Author Archives: cathyboettner

Given the weather around the country today, this seems an appropriate recipe to share with you…. Ingredients: 3 tbsp olive oil 2 large onions, diced 3 carrots, peeled and sliced 8 cloves of garlic, minced 56 oz. canned tomatoes (I used some that I canned last summer) 1 cup chopped roasted red pepper 1 quartContinue reading “Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Bisque”

First let me address where I have been the past 5 weeks. On December 29th, Pippa (our puppy) jumped out of the back of my 4Runner and broke her tibia at the growth plate and had to have surgery (and three pins) to fix it. They didn’t put a cast on the leg which meansContinue reading “A Treat that Starts with a Sugar Cookie Mix”

We used my toy table decoration for most of the holiday season, but I changed it up for Christmas day to a white and silver display. I cut white poinsettia flowers and sealed the ends by holding the cut end over a flame until no more juice came out and I put them in silverContinue reading “A Sparkly Holiday Table”

My in-laws have requested that we not give them any gifts, but we feel like we should do something, so I have been making them holiday centerpieces. Last year it was greenery and roses. This year I took a footed glass bowl that I bought at the thrift store and did a mercury glass treatmentContinue reading “Easy and Inexpensive Holiday Centerpiece”

Our niece is terribly allergic to any kind of dairy, so I am making a dairy free pumpkin cake with vegan cream cheese icing for Christmas. I didn’t want it to just be a totally plain frosted cake (and cream cheese icing is not great for decorating with), so I decided to make snowflakes outContinue reading “Non Dairy Decorations for a Holiday Cake”

My sister in law is hosting a dinner this weekend and asked if I could help her get her table and buffet decorated for it. Of course, I said, “Yes!” She had already decided on a Christmas tree theme–using her Nikko Christmas plates, and an assortment of table top Christmas trees. I have a metalContinue reading “A Holiday Table for A Christmas Dinner Party”

My husband cut down some trees at a friends house earlier this year and as the logs dried, the bark peeled off of them. Some of it rolled up in a cylinder which gave me the idea to use them to wrap vases to make a rustic container for arrangements. I decided to use thisContinue reading “Holiday Arts and Crafts”

I don’t know what these are called, but they are easy to make and DELICIOUS, dangerously so. For this batch, I bought 2-20 oz packages of vanilla candy coating, I used 6 sleeves of Ritz crackers, and a large jar of creamy peanut butter (generally I prefer super crunchy, but it is harder to workContinue reading “Super Easy Holiday Treats”

I typically decorate the house the weekend after Thanksgiving, and fortunately the boys were home, so they helped with boxes. I hope that your Christmas preparations are going well!

I know that this isn’t going to be much help to you this year, but here’s the table from this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. We went with a limited color palette and more rustic than some years. We hade three log slices that we set rustic low metal bowls and a copper bowl on. We filledContinue reading “Thanksgiving 2021 Table”