Pink Shimmery Christmas Dinner Table

I thought I’d share with you my Christmas dinner table.

This year, Brentan and I were orphans in the Bay Area– neither of our families came to visit, and we couldn’t make the trip to see them in Minnesota or the East Coast. However, it turned out we hosted a dinner for 9 other Christmas orphans in our tiny dining area. The party included friends from India, Australia, and Sweden!

I continued my pink and shimmery theme from my Christmas tree to my Christmas table. I bought some cheap bouquets of white, green, red, and pink flowers at the grocery store and combined them all in three different thrift store vases for a colorful and festive look.

I used my nice wedding china and flatware, and typed up place cards on some pink cardstock using my typewriter.

We cooked up a feast that included a Christmas ham, duck, beet salad, brussel sprouts,  green salad, stuffing, curry, chocolate mousse, cheesecake, cookies, and an apple pie! It was a festive dinner, that lasted long into the night with wine and a few games of Cranium (which I bet you wouldn’t realize is very American-centric!)

I hope you had a very nice Christmas or weekend doing whatever you did!

-Liz

Making Super Super Spicy Vegetarian Enchiladas

Photo by: sarowen on flickr

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday and he wanted me to cook him a Mexican meal. I got out my trusty Rick Bayless Mexican Kitchen cookbook and took to adapting one of his yummy recipes: Spicy Tomato Sauced Enchiladas with Jalapenos and Aged Cheese. These are not the smothered in yellow cheese and filled with ground beef enchiladas (pictured above). They are much more focused on the flavors of the chiles and aged cheese, which is authentically Mexican (as far as Mr. Bayless tells me!).

Luckily, there is a Mexican grocery down the street, so I stopped there after work to pick up a few supplies that I didn’t already have at home.

I needed:

4 medium tomatoes

1 small can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (oodles available at the Mexican grocery, I can sometimes find them at Safeway)

Splash of veggie oil to coat the bottom of a big pot

1 cup chicken broth

6 large corn tortillas

Crumbled queso anejo

Leftover goat cheese from the Pink Christmas Party

Handfull of pickled jalepenos

*The recipe called for one white onion, but I got home from the grocery store and realized I didn’t have one. I just did without it.

 

1. First I made the enchilada sauce:

I roasted the tomatoes in the toaster oven close to the heat for 4 minutes on each side. Then I peeled the skins and coarsly chopped the tomatoes in the food processor with the can of chipotle en adobo.

>>>>>This was my big mistake. The recipe only called for 4-5 jalepenos, and I added a whole can of chipotles. They are super super spicy. I should have added half the can or less. Or added more tomatoes.

While the tomatoes and chiles were chopping, I heated some veggie oil in a big pot. I should have added my chopped onion when it was hot, but I didn’t have one. So I added the tomato/chile mixture. I let this thicken, and then added the chicken stock. I covered the pot and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

2. While the sauce was cooking, I prepared my tortillas by steaming them inside a vegetable steamer. I placed them in the steamer inside a pot with a little water, covered and boiled for a minute or so. Then I left them covered for 15 minutes.

3. I whipped up some rice and beans while the tortillas were steaming and the sauce was simmering.

4. When everything was hot and ready, I dipped both sides of the tortillas in the sauce, and placed three on a plate. I filled the tortillas with a little bit of goat cheese, wrapped them up and topped with more sauce, some crumbled aged Mexican queso and pickled jalepenos.

 

The result was super super spicy. Like on a menu, 4 chiles. Or a man with a red face with steam blowing out of it. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so spicy. Brentan loved it.  I had to grab a glass of milk. Other than the spice, (from the small taste I still had) the sauce had a really good smoky, rich, and slightly sweet flavor. I’ll have to try this again with much less chile!

Luckily, I have enough sauce leftover in the freezer to make more enchiladas, but I’ll have to weaken it by adding more tomatoes.

I think my mouth is still tingling.

-Liz

Hosting Pink Christmas!

Well, I had a killer pink holiday party last night. Thanks to those of you who came!

After a few busts, I’ve learned a few things about hosting a good party. Here are a few of my secrets. Shhhh…

1. Send invites early. I wish I could have spur of the moment parties easily, but my friends are busy and need to plan.

2. Personally send invites. Sending a Facebook invite or evite sure is easy, but it doesn’t beat a personal email or phone call. The more you talk about the party, the more likely friends are to come!

3. Add mood lighting. I hadn’t even thought about a lighting scheme, but a room feels more intimate and party-like with low lights and candles.

4. Avoid the circle of death! Make sure you have significantly more people than seating and creating things to do in different zones of the party area. I spread out wine and snacks throughout my living room and kitchen.

