Garden Bloggers Bloom Day ~ December 2009

Find more blogger's blossoms at Carol's place. She's the inventor of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

Mini Roses enjoy the view from my sunny window.

Truth be told I don't care for my house all that much. It's old and desperately in need of updating. But, it has this bright, sunny window that always brings a smile to my face.

In fact, that's why I fell in love with the joint. That and the fact it's located across the road from a nature preserve that makes for some interesting sightseeing.

Paper Yellows

Paper Whites are ever so popular but I see too much white in winter. To get a job in my sunny window you need to be a warmer color. :)

Giganto Amarylis!

I had big ideas for this place 7 years ago. A fixer upper! I was naively excited ~ how hard could it be to fix up an old house?
 

Turns out, way too hard. I'm better at planting flowers than I am at pounding nails. :)

* I've got lots of indoor bloomers for GBBD, though they won't be here for long. I've grown most of these little darlings for Christmas gifts.

Cookie Cutter Creativity

Back when I had a real job... whenever I wasn't doing a good enough job... my boss would crab at my lack of creativity and accuse me of taking a cookie cutter approach.

That was a confusing way to insult me because I've tried to make perfectly consistent cut out cookies since my daughter was a baby and it's a whole lot harder than it looks.

This is my theory as to why most of us leave the creative cookie cutting to Pillsbury:

After we turn 40, we figure out that women's magazines are filled with re-touched photos of flawed people.

Once we realize that Angelina Jolie could very well be fat and ugly in real life, we feel a whole lot better about ourselves.

For some odd reason, we haven't quite accepted the fact that food photography gets the same specialty treatment.

I can assure you that it does.

I once spent 16 hours at a photo shoot because a far too meticulous art director needed to place the peas in the pasta salad in precisely the right spots.

While I suppose that works for magazines, it's no fun at all in real life.

So, perhaps we could just ignore those unrealistic standards. Haul out the cookie cutters, roll up our sleeves and think... Picasso, Dali, and Pollock ~ Oh, yeah! Most definitely Jackson Pollock!

Because there are a whole lot of creative masters out there who happily failed Art Class 101.

Simple Sugar Cookies
No matter how they look, they all taste delightful. This recipe makes 3 dozen average size cookies or 1 gigantic cookie sculpture (in case you'd like to pay tribute to Gaudi!)

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1.5 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 1.25 teaspoons baking powder

Meet my Cookie Monsters:

How to:

1. Beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in egg and vanilla.
2. Add flour and baking powder in intervals. (Dough will seem too dry but it will improve when chilled.)
3. Divide dough into four equal parts and refrigerate about an hour.
4. Roll out dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper, 1/4 inch thick for crisp cookies or 1/3 inch thick for soft cookies.
5. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters and and bake for 7-8 minutes @ 375 F.

 

Hot Tip!

Be sure to eat lots of cookie dough.

This dramatically reduces the amount of time you spend baking the cookies.


* Cookies need no adjustments when baking at high altitude.

Wordless Wednesday: Flowers in my Sunny Window

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Post Muertos Earring Party

Our very own blue light special! Pretty Christmas decorations lighted the path from my place to L's house for her annual drool fest ~ aka Stocking Stuffer Earring party.

L is, without a doubt, the most creative traveler I know. She vacations for a month in Mexico every year. While down there, she shops for gorgeous goodies to sell back home and pay for her travels.

Handmade figurines, beautiful scarves and silver jewelry...

Screaming deal price tags make these goodies extra pretty. Lucky girls on my Christmas list get a bauble, or two.

This is the necklace I wanted, but I was good. I refrained. 'Tis, after all, the season to be shopping for other people. (Yeah, yeah. That required a whole lotta willpower I rarely possess!)

What's with the skulls? 
* El Día de los Muertos (All Souls' Day) is a Latin American celebration to remember friends and family members who have passed. They're not meant to be scary. The little skull in the above photo is made of sugar ~ a tasty little treat L whipped up for her guests.

