Let the Decorating Begin - Part 3 - Vignettes

Vignettes (pronounced vin-yet) are one of my most favorite ways to decorate in a room. Once you have all your decorations up all around the house, a good way to accent them or to add interest throughout is with vignettes.  Vignettes are "a small decorative design or picture so placed", according to Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. Here is an example from my home........it is a corner between the armoire and pocket door of the living room that just needed something.

This next one is in the dining room up against the windows. The tree is actually sitting (and tied on after falling once!) on an antique high chair. The wooden truck is filled with bears and little snowmen with Santa at the helm. The windows with the snowflakes and odds and ends on the windowsills, makes a nice backdrop. It is between a closet door and a cupboard. Any little space that needs a little something is a great place to create a vignette.

In the opposite corner of the room is my Santa and Snowman collection displayed in an open corner cupboard, as seen in Part 2 of Let the Decorating Begin...

A vignette can also be an area of your home that you have as part of your decorating all year, and then you just add seasonal decorations to, as in this wrought iron table under a picture on a small wall in the parlor.....

This space in my hallway changes seasonally also and because it is contained in one small area with decorative items, it is a vignette.

This completes my three part series of  Let the Decorating Begin.  I hope you were able to get some Christmas decorating ideas for your home. What do you think? I would love to hear from you!
Visit Part 1 - Decorating  with Wreaths and Part 2 - Decorating with Santas and Snowmen  for more Christmas decorating ideas.

Happy Decorating!
AnnMarie

Christmas Cookie Tutorial - Grandmas Italian Biscotti

My first ever Christmas cookie tutorial was for the Italian Fig Cookies and I realize it is probably not for everyone. Kinda hard to want to make a cookie that is expensive, messy and takes a lot of time without really tasting them first. They ARE fabulous and I have been eating them right out of the freezer ever since I posted it, but I understand.



So, this recipe gets so many rave reviews and I have made them thousands of times, that I decided I would share it also. I just made a batch for a girlfriend who loves them and she just lost her mother....I took them to her at the funeral service today. Her face lit up.


Whenever there is an event that needs homemade baked goods everyone looks at me....I in turn say "yes, I'll make the biscotti!" I made a batch for another girlfriend who lost her son and she laughed and then she cried. Last year I was facing hip surgery and was not physically able to stand in the kitchen and make any Christmas cookies. When my pastor found out he was so disappointed, because he is probably my number one fan of these cookies and always so appreciative and complimentary. I felt so bad that I went home and made a batch just for him and gave them to him with a jar of my homemade strawberry jam. He was a happy Pastor! He tells me that every time I make them they just get better and better (he knows just what to say, doesn't he?!)



Here it is then, easier than the fig cookies and unlike the ones in the glass jar on the counter in the coffee shop, which are hard as rocks, you have to dunk them in your coffee to be able to bite into them and they taste just okay......

Put the following in an electric mixer and mix.....

6 eggs
5 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. vanilla

Grated orange or lemon peel (about 1/2 of the outside of the orange or lemon)

Overflowing cup of sugar

************************** 

Add ½ pound (2 sticks) melted butter

5 – 5 ½ cups flour

Mix till the dough looks like this.....

If the dough sticks to your fingers, just add more flour. It should be pliable and not sticky.

Form the dough on an ungreased baking pan into 4 -  2” wide x ¾” tall, by 14” long logs. I really did measure these at first because it insures they all fit on my pan!

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. They will come out all puffed up and golden....leave the oven ON

Let cool. They tend to meld together on the pan so just take a spatula and separate them and loosen them from the pan. Be careful not to break or split each log....they will be cut on the diagonal next.

Slice on the diagonal and then rebake for 10 minutes.

Drizzle the top with my all purpose, wonderful frosting with either lemon extract or anise extract added and yum....the finished product!
                                                                                                   2 2/3 cups confectionary sugar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon flavoring (almond, lemon, anise), optional

Hot water

Combine all ingredients except water. Slowly add a little hot water till frosting is smooth.

