NEW YEAR'S BIRTHDAY

Happy Birthday to my oldest son!

He was born on New Year's Day

31 years ago in New Jersey

temp was -10 for 10 days!

He has been such a joy and is so much fun to be around!  He's my daredevil

so I knew he would like to try something new

on his birthday.

I like to try out new recipes every once in a while.  Since I cooked a traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner and my husband's birthday on the 21st I was in the mood to try something new.  When I found the recipe for Fig and Balsamic Glazed Quail in this month's (Dec 2011) Southern Living, I knew I wanted to try it.  I called Kroger to see if they had quail.  The guy in the meat department had to check and came back and said, "Ummmm, actually we do!"  I said, "Save me 8".

The glaze is made out of fig preserves, red wine, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard and pepper.  It had a rich, wonderful sweet and sour taste.  The quail was a lot smaller than I had imagined, but they actually had a fair amount of meat on them.  I was afraid they would taste gamey, but they had a nice duck/chicken taste and the fig glaze was perfect!

I also had Hoppin' John's for good luck in the New Year, Greens for $$$$, buttermilk mashed potatoes (since my youngest just had his wisdom teeth out a couple of days ago), and glazed carrots.

The glaze for the carrots consisted of chicken broth and a jar of hot jalapeno pepper jelly.

I know my son doesn't like cake very much.  So, I decided to try Bananas Foster.  Years ago (1986) when we lived in Greenville, SC, our neighborhood had a New Year's Eve potluck dinner.  One of our neighbors, The Gibbs who were from New Orleans made Bananas Foster.  First you make a syrup out of sugar, water and egg white.  As it boils, you skim off the froth, see below.

You slice the bananas and poach them in the syrup, add rum, and light it.  Everyone says, "Oh Wow!"  When the flames die down, you scoop up the bananas, sauce and pour over vanilla ice cream (or in my case vanilla fozen yogurt).  Yummy!

Watching the flames !

Perfection!

Happy New Year to all and I pray you all have a very healthy and prosperous and Blessed year ahead!

NEWBORN MITTENS

Pink and blue mittens for my niece's twins who were born at Thanksgiving.  I made them to match the socks below.  So much fun making these little mittens.  

CHRISTMAS OPEN HOUSE

One of my mother's friends

allows us to tour her

home every year to enjoy

her decorations........

Every square inch is decorated.  There is at least one tree in every room and even the banister is transformed into a Wonderland.

The dining room tree is completely white this year.  She does change them around every year.

Some of the decorations on her kitchen countertop.

My great niece came with us and could not believe her eyes when she walked into Mrs. Goodheart's house and saw all of the decorations!

I love the snow village in the den with all of the houses and accessories.  I have one of the original Snow Village houses.

Her kitchen decorated...

Stairs.....

This tree has ornaments on it that belonged to Mrs. Goodheart's mother and grandmother!

Notice the tea service matches the picture on the front of the book!

The master bedroom tree.

My great niece couldn't believe all of the houses in the basement.

And here we are in the foyer.....

This is the Christopher Radko tree filled completely with CR ornaments from top to bottom!  It was absolutely stunning!!  Mrs. Goodheart (that's her real name) loves for people to come by and visit her home during the holidays.  It just puts me in the Christmas spirit when I see her house and I'm so grateful that she allows us to visit and take photographs in her lovely home!  Enjoy and have a Blessed and Merry Christmas!

CHRISTMAS CRAFTERNOON

Every year I mean to make Gingerbread Houses.  This year I bought a kit from JoAnn's and invited my great niece to help us decorate our Gingerbread House.

The masterpiece............

Luckily I read the instructions the night before.  I found out that you have to make the frosting and put the house pieces together 3 hours before you want to decorate it.  I did not read all of the frosting instructions..........or I would have put the piping cone INTO the frosting bag instead of sitting on the counter!

I piped the frosting onto the edges of the pieces and held them together with heavy cans until the frosting was set.

Tai is five this year and had so much fun decorating the Gingerbread house.  I squirted the frosting onto the roof and let her decorate one side at a time.

My daughter, Kelly, helping "glue" a peppermint onto a window.

And my son, Ben, made snowmen for decorations.

Tai adding peppermint around the front door.

I think this will become a family tradition.  I'll buy many gingerbread kits next year!  I think everyone wished they had their own to decorate.

Next, we decorated Christmas beaded necklaces.  My husband had drilled little holes through these erasers that I found at Dollar Tree.

Add string, fun beads and presto........

fun stringing......

beautiful necklaces for Grandmother and her Great Granddaughter!