Almond and Date Truffles:
A while ago I discovered Deliciously Ella's Blog. If you love food, especially healthy food, she will inspire you to head off to the market for new ingredients. I enjoyed seeing the variations to the energy bites that she added.
If you haven't discovered Deliciously Ella's blog yet click here - you're in for a treat! I'm looking forward to trying out her recipe.
Time for a giggle - Don't send a man to the grocery store. I think Jeanne needs to do another comedy routine... Don't send a woman to the hardware store... but that's another story.
Happy New Year!! I don't know about your area, but the streets around our area were so quiet. No noisy parties to be heard anywhere, however, I did wake up at midnight (we must be getting old we'd rather go to bed early on New Year's Eve and read a book than go out) to a frightened, shaking doggie scratching at my face - she'd woken up when she heard the distant fireworks and was having a bit of a panic attack. Happy New Year! Poor little sausage, we had a cuddle till the fireworks stopped and all was well again. So how was your New Year's Eve, as exciting as ours?
Our New Year's house sit bookings are already filling up, so the year looks like a lovely one with trips back to mind favourite puppies and houses. We decided to stay at home over Christmas this year, and just as well as my mum broke her hip at the end of November, and so we were busy running back and forth to hospital to see her. In between times, we enjoyed watching the kangaroos who visited at our back fence...
The last couple of years we have been delighted to see the Christmas Thong Tree appear, in the dunes at the southern end of Lighthouse Beach. (If you're in Port and would like to see it, turn right where the camel rides are held, and keep walking - it's a way down the beach but the exercise'll do us all good after all those Christmas puds.)
I was a bit late in going to see if it had been put up again this year. The end of November I had a phone call, at midnight, in the middle of one of the worst storms we'd had - it was my mum to say, she'd fallen and couldn't get up - she'd managed to drag herself across the room to the phone to call me for help. She'd broken her hip poor treasure, so what with going back and forth to hospital, combined with a rather large share of thunderstorms in our area, I hadn't been able to see if the tree was up this year.
But today, I managed to wander down to see if it was there... and there it was in all it's thongy, Christmassy glory.
Hope your Holiday break was a joyful one - I love all the little moments that happen during the holidays - little memories that linger after the festivities are gone... here's a few of ours...
This year, we voted the Christmas Tree Pavlova - best desert ever. My niece created this delight, staying up to 2am to finish off our Christmas Day pièce de résistance.
Well we're in the midst making Christmas lunch decisions - that is... what culture will we learn from this year, to include in our Christmas lunch? A few years ago my sister-in-law introduced us to the delights of Pierogis - a Polish traditional filled dumpling.
Then when it was our turn to host Christmas lunch, I wanted to include Pierogis on our menu. To my delight, I discovered a great tutorial by Gary 5x5 on youtube on How to make Pierogis. I followed Gary's great tutorials and I was able to surprise my sister-in-law with one her favourite Christmas treats that Christmas Day.
So this year along with Pierogis, I'm not sure what other cultures' treats we will attempt. In the past we've included Hawaiian Ambrosia (now a regular), Ukranian Borscht, Maltese Pasitizzi (I have a great dough recipe if you want it for those), Italian Panettone, and the ever favourite, but has never been repeated, Bombe Alaska - now there's another story which includes a rotten ham, but that will have to wait till another post. I'll give you a heads up though, don't wait till Christmas Day to check your ham!
Some whimsical, creative ideas, for unique table settings can be discovered in this video. Learn tips from celebrated flora designer Raul Avila as he creates his centerpiece and tag along as we speak with several of the other designers to learn their inspiration for their tables.
I found Oscar De La Renta Home at: Quintessence Blog.com - find more amazing information there.