belated weekend wishes

This post was absolutely meant for Friday,

but I could not make it happen.

I decided while cooking my favoritest quiche in honor of

baby Lucas that I would finally figure out

what the hay I put in this masterpiece

so I can finally pass the recipe off to some

very patient party goers who I promised

it to over a year ago.

Belated weekend wishes and happy cooking!

The first element of a non lazy and totally delicious quiche is the flaky

Tart pastry dough from Martha Stewart’s website… find it here.

note the incredible cornucopia in the background.. the best

ten dollars I ever spent.

Once you pull the chilled dough rounds from the fridge, follow

these crust finishing instructions..

*On a lightly floured work surface, roll dough into a 16-inch round.

With a dry pastry brush, sweep off any excess flour;

fit dough into a 2-inch deep-dish tart pan with a removable bottom,

gently pressing it into the sides.

Using a sharp knife, trim the dough evenly with the edge of the pan.

Cover with plastic wrap; chill tart shell until firm, about 20 minutes.

*Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

*Line the tart dough with a sheet of parchment paper

and fill with pie weights.

Transfer to oven and bake until light brown, about 25 minutes.

Remove weights and parchment paper and continue

baking until golden brown, about 5 minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

Lovely golden pastry crusts from ‘scratch’…

scratch is seriously impressive. Right?

Here is where I get wacky and combine my moms recipe

with some totally unwarranted kitchen related confidence.
So, I make either ham and cheese or spinach and cheese quiche…

and you are more than welcome to swap the ham

or the spinach with your vegetable or meat of choice.

For 2 quiche, which is what one recipe of the

flaky tart dough makes, the ingredients are as follows….

For the egg mix..

4 eggs

2 cups heavy whipping cream

( not the healthiest biggest loser type substitute,

but quiche is for special occasions, right?)

1/4 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp salt

add ins..

get creative with your favorite combo of cheese. I mix

1/2 cup jack and 1/4 cup swiss per quiche.

Use either 1 cup of meat or 1/2 cup of spinach.

Lets get started.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

The egg mix always stays the same, but with the add ins,

I seriously experiment every time.

For the egg mix, my recipe requires an electronic mixer.

Instead of lightly beating,

I whip it excessively on high until it is really really fluffy..

I am sure Martha would snicker at this clearly novice move,

but honestly, I find my quiche to be so much fluffier and

such a pretty color when I do this.

While whipping the egg mix, layer your add ins into the empty crusts.

Put the meat in first and then layer the cheese on top.

With each layer, it gets better..

Then, you pour the egg mix on top. Keep it mind that

it may be pretty puffy, so just scoot it out of the bowl

with a spatula and lightly smooth it over,

so not to mess up the cheese layer.

As the quiche cooks, the egg layer will settle

into the add in layer on its own.

Put the quiches on baking sheets and bake them in the oven for 15

minutes at your original 425 degrees.

Reduce the temperature to 300 degrees and bake for 30 minutes,

or until knife comes out clean.

Behold: golden loveliness.

Side note - we saw Monsters of Folk last night at the

Greek theatre and it was super fun. Hopefully, I did not

destroy the sanctity of the music by desperately eating

In N Out after.

The greek theatre is so fun. I am starting to become

really obsessed with the idea of going back next weekend

for the Heart/Bangles concert.

Go Angels! (go chargers(whispery exclamation!) why not?)

like candy

After a trip to Williams Sonoma last friday, where I went

crazy purchasing WS's new stackable cake decorations,

I am totally into cake making. I made a cake on Friday,

and another on Sunday.

A seriously brilliant idea : making your

own personalized cake decorating tower.

Mine consists of Halloween pearls(I love Halloween),

hot pink sanding sugar, GOLDEN cake duster,

and genuine sugar pearls.

**sadly, these are not available online!

My beautifully sandwiched chocolate cake.

So many delicious things in one picture...