5. Don’t cook. I love to cook good food, but a cocktail party is not time to show off your skills. I bought veggies, cheese, and made a bit of guacamole which were all ready to go 15 minutes before guests arrived. Stress free, and allowed me to chat rather than fuss over food.

6. Have something to do. We had a little competition over who brought the best bottle of wine. Guests tasted different wines over the night and voted on their favorites. It’s a great reason to mingle and chat. The highlight (and competition winner) was a bottle of pineapple wine that was made by a guest!

Without further ado, behold my fantastic pink Christmas tree!

-Liz

 

Pink Vintage Christmas

I’m dreaming of a pink Christmas!

I’m hosting a holiday party this weekend and I came up with a theme last night: Pink Vintage Christmas. But shhhh, my husband thinks its a pink hipster Christmas. Well, the two can be merged pretty easily, but the vibe will be totally non-stuffy and fun.

I’m mostly inspired by this Martha Stewart image, and a few others I posted on my Pink and Shimmery Christmas pinterest board:

And also inspired by a party that was featured in Martha Stewart Living magazine this month, that I can’t find online. But it was shimmery and pink, too!

I haven’t finished decorating yet, but I’ll post some festive pictures of the party.

-Liz

How to Make a Vintage Bed Linen Table Runner

One of the first things I did when I was home for Thanksgiving last week (after sleeping off the jet lag from a red eye flight) was help my mom make a table runner out of these vintage Swedish bed linens. She’s had this piece of fabric for a while, after picking it up at an estate sale (where else?) for $5.

For that price, despite the beautiful craftmanship and fabric, it was worth it to reinvent its purpose rather than let it sit in the closet and never use it on a bed.

First, I cut the fabric to the right size.

Then my mom folded the edges over twice and ironed the seams.

Finally, I sewed along the edges to finish the seams.

It was easy and quick.

Isn’t this vintage fabric fabulous!?

I love how it turned out on the Thanksgiving table. And it can be used again and again. See?

-Liz

Golden Thanksgiving Table

Well, Thanksgiving is over, and again this year I have much to be thankful for. Family, friends, good health, and enough to get by and be happy.

I’m also thankful for fun stuff, like decorating. I’m thankful that my mom likes to collect dishes and housewares so we can put together a beautiful setting for our family to gather.

My family hosted a huge dinner of 20 people for Thanksgiving. I arrived a day early to help my mom cook and prepare. And we prepared this gorgeous golden themed Thanksgiving table.

The china was found at an estate sale, and is vintage deco, probably from the 20s or 30s, and still in pristine condition. It shows how little people use their fine china. The set was for 12 with about 10 extra serving pieces, and we mixed in a few scalloped gold edge plates that my grandma had on hand to accommodate all 20 people (like mother, like daughter!). The marks on the bottom of the pieces vary, some saying Bavaria, some Limoges, and a few other prints. I’m curious about the story there, but may never know.

Mr. Rooster oversaw the dinner on the far wall. My mom has a thing for chickens and roosters. She used to have a few to give us fresh eggs in the morning. The poultry theme extends a bit to the pretty pheasant feathers on top of the plates. They were given to my mom by a good friends who likes to hunt pheasants. 

You can see the gourd-y dessert table I made in the far corner. Fortunately my mom has a gazillion cake plates and platters, which was nice for ALL 5 of the pies we had for Thanksgiving. Yum. My grandma’s pecan pie is to die for.

And here’ s the table right before dinner with plated salads and wine and lit candles. The crystal candlesticks are leftover from my wedding. My mom collected them over the year of my engagement at estate sales and they were centerpieces on all of the tables. I have a set at home, and my mom has about 50 more sets at her home.

The great thing about this table is that it would work well as a Christmas table too. Just replace the white pumpkins with some greenery, and add some red tapers, and you would be good to go!

It was a talkative and fun Thanksgiving. I hope your’s was great as well. I’ll show you later this week how I made the festive runner for the table.

-Liz

Thanksgiving Treats from around the Blogoshpere

I love Thanksgiving. It’s become my favorite holiday as an adult. (Halloween has lost its luster as I’ve grown older).

Unlike last year, when I was planning a chic California Thanksgiving, this year I’m going home to Minnesota to spend Thanksgiving with my mom and extended family. I don’t have to plan a menu, set a table, or cook for hours! Woohoo!

But I kinda miss it.

I find myself emailing my mom asking what I can do to help. What I can bring (halfway across the country). How I can help decorate.

While I’ll get there on Wednesday morning and have plenty of time to help, I find myself looking for good Thanksgiving ideas online.

So I’ve decided to round up a few cool ideas for those of you who might need some Thanksgiving help. This is what I’d do if I was hosting Thanksgiving!

