Aiken House & Gardens: The Christmas Cottage

Aiken House & Gardens: The Christmas Cottage

If you want a treat, just browse through this blog for few minutes!  You won't want to leave!
I'm going back now......

QUICK BREAKFAST

We all should eat breakfast! Everybody knows that. But do we eat breakfast every day? I don't. Or I should say I didn't until recently. Now that I'm older and wiser, I'm trying to change my ways. LOL!!!!

We know that breakfast gets our day off to a good start. It furnishes our bodies with the fuel we need to do whatever we need to do, and it also gets our brains functioning! We make sure our children eat breakfast....why don't we do ourselves the same courtesy? Excuses, excuses: no time, late for the bus, no time, gotta get the kids to school, no time, early morning meeting at the office, no time, want to get started right away on a new exciting project, no time, ......and on and on!!!

So here are a couple of great recipes to help you get your day off to a good start.....and they are QUICK!!!! I PROMISE!!!!

FRUIT SMOOTHIE

1/2 cup crushed ice

6 oz or 8 oz container of fruit flavored yogurt

1/2 cup sliced fresh fruit of choice (I used fresh strawberries)

Place all ingredients in your blender. Press the PULSE button a couple of times to get the ice moving, then press BLEND for about 15 or 20 seconds, until all ingredients are mixed and smooth. Pour into a pretty glass with a straw, or into a travel container ready to take in the car. SMOOTH, REFRESHING, DELICIOUS!!!!

HINT: if you don't have crushed ice, place a few cubes in a baggie and release your frustrations with your meat mallot!

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SUNRISE PARFAIT

6 or 8 oz serving of vanilla non-fat yogurt
1/2 cup sliced fresh strawberries ( or fresh fruit of choice
1/2 cup of whole grain breakfast cereal (with or without nuts)
A PRETTY PARFAIT GLASS or BRANDY SNIFTER!

Layer each ingredient in thirds in a lovely glass container (why not make it pretty? It doesn't take any longer!) Eat and enjoy a great day!!!

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There you are - NO EXCUSES!!!! These take less than a minute to prepare, and one is even ready to go out the door with you!

Happy Breakfasting!!!

So Pretty!!!!

It was a gorgeous morning here in Miami......we had our coffee on the patio.

I was looking around the back yard, and couldn't resist. I went for the camera, and here are a few snapshots I took around the yard.

If you have any questions, or would like specific information about these, please be sure to leave a note. I'd love to hear from you.

Lilmom!

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Orchid!
















Ochid closeup.






















Hibiscus
















Hibiscus branch
















Hibiscus closeup.

















Bird having breakfast!
























Ruellias































Ruellias





















Mexican Fire Vine - neighbor's plant, but it likes our side of the fence!

























Bougainvilla - neighbors plant, but it likes our garden shed roof! We do have our Bougainvilla on the other side of the yard.























Miniature Red Rose in a pot.

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Please come by again.....we'll have the coffee on!

You Have To Have A Vision...

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Gardening Project: Transplanting Small Silver Buttonwood Trees – East end of the yard.

This week, My husband, Pete, cleared out an area of our back yard that had overgrown shrubs and room for little else.

You can see two small Buttonwood shrubs laying in their approximate spots ready for transplanting. I dug them out from the front yard.

The holes are dug and filled with water to check the drainage.

You can see the size of the hole is twice as wide as the rootball of the shrub. And is only as deep as the rootball.


Once planted in their selected spots, I also moved a medium sized Croton back near the fence to add a little color contrast in the area.

Then I outlined the two Buttonwood plants with some small divisions of Agave to delineate a path to the Croton area.

Each of the Buttonwoods’ branches are clipped halfway to encourage branching, and reduce the amount of stress on the plant from the transplant.

For complete information on the care and maintenance of Buttonwoods please click on the following link:
http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/trees/CONEREB.pdf

And for the information on care and maintenance of the Croton:
http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/shrubs/CODVARA.PDF


So now the transplanting is done. We’ll come back for another few snapshots in about 6 months….you’ll be amazed at what you see. With any good luck at all, these two little shrubs will be well on their way to become light shade trees. Hopefully they will look a lot like their twins in another part of the yard. See below:
Thanks for stopping by!

LILMOM

Another Accomplishment this week! Broccoli!

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Besides the Doctor's Visits, Grocery Shopping, Gardening, and Strawberries, another thing I did this week is prepare an abundance of fresh Broccoli.

I cut the heads into small bite size pieces, and blanch them in boiling water for 1 minute. Then I immediately scoop them into a bowl of ice water.














This stops the cooking. And they are ready to package up for the freezer, or put them in a container for the fridge until ready to use. They are perfect for cold salads, dips, hors d'oevres or you add them to your favorite recipe for a hot entree with dinner.


I also prepared the stalks in a similar way, to use in soups or chopped up in stir fries.
OOPS!!!! That was the last straw! Notice the water now overflowing the lip of this bowl!
A little extra cleanup time!!!!

Oh well - stuff happens!

Then they are drained and packaged up into serving sizes. Some for the freezer, and some in the fridge for immediate use.

