With Christmas fast-approaching we are busy creating decorations for our holiday parties! In our search for inspiration we came across this fun vintage-style miniature village from Style At Home. These DIY paper houses would make a beautiful display on any mantle, setting a perfect holiday tone.

To create this cute town for your own holiday gatherings you will need:

• Acrylic paint & paintbrush
  
• Mini cereal boxes or other small cardboard boxes
  
• Pencil & ruler
  
• X-acto knife
• White craft glue
• Fine crystal glitter
• Vellum or tissue paper
• Double-sided tape
• Glitter card stock or scrapbooking paper

To build your houses:

1. Paint a mini cereal box and let dry.
2. Using a pencil and a ruler, mark the roofline at the desired angle, holes for the windows and slits for the door awning on the box.
3. Carefully cut them all out using an X-acto knife, making sure not to apply too much pressure on the box.
4. Brush the entire box with craft glue and sprinkle with an even coat of fine glitter. Once dry, delicately shake off the excess glitter.
5. Cut out pieces of vellum or tissue paper slightly larger than the window holes using an X-acto knife and tape them to the inside of the box with double-sided tape.
6. Measure the top of the box and mark the measurements of the roof on the back of the glitter paper, ensuring that it’s ½" larger on all sides. Do the same for the window frames, allowing for a slight overlap.
7. Measure the slits of the door awning and mark the exact length and the width (about ½") on the back of the glitter paper. Do the same for the door and shutters (optional), making them proportional to the size of the box.
8. Cut out all the pieces using an X-acto knife and glue to the house.
   

For a cozy ambiance a warm glow could be added to the houses by placing a flameless/LED candle or Christmas lights inside. 

What are your favorite Christmas decorations?

Love,
Ashley, Jen and Alessandra

Throwing a party is hard work (unless you hire The Party Planning Committee to put together the fete for you...)! Give all of those hard-working hosts and hostesses something great this holiday! 

Here are some of our favourite picks this year:

1. Flowering teapot (Available at Canadian Tire - around $20 with tea flowers).

2, A handsome Christmas ornament (we're impressed with Bowring's selection this year)

3. New kitchen tools wrapped and tied with ribbon in a festive oven mitt.

4. Personalized Pyrex dish full of brownies! (Glass etching cream and stencils are available at Michaels.)

5. If you're handy in the kitchen, these homemade stained glass cookies from Martha Stewart are a showstopper! Even if you're not so handy, buy a roll of Pillsbury sugar cookie dough, cut out ornament shapes, and fill the centre with crushed hard candy (like Jolly Ranchers). Punch a small hole at the top before baking and tie with a ribbon!

6. We love these Kate Spade gold dot napkins. Even better - DIY some with linen napkins, a pencil eraser and gold fabric paint!
- rosemary infused sea salt put your sea salt and rosemary in a sauté pan and warm up for about 15 minutes. Then discard the rosemary and pour salt into individual containers.

7. Rosemary infused sea salt (Warm sea salt and rosemary in a pan and for 15 minutes. Discard rosemary and pour salt into individual containers with fresh rosemary).

What hostess gifts do you love giving?

Love,
Ashley, Jen and Alessandra

We created this rosemary hors d'oeuvre wreath for a client's pre-lunch get together with three friends today. Our client wanted something compact, as her condo is quite small, and we thought this would fit the bill nicely. On a quiche dish, we layered rosemary branches in the shape of a wreath, and studded it with pistachio-encrusted grape and chevre truffles, parmesan tuile cups with a colourful heirloom tomato salad, and cayenne chocolate-covered bacon strips.

For the chocolate-covered bacon, we fried the bacon until it was nice and crisp, cut it in half while it was still warm (to avoid cracking), and let it cool before dipping it in melted chocolate and sprinkling it with cayenne pepper.

The parmesan tuile cups were made by baking shredded parmesan and draping them over a small glass while they were hot. They'll be filled by the hostess with the heirloom tomato salad just prior to her guests arriving in order to avoid the cups becoming soggy.

Red seedless grapes were covered in chevre, and rolled in crushed pistachios to create little truffles.

What interesting hors d'oeuvres are you serving at your holiday parties this year?

Love,
Ashley, Jen and Alessandra

Sometimes the best recipes come from the strangest of sources - that's the case with this delish-looking fruit and cheese bread. This recipe is reprinted (and slightly modified) from dairygoodness.ca, a website run by the Canadian dairy farmers association.

