easter aftermath

 Hello! If you observe Easter or Passover, I hope that you had a lovely celebration with family or friends this past weekend. Twelve of us family members gathered at my mom's house on Sunday for Easter dinner around her beautifully set table.

 We had so much food! The main dishes were ham (Mom got a nitrate-free one at Trader Joes) and pasta with a homemade marinara sauce. The buffet was set with those dishes plus all the sides that everyone brought ~ sweet potato souffle, corn casserole, tossed salad, glazed carrots, mashed potatoes, and marinated asparagus. We have a few lactose-intolerant people in our family, so we try to make as many dairy-free recipes as possible. I'll post the recipes for my own creation of glazed carrots and the marinated asparagus at the end of this post. Both were gobbled up and raved about. Mom also made homemade rolls and had them warm in a basket on the table.

My sister made the prettiest spring jello salad!

For dessert, Mom made this gorgeous chocolate cake with strawberry buttercream frosting from the March 2015 issue of Better Homes and Gardens. You can find the recipe here.

 Even better than the food was being with family. My teenage nieces never let me take their photo. Typical at this age, right? But yet they'll do selfies. I don't get it. I guess because when they do selfies, they're in control of the photo. OK, I do get that from a teenage point-of-view. I wish teenage girls could somehow realize how truly beautiful they are instead of being self-conscious and critical of themselves. I love my girls and hope they can spend a weekend at their Auntie Mimi's (that's me!) house soon. My oldest niece will be graduating high school this year. So hard to believe. How did they grow up so quickly?

My handsome cousin enjoyed his food out on the deck. He is so kind and warm-hearted and has always been there for me ~ yes, even through my own gawky, critical, self-conscious teenage years. He's six years older than me, so I always looked up to him. Of course, I thought he was so cool, too. He had the best disco records.

 

My mom - superwoman of the day! And her little fluff ball, LuLu, too.

Lastly, me and my "baby". The sun was so bright, so pardon my squinty eyes. Tim was smart and chose to keep his sunglasses on.

 

GLAZED CARROTS

(Recipe by Melanie Riley)

1 lb organic carrots, peeled and sliced into coins

4 T organic cold-pressed coconut oil

3 T organic pure maple syrup

2 T whiskey or bourbon

Salt & pepper, to taste

In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt the coconut oil. Add the carrots, give them a stir, and then put a lid on the pan. Turn the heat to medium-low and let simmer in the oil for about 10 minutes, or until carrots are tender. (Check them with a fork; if not tender enough, cook a couple of minutes longer.) Stir in the maple syrup and whiskey (or bourbon). Add salt and pepper to taste. 

MARINATED ASPARAGUS

2 lbs fresh asparagus

3/4 c quality olive oil

1/2 c white wine vinegar OR white balsamic vinegar

1 T dried basil

2 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

2 garlic cloves, minced

4 green onions, chopped

Place asparagus in a large skillet. Add 1/2" of water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer for 3-5 minutes or until crisp-tender. Rinse in cold water and drain. Refrigerate 2-3 hours. Arrange asparagus in a shallow dish. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over asparagus. Let stand at room temperature for 1-2 hours before serving.

joyous, magical and busy

Well, it's over for another year. All the planning and preparing and then the holidays go

by in a flash. I said a few days before Christmas that I couldn't wait for it to be over, and

 that day is here. But truly ~ I had a wonderful Christmas and loved the time spent with family.

Christmas Eve, we met Brian's father and two of his sisters for dinner at a restaurant. The

 place was packed and service was a little slow due to the busyness, but everyone was in 

such a good mood that it didn't matter.  

 My sisters-in-law surprised me with a Le Creuset dutch oven! My mouth actually

dropped open when I opened this. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that

I love to cook. And since I cook a lot, I appreciate quality cookware. Le Creuset is my

favorite, but let's face it, who can afford it? Not me. The only piece I had before this is

a saute pan - which I won in a blog contest over a year ago. I use the saute pan all

the time and it cooks food beautifully and cleans up so easily. And the pan still looks

barely worn. I can see why this cookware lasts "forever" and can be handed down

generations. This gift - to me - is more precious than gems. Forgive the poor quality

photo...I took it with my phone the minute we got home. As you can see by the clock

in the background, it was almost midnight. Yes, I was excited.

