Now that Thanksgiving is over, I know a lot of your are probably getting ready to start putting up your trees and decorating your houses. We put ours up yesterday and I took a lot of pictures as we went in hopes that I could share a few tips with you! When we were getting our first Christmas tree we went back and forth for weeks on whether to get a real tree or an artificial one. We decided on an artificial in order to avoid the mess of a real tree and not have to deal with issues with our dogs. We looked all around town but actually ended up getting our tree at Walmart. It is an unlit 7.5′ Donner Fir and what we liked about it is that it was so full looking and with the star it is as tall as our ceiling. It’s been really easy to store after Christmas too, we just put it right back in the box it came in and slide it underneath the stairs in our basement. Click here to see more pictures and see how we decorate our tree!
Monthly Archives: November 2011
Roast Chicken Dinner
As the holiday season is upon us, I know a lot of you will be hosting parties and be looking for a great menu for dinner. This one is SO easy, it looks great and has a lot of things that almost everyone likes making it the perfect dinner. A salty and crisp-skinned chicken is stuffed with rosemary and roasted on a bed of crispy rosemary potatoes and served with bacon wrapped asparagus. We make this a lot at home for “date night” just the two of us and then make chicken salad with the leftovers but it’s great for a lot of people. This chicken will serve 4-6 people so all you have to do is make 2 chickens if you’re having more people. Click here to get the recipe and see how it’s made!
Croque Monsieur and Onion Soup
Last Thursday was Beaujolais Nouveau opening day and so I wanted to make a traditional French meal for the occasion. Beaujolais Nouveau is a red wine made from Gamay grapes produced in the Beaujolais region of France. It is the most popular vin de primeur (new wine), because it is fermented for just a few weeks before being released for sale on the third Thursday of November. I really wanted to make Julia Child’s onion soup and the Croque Monsieur is a really great pairing with that. The translation for Croque Monsieur means “bite of man” but it’s really just a ham and cheese sandwich that is rolled, crusted with panko and then pan fried. What I love about this meal is that everything but the soup gets made the night before so it would be perfect if you were entertaining and you didn’t want to be stuck in the kitchen all night. Click here to get the recipes and see how they’re made!
A Day to Give Thanks
I want to wish everyone a very happy and healthyThanksgiving holiday today! I have a LOT to be thankful for this year and I want to share some of that with my followers. I am so thankful to be able to spend this day with my wonderful husband at my parent’s house with our family. I am thankful to be able to still live close and be able to spend these days with them. That being said, it is really hard to be so far away from the other half of our family at this time of the year. The thing I am most thankful this year for is my mother in law. My side of the family has had A LOT of experience with cancer and i really do think that it has brought us all closer together. A few months ago she was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer and has been undergoing radiation. Her strength and determination to not let it slow her down has truly been an inspiration to me. On top of owning her own law practice and keeping a very busy court schedule she has managed to keep her energetic spirit and the sense of humor which everyone loves most about her. Even though my husband keeps a very busy schedule here and we can’t get to Miami nearly as often as we’d like, I just wanted to take some time today to let her know how much we love her and how thankful we are for her and who she is.
Last Minute Thanksgiving Decor Ideas
By now I’m hoping everyone has their menus planned so the food part of Thanksgiving is taken care of but I know some of you may be looking for quick and easy ways to decorate your home for the holiday! I did a lot of decor projects for this fall but I’ll dedicate this post to the fastest and easiest ones that you all could do today and have in time for tomorrow! Click here to see all the ideas!
Chain Mail Necklace
I saw a blog post a while back illustrating how to make a chain mail necklace that was much simpler than this and used their technique and ran with it. I like necklaces that are simple but still make a big statement… I also like the idea of mixing gold and silver, that way you can wear it with anything. This necklace cost me $2.00 to make and I really love it because I don’t think it looks homemade. All you need is different size jump rings and a set of pliers to make this and the best part is that you can design it anyway you want to. I played around a lot with this one, I probably had it 6 or 7 different ways before deciding on the final design. Click here to get the tutorial and see how it’s made!
My New Home Office
I just want to start out by saying that I cannot take credit for a large part of this room… I follow another blog and fell in love with her desk set up, so that was the seed that inspired this whole room. When we moved in we didn’t give any thought to our extra room- we put a bed underneath the window and bought a small desk from target and added the typical dry erase/cork boards, etc. My amazing husband surprised me with a new iMac desktop to help with the blog and other things. Things snowballed from there because we needed a new desk to fit the new computer and by then I was so inspired that we decided to totally re-purpose the room. We wanted to keep the bed in there still and luckily we had more than enough room for it so we started by moving the bed to where the old desk used to be and put the night stand on the other side. Then we used the half of the room where the bed used to be for the desk and a reading corner. I can’t say enough how in love I am with the desk system. It’s the Ikea Expedit Bookcase with the Expedit Desk (which attaches right to the bookcase). I probably had the most fun while re-doing this room figuring out what to put in all the “cubbies” of the bookshelf! This will be a longer post and I want to make sure to let you know where I got everything so I’ll put the pictures first and the explanations after. Click here to see all the pictures and get the details!
Strawberry Rosemary Scones
What I love about these scones are how easy they are. You don’t need a scone pan to make them and it takes the intimidation out of making scones. These would be perfect to make for Black Friday because they pack up really nicely… just grab them on your way out to do your shopping and you’ll have a delicious breakfast while you’re out. They combine the sweet and savory aspect that are great about scones all in one… sweetness from the strawberry jam and the lemon glaze, and an awesome savory aspect from the rosemary! Click here to get the recipe and see how they’re made!
Thanksgiving Turkey, Stuffing & Gravy
First off, I just want to apologize for the poor quality and the lack of the pictures in this post. I wanted to do a post on a turkey and stuffing in time for Thanksgiving but obviously haven’t made mine for this year, so I had to use mine from last year. I only took a few photos and they were taken on my blackberry’s camera so they’re not great but it’s all I have! This turkey is so easy to make and is great if you’re making a Thanksgiving turkey for the first time! You infuse olive oil with lemon and rosemary, and then brush the turkey with it giving the turkey a really crisp and flavorful skin. The stuffing is a walnut and sage dressing and is absolutely delicious and the gravy uses white wine to give it extra flavor. So put aside all the fears of making a turkey for such an important holiday and get cooking because this recipe is not only easy , it tastes great! After the holiday I will post this years dinner with many more pics and tips! Click here to get the recipes and see how it was all made!
Wishbone Napkin Rings
I’m always looking for cool and unique ways to set our table for different occasions, all the way down to how I set up my napkins which is why i love this craft so much. I’ve heard of people taking necklace charms and tying them around napkins and I love the idea. I saw this Jennifer Meyer wishbone necklace on the Barneys website and thought it would be PERFECT for a Thanksgiving place setting… but let’s face it – no one in their right mind would pay 1,200$ for a napkin ring, so I improvised. I had roasted a chicken this past weekend (will do a post on that after Thanksgiving) and set the wishbone aside for this craft. Click here to see how it was made!