Here is a recipe I found online this week: from Gourmet magazine:

CREAMED BROCCOLI WITH PARMESAN
yield: Makes 4 servings
active time: 20 min
total time: 30 min
Broccoli seems like something new in this rich, satisfyingly chunky side dish, dolled up with parmesan and lemon juice.

Ingredients
1 bunch broccoli (1 1/4 pounds)
1 cup heavy cream
2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
3 tablespoons grated parmesan
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Preparation
Peel broccoli stems, then coarsely chop stems and florets. Cook broccoli in boiling salted water (1 1/2 teaspoons salt for 4 quarts water) until just tender, 4 to 6 minutes. Drain in a colander and run under cold water to stop cooking.
Simmer cream, garlic, nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a medium saucepan, uncovered, until slightly thickened and reduced to about 2/3 cup, about 5 minutes.
Add broccoli and simmer, mashing with a potato masher, until coarsely mashed and heated through, about 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in parmesan and lemon juice.
Cooks' note: Broccoli can be boiled 1 day ahead and chilled.

What a Week!!!!

Busy, busy week this week. So no new blogs till now.

We had routine follow-up appointments with two doctors - all is well!

We were out and about a couple of other days....a fun thing was going to see our two youngest grandsons ages 6 and 8 at their Little League Baseball Practice. Their first game was Friday Night.

It was really nice to see so many young boys and girls participating, and especially nice to see so many supporting parents, family siblings, and grandparents (like us) in the bleachers! Even in a big Metropolitan area like Miami, being at the ballpark just feels like a such a wholesome, comfortable, hometown atmosphere.

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So, now about home......

Remember I mentioned this being peak season for strawberries in South Florida? Well I got 4 more quarts, and one day this week, I managed to get them ready for several desserts.




Here is one quart, all sliced and ready for the scant 1/8 cup of sugar - just enough to extract the juices. Then they are ready for a colorful and delicious dessert. I prepared all 4 quarts this way. Three of them went into the freezer - ready for guests next week. The 4th quart is in the fridge - ready for tonight's dessert!

And there, next to it, is one of the jars of last week's Strawberry Preserves - half empty already! (That's our second jar - and I've given away two!) Guess I better make some more.....

Below is the recipe I use for my Strawberry Shortcake:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup better or margarine

1 beaten egg

2/3 cup low-fat milk

3 or 4 cups prepared sliced strawberries (as above)

1 cup whipping cream

Sift dry ingredients together. Cut in butter/margarine until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (We use to say "till peas"). Combine egg and milk; add all at once, stirring just enough to moisten.

Spread mixture in a greased 8" or 9" round pan, building up the edges slightly.

Bake at 450 F for 15 to 18 minutes. Remove from pan; cool on rack 5 minutes. Split into layers; lift top off carefully. Butter bottom layer. Spoon berries and whipped cream between layers and over the top. Serve warm.

Ummmmmmmmm! Pure GOODNESS!!!

A Bedroom Should Be a Sanctuary

Welcome to my home.

It feels a little strange to be showing a bedroom first, but since it was the first room I re-finished when we bought our home, it's the first room I'm showing.

It's always been my feeling that a Bedroom should be a sanctuary. A room in your home that makes you feel safe, loved, and at peace. A room that you can 'escape' to when you need to renew, re-group, or restore peace in your life. And a room that brings you joy every time you walk into it.

When we bought our house, every wall, ceiling, doors and trim - both inside and ouside, were whitewashed with a glaring PURE WHITE glossy enamel paint. Including our Master Bedroom.

This felt like anything but a sanctuary to me!













So I made some changes. Our circumstances were such that we continued to live in our home in New England for several months after we purchased this South Florida home. Since I was retired and staying at home, but my husband was still working every day, I came down to Florida for six weeks and started painting! In that 6 week timeframe, I managed to re-paint every single room in the house except the two bathrooms. WHEW!!!

Of course this was possible because our daughter and her husband and two boys live just around the corner from this house. I was fortunate enough to have them bring me to the local Home Center store to buy my paint and other equipment as I did each room. And every single evening, at suppertime, I just had to take a little walk around the corner and supper was ready!!! And I got to meet many of my new neighbors on the way! It doesn't get any better than that!!!!

Since the focus of this particular blog is supposed to be the Master Bedroom, I'll come back to that now. :)

Of course I had a plan. I'm ALWAYS planning! My husband thinks I can't live without my graph paper, pencil, eraser, and ruler! LOL

I had the bedroom floors recarpeted with a sculptured, textured ivory carpet.

I painted the walls, window frames, doors and trim a much softer ivory white.

I made new curtains for the windows. This was such a bargain. We found the fabric on a marvelous sale at $6.00 per yard! UNHEARD OF!!!!!

And by the way, the watercolor painting hanging over the bed is one of my own paintings - another passion of mine.

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And here are 'before' and 'after' shots of the opposite wall of this room:

That's about it for this room. I hope you enjoyed your little tour. I think my next blog might be about one of the Guest Rooms, or a bathroom, or the MAJOR changes we made to the Living/Dining room. Who knows.

Thanks for visiting, and please come again!!! I'll have the coffee on.

Lilmom

p.s. The little painting to the right of the slider is another one of my watercolors.