"Stollen" is traditionally a fruit cake in the traditional sense, containing dried fruit and marzipan, and covered with icing sugar. We love that this recipe is a modern take on traditional fruit cake with a savoury outer crust and sweet and savoury center.


Ingredients

• 1 cup walnuts
  
• 1 cup dried figs, coarsely chopped
  
• 1/3 cup orange juice
  
• 1 tsp orange zest
  
• 6 oz old cheddar or gouda, coarsely chopped and divided
  
• 2 1/4 cups flour
  
• 1 Packet (7g) instant yeast
  
• 3 tbsp sugar
  
• 1/2 cup  + 1/4 cup  milk
  
• 3 tbsp butter
  
• 1 egg
  
• 2 tbsp powdered sugar

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Chop walnuts coarsely and divide in half.
3. Heat figs with orange juice in microwave oven on high for 2 minutes. Let cool and add orange zest, half the nuts and half the cheese.
4. In a large bowl, mix flour, yeast, sugar, remaining nuts and cheese.
5. Heat ½ cup milk with butter in microwave oven on high for 1 minute and 30 seconds. Pour over dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon.
6. Beat egg with ¼ cup milk and add to bowl. Mix well to combine. If dough sticks to your fingers, add a bit of flour, Knead dough for 5 minutes and let rest in bowl.
7. On a floured work surface, roll out dough to a 12˝ circle with a rolling pin.
8. Spread fig mixture lengthwise over a quarter of the dough in the middle. Form the mixture into a cylinder shape.
9. Moisten dough with hot water, fold in half and close to seal in filling (as you would with a calzone). The stollen should consist of a stuffed part and a dough-only part.
10. Place stollen on a parchment-lined baking sheet and let dough rise for 30 minutes.
11. Bake in the oven for 20–30 minutes or until dough has puffed up and is golden brown.
12. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top and serve. 
    

What do you think about fruit cake? Isn't this one a thousand times better?


Love,
Ashley, Jen and Alessandra

To create the perfect ambiance at your next party, try this idea for displaying candles: collect glass jars after using up sauces, olives and pickles, wash and remove labels (for really tough glue spots, use GooGone), fill with tealights, and group in bunches. This simple and inexpensive project will provide a warm glow at any event, and can be used afterwards as home decor!

We're busy planning Christmas parties, and we've come up with a delicious holiday menu! The cold menu below is perfect for drop-off catering. We can, of course, come up with a personalized menu just for your event - this is just an example of a prix-fixe menu.

(Contact us for our mixed hot and cold menu, our holiday dessert menu, or for a quote!)

Cold Holiday Menu

A. Antipasto

Rosemary antipasto wreath                 +         Cheese truffle pops
(can include 4 of: marinated                           (pistachio goat cheese or
olives, pickles, tomatoes, artichokes,              cranberry walnut, with artisan crisps)    
cocktail onions, kielbasa)

OR

Fruit and cheese tree                        +         Antipasto skewers
(selection of local cheeses                           (can include marinated olives,
with seasonal fruit and                                  pickles, tomatoes, artichokes,
artisan crisps)                                                cocktail onions, kielbasa)

B. Cold Hors D’oeuvres (passed as necessary, but stationary as space permits)

Select from the following:

1.    Caprese salad bites (2 per guest)
2.    Curried vegetable hand pies (1.5 per guest)
3.    Mini tourtiere wonton cups (2 per guest)
4.    Parmesan lace crackers with heirloom tomato salad (2 per guest)
5.    Parmesan cups with baby romaine cesar salad (1.5 per guest)
6.    Prosciutto-wrapped beet-pickled eggs (2 per guest)
7.    Dried apricots with basil goat cheese and almonds (3 per guest)
8.    Thai rice wrap rolls with sriracha peanut dipping sauce (1.5 per guest)
9.    Chilled asian noodle cucumber cups (2 per guest)
10.  Roasted vegetable and baba ghanouj mini pitas (1.5 per guest)
11.  Onion confit and pumpkin seed-topped cucumber rounds (2 per guest)
12.  Onion confit and thinly sliced beef crostini (1.5 per guest)

C. Dip

Garlic cheddar OR jalapeno artichoke, with selection of artisan crisps.


What's on your holiday menu?

Love,
Ashley, Jen and Alessandra