                                                                                  

Christmas Cookie Tutorial - Italian Fig Cookies - Cuccidari

Pronounced "gooch-a-dah-de", these fabulous Italian fig Christmas cookies take me back to my childhood when my mother used to make them every year. She would fill pans and pans of them, baked and frosted, under the dining room cabinet for safe keeping....not so safe as I used to sneak one whenever I could. I have since taken over the baking of them and have been doing it for about 35 years (wow! I never counted the years before!) My daughter Jena has started to make them and found out quickly my warning to her and now to you....they are very time consuming, sticky, messy, and a little expensive to make but OH, ARE THEY WORTH IT!! Everytime I make them someone wants the recipe, but soon find out that there is so much more to just me handing them the ingredients list and directions. You have to SEE how to do it to make them come out right. My girlfriends have requested to come over some afternoon (little do they know you need a good part of the day!) so we can make them and they can learn....well girls, here it is in color, step by step! Have patience and enjoy!
Here is the ingredients list. Pictures and step by step directions to follow:

Preheat the oven to 425

Dough:
1 ½ cups shortening – melt in microwave
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ cup water
5 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla
5 cups flour, sifted

Filling:
1 pkg. (1/2 -1 lb.) dates, chopped
1 box raisins (15 oz.)
1 lb. fresh figs
½ lb. chopped walnuts
1 lb. jar orange marmalade
¼ - ½ rum or whiskey or 2 tsp. rum extract (optional)

First get all your ingredients ready for the filling.....

Chop the figs a little at a time in a food processor. They can be quite tough and could burn out your motor if you do too many at once!

They should look like this when you are done....

Add the figs and all the other ingredients for the filling in a saucepan for the stove.....

Heat it through on medium low till it is soft and pliable and melts together a little. Remove from heat.

Get all your ingredients for the dough together.......

Melt the shortening in the microwave for about 1:30. Whisk out any remaining lumps. When that is cool add the sugar and eggs....


Stir this together and then add the water, baking powder, vanilla and flour. Mix the dough in the mixer till it is soft and pliable. If it is too greasy, add a little more flour....

The dough should look like the picture above. Okay, that was easy! The filling and the dough are made. Now comes the fun part! Set up all you will need to roll out the dough and make the cookies.....

Flour your cutting board continuously throughout the whole rolling process. Roll a piece of dough approximately 10" long by 6" wide

and cut the edges and top and bottom straight.....

                                                             

Put the filling down the middle of the dough from top to bottom. The tricky part of this section of making the cookies is to decide how much filling to use so that you don't run out before you get to the end of your dough or your dough doesn't run out before you get to the end of your filling! If you have leftover dough, you can roll it out, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on it, roll it and bake it......yum!

With a butter knife form the dough on either side over the filling and seal the middle and ends. The dough is quite pliable and can be blended together to close the seam....

With a sharp knife cut the tube on the diagonal about every 3/4". Place the cookie seam down on the cookie sheet to bake. No need to grease the pan....there is plenty of shortening in there for that!

Bake them at 425 degrees for 8 minutes till golden brown.....this recipe makes about 7 dozen cookies. They freeze beautifully. I usually freeze them once they are cooled in either freezer bags or large pans with foil. When I need some to give as a gift or to serve to guests (or just eat, and sometimes that is right out of the freezer!), I defrost them and frost them and they are as fresh as the day I made them.....                  

Ta Da!! Here is the finished cookie!

You may be wondering why there aren't Christmas sprinkles on them......all I can say is that is how my mother did it and who am I to mess with tradition?! I thought maybe you would want the frosting recipe too...it is the best and easiest one I know and I use this on all my Christmas cookies...even my cutouts.

Frosting

2 2/3 cups confectionary sugar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon flavoring (almond, lemon, anise), optional

Hot water

Combine all ingredients except water. Slowly add a little hot water till frosting is smooth.

Happy Baking and I would love your comments if you try these cookies, if the tutorial was easy to follow (it is my first!) or not, or anything else you would like to say!

AnnMarie