Under a Blue Moon

Friday Favorites

somewhat compulsive ◊ she wanted to stay ◊ oristano, gatto ◊ books on silver

I received The Farmette cookbook for Christmas and it is just lovely. Beautiful photographs and easy but different recipes. The author has a blog about her experience living in Ireland on a dairy farm
Why New Year's resolutions don't work. I have to say I think the author has a valid point. My New Year's resolution every year is to lose weight. Very vague. This year I decided I would clean up my eating for a month. After the month was over (and I was 15 lbs. lighter) I just kept at it and so far have lost 50 lbs. Short term goals are much easier to achieve and can act as an incentive for longer term results
Aren't these the prettiest marble coasters?
I love to start the new year with a sparkly clean house. It's my end of year ritual to spend the days leading up to New Year's day by scrubbing everything to within an inch of its life. I think I might need to attend maid school to up my game (doesn't The Starkey International Institute for Household Management sound like a book by Lemony Snicket?)

Is anyone else feeling relieved that the rush and bustle of Christmas is over? We had a lovely quiet evening with my mother in law on Christmas Eve and then spent a boisterous Christmas day at my dad's. But now that it is over I am happy to put away all my Christmas decorations and do the aforementioned cleaning. Then I'll light a fresh scented candle and welcome the new year.

Happy Friday everyone!

Pear Custard

If you want to bake something that is easy, tastes fabulous AND makes your house smell incredible then I have the recipe for you. This is my mother's pear custard recipe. I'm not sure where she got the recipe because she was an insatiable cookbook collector as well as fabulous cook.

I made this for our Christmas Eve dinner as a special treat for Rick. He especially loves pear custard.

I find pears are a bit like avocados in that you can only find rock hard ones at the grocery store and there is about a 20 minute window when they are perfectly ripe and then they quickly turn into a sad, liquidy mush. I lucked out and found some that just needed another day before they were perfect.

This is an especially easy recipe. The most time consuming part is peeling and cutting the pears. All the remaining ingredients get thrown in a blender and then poured on top.

I've never found that a particular pears works better than another. I tend to use Bosc but this time I used Bartlett. The only real difference is the Bosc pears look prettier because they are longer and you can see the pattern better.

On to the recipe!

Pear Custard

Six ripe pears, peeled and quartered
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup Half & Half
3 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350º. Spray a 9-inch round baking dish with cooking spray (or rub it with butter) and arrange pear quarters in a pleasing pattern. Mix the remaining ingredients in a blender until smooth and then pour over pears. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Merry Christmas

Friday Favorites

just believe ◊ Bottled Stardust ◊ X-mas House 2 ◊ Bejeweled

Gorgeous theater boxes. I find Dore Callaway's art to be so fascinating – the level of detail is amazing
I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to be travelling around drinking wine "But officer – it's a TO GO cup"
My New Year's outfit
I am looking forward the PBS Little Women series. It is one of my favorite books and Angela Lansbury!

Sorry for the late posting. I had the week off but it seemed like I was busier than if I was working.

I had a fabulous day today – went to San Francisco to see the sights with my sister, brother-in-law, nephew and grand-niece. We had such a lovely time. I did a few last minute gift purchases (one for them..one for me..) and we had a fun lunch and capped of the day with a festive cocktail before catching the train back home. I am so lucky to live so close to San Francisco.

Tomorrow we are going to drop off the play kitchen at my son's house since it would be hard to present it to her on Christmas day so that will be fun to see her reaction. I hope she loves it.

I'll have a post on Christmas but hopefully everyone will be off doing their thing with their family so I want to take this time to say I hope you have the Merriest Christmas and that the upcoming year is full of all the love, hope, and good things you wish for.

Merry Christmas!

If it weren’t for the last minute…

Nothing would get done.

I pulled together a few themed gift ideas. I like going with a themed approach because you can create a really nice and appreciated gift if you think about the recipient and their interests or tastes. I've included links but honestly you could just go out and find these things locally I'm sure. Great for the last minute (my favorite minute, evidently….).

For the indoor gardener lover:

1. Plant mister (70's flashback!) 2. Watering globe ( in an adorable bird shape) 3. Terrarium 4. Gardening scissors (I had a pair that my mother gave me about 30 years ago and I've lost them in the last couple of months. I think they got gathered up in rose clippings and accidentally tossed. I'm gutted.)

For the bartender:

1. Fun cocktail book 2. The best cocktails have a citrus element 3. Muddler (wood is best in my humble opinion) 4. Can't beat a great cocktail jigger

For the budding artist:

1. Bright neon pens 2. Pencils – lots and lots of pencils 3. The best gum eraser (see item 2.) 4. A nice sketchbook

For the beauty guru:

1. Makeup brushes (Real Techniques is a great brush – entry level or for the experienced makeup junkie) 2. Dior Lip Glow (Serious all time favorite lip product – gives your lips a lovely, youthful glow) 3. Essie Gel Couture (I love a pretty, sheer nail and this is just amazing) 4. IT Cosmetics Universal Taupe brow pencil (truly universal – works on everyone)

I have about 75% of the presents wrapped – I do my Dad's shopping and wrapping too so it is triple the work. Goodness that man has a lot of granchildren :) (Love them all). Shopping is 98% finished. I am expecting a few straggling deliveries to show up in the next day or two and then I can call myself finished. I am headed into San Francisco on Friday for a day of pure wandering around and enjoying the sights. I can hardly wait!

Pre-Christmas

How is everyone holding up with all the Christmas preparations? I have a confession to make – and I feel bad for saying this – but I'm really having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. It all feels like one big long to do list after another. I miss that giddy, sparkly excitement I usually feel. Instead it just feels like something to get through.

Bah humbug. Hopefully I'll perk up once I'm done with shopping and wrapping.

One bright spot is watching our granddaughter and how new and exciting everything is to her. She is one and half and is fascinated with all the lights and the shiny things. We are giving her a play kitchen for her big present. I love the retro vibe of the one we got (from Wayfair, if anyone is interested…). Heck – I would cook in that little kitchen if it were real.

Rick assembled it with me handing him parts. I texted my son and told him to be thankful we didn't leave the assembling to him! I will say everything was labeled very clearly and other than being time consuming, went together pretty easily.

We'll add some play kitchenware and I think she'll have a lot of fun with it.

This year's wrapping theme is pastels. Plus side is I get to use up some of my ribbon stash. Along with the surplus of white paper I seem to have.

On Saturday I went wine-tasting in Napa with some of my girlfriends. This is the first time I've been to Napa since the devastating fires earlier in the Fall. The hills definitely looked scorched and barren but the wineries and valley vineyards look just as beautiful and charming as ever. We had an appointment for a tasting at Yates Family Vineyard which is about three or four miles up a narrow, winding road but when we were about 1/4 a mile away the road was blocked and the winery owner was waiting for us. She said that a tree had just fallen across the road and had taken down some power lines which were still live. She said that the area will continue to lose a lot of trees because they were weakened by the fire. Yesterday was very windy in the area and down one went.

We ended up going to a different winery and had a lovely time. It was nice to spend time with friends and support an area whose tourism has been so badly impacted. We are planning a makeup trip to Yates in the Spring.

I am officially off work until the new year which is lovely. Today I'm hoping to finish up my shopping. Wish me luck!

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