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My Favorite Pesto Recipe

August 6, 2015 · by Maria · 7 Comments

If you love crusty fresh bread and garlicky goodness then you probably love pesto. When the basil goes on sale at my local grocery store, I know that I will be breaking out the food processor…and then the breath mints!

I have tried a few pesto recipes but this one is my absolute favorite, because it is delicious and easy. Here are the ingredients that you need or as The Pioneer Woman would say “The Cast of Characters”.

Easy Pesto Recipe

2 Cups of Basil Leaves (Usually two full bunches from the grocery store).

1/4 Cup of Pine Nuts

1/2 Cup of Freshly grated Parmesan Cheese

2 Cloves of Garlic

1 Cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (almost a full cup for the pesto mixture and leave some to top off the pesto).

Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients, except the olive oil in the food processor. Pulse and chop the ingredients. Gradually add the olive oil and pulse some more until smooth.

It should be bright green and ready to eat. It will taste better if you wait and let the flavors marry, but who has that kind of discipline? Not I.

This yields more than we can consume in an evening and I usually store the rest in small canning jars – I keep one in the fridge and freeze the rest. Remember that extra olive oil? In order to keep the bright green color of the pesto, I always top it off with a bit of olive oil before putting away. If the basil leaves oxide a bit. the pesto will still be good, but not as appetizing. The extra olive oil keeps it tasting and looking delicious!

That was easy, wasn’t it? Just break out the baguette and clean the plate.

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Organizing a Gift Wrapping Station

August 3, 2015 · by Maria · 25 Comments

Our first home was pretty small and having a large area dedicated to gift wrapping was certainly out of the question. When we purchased our current home which also had a garage, I knew that I wanted wrap-around cabinets and one would be dedicated to gift wrapping.

If I am ever upset at my husband, I just need to think back to all the work that he put into building the cabinetry in the garage – then my heart is once again filled with fuzzy feelings for the man!

Seriously, it was a few weekends of a lot of hard work and trips back to IKEA. Most cabinets only had shelves but the one that housed the gift wrapping items had to have a few drawers as well.

Without further ado, I give to you the GIFT WRAP STATION! At least that’s how my husband presented it to me when he finished building it. He followed that with “and I hope I see you wrapping gifts…often.”

Almost half of the cabinet is full of party items because I didn’t need the whole cabinet for gift wrapping after all. The bottom half has 2 plastic drawers and one metal that holds all the paper.

The first drawer holds all ribbon and bows.

The bows are color grouped and separated by inexpensive shoe boxes that you can probably find at the dollar store. There are always more red bows since most of the wrapping occurs during the Christmas season.

Most of this ribbon is from Walmart. I love cloth ribbon as a finishing touch to any gift although I admit that nothing beats the convenience of a ready made bow!

The next drawer holds the bags and tissue.

And there is enough tissue there to build a fort- a really colorful flimsy fort, but you get the point.

The metal drawer holds a ton of rolls of gift wrapping paper. I love the convenience of a gift bag (it’s usually the route that I go) but I love a beautifully wrapped box! I also like looking at pretty paper when I open the cabinet!

The very bottom of the cabinet holds extra gifts. Some are items that need to be re-gifted and others are items that I purchase ahead of time for upcoming birthdays.

I also have 2 greeting card organizers that I love! One is full of birthday cards and the other is divided into other occasions.

It just occurred to me I can never re-gift that Jake toy to anyone that reads the blog…oh shucks!

How do you store your gift wrapping items? Do you also love pretty gift wrapping paper even if you rarely use it?

Other Related Posts:

Organized Master Closet

Organizing Christmas Gifts

Easy Thanksgiving Gift Idea

Holiday Card Station

Kid Zone – Powered by kids and Loved by parents

July 27, 2015 · by Maria · 2 Comments

My boys watch their favorite shows on a daily basis. They each have their shows and sometimes (especially in the mornings) they both sit down to watch cartoons together. My oldest doesn’t mind watching his little brother’s cartoons, relaxing on the couch while his dad and I sip away at our coffee.

We have had XFINITY as our cable provider for years and we love that there are so many channels available to choose from. However, we used to worry about the kids stumbling upon programming that wasn’t designated for their age. They have to switch through so many channels to get to the one they are looking for, that it’s a valid concern for a parent to want to keep kids from seeing a program or even a commercial that is not appropriate for their age. The solution for us is kids zone brought to you by XFINITY! kids zone is a safe and secure destination for kids (2-12) to independently browse and watch their favorite movies and shows which have already been branded age appropriate by Common Sense Media.

Kids can easily explore their favorite live TV, popular shows, movies, on-demand and DVR library, all in one place. I love how it is personalized and simple and how we can filter by age and search by theme or genre. kids zone on the X1 operating system by XFINITY offers more content for kids to choose from, with over 6,500 kids shows and movies!

Now we have peace of mind with the kids zone on the X1 operating system by XFINITY because our kids can easily and safely navigate age-appropriate shows without supervision. And my husband and I can enjoy 30 minutes each morning of uninterrupted conversation – if you have little ones you know that is priceless!

Easy Entertaining – Fancy in Five

July 27, 2015 · by Maria · 2 Comments

This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group® and EDWARDS®, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #EdwardsPies http://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV”

Lately we have been on an entertaining binge here at Graceful Order…so why stop now, right? It’s the summer after all and everyone wants more fun and less work. So I partnered with EDWARDS® to bring you Five entertaining short cuts that will make you feel fancy without breaking a sweat!

