I Need A Break From My Break

First I want to thank everyone for the kind words about 'Bert.  It's still painful but we're surviving.  Tempie has the run of the basement everyday now.  FH and I have discussed letting her roam 24/7 but we keep coming up with reasons to crate her at night.  So I think it's going to stay that way.

I was hostess to the embroidery group from Guild today.  This group meets first thing in the morning and goes until people need or want to leave.  It's also one of the smaller groups and it's fun for those who love entertaining to really go all out.  I'm one of those delusional people in case you hadn't figured that out.  As an example the ladies usually bring their lunches but I told them in advance that I would be providing a light lunch if they were inclined to partake.

Since any and all planned productivity on Sunday was a complete wash I had to play catch up on Monday and Tuesday.  Not really feeling like cleaning, baking, or having company didn't help the situation but (as my middle sister would say) I put on my big girl panties and dealt with it.

Monday I bought all my baking supplies and other treats and started the cleaning.  Tuesday I finished cleaning and did all the prep work like pressing linens, washing my milk glass plates and cups, and dug the second table leaf out of storage.

Here's the final result:

 I didn't make these candies but they were just so pretty I thought you might like to see them up close:

 

 Now for the fun part.  I absolutely love Alton Brown's Blueberry Muffin recipe, but I wanted there to be some variety in flavor.  Since each batch only makes 1 dozen I made two batches and divided them both in half.

So we had blueberry, lemon poppy seed, cranberry orange, and cherry white chocolate chip muffins at breakfast.  There was also a selection of fresh fruit.

 I used my favorite snickerdoodle recipe (scroll down you'll see it) and forgot that I usually chill the dough before baking.  The result were yummy cookies that were more like proper biscuits from across the pond.  Oh darn. ;-)  I usually just keep cookies/biscuits in a biscuit jar on the buffet when we have company.  It lets the "snackers" snack without me feeling rushed to get to the real dessert.

For lunch I served fresh fruit, little spicy rice crackers that are flavored with lemon and chili,  green bean chips, four varieties of cheese (Brie, smoked Gouda, fresh mozzarella, and marscapone), and water crackers.

And for the finale, an Orange Cake.  Juice and zest from fresh oranges in both the cake and the frosting.  I found the recipe in an old Family Circle cookbook.  Very easy and extremely good.  FH solved the problem of the original calling for an egg yolk in the un-cooked frosting.  He beat one in a double boiler with a little lemon juice added.  It worked beautifully and the result was an extremely rich frosting.

I couldn't find a link to the recipe, but given the book is older than I am I'm not shocked.  If you'd like it just send me an email.

I'm going to go put my feet up somewhere... after I find a lemon poppyseed muffin and some tea.  Hopefully I'll be back on track with the Nursery tomorrow.