My Holiday Table Centerpiece - 2011

This link from Southern Living inspired my dining room centerpiece for this season. I'm quite sad that I have to take it down in a few days.





Link to inspiration: http://www.southernliving.com/home-garden/holidays-occasions/christmas-decorating-ideas-00400000059442/page11.html

Here is how I created mine:
1. Free greenery - I asked for the Christmas tree extra trimmings and Walmart gave them to me for free!
2. 50% off Hobby Lobby berry decorations - frosted and unfrosted
3. 50% off Hobby Lobby mercury looking glass votive holders
4. 50% off Hobby Lobby mega red glass candle piece
5. 50% off Hobby Lobby holiday candle
Total price = <$20 for a month's beauty!

Toffee Chocolate Saltines

These snack-worthy sweets are so easy to make! I omitted the nuts. I also thought about topping them with sea salt instead of the crumbs but am glad I didn't because they are a perfect blend of sweet and salty as-is.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/saltine-toffee-cookies/

Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins

I have decided that healthy, homemade muffins are the best way to start a day with breakfast. They are filling, nutritious and easily portable.

We tried this recipe today and it is all a muffin should be. With it coming from Cooking Light, you can count on its health benefits. Another recipe user recommended to add 2T of flaxseed, which I did and it was a perfect addition. I recommend you try this.

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/blueberry-oatmeal-muffins-10000001142034/

White Chocolate Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels

These sweet pretzels were a bite size hit at our 2nd Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. Very easy and inexpensive to make and you could get creative in the future with how they look or taste.

Ideas:
1. color the confectioners coating in any color to match the theme.
2. use all spice with the cinnamon and create a harvest theme
3. top drizzled pretzels with chopped dried cranberries and nuts

Link to recipe: http://www.yourcupofcake.com/search?updated-max=2011-02-26T17%3A22%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7

2nd Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

We did it again, hosted our 2nd annual ugly sweater Christmas party. It was a huge success, especially with almost 100% participation from our guests.

To start it off, Cory and I created the perfect "gag evite" including a photo of him looking dapper in his sweater with a Christmas mug (reference the photo).

I started googling ideas for food about a month in advance which helped me to gather a large amount of options. As I continued to review them, the best started rising to the top. With the party starting at 7, we featured heavy hors d'oeuvres and of course, plenty of sweets.

Here is the list of items we made for our guests, I'll post links to the actual recipes in separate blogs, along with my notes for each.

Hors d'oeuvres:
-Pretzel popppers rolled in parmesan & sea salt (these were the home run of the evening) with beer cheddar dipping sauce
-Vermont white cheddar cheese straws
-Kielbasa served in a savory apricot jam
-Better than Crack, crackers
-Cured Meats & Cheese Platter
-Jalapeno Popper Dip
-Roasted Garlic and Bacon Dip
-Martha Stewart's cheddar shortbread (I do not recommend making these as they were not very good)

Beverages:
-Homemade egg nog (literally, to die for; skeptics beware as you will want to drink the entire bowl)
-Cranberry Sangria
-sparkling grape juice and sodas for our non-drinkers

Desserts:
-My famous sugar cookies with homemade icing
-Cinnamon sugar white chocolate pretzels
-Mini white cake cupcakes with peppermint buttercreme and classic buttercreme icing
-Delicious candies bought from various stores: peppermint bark (from Walmart - the best quality and value around), soft peanut brittle covered in chocolate and English toffee (both courtesy of Trader Joes)

Here is a photo of the entire ugly sweater crew looking truly dynamite. Here's to a successful this year and another next year!

Happy 4th Anniversary!

Today is my husband's and my 4th wedding anniversary. It has truly been 4 wonderful years with the most wonderful man of my dreams and truly a match made in Heaven, blessed by the Lord!

Seeing as how it was our anniversary, my husband made sure my day started out in a wonderful way! Cory, my husband, woke me up and had made a delicious fresh pot of coffee (as he does every morning for us) and then walked me into the study where I was given a lovely bouquet of roses, a gorgeous and huge fuchsia orchid and hold the drums...a new iPod dock! Now I can rock out in the kitchen again. Such a thoughtful man! He received decadent chocolate curl cupcakes (that I found at Walmart, gasp!) and of course, a 1/2 gallon of milk to wash them down.

Around noon we had a lunch date at one of our favorite local restaurants, Tavola Trattoria, where we noshed on their addictive and mouthwatering tomato basil soup and their tri-cheese grilled cheese (goat cheese, mozzarella and parmesan).

Tonight we are headed out to try another local restaurant, Petit Bistro. I'll report back on what I think. I try to give very honest and accurate restaurant reviews on yelp if you want to follow me there (http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=Nxu_yrBkWBClS_vP9bE7Tg).

Cheers!