I set up a quick, easy (and pretty) dessert and coffee table for my friends that looked like it took all morning to put together, but we know otherwise (and now they know too because they read my blog – at least I hope they do!).

1. Use tiered servers and cake stands.

This has to be my favorite tip to elevate (literally) any party. Here I used cake stands in different sizes for cake slices, a whole cake, one for a plant… I collect cake stands and most of them are either white or silver so that I can use them together and they always match.

2. Add an orchid to your table/buffet.

I love orchids! I think they are the best value and really dress up any table! They cost as much as a bouquet of flowers but lasts much longer. Pictured here is a $10 orchid that I purchased at Walmart.

3. Make the coffee ahead of time and use a thermal dispenser.

I have been doing this for years! I always make coffee 30 minutes before guests arrive and I know that a good thermal dispenser will keep it hot for hours! That way I don’t have to fumble with filters and filling up a dispenser when I could be hanging out with my friends.

4. Use nice napkins, preferably cloth.

I know, I know…cloth? That means laundry. While pretty disposable napkins are totally cute and ok to use, cloth ones elevate your table that much more. I wash them and immediately remove them from the dryer before wrinkles set in.

5. Purchase a ready made frozen cake from EDWARDS®.

Or better yet, already have one in the freezer!

You don’t need to make everything yourself and it’s ok to outsource certain things. Especially when those “certain things” come out of the box looking like this!

The only thing I did was remove it from the aluminum pan and place it on my fancy schmancy cake platter. Voila!

I actually served it with a side of chocolate syrup but no one used it. It already has the perfect amount on the cake!

The cheesecake I pre-cut for my guests because I knew my friends would go for that option first.

I added a bowl full of berries to a gravy server so that they could help themselves.

And help themselves they did! My friends are not shy! They like food and never need a reason to eat a good dessert. That’s why we get along.

So whether you are a cheesecake girl or you prefer another of the many varieties that Edwards offers, your friends will love your pie! I mean, your company…

If you want to dig into one of these pies you can use the following coupon to use at Walmart (that’s where I bought mine).

“Save $1.00 on any ONE (1) EDWARDS® Whole Pie by taking advantage of the Walmart EDWARDS Ibotta digital rebate (while supplies last)”

Enjoy and remember what Julia Child used to say “A party without cake is just a meeting.”!

How to Set a Proper Table Setting

July 15, 2015 · by Maria · 3 Comments

Don’t you love those friends that you can let your hair down with? The ones that don’t care if you serve them sweet tea out of crystal or a red solo cup? Those are our favorite kind of friends! But as much as I like casual and laid back I also want to know how to set a proper table, even if I rarely do it.

What if you go to some formal event and you have no idea what to do with those 5 forks in front of you? Ahhhh!! Well in our home it never gets more formal or complicated than the picture below. We don’t serve too many courses since the chef, sous chef, hostess and clean up crew is little ol’ me.

There are many levels to the formality of setting a table. Technically the plate should be 2 inches from the edge of the table but none of my friends carry rulers so I don’t bother with those details. The basic idea with all the utensils is that you eat a meal beginning with the outside silverware and work your way in towards the plate. If the salad is served first followed by the main course, then the salad fork would be on the outside and the dinner fork would be closest to the plate.

On the left you would place all your forks. The dinner fork should be placed to the left of the plate and the salad fork to it’s left. The dessert fork goes horizontally above the dinner plate and the dessert spoon goes directly above the dessert fork. The tines of the dessert fork face towards the dinner knife. The dessert spoon faces the forks. Honestly, where the dessert fork and spoon are supposed to face always trips me up and really it’s not a big deal, but like with anything else…it’s good to know!

You can have quite a few glasses per person, depending on how many drink varieties will be served. You can begin with the water goblet above the knife and then to the right of it white or red wine glasses, followed by champagne flutes if you do an opening toast.

In our home I rarely place wine glasses on the table, as we usually are already drinking wine by the time that we sit at the table, so everyone already has their glass in hand.

The napkin can be placed on top of the salad plate, folded lengthwise beneath the salad plate, beside the forks or below the forks.

Bread and butter plates would be above and to the left of the dinner plate. If the dinner plate was the center of a clock, the bread plate would be at 10am. In this case (and in every case in our home) I omitted the bread and butter plate.

The dinner knife is placed to the right of the dinner plate. Knife blades always have the cutting edge facing the plate. If soup is served, a spoon may be placed to the right of the dinner knife.

I leave you with one of my favorite tips! You know when you are seated at a restaurant (especially the round tables) and you can’t figure out which is your glass and which is your bread plate? Simply position your hands in the “ok” sign and you will instantly know which is which. Your right hand will form a “D” and your left a “B”. Bread and Drink – easy as that!

It’s the effort to set a pretty table that your friends appreciate, not a table setting that needs rulers and protractors to measure silverware spacing. Entertaining is about opening your home and making your friends feel welcome. We can do that in so many different ways – by setting a pretty table or by making something from scratch or ordering in and chatting on the couch (with our feet up, of course)! There are many ways to make our friends feel special and a well set table is just one of them.

Pinky up!

Other related Graceful Order posts:

Mother’s Day Table Setting

Setting a Beautiful Table on a Budget

The Thanksgiving Table

Fall Table Setting