Style My House: House Beautiful Inspiration

I have been flipping back through House Beautiful magazines and loved a house in the May issue.  I think I want to live here.  I've actually never wanted a lot of white in my house, but the way the colors in the few colorful furniture pieces and art work in the room are amazing!

And I'm totally stealing this idea--I think it would make me quite me happy to have pretty little black and white photographs in my closet. 

View from Liz's Couch: Recipe of the Week: Cheddar Rosemary Scones

View from Liz's Couch: Recipe of the Week: Cheddar Rosemary Scones

Recipe of the Week: Cheddar Rosemary Scones

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I made scones for the first time this week.  I made my own variation of a Barefoot Contessa recipe for savory scones.  This recipe is so easy and the texture of the scone was perfect.  This recipe makes 16 large scones so it's perfect for bringing to the office

Cheddar Rosemary Scones
Ingredients


•4 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
•2 tablespoons baking powder
•2 teaspoons salt
•3/4 pound cold unsalted butter, diced
•5 large eggs, beaten lightly
•1 cup cold heavy cream
• 80z bag shredded extra-sharp yellow Cheddar or more if you like
•1/2 Cup rosemary chopped finely
•1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water or milk, for egg wash


Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Combine 4 cups of flour, the baking powder, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the butter and mix on low speed until the butter is in pea-sized pieces. Mix the eggs and heavy cream and quickly add them to the flour-and-butter mixture. Combine until just blended. Toss together the Cheddar, rosemary, and 1 tablespoon of flour and add them to the dough. Mix until they are almost incorporated.


Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it for 1 minute, until the Cheddar and dill are well distributed. Roll the dough 3/4-inch thick. Cut into 4-inch squares and then in half diagonally to make triangles. Brush the tops with egg wash. Bake on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for 20 to 25 minutes, until the outside is crusty and the inside is fully baked.

Next Book Club Choice- Eat Pray Love

We had a great night last Friday discussing The Awakening by Kate Chopin and I'm really excited about our next book choice Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

The book takes us on the author's post-divorce search for herself--gastronomic adventures in Italy, spiritual pursuit in India and newfound love in Bali. 

A friend gave me this book not long after I got divorced and I think that now I might have a different perpesctive 3 years later.  I am excited to share this book with the girls and then we're going to see the movie that's coming out soon. 

I'm wondering how different the movie will be from the book.  In my humble opinion books are generally better than the movie.  So, let's hope it's not disappointing. 

Style My House: Bar Tray Table

I have been toying with the idea of putting a bar tray table in my living room.  I love the look of it, but ya know I'm not really a liquor drinker.  I have the perfect table for it and a great little spot picked out.  I saw this great pic in Lonny Magazine and got some inspiration.

Mathilda Savitch...little girl not quite lost

I enjoyed reading Mathilda Savitch and yet I didn't.  We find Mathilda in the midst of a very broken family stuck in their grief over the death of their older daughter Helene.  Mathilda is dealing with her grief in her own way and desperately wants her parents to acknowledge her and Helene.  The story is told as we listen in on Mathilda's thoughts and rationale for her sometimes bizarre behavior.  She seems like such a little girl sometimes ...afraid of terrorists that might harm her or her friends and then at other times she makes profound conclusions that seem beyond her age.  As the story unfolds Mathilda goes to great lengths to discover the truth of her sister's death and to get her parent's attention. 

I loved reading Mathilda's thoughts written by Lodato.  You just wanted to keep reading- she was funny. Lodato really tapped into what an adolsescent might think- what they might fear, what would make sense to them. At the same time, the story was a sad one and the ending was bittersweet.  Mathilda seemed lost and searching throughout most of the book and at the end she wasn't quite so lost, but not quite found yet either.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

So, I've been looking at this book for awhile wondering what in the world it was all about...then I finally bit the bullet and bought the book.  I love it! I am so shocked, but the juxtaposition of the serious Jane Austen content that I love and the Seth Grahame-Smith added zombie attacks are fun.  I haven't finished the book yet, but I am reading it as fast as I can. 

BTW, in this book Elizabeth Bennett is a trained fighter who won't be caught dead without her katana sword and delivers quite a beating to an obnoxious Mr. Darcy.  I think that Jane Austen would have approved of this tough, take-charge Elizabeth although I am not sure what she would think of a zombie-filled countryside.