Appetizers Using Bocconcini!

This past summer I hosted an "Evening in Tuscany" party for 12 people, all of them my closest and dearest friends! I do a themed party at least once every summer. It's just so much fun and I love all the planning that goes into it!

Because the party was all about Italy, the tuscany region, I learned quite a bit about the food of the region and Italian food in general!

That's when I stumbled upon Bocconcini, bite size pieces of mozzarella made of 100% whole milk. They are so easy to use in appetizers because they go well with a variety of ingredients and flavors.

But of course they go best with tomatoes, prosciutto, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar!

(I'm doing the hand gesture in Italian for good food!)

If you've forgotten, here's Julia Roberts in 'Eat Pray Love".

Anyway, I thought I'd share some fabulous appetizers using Bocconcini!

I hope you enjoy!!

Jalapeno Boccincini Grills

You can find the recipe here:



Prosciutto and Bocconcini Bites

You can find the recipe here:

Buon Natale



Picture Perfect!

I often think Winter is actually a beautiful season! The brilliance of snow untouched whether it be under sunlit or moonlit skies!

 

So here are a few of my favorite pics!

 

 

 

 

 I actually dream every day of being snowed in! I mean really snowed in!! Cabin like snowed in!! Cut off from the world, with nothing but my family, my dogs, good food, a roaring fire and the speed of my own feet!!

 

I'm not sure how long it would last but I'd love a chance to experience!!

 

 

 

O Tannenbaum!

As you are beginning to suspect I am a second generation German. Both my Mom and Grandmother emigrated to Canada after WWII.

 Christmas or Weihnacten therefore has always been filled with traditions for me and my family. One being we light candles on the tree!

My grandmother brought her original set of these to Canada when she emigrated which I still have!

How pretty it looks, even in a modern setting like this.

So lovely in the evening when just lit! And we mostly don't lite them until Christmas eve which is when we open our presents, another tradition in Germany.

Feeling The Spirit of Christmas

It's been a busy Sunday! Anxious to start my baking I started the morning with some baking!

First the lemon tea cake for Sunday tea!

Then the stollen kuchen on its first rise!

Then the decorating.

I just love the smells of fresh baking and all the warm twinkly lights and candles that just makes the home feel cosy and special!

Tiss the season!

Something a Little Advent..ur..ous!

I grew up with Advent Calendars which was very poular in our German Family! However, these days the traditional Advent Calendars have been replaced by all kinds of ways to ring in the Christmas season. 

Here are a few I found that were slightly off beat and perhaps even for the grown up kid in us!

This is a book Advent Calendar. A fabulous idea for a child that loves books. Something the whole family can enjoy together!

A Whiskey Advent Calendar!Who would have thought!

Another idea is a bottle of wine to mark each day or an assotment of great teas.

And for the girlie girl in the family an assortment of mini nail polishes!!

So there you have it!

What's in your calendar?

Ornamental love!

I'm very nostalgic at Christmas time and although I've been seducded by new trends like everyone else, there are just some traditions I like and can't vear from. Finding the reason for doing Christmas gets harder and harder every year as Christmas becomes more commercialized, and as families change, love ones move away or pass on. So finding the true reason for doing, definately comes what's in your heart that year! And bringing it back to basics is where you got to start! Finding the beauty in it all.

Here are some ornaments that I find beautiful. Something you would find in Grandmother's attic!

Reindeer love!

Although Reindeers have had my heart for the past couple of years never have they been more popular than this year!!!

Here are a few of my favorite pics!! I hope you enjoy!!

You Know You're a Serial Decorator When...

I recently became aware of the term Serial Decorator and instantly I chuckled to myself. OMG that is what I am!

 

How can you tell?

 

Well, here are the signs!

 

1. Your family is no longer suprised at the new arrangement in the living room or any room for that matter.

 

2. You're hiding your decor purchases from your family because "yes you did really need that new pillow!"

 

3. Your storage room looks like Michaels and Home Sense!

 



4. You take more pictures of your interior than you do of your family!

 

5. You spend hours working on an arrangement without a care for anything like supper!

 

 

6. You walk into a decor boutique, and instantly feel the need to straighten the display because you think it could have been done better.

 

7. Although you just put up the Christmas tree, decorations and all, only to find you hate it and will take it all down to start again.

 

8. You get really excited when you see a decor that you absolutly love whether it be on the internet or in a movie and instantly want to change your living room!

 

9. You insist you bought the wrong paint color, and must repaint the entire Living Room wall, while the family looks on in dismay because they can't tell the difference between the 2 colors!

 

 

 

10. And lastly you give your dream home more consideration than you do your bucket list. In fact that is your bucket list!!

 

 So whether you're OCD or just a women doing her thing, I say go forth and decorate! Haven't the family learned anything! If she aint happy ain't nobody happy!!

 

 

 



Lest we forget!

In my family, we hardly spoke about "the war". Both my grandmother and my mother survived the Nuremberg bombing. But it wasn't easy. Their tales were not easily told and mixed with so much  "survivor's remorse" or guilt that oftentimes the subject was avoided because it brought on such heart ache.

 

I, of course, could only imagine what they went through. Years later while visiting Nuremberg, I had opportunities to see the bomb shelters many Germans fled to during the war. One room "caves". I know they had to forage for food often living days or weeks on potatoes and bread. My mom once told me that it became their job to pick up body pieces for identification.

 

I can only imagine what that must have been like.

 

My mom is almost 90. She emigrated to Canada shortly after the war. My grandmother followed a few years later after I was born.

 

Here is a picture of my mom taken a couple of years ago! That's me, on the left! We were attending the 100th aniversary of the Titantic sinking.

 

 

Since then my mother has been diagnosed with lung cancer which has spread to both lungs and her spine.

 

The point of this post, is to remember those that not only fought in the war(s) but those who actually lived through it! These people did not ask for war. Nor did they condone whatever actions war had brought them or asked of them to accept. The innocent are literally caught in the crosshairs of a maniacal few, their lives changed forever.

 

I pay tribute to my mom and grandmother, the children in Dafur, the child soldiers of Somalia, the innocent women and children in Iran and Afghanistan.

 

And to the women and children, of the many men asked to serve their country, whose loved one was never returned home.

 

The famous "Wait For Me Daddy" photo by Claude P. Dettloff in New Westminster, Canada taken on October 1, 1940. The picture says it all.

 

 

 

God Bless those that are still fighting and especially those living through it as we speak!