Maniacal Ovens and Spritz Cookies

If you bake one cookie this holiday season,
make it a Spritz

Spritz, the yummiest of all the buttery little morsels, are made with a cookie press. If you're a perfectionist, that should give ya fits.

It's not so bad for me because we generally eat all the dough before the oven is preheated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For years, I suspected my oven hated me. It would bake too hot, or broil too cold. Friends accused me of being childish and immature for blaming the appliance.

Last year, that #!%*! oven decided to quit baking on December 23rd ~ so, we had to broil our Spritz Christmas cookies! They weren't very pretty but they still tasted great.

Who's crying now?
Sure, I could have recycled it. But, deep down, I knew it was possessed. So, I happily hauled that mean-spirited oven away to a place where it will never (ever!) be able to foil another baker's plans.

Yummy Spritz Cookies
* If you can refrain from eating the cookie dough, this recipe makes 4 dozen.
1 cup butter
3 egg yolks
2.5 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

How to:

1. Mix the butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla. Add the flour and mix by hand.
2. Spoon into cookie press and press onto cookie sheets.
3. Sprinkle with colored sugars. (Or, use red and green food coloring on smaller batches of the dough.)
4. Bake @ 400 degrees for 7-10 minutes.

* Cookies require no recipe adjustments when baking at high altitude.
** Do not, under any circumstances, try to lighten up this delightfully high fat recipe! ['Tis the season to not fret about such things....]

Festive Flowers

 Edna, my prehistoric Christmas Cactus, has been with me since my college days.

When I think of Christmas colors, I naturally think of red and green. Yet everything that's blooming in my house is a happy hot pink!

I'll readily admit that eleven months out of the year Edna (the Christmas Cactus I've had forever) is the homeliest houseplant I own. Her 12th month makes up for everything. 

This holiday season she's getting some serious competition from Snowball, my white Christmas Cactus.

And, this newcomer, with deeper pink blossoms, who gets a picture but not a name. Not yet, anyway.

I'm not nearly as crazy as you might think. I don't name my houseplants until they've been living with me for a good, long time. At least a decade.

Edna is so old she doesn't like to discuss the real numbers any more. (Hmmm... neither do I!)

Jane's Azalea

This kid's got a long ways to go. A gift from a good friend last holiday season. I'm not the fortunate one who can grow Azaleas outdoors but with a little luck and some TLC this young lady should decorate my sunny window for many years to come.

Seaside Shenanigans!

Electric pink wild roses bloom ecstatically along the Oregon Coast.

What began on a whim last Thanksgiving is happily turning into an annual Big Life Adventure.

Hydrangea withers to a pretty plum as autumn leaves begin to turn.

Our new tradition is to gather with family and friends for a Thanksgiving feast. And, then...

Hop a plane to Oregon the following morning to burn what we gobbled!

Beach combing with our noble steeds at Bay Ocean, Oregon

Cape Mears Lighthouse is also home to the famous Octopus Tree ~ which I'd love to show you, were it not for the fact that I forgot to take a picture of it.

If you've never been to the Oregon coast may I suggest that you abandon this blog right here and now and go book yourself a flight?

Because my photos can't do justice to the breathtaking scenery and ocean side horsey back rides in this very special place.

Wild roses flourish, protected by driftwood. How they grow so well in beach sand is beyond me...

We shared the sunsets with plentiful pelicans ~ whom we hoped weren't carnivorous. (Let's blame that irrational fear on Alfred Hitchcock.)

Base camp is the historic ~ and hopefully haunted ~ Happy Camp Hideaway Homestead, built in 1906 on Netarts Bay, Oregon. (They've fixed it up a bit since this photo was taken.)

We can thank our own personal vacation planner, M, for this great getaway.

"It takes a long time to grow an old friend."
~ John Leonard

M and her paint pony, Royal.

The Gang
(That's me in the green hat.)