Home grown tomatoes, a giant glass cloche,

a dollop of crema on a nice cup

of Nespresso, 2 cuddly bunnies, a fantastic

vintage lurex stripe dress, and a stack of

apparel mags. ahhhh.

Anyway.. enough ramblings. Onto the main event..

the reason behind the 'like candy' title,

the most incredible random cake kitsch from

my new favorite HEYYOYO store on etsy.

These images of small vibrant plastic goodness

make me insanely happy.

CUPIE!

Seriously!

It is worth mentioning that these amazing backdrops are

all paper from the Martha Stewart collection. The best.

get yours here.

Lie to me and tell me how much you love plastic miniatures!

Diary of a Party Planner, part 2

Some serious DYI happening here...

The name cards are looking at completion.

I opted to crop them and attach them to something

super secret and fantastic. Thanks to Meghan

for taking care of business while I cook

and calm myself down.

I'm sure the kids will be delighted when they see they are at the

'kitchen table'.. still A table, after all.

Here is one of the sassiest table numbers you have ever seen.

Pure rustic beauty, and a fantastic use for the leftover

invite cards. A little hand embroidery, a few loose machine

threads, a few pencil lines and we are looking sweet.

Tomorrow my task is beginning the vodka infusion project,

which will conclude with the creation of 2 amazing signature

party drinks. This will be exciting.

Diary of a Party Planner, part 1

And so it begins, the daily trials and tribulations of Party Planning.

This post is the first of many. Currently, I am working on the

table settings. I pulled this 'Pearbrook Farm' wedding

(as I call it... who lives on Pearbrook farm anyway? It is all too dreamy.)

feature out of the Martha Stewart weddings SPR08 magazine last

year.. and I just found it online. take a peek! Swoon-worthy.

This wedding is amazing. More on that later. I love the country

feel and the butcher paper tables with vintage printing.

We are also dying for the unmatched vintage chairs.. but, not sure

that is in the cards. sniff.

I am thrilled to pieces that Corra from the amazing Corrabelle shop

on etsy is willing to carve our art stamps for us! She has an amazing

style and I am so excited about our table settings. Too, she is doing

the table numbers, which, of course, means that I will not have

to embroider them.. and that is exciting!

In need of a fun stamp? Check out her shop.

She is the cutest!

moving on

At long last, the littlest corn is now two and we can move

on to a new party planning extravaganza.

And so I leave you with some images of the beautiful flags

blowing in the breeze...

drumroll please

because we felt the message was important, in addition

to new excitement over our outstanding gardening,

this year party guests will squeal in delight as they take

their very own vegetable head picture.

In other news on this busy day, our succulent fountain is

blooming quite nicely

And a shout out to this new fixture in my office..

give him love people, he has been waiting 30 years in

a dusty box for his blog debut.

Have a good weekend!!

A work in progress

The Flags are still in the to be continued photo folder, but they are

looking really cute. I love the scrappiness of the ripped

muslin ribbon. Then again, I would snuggle up with a

muslin teddy bear in muslin bed linens while

wearing muslin pajamas, if I could. I love muslin.

It's just easy.

and

Just because you need some good old fashioned suspense in your life, 

let's not forget that the extremely sexy picture board from last year

will be getting a new friend this year. 

Stay tuned. 

Knee deep

This year's Ava celebration is this weekend and I am 

finishing up the decor. The same theme, which celebrates

Ava's love for the small plastic wind up toy, will apply. 

Here are last year's flags, which are now hanging in my office. 

They were so precious, but seriously difficult to unwind and store. 

So, this year's evolution of the flags is inspired by these beautiful 

Sophie Cuvelier flags, notice via OhJoy a couple of months ago. 

Great minds, I say. 

I think the felt is a fresh update and seems like it will store well for

my next 20 years of party giving, no?

And so, I am knee deep in felt flags of 10 different colors. Time to start 

sewing this masterpiece.