I love the look of this vintage themed bridal shower, colors and all. If you have a vintage collection, like milk glass, or jadite, or a beautiful tea cup collection, then this is the perfect way to showcase your goods!

Images from Hostess with the Mostess

I’ve been making this for me and Mark for a couple of weeks now, varying ingredients from time to time. I typically lace Mark’s breakfast pizza with Canadian ham or a veggie breakfast sausage patty, diced up. I like to keep mine simple. Spicy tomato sauce, cheese and eggs, cooked on top of a whole-wheat tortilla.

It’s just simply delicious.

Ingredients – Play around with ingredients here, if you can’t find Pato sauce, use regular tomato sauce. Add diced jalapenos, or roasted green chilies. It’s great with ham or sausage, and probably amazing with bacon. Have fun with it.

1- 6 inch whole-wheat tortilla

1/4 cup light shredded cheese

2 tablespoons Pato sauce (a spicy Mexican tomato sauce that can be found in the ethnic aisle of your store)

1 egg

1 teaspoon finely chopped green onions

1/8 avocado

Directions

In a toaster oven, or an oven set to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, prep your tortilla by spreading pato sauce evenly over it and sprinkling the top with cheese. Bake it in toaster oven/oven for 6-8 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly and tortilla is lightly browned and crisp.

Meanwhile, lightly beat one egg and pour into a lightly greased skillet over a medium-high heat. Swirl egg around so it is thin and round (should look like a crepe). Sprinkle with a dash of salt,pepper, and garlic powder. After egg has cooked on one side for a couple of minutes, flip it and cook the other side for 30 seconds or so, until egg is completely cooked. Remove from pan and set aside.

Place your cooked egg onto a cutting board and roll it into a tight roll, then cut 1 inch rounds to give a “chiffanade” look to your cooked eggs.

Top crisp, cheesy tortilla with egg ribbons, avocado and green onions. I love adding a dash of Tapatio sauce to my breakfast pizza.

Grapefruit is one of those fruits that can instantly wake you up with its brightness. Perfect for those hard-to-wake-up mornings. I squeezed a little lime and lemon in this juice combo to kick it up a bit. It ended up making the perfect morning juice blend. A little fresh ginger made it that much more.

I think next time I’ll scale back on the sugar and instead give this juice a big fresh squeeze of orange juice.

Ingredients – Recipe mostly adapted from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea: The Many Little Meals of Rose Bakery
cookbook

Juice from 2 grapefruits

Juice from 2 limes

Juice from 1/2 a lemon

2 tablespoons fresh ginger juice

4 tablespoons of sugar, or agave syrup

1 cup water

Directions – The best way I get the juice from fresh ginger is by grating it fine and squeezing the pulp, ringing out the juice.

In a sauce pan, bring water, sugar and ginger to a simmer for about 5 minutes, or until sugar has dissolved. Let it cool.

In a pitcher, combine ginger-sugar water with grapefruit, lemon and lime juice and mix until combined. Add more sugar for taste.

I’ve been meaning to put this on my website for a while now. It was Oliver’s vintage circus themed baby shower last June. I was obsessed over it. I know I should have let my sister and girlfriends plan it, but I really got into it. They are well aware of my party planning obsession and how it brings me absolute joy.

I loved being a part of all the details for my shower that was hosted by my sister and 2 best friends. My friend Joy was in charge of the invitations and games, Kereese was in charge of the food and cake, and my sister, Nobi, was in charge of the decorations – she let me tag-team with her on that. Nobi is pretty amazing at decorating so we ended up making a fabulous team together.

The main colors of the party were red, white and gray.

Joy sent invitations out attached to a box of circus cookies. We hung red and white pin wheels from our tree and had red and white bundles of balloons at the entrance to our front door.

Old-time sodas in glass bottles were in a bucket of ice andhomemade punch were served as refreshers to guests. Croissant sandwiches made for a great and easy finger food.  And there was a candy and dessert station, along with a circus cake!

My sister hung red and white streamers over the food table, mimicking an entrance to a circus tent. We punched out little elephants and red dot confetti to sprinkle on top of a homemade table cloth I made out of gray fabric with white ric-rac for the edging. There were red and white striped paper straws and favor bags for drinks and goodies. Vintage-style popcorn bags were  filled to the brim with the best homemade caramel corn I have ever tasted.

It was the greatest baby shower a girl could ask for!

a BIG thanks to my girls for making it so special.