1. Yummmm. Butternut squash shooters. Of course you’ll need to find some cool little shooter glasses, but what a cute idea for a Thanksgiving appetizer! Check out this video:
via YumSugar

2. The Happy Home blog has a natural, minimal table setting that’s perfect for a low-key Thanksgiving with friends. Hmmm, reminds me of Crate and Barrel.

3. I love love love this luxe tablecloth and vintage place setting via HGTV. It’s not traditional, but it sure would make an interesting conversation over dinner. Plus, I have a weak spot for that basket weave/trellis pattern.

4. West Elm has some pretty gold Thanksgiving plates ON SALE! I’m loving all things gold right now, especially these West Elm plates.

5. Speaking of gold, Courtney Out Loud has another beautiful gold and purple themed table setting. And by his description, its totally within reach of a modest budget. I’m just loving that purple and gold pairing!

Any other great Thanksgiving ideas?

-Liz

October Harvest Table

Hi there. Sorry I’ve been neglecting this little blog for a while now. There have just been some exciting things going on in life! (like writing SOWs for work)

I spent last weekend visiting my parents in Minnesota. I was there for just a few days, but got to spend some quality time with my dad and mom, and talking with my mom got me more excited about the blog. We hope to have a few new things up here on the blog in the next month or so. We also all went on a beautiful 4 hour walk around the big park near my house.

My mom and I also had some time to put together a fall harvest table. My dad is quite the epic vegetable gardener, and every piece of produce in the picture was grown by him, including the pumpkins. If you could look out the window just a bit further, you’d see his huge garden.

So this is my mom’s beautiful kitchen. She is always tweaking things, and we brainstormed a few new ideas for the bathroom she is redoing, her bedroom, the living room, and potentially a new light fixture over this table. I suggested something like this lantern fixture from O.co.  Anyways, this is the ‘before’ picture:

It’s nice and open and airy. But not very fall like. We tweaked a few accessories, and added lots of colorful veggies:

I was going for an ombre-like, rainbow effect with the veggies, but they looked better inside the vintage tool box my mom happened to have on hand:

We set the table for four, using some of my mom’s collection of vintage dishes and an old linen bedsheet as a tablecloth. She has endless sets of vintage dishes and linens. I hope she shares the set of art deco china she just found at an estate sale on here sometime. Gorgeous. She said I can’t have it, because I already have a set of china, and she never got one for her wedding. I guess she’s right that you really only need one set of china, but I’m a little jealous.

That’s it! We had a fun morning taking pictures and setting the table.

Anything you’d like to add, Mom?

-Liz

Making Potato Salad with Homemade Mayo

Not my potato salad, from lynn.gardner via flickr

Like I mentioned yesterday, my wonderful husband, Brentan, is here with a short guest post with his super delicious and popular potato salad. This time he made it slightly differently with homemade mayo. It truly made it stand out from past versions! Take it away, Brentan.

-Liz

This weekend I was in charge of both potato salad and pulled pork for our summer weekend BBQ.  I spent most of my time on the pork, and yet it seems the potato salad was the life of our party.  Producing it was simple enough:
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 big ol bag of red potatoes…I think I used about 10-12 small to medium spuds, cut into chunks
- about 1/8 of one very large red onion, nicely diced
- dill (maybe 2 tablespoons?)
- mustard (4 tablespoons?)
- salt (a pinch?  if you cant tell by now I don’t really measure things….)
- 6 hard-boiled eggs
- homemade mayo (1/2 lemon, 2 cups veggie oil, 2 eggs)
INSTRUCTIONS
- cook them taters.  Boil some water, salt it, add the potatoes (covered with water), wait until they are tender to a knife point and the skins are starting to detach…~30 minutes
- Drain the potatos and let sit and cool
- Add the chopped onion, dill, and mustard
- Loosely chop the 6 hardboiled eggs and add to the potatoes
- Make the mayo: Crack the 2 eggs into a food processor and pulse until mixed.  Then turn on the food processor and slowly add the 2 cups of veggie oil until its emulsified…then squeeze in the 1/2 lemon
- Add about 2 giant, overflowing, hopping spoonfuls of the mayo to the potato salad
- mix it all up, refigerate to let flavors meld, and enjoy!
- Finally, look confusingly at the ~1.5 cups of remaining homemade mayo and invent ways to use it in the next 48 hours before it spoils (or, you could just make less mayo….)

Linking to:

BBQ Summer Party

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I hosted a little get together over the weekend. In addition to cleaning up the backyard and house, we cooked and cooked for some delicious food. My hard lemonade, the pasta salad, and the potato salad were definite highlights! Brentan spent quite a bit of time making mole and pulled pork which made for some good sandwiches.  He has a special guest post tomorrow to share his famous potato salad recipe!

It was a beautiful day and so nice to spend it outside with a few friends!

Have you been to any outdoor summer parties lately?

-Liz

PS. You can see my inspiration for the party on my pinterest board!