For the very first time since we’ve moved in together (that’s 4 years now!), Allan and I decided to decorate our little apartment with Christmas decorations. And let’s face it, when I say “Allan and I”, I really mean me, since Allan would much rather be playing video games than doing holiday decorations Plus, I’ll be honest — I’ve been suffering a little bit from wedding withdrawal, and I’ve been dying for an excuse to do floral arrangements, place settings and entertaining

Over the past two weeks, I’ve decorated our home space, the common room at work, and my parent’s house. I’ve been elfing it up this year for some reason! Normally we do Christmas completely over at my parent’s place as they have space to do the big tree… and while Christmas will most definitely still be over there, we are having my folks over for Christmas breakfast this year and wanted to prep the apartment in advance. I decided to do a silver and champagne Christmas theme with red accents.

 

We hosted a holiday dinner party this past weekend with Trev & Crista and Mat & Ali and managed to find some space for our pop-up table. Seating 6 around this table in our apartment is difficult, so swapped our normal computer desk for a “rolly” desk that we can roll into a different room when we have people over. Awesome! Then it was time for new place settings! I also did all the floral arrangements with fresh roses and Christmas greens.

Low flower arrangements with large red roses and berries.

I really like the way our place settings turned out and I think they are versatile enough to use all year round. Or do you think it would be too much for normal entertaining?

Here’s a silver wreath we used to bring some festivity to our kitchen.

And my favourite… a fresh wreath with peppercorns, pinecones and tons of greens… smells so good!

Our side table was replaced with some silver Christmas trees and mercury glass candle holders…

… a couple other accents here and there with reindeer and more candles.

The aftermath of our dinner party with some holiday decor on our coffee table and a festive throw blanket.

I find cooking for 6 people really hard to do with plated dinners, so we did quite a bit of prep the previous night. I learned how to clarify butter for the first time (awesome for searing scallops at an extremely high temperature). I also toasted the pumpkin seeds, prepped the chocolate decorations and the veggies to give the pasta some colour.

The next day, we put the kobe-style marbled beef short ribs in the oven for four hours and got the butternut squash soup going. Some photos of our prep with making the sage sauce, and the minted pea puree.

Allan did a really nice job with the striped raviolis. We did beet-coloured ravioli for the butternut squash filled ones, and spinach-coloured ravioli for the wild mushroom filled ones.

First course: Butternut Squash Soup with Roasted Pumpkin Seeds and Pumpkin Seed Oil, finished with a Parmesan Crisp … we always seem to make this one when other people come over! (recipe)

Second Course: Seared Scallops in a Minted Pea Puree with Applewood Double-Smoked Bacon

Third Course: Braised Beef Short Rib in a Red Wine Reduction with Cauliflower Puree and duo of Wild Mushroom and Butternut Squash Ravioli in a Brown Butter Sage Sauce (recipe)

Fourth Course: Tiramisu Cheesecake with Chocolate Decoration and Strawberries (recipe)

Overall I think our dinner party went well and our apartment is looking festive! I think we’re all set for the holidays…. can’t wait for Christmas! Can you believe it’s only 2 weeks away now?

What are your holiday plans this year? Are you going to decorate your place?

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If you’d like to see the flaky raspberry rhubarb pie recipe, please scroll down.

Hope everyone had a great long weekend! I would say we had a good and bad one. Bad because Allan got into a car accident, but good because it was a delicious weekend full of food, baking, and cooking. Friday night I went for drinks with one of my girlfriends and had a good, introspective talk. I knew the weekend was going to start out good when we bit into local BC organic peaches that were ridiculously juicy. Head down to Granville Island this week if you get a chance and snag some!

Saturday we played pitch and putt with some friends, then headed down to the New India Curry Buffet to eat all-you-can-eat curry and watch the fireworks with friends.

On Sunday we headed over to my parents’ house and spent the entire morning picking raspberries, boysenberries, blueberries, rhubarb, and herbs.

We were lucky enough to have some of my mom’s amazing creations… homemade waffles with blueberry sauce (berries from the garden!) and a recipe she was testing out for our engagement party in two weeks… homemade waffles cones and gelato from scratch! She’s crazy!

That night we decided to make some amazing beef lasagna with BC heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, bechamel sauce, spanish chorizo, and pancetta. Check out my “best ever” recipe here for this amazing lasagna. You can substitute for all beef (like we did for this one) or vegetarian if you want.

On Monday we walked over to Williams-Sonoma to pick up a gift for a friend and start our wedding registry. Fun!

Oh, and of course we had to stop for Purdy’s ice cream… a must in the summer

Yesterday (on Monday), I also got the chance to bake my first ever pie. It is based on a combination of my grandma’s recipe and a recipe I found in one of my cookbooks. Even though they might not have looked as nice as I would have liked, the crust is perfectly flaky and the filling is tart, fruity, and flavourful. Allan and I both thought it was the best pie we’ve ever had (sorry Grandma! … ), but of course… we’re biased.

PERFECT FLAKY RASPBERRY RHUBARB PIE RECIPE
Makes enough for 2 pies, in approximately 9″ pie plates

Pie Crust Ingredients:
4 cups flour
4 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup of Crisco
4-8 tablespoons of ice cold water
For egg wash: 1 yolk with 1 tablespoon of water, whisked

Raspberry Rhubarb Pie Filling Ingredients:
4 cups of raspberries (and boysenberries if you like)
3 cups of rhubarb cut into half-inch pieces
2.5 cups of sugar (this is for a tart pie, if you like it more sweet, use 3 cups)
6 tablespoons of tapioca flakes
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of melted unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (I love cinnamon so I put 1 teaspoon, but you can omit this or decrease it)
1/2 teaspoon of squeezed lemon juice

1. Combine 2 cups of flour with the sugar and salt in a large bowl. Using a pastry cutter, cut the cold butter into the flour until marble-sized and do the same with the shortening after. Stir in the rest of the flour. Sprinkle with 3 tablespoons or so of water.

2. Firmly squeeze the flour against the sides of the bowl until somewhat combined. Pastry should feel quite dry and crumbly. Do not add too much water. Only add drops at a time until there’s enough to just hold it together. Dry crumbs are good — means it will be flaky. Separate dough into four balls and refrigerate. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

3. Now make the filling. In a large bowl mix sugar, flour, tapioca, salt and butter. Now combine with the raspberries and mix them gently into the sugar mixture. Let sit for 10 minutes and then add in the rhubarb and gently combine. Set aside.

4. The key here is to roll out the pastry on top of something you can flip over. A cutting board, pastry mat, or anything similar works. We used a pizza tray lined with floured parchment paper on top. Now roll out one ball of dough gently (rolling