XO

The reason why I love making homemade body scrubs is because I always have the ingredients at hand. It’s a simple way to pamper myself.

That’s why you should do it too.

Ingredients

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1/4 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon essential oil, like lavender, orange, or mint (or if you don’t care to add a fragrance, then skip this)

Directions

Mix ingredients together. Rub scrub all over body in a circular motion then rinse with warm water.

Oliver is at the stage where solid foods can be introduced. He first started on rice cereal, and now we’re trying out single fruits and vegetables. It’s a good rule of thumb to follow the “four day wait rule” for allergies before starting baby onto another fruit or vegetable. I will be posting homemade baby foods here on Eliza Domestica and I’m so excited to start this new project!

~ Simple Banana Mash Recipe – Good for 4-6 month old babies.

Ingredients – Bananas do not freeze well, so use only what your baby will eat.

1/2 medium organic, ripe, banana

Directions

Peel banana, removing any strings and place in a bowl. Mash with a fork to a smooth consistency.

If you like hummus, then you will most likely enjoy this white bean dip. It makes for a great alternative dip. Bake some homemade pita chips to dunk with, or be extra healthy and dip veggies in it. I also frequently enjoy a good slather of this on a veggie sandwich.

Good stuff either way you choose to eat it.

Ingredients

2 cups (15 ounce can) cooked cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

1/3 cup olive oil

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

3 cloves of garlic, roasted and peeled

1 teaspoon fresh chives, finely chopped

Fine-grain sea salt

Ground pepper

Directions

Blend all ingredients together in a food processor until smooth and creamy. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with vegetables or pita chips.

*Optional – Homemade Pita chips

6 whole-wheat pitas

Olive oil

salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Slice pitas into 6 small triangles and place onto a baking sheet. Brush with olive oil and lightly sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown and crispy.

I have been making it a point to get back to basics this year with my diet. During and after my pregnancy, my diet got all out of whack and I found myself eating a lot of things I normally wouldn’t.

This oatmeal bake is my approach to getting back to basics, in a fruity, hearty, delicious way.

This is a great breakfast to start your week. Or to end your week, for that matter. Good stuff.

Ingredients – This recipe was adapted with minor changes, from Super Natural Everyday

2 cups rolled oats

2 cups milk

1 large egg

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

1 1/2 cups strawberries, sliced

2 bananas, sliced

1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup pure maple syrup, more for serving

3 tablespoons butter, melted

*For a more luxurious bite, serve with a mixture of 1/3 cup maple syrup, 1/8 cup half and half and drizzle over.

Directions

Mix all the dry ingredients together: sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, walnuts and oatmeal. Mix all wet ingredients together, egg, milk and vanilla extract. In a 9×13 buttered baking dish, line the bottom of the dish with sliced bananas. Then layer bananas with sliced strawberries. Evenly pour on dry oatmeal mixture. Then pour milk mixture over the oats, making sure all the oats are covered with milk mixture. Cover with sliced strawberries and a sprinkle of walnuts. Drizzle melted butter over the top and bake for 45 minutes on the upper 1/3 of the oven rack.

Oliver has been teething for quite some time now, but just recently he’s been in visible pain and up all night crying. This is one of the most helpless moments you can feel being a mother -  it feels like there is nothing I can do to make him feel better.

I talked to his pediatrician who suggested that he chew on green onions (supervised, of course), as opposed to using a numbing oral gel. I love the idea of using an all natural approach to numbing his sore gums.

Green onions have a natural property in them that helps numb the gums when gnawed on. I’m going to give it a try with Oliver.

If any of you have other all-natural approaches to help soothe a teething baby, please let me know!

Oliver is at the age where he will grab his pacifier and fling it 100 yards away. We have had a ton of pacifiers go MIA.

This handy dandy little clip is a lifesaver.

Thought this owl clip was adorable.

This vanity suitcase is such a neat idea for a guest bathroom. I love re-purposing items. I especially love it when it is something vintage. It adds that extra special touch to a room.

We just got back from a road trip to San Francisco to visit family. I have some great recipes coming your way, but in the meantime, here’s this yummy smoothie recipe.

This matcha smoothie is one of the first things I made when we got home. Matcha is the leaves of green tea, ground up into a fine, dusty powder. I absolutely love the stuff. Steep it in hot water for a nice cup of tea, hot or iced, or mix it in a smoothie, like I did.

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year, and here’s to a great 2012!

