Annual Cookie Swap 2017

It's a little late to post Christmas, however we had so much fun at the Annual Cookie Swap at our friend, Kathy's home that I wanted to post all these pics for everyone to see.  It was so precious of Kathy to open her home as she has done for the last 4 or so years.  I started the swap years ago and we have moved it around to a lot of our friends hosting, but Kathy has seemed to really

enjoy having it and her house is so suited for all those ladies to come. 

Thank you Kathy for always being available to us!

Just a few pics of the ladies who attended. 

These ladies are also the ladies that attend the Fox Theater with us. 

We call ourselves "The Fox Ladies". 

Look at these beautiful cookies.  I believe Laura above baked these!

Below is a picture of all our cookies displayed for our cookie round that we play.

Usually we all line up and go around 3-4 times until all the cookies are gone.  Then we take them home in a beautiful cardboard box that our hostess provides. When I return home, I usually put each different kind of cookie in a Ziploc back as the cookies stored together all start to taste alike.  That way you have a great selection when you serve or eat.

 Kathy's beautiful white lit trees were certainly a pretty site for all those delicious cookies!

 The camera caught some of us by surprise!

 Look at that beautiful table she prepared for us.

 Look at this beautiful table in the dining room!  All those friends gathered to celebrate!

Most of these beautiful ladies below were the ones that attended the cookie swap, however this is our garden club picture that was at our Christmas Party in the home of

Dawn Davis earlier in the month of December.  She also is a wonderful hostess.

I know each of you had a wonderful Christmas and pray your new year 2018 will be a great one!

Next year consider a Cookie Swap with all your peeps!  It is always loads of fun.

A Southern's Love for Fresh Lady Peas

I wanted to share with you all a true Southerner's love of Lady Peas otherwise known as Creamette 12.  They are the sweetest of peas available.  Many, many varieties are grown by the South Georgia farmers, such as Pink Eyes, Zipper Peas, Little Lady Peas, Crowders and Purple Hull Peas, however the Lady Pea is by far the best!  My children love these peas and when we have a family gathering they always ask for me to make some.  I try to keep my freezer stocked with these peas.

Our love for these peas started a long time ago in Middle Georgia, Columbus to be exact.  My husband's momma and my mother cooked them all the time.  They used to be more readily available to the housewife back in the 50s and 60s.  Now you can't find them unless you go to South Georgia to a farmer's stand.  Even down south where my best friend grew up, you must get in line with the local farmer (if you are on his good list) and put your name down to get how many bushels you want to put up and there is a limit you can ask for. 

In recent years, I would go south with my friend to her home town and we would get lady peas and put them up and then bring them back to Atlanta frozen.  Then I would stock them for the winter in my freezer.  This is a practice that I still do, however this summer we were not able to do this as her freezer there went out.  So, recently when visiting South Georgia for a funeral, we stopped at a local farmer stand on the way home and they had a refrigerator with one bushel shelled for sale.  This is so rare this late in the season since it was September.  Of course, I snapped up that bushel for $32.00 and asked my hubby to go next door for ice for our Costco cooler to get them home. He's always accommodating to my whims, at least usually.

When we arrived home, this was my freezing preparation process:

1. Put peas in a very clean large bowl and wash, taking out any trash you might have in gathering.
2. Put a large stock pot on to boil using a double stock pot with strainer.  If you don't have a double stock pot with strainer don't worry. I used a regular stock pan for years and just strained the hot water off with my colander instead of the strainer inside the stock pot.
3. Add peas and bring to a boil and boil for 6 minutes.
4. Make sure you don't put too much water in as it will over boil.  Just cover the peas.
5. While the peas are boiling, remove the skim that forms at the top, but you won't be able to gather it all.
6. While the peas are boiling prepare your sink by cleaning it extensively.
7. Fill it with cold water, enough to cover peas 
8. Add enough ice so that the water is ice cold.
9. Strain peas and only add peas to the ice-cold bath.
10. Let peas sit in bath for a good 5-10 minutes making sure they are ice cold before removing.
11. Start filling quart size Ziploc Freezer Bags for individual servings. Add a tiny bit of water and start to seal the Ziploc by folding over the bag expelling the air from the bag.  The water will help to push the air out.
12. Place in your freezer after you date and label the bags.

While everyone has a different method of freezing, this one seems to work for me.  I have frozen peas for years this way and it always works. You never want to put them in the freezer while warm as they will sour.

Look for your peas soon as I believe the fall crops will be coming out at local farmer's markets around Georgia.  They will go fast! You will be so glad in January you did.

Happy Freezing!

2017 Gourmet & Birthdays

Saturday night my husband and I hosted the June monthly gourmet group at our home. Since they were all coming to the dinner, I decided that we would honor two of our members for their milestone birthday's that they shared. One was my sweet husband and our friend, Tom Sawyer. 

