Sunday, January 3, 2010

another year, another decade

merry christmas and happy happy new year!!! welcome back everyone, and i hope that all was merry and bright.

the husband and i stayed in NYC this year, just the two of us. it was quite relaxing and a blessing not to travel, but we missed our families dearly. here is our christmas corner, after opening presents and watching Christmas Vacation all day while we prepared our dinner feast.

i started cleaning and setting up the dinner table. candlesticks from my aunt and uncle from our wedding shower, bottles and vessels from our wedding, red beaded placemats from Kmart on sale, paisley napkins from Crate and Barrel, ornaments and gold leaves and berries from Michael's.

i spent the afternoon baking a cherry berry pie, which was so delicious. cherries, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. very simple recipe actually. i topped the pie with the Texas state, in honor of Julia, my sweet Mother in Law. here is what i did:

-Pillsbury pie shells
-Cherry pie filling in a can (i recommend using 2 cans for a 9-inch pie pan if you want ONLY cherries - i only used one and had to improvise)
-Mixed berries, frozen

prepare pie pan as usual, with one pie shell on the bottom, cut to fit the pan.
place cherry pie filling inside first.
let the mixed berries thaw to room temperature before placing in pie.
add 2 T of butter. place second pie shell over top, fold in as usual.
you can use any cookie cutter shape you might have that would be fun! i was given this Texas cookie cutter for my bachelorette party last summer, so i used the remaining dough (after cutting to fit the pan), rolled it out and used the cookie cutter! this could be very fun with a star, or snowflake shape around the holidays.
bake as usual! yum.

the menu for the evening's feast:

-top sirloin steaks from Whole Foods (see Brian below grilling in the apartment)
-sauteed green beans
-baked potato
-crescent rolls

we love this grill. one of the gifts from our registry, both an indoor and outdoor George Forman grill.

our table set up for dinner, with our ware that we registered for at Crate and Barrel. thank you to our wonderful parents who sent us another place setting for christmas gifts, we are almost complete!!

finally, the dinner is ready and we feast.

we missed everyone so much this holiday season, but we were so happy to receive so many cards and photos. they are plastering our refrigerator. many happy wishes and may all your resolutions come true this year, this new decade.

5 comments:

Ruth said...

Ohhh, I'm smiling ear to ear.

The apartment looks so pretty and festive, I love your tree. Both table settings are gorgeous. I think we must have ordered you different dishes, from macy's ?

The pie looks and sounds FAB, and I love that TX on top.

What a cute cute husband grilling in the apartment! And what a YUMMY looking feast, wow. ROAST BEAST. :)

I love you both so much, this is splendid.

Happy New Year!

Unknown said...

i wanted to document it for you!! glad you enjoyed the post, i wrote it for you. :)

Julia said...

Well, the only thing that would have made that pie better would be me having a piece of it. It looks delicious! I, too, regret our separation during these holidays but know for sure that this year it was the right thing. You did a beautiful thing- creating the holiday spirit for each other right there in your own home. Thank you for sharing it. Love you and Bri so much!

Anonymous said...
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Unknown said...

Hi Julia!! When we visit this summer, let's make pies galore! We missed being with you this holiday season. Love you so much!