorian Houses never had many closets so everything that can hold something is filled to the brim.

More holiday decorating tomorrow...

later,

carol

Holiday Nest

Let the decorating begin! The wreaths are up, the white lights are twinkling, the flower boxes have greens and grapevines and ribbons and bows and we are now in the full bloom of decorating the inside of the house for Christmas. I just love getting out all the Christmas boxes and going through my collection of vintage ornaments and old trees and glittering houses from my childhood. The special ornaments that the girls have made over the years we have still saved and hang religiously on the tree.

So much going on that I will do a post later this week with many of my favorite decorating ideas.

For now, I have added some glitter to this special little nest that I found in our Christmas Tree many years ago. We were in the woods looking for a tree to cut down for Christmas. I spotted one that looked quite nice and when I reached into the trunk to shake off the snow, I found this absolutely perfect little nest huddled against the trunk. We chose that tree for our Christmas tree that year and I have kept the nest ever since. The nest is always filled with 3 blue eggs to represent my 3 beautiful daughters and now I have added a few vintage mercury ball ornaments to give it a little touch of holiday spirit.

Much more to come so stay tuned,

later,
carol