Ingredients

1-2 tablespoons of matcha powder

1 cup of almond milk, or regular milk

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup (more or less, depending on your sweet tooth)

1/2 cup of ice

Directions

Blend all ingredients together until smooth.

I’ve been on a ginger kick for a good year now. It helped me through rough days of morning sickness during my pregnancy. I’ve eaten  ribbons and ribbons of it pickled at sushi joints. I’ve been sipping it in my green tea, and now it is helping me get through the holidays – in a cookie form.

With ginger on the brain, I’m itching to make these ginger snaps. I also read about an awesome ginger noodle soup that reminded me of this.  If you like ginger as much as I do, then you should definitely bathe in it with this orange ginger soak (also happens to make a great homemade gift).

This might look like a pile of (fill in the blank), but it turns out a mighty tasty cookie.

Ingredients – Recipe mostly adapted from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook

1 cup dark chocolate chips

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

1  1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter

1 1/2 tablespoons of good cocoa powder

3/4 cups dark brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup unsulfured blackstrap molasses

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions

In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in 1 1/2 teaspoons of boiling water, set aside.

In a standing mixer, beat butter and sugar until creamy and smooth (about 2 minutes). Add grated ginger and mix until combined. In a medium bowl, sift flour, salt, ground ginger, cocoa, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves together. Slowly add mixture to the butter mixture until combined.

Mix in molasses and baking soda until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Chill dough in the refrigerator until firm, at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

With a 2 inch ice cream (cookie scooper) scooper, scoop out portions of cookie dough and place onto a parchment lined cookie sheet (or greased cookie sheet).

I like to split the scoops in half, and then rolling those into balls, for a smaller cookie, but it is completely up to you.

Put cookie dough back in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. Roll cookie dough balls in a bowl of granulated sugar and return back to cookie sheet.

For chewy cookies, bake for 18 minutes (tops will crack slightly), or get a ginger snap crunch by baking them a little bit longer. Allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes.

I love this pie. I don’t really do fruit pies, but this pie was pretty good considering…I don’t do fruit pies. Mark loves all pies. It’s more fun to bake stuff that I know he’ll enjoy. It also gave me an excuse to use my ceramic pie bird. The point of it is to release the steam while baking through its beak, instead of cutting slits in the dough. Pretty nifty, uh?

The blackberries stained the pears a sultry berry hue. The flavor has a subtle tartness, reminiscent of rhubarb pie.

Ingredients

4 large, ripe Bartlett pears, peeled and thinly sliced

1 1/2 cups fresh, or frozen blackberries, sliced in half

1 cup organic evaporated cane juice sugar (or granulated white sugar)

1 teaspoon of fresh lemon zest

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons of butter

2 pie crusts, pre-made (I used thawed frozen pie crust)

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix pears, blackberries, sugar, lemon zest, flour, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt together. Press one of the thawed (or homemade) pie crusts into a baking pie dish. Pour mixture into the pie pan and dollop with butter.

Cover filled pie with the second rolled-out pie dough layer. Pinch sides shut with fingers or with a fork.

**Braided edge option – if you have extra pie dough, roll it out and cut 3 long strands of dough. Begin to braid the strands tightly together. Brush the edges with egg/cream mixture (one egg mixed with a splash of cream). Then lay braided dough strand around the pie’s edge and gently press around the entire edge.

Lightly brush entire pie with egg/cream mixture (one egg mixed with a splash of cream). Bake pie for 15 minutes at 450 degrees, then reduce heat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and wrap the pie edges with foil to prevent burning or over-browning.

Bake for 50 minutes, or until bottom and top of crust is golden brown.

Let pie cool for 15-20 minutes before slicing.

When I was little, my sister and I would make a garland out of Kix cereal. This is a more grown-up version, I suppose.

And it’s prettier:)

What you’ll need:

Some thread

A sewing needle

Fresh Cranberries

Directions – Thread your needle leaving enough thread for the length of garland you want. Begin piercing cranberries and push them down the thread. Keep doing this until you reach the end of your thread, or until you run out of cranberries. Tie a big knot at each end to close it off.

Then drape your tree with your homemade cranberry garland!

Congratulations, Sara! Hope you enjoy your Tea gift certificate!

Aw, your son is so cute, I love tea collections clothes, they are just out of my price range for more than 1 or 2 pieces a year. I really want the kimono robe for my son.