After dinner, we then went on to my aunt and uncle's house. They host Christmas

Eve festivities at their house every other year when their son (my cousin) and his 

wife fly in from Washington. I had forgotten my camera and only took a couple

of photos with my phone, so no pics to post of the goings-on that night. I don't

 think you would be interested in seeing photos of my aunt demonstrating

 how to use squat toilets in China or us sitting around a dining room table discussing

the stock market and Sweet Brown videos.  

Tim had to work on Christmas Eve until Christmas morning at 1:00 a.m., so he didn't

get home until 3:30 a.m. He immediately headed to the kitchen and started heating up

food in the microwave, so that's what woke me up. I got out of bed and went into the

kitchen to give my boy a hug and talk to him for a bit. Between that and waking up

numerous times to use the bathroom and shoo the cats out of our room, I was thankful

that we could all sleep in on Christmas day. I made a breakfast casserole and the

three of us relaxed in the living room with our food and coffee, opening gifts and

talking and laughing at the cats playing in the wrapping paper and gift bags.

 

In the afternoon, we went to my sister's house for more festivities.

 What is with teenagers and not wanting to have their picture taken? My boys

did the hands-over-their-face thing too, when they were teens. We had a ton of

wonderful food...appetizers of smoked salmon dip and crackers, guacamole and

tortilla chips, spiced nuts, and party roll-ups, and then Italian beef sandwiches, 

ham, tamales, smoked rib tips and three-layer Christmas jello salad for the meal.

The jello concoction was made by my second cousin, Greg in memory of his mother and

 her sister (which would be Greg's aunt and my grandma) : they used to take turns making

 this dish for family Christmas dinners. Homemade Christmas cookies and my
 mom's homemade French Silk Chocolate pie were on the dessert table. 

With Tim being away at school now, he doesn't get to see his cousins often. And now

that they're older (Tim just turned 24; my nieces are 18 and 16), they all seem to be

much closer. I think when they were younger, the age difference was that Tim thought

of them as pesty little girls (even though he loved them). I love seeing their relationship

evolve, much like mine did with my cousin, Greg.

 Today I actually de-Christmased the entire house! I do this every year on the 26th.

 For me, Christmas is over and 3-1/2 weeks was plenty of time to enjoy the decorations.

I just kept filling up the laundry basket with decorations and Brian made several trips

downstairs to pile everything all over the bar. The hard part will be packing everything

away properly. We ran to Target in the afternoon in hope of scoring gift bags at 50%

off, but we were too late. There was nary a one. We decided on not using traditional

wrapping paper anymore and starting next year, will use brown kraft paper.We found out 

that wrapping paper isn't recyclable! Did you know that? But the brown kraft paper is.

 And it can be decorated in many ways with rubber stamps, doodles and drawings,

 stickers, ribbons, and other embellishments.

However you chose to spend your holiday, I hope it was filled with lots of love.

The best gift of all.

love ~ and a few goodwill finds

Once again, I'm apologizing for being MIA from blogging for awhile. I really

haven't done a lot in my home or garden lately - nothing worth blogging about,

anyway. I've been away from home a lot with physical therapy, doctor appointments,

 yoga classes, and errands. Though there's been some fun things thrown in too,

like retirement parties, a birthday celebration, and Mother's Day. This is me

 and my mom in 1963. Wasn't she adorable?

 My own "baby" came home last weekend for Mother's Day. As usual, it sure

was good to have him home for a few days. We went to my sister's house, so

I got to spend time with my two nieces. I don't see them often, so really miss them.

I have no idea what was so funny, but it doesn't take much to make teenage girls

collapse with laughter. And no, that Lite beer does not belong to my niece!

 I ran into Goodwill today since it was their monthly scratch-off coupon day.

I only picked up a few things...I'm still working at getting more things out of here

than I'm taking in.

 I love this basket. I can use it in the living room to hold magazines,

on the kitchen table to use in a centerpiece, or outdoors to hold potted plants.

I might tape off the basket and spray-paint the metal.

I'm going to use this metal colander as a planter. I am so behind in getting containers

of flowers planted this spring. Our weather here in northern IL has been so cool

and rainy. It's been feeling more like March and early April rather than May. This

morning when I woke up, it was only 38 degrees!

 

I collect small white pitchers and it's a bonus when they're from Europe. This one

is Ironstone from Spain.

 

I also found this blue and white plate marked Royal Staffordshire, Cathay Ironstone,

by J&G Meakin, England. 

 

It'll join the other blue and white plates on top of my fridge.