recipes for a happy marriage #2
I’m so excited to welcome Jennifer Davick to the merriment blog today for the second part of our new series, recipes for a happy marriage. Jennifer lives in Birmingham, Alabama and works at Southern Living. Her work has appeared in Coastal Living, Cooking Light, on Design*Sponge and Decor8. She also writes The Dish on Photography. Today she’s sharing her recipe for okra crudite. Thanks so much for stopping by Jennifer!
It’s wrapping up okra harvest here in Alabama. This year I discovered a new way of enjoying what might be my favorite vegetable (sorry avocado.) Now down south, okra is traditionally fried, boiled, or tossed into a pot of gumbo. I am a constant entertainer and love finding new ways to mix up my party food. So I was thinking, why not okra as a crudite?!?!. If you’re familiar with okra, you may be thinking, what a slimy mess! But it works, the trick is to just trim the end of the stem, don’t cut the whole end off, exposing the seeds. Once trimmed, blanch them for only 1 to 2 minutes in salted water, shock in ice water until cold, and then pat dry with paper towel. No slim here! Move over boring carrot sticks and celery and say hello to beautiful crisp tender okra, just the thing for a creamy dip or hummus on your next vegetable tray.
1 cup of full-fat Greek yogurt
2 tsp. orange zest
1 clove garlic
1 cup of assorted mild herds (such as parsley, basil, oregano, and dill)
Whirl it all up in a food processor and season to taste with salt and
pepper. Red pepper flakes or ground cayenne can be added if you want
to spice it up a bit.
recipes for a happy marriage #1
Last night while I was cooking dinner, I came up with the idea for a new series of posts, called “recipes for a happy marriage.” I’m from the south, where recipes are passed generation to generation and where the dishes you prepare are about way more than the food….they’re about the memories & the story. And, I believe it’s true that a home cooked meal can fix just about anything and makes you feel 100% better than you did before you sat down at the table. : )
There’s nothing I treasure more than my recipe binder. Silly, but true. It’s full of recipes I’ve collected. Many of them in the handwriting of the person who gave me the recipe, which makes them all that much more special. (*recipe collections are one of the best wedding gifts I can think of too!)
Since my 31st birthday is next week, I thought I’d share Janice’s chocolate birthday cake recipe. Janice is from my hometown of Paducah, Kentucky. She makes theverybestcakes on the face of the planet. No lie. And every year, my mom would order this cake for my birthday. One year, my mom drove through a hurricane and was ushered to my front door by a state trooper (because she couldn’t drive down my street for all of the fallen trees), carrying this cake and a bottle of wine. Best birthday gift ever!
Unfortunately, Janice didn’t include the icing for the cake, but a fudge icing is what she normally uses.
I hope this will become a weekly series with some guest posts. Katie Stoops and I have some tricks up our sleeves for holiday posts. Should be a good time! Hope you enjoy!
dish queen confessionals #4
Blue and white china is absolutely a classic, and I love it because it’s easy to mix and match patterns since the color palette remains a constant. Accent your collection with pretty antique flow blue pieces, and use newer pieces day to day, like these.
{Camille pattern, Kado Rice Bowl and Flower dish all at Crate and Barrel, Calvin Klein Bayard at Macy’s, Spode Blue Italian at Macy’s, Something Blue at Pottery Barn}
dish queen confessionals #3
I love these look-for-less dinnerware sets at Target. From the top, the Medallion set, which looks a lot like this set, no? The black and white Museo Mundo Collection and the Carmin Blossom pattern. I’ve also noticed that Target has done a good job of replicating the Lenox Chirp pattern (one of my favorites) at a pocket friendly price.
dish queen confessionals #2
Here are my thoughts on dinnerware, dear ones. Feel free to object, but I feel 100% positive that you can’t go wrong when you go with white or off-white everyday china. The white dish is a hard-working best friend. It’s flexible. It can be modern or it can be traditional. It does the work of a thousand sets of dishes. Save patterns for accent pieces that can be rotated in and out and lean on the white dinner plate for everyday sort of occasions.
My favorite sources for inexpensive white dishes, or any dishes for that matter, are World Market, T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s, but there are so many lovely patterns all over the place! Check out these.
The Nantucket set at World Market. We have this pattern for our dinner plates. I’ve mixed in salad plates and bowls that I found around town. That’s the great thing about white – you can mix and match to your heart’s content.
I also love the Boxwood set by Ralph Lauren. Love it so much that I have the bowls from this set that I snatched up for, hold onto your sets, $2.99 a piece at where else? T.J. Maxx. (I promise this isn’t a canned endorsement of that store. Cross my heart.)
The Regalia Porcelain set at Bed, Bath and Beyond is simple + beautiful. And, you can’t beat the price: $49.99 for forty six pieces. Yummy.
dish queen confessionals
I’ve finally diagnosed my condition loveys, not that my husband needed any confirmation via the NY Times that his wife has a problem, something he knows full well. I am, in fact, diagnosable. I am a dish queen. Thank you to Mr. Peacock for pointing out the condition that he shares with me. Our cupboards do runneth over.
So, bad blogger that I am, not posting anything until mid-way through the week, I think I’ll spend the rest of the week focusing on my obsession: dishes. First up, Jessica Rust designs. Jessica, a graduate of Parson’s, makes the most beautiful personalized dinnerware.
The love bug collection would be sweet on a dinner table or hanging on a wall, don’t you think?
While the sweet birch tree collection reminds me of those pretty little note cards (favorites of mine) from Silhouette Blue, no?
And, speaking of silhouettes, how lovely is this set?
Jessica also offers a collection of family tree dinnerware to celebrate the coming together of two families in marriage.
Or, you can commission Jessica to artistically immortalize your newlywed love nest.
Moving Announcement Round-up
I’ve looked at hundreds of moving announcements over the past week, and I’ve found several worthy contenders, but I finally chose a pretty set at Target made by Dwell. I’ll show you the set we chose in the next post. On to the others I came across in my search…
I love the idea of these tags from Target. You could stamp one side with a pretty stamp. On the other side you could write your name, new address and phone number. Tie the top with a bow and send it off in a pretty envelope.
I love these announcements from Greer Chicago, available at Paper Plus in Richmond. The front of the card says “things change, like our address for instance.”
These cardboard announcements from Max & Lucy are really cute. You could easily D.I.Y them if that’s your thing.
These announcements from Bartlett Street Paperie are just really pretty and simple. The price is great too ($1.50 a card).
I looked into several custom options, but once you buy the paper, order a motif and pay for the printing, you’re easily spending $3 a card, which I thought was a bit much for moving announcements. If I had an unlimited budget though, I would definitely order a red shoe motif on a flat panel card and have “there’s no place like home” printed on the card with our address and phone number.