Sara Haaf – December 20, 2011 at 6:17 pm

Happy Holidays

Eliza

This giveaway is graciously being sponsored by one of my favorite children’s clothing companies, Tea Collection. They have a neat thing going on with their clothing line – they travel to different destinations and base a clothing collection off of that country.  I love that they get their inspiration from traveling.

This season’s collection is inspired by Modern Mexico. Oliver is sporting a sweater and shirt from their Casa Oaxaca and Mercado Mexicano collection and I think he looks dashing! The sweater is my favorite.

If I had a baby girl, I would have picked this cute pinata striped dress for her.

Don’t have any kids? No problem, Tea Collection has a women’s clothing line, too!

I thought this shirt was a cutie because it read “Adios Amigos.”

To enter to win, just leave a comment by Christmas day, December 25th, before 11:59pm MST. The winner will be drawn at random and announced Monday, December 26th.

Good Luck and Happy Holidays!

-Eliza

I have the perfect solution for never serving the infamous ugly misshapen pancake ever again – use a cookie cutter!  They make for a super cute breakfast for everyone, I promise! And when the holidays are over, use other fun cookie cutters – like hearts for Valentine’s Day, bunnies for Easter, flowers for summer, pumpkins for Halloween. 

See how ugly this pancake would have been?? eek!

I love these homemade leather baby shoes! What a great baby gift idea. I think Oliver needs a pair. Man, if I had a girl, I think I could do some major shopping damage.

I also loved these shoes.

And these cuties

And I’m also a sucker for these.

I saw variations of this rosemary concoction on two separate occasions. Once on  Joy the Baker‘s blog, and here. It was a calling. An omen. A sign that I needed, and I wanted to make this drink. I love love love gin, and I’m up to my neck with rosemary in my herb garden out back. It was perfect. It also worked out great since Mark and I have our official first real date night ever since Oliver has been born. We’re meeting up with some friends from out of town for dinner and drinks. This drink will be a perfect starter to the night. I can’t wait!

The rosemary and gin complement each other so well. And the lime, well, we all know a gin and tonic is best with a squeeze of lime. I used soda water instead of tonic, so the sweetness comes from homemade rosemary syrup. So easy to make and extremely refreshing to sip on.

I tossed in some fresh cranberries to make it holiday appropriate.

Ingredients - Recipe partly adapted from Joy the Baker

Gin

Cold club soda

Ice

Limes, for squeezing

Rosemary sprigs, for garnish

Fresh cranberries, for garnish

For the Rosemary Syrup

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

3 sprigs of fresh rosemary

Directions

For the rosemary syrup, pour the water, sugar and rosemary sprigs in a small pan and bring to a boil, until sugar has dissolved. Let syrup cool for 30 minutes, then remove the sprigs of rosemary. Pour syrup into a seal-tight jar and store in the refrigerator.

For the drink, fill up a glass with ice, 2-3 tablespoons of rosemary syrup, a shot of gin, then top off with club soda, and a couple squeezes of lime. Then to make it all pretty, garnish your drink with a sprig of rosemary and a couple of fresh cranberries.

Christmas is coming like a freight train without brakes. I’m so not ready for it. I never am actually. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s being a new mom, but time is going by so fast I can barely keep up. I mean, it’s December already! Where was I when that came?

Here’s the list of things to do before the 25th – finish shopping for everyone on my Christmas list. Wrap gifts and try to make them look semi-decent (my sister has always been better at this than me).  Then I need to bake cookies and pretty them up in some sort of packaging. Take Oliver to his 4 month doctor appointment and hope he doesn’t get too upset from his shots. Breathe. Go to a couple of holiday parties. Try to squeeze in a couple of yoga classes for my sanity. Then pack for a two day road trip, with a 4 month old in tow.

A simple, no-fuss meal is just what the doctor ordered for me this time of year. I had pork tenderloin in the fridge and a few apples on the counter. When I was a teenager, my cousin and his friends would always say “pork chops and apple sauce” in a silly voice. It gave me the idea for this recipe. The sweetness from the apple sauce and juice, mixed with warm spices like cinnamon and cloves, made this tenderloin sweet and succulent.

Ingredients

2 pounds of pork tenderloin

2 cups of apple cider

3/4 cup of apple sauce (from a jar or made from scratch)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

Ingredients

Toss all ingredients into a slow cooker turned on a medium heat and cook for 4 hours, or until meat is tender enough to pull apart with a fork.