We had such a great time celebrating even though right in the middle of appetizers in the back yard it started to rain.  So...we pulled the party in the garage.  We had 39 people in attendance so it's not easy to host that many for appetizers in my home.  Everyone came to the garage where we quickly set up tables and brought the appetizers inside.  The rest of the night was spent celebrating with good friends and good food. 

Our menu was some of the boys favorites:

Salads

Italian Pasta Salad

Italian Green Salad

Main Course

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Chicken Spaghetti

Lasagna

Italian Green Beans with Bread Crumbs

Desserts

Birthday Cake of Course!

Vanilla Ice Cream

Homemade Blackberry Cobbler

(made with handpicked berries by our scared fingers)

Sweet Potato Pie

We started the appetizers out in one of the living room of our yard.  There is a love seat, two chairs with ottomans and bistro table with chairs out there so people can mingle well.

Since our theme seemed to end up Italian we started with table decorations that lend that way.  I put large baskets of loaf bread for that olive oil and balsamic vinegar to be enjoyed on the table.  This is our deck and as you can see before the rain it would have been a great night to watch the stars while eating!

Our friends also gathered by the fireplace area where there is additional seating and another table to seat more of our friends. Notice the wooden painted cupcake that was painted by my friend, Lauren to help celebrate birthdays. 

It was a nice place to gather as people arrived through the back gate to the party.

This is a pic of our kitchen table showing our bread baskets before dinner.

The dining room was also decorated with the paper lining each side of the tables.  It was a nice addition since it helped keep the olive oil and vinegar off the table cloth. Check out the vase of tomatoes from our yard on the table.

  

The airplane was decided upon because my husband works for

Express Jet and both men love to travel via Express Jet and Delta. 

The birthday cake was made by a friend of our at our church, Shirley Tyler.  She always does a great job and love to use her as she is retired and local.  She also makes cookies and other items as things to give guests as they leave afterward. 

Blowing out the candles for a mile stone birthday was pretty easy surprisingly.

Tom looking pleased with himself after giving those candles a work out!

I set up the desserts in the kitchen and served from there. 

Look at that huge pan of Blackberry Cobbler, Yum, Yum!!

This chest/coffee table was my moms hope chest and we had it painted 3-4 years ago.  We had to put up a table in the den to seat some of the guest.  It ended up holding our going away tray of bread that we gave departing guest. AS you can see I wrapped them on white paper and tied them with jute.

One thing I forgot to mention that during our appetizers we played a game with our old childhood photos. I previously asked everyone in our gourmet group to text/email me their photos between the ages of 5-10.  I put them in a word document and printed them out.  Everyone had to guess who the photos were and it was a lot of fun.  There was a winner that missed less than 5 people out about 25 photos. Madelyn Alexander you ROCK!

 I thought the night was a huge success as people lingered and talked to late hours.  Afterwards, the cleanup wasn't too bad.  Below is a pic of my cleaned up kitchen with my home grown vase of tomatoes still shining.

Baby Shower 101

Hi Everyone,

Baby showers are so much fun and you always have a great time when you attend, especially when it's only family invited.  I wanted to share with you all about the baby shower that I gave for my niece a month or so ago.  She is having a boy and since we already knew his name, it was easy to plan. 

The menu was a fun one!

Mustache Cupcakes

Blue Cake Pops

Popcorn Bags

Chicken Salad Sandwich

Cheese Straws

Bow Tie Pasta

Chocolate Malt Balls

Bow Tie Sugar Cookies

Martha Washington Balls

Sweet Tea

Homemade Lemonade

The fun was that I made everything except the Bow Tie Cookies, Cheese Straws and the Martha Washington Balls.  My sweet niece, Marcy did those.

Here are my pics:

Above: Popcorn Balls for the little ones were a big hit. And can't forget the beautiful bow tie cookies.
Below: the infamous Martha Washington Balls that my niece brought were wonderful.  Mom would be so proud that the recipe has continued with the grandchildren.

 

 These were cut from my Silhouette Cameo and put on a poster board for the mantle.

 All the first generation girl cousins.  The second from the left was our honoree, Holly!

 This was our family group.  Actually there are a few absent, but we had fun and missed them!

We are so excited to welcome Davis into the world and can't wait to see him!  Congratulations Holly and Chad for the upcoming birth of Davis.  I know he will be spectacular, after all he will be a member of our family! 

House and Meal Ready for Gourmet

Last year, November 2014 my husband and I hosted our gourmet group for a fall dinner. The preparation is always so much fun and when we host it takes about 2 months of thoughts and many list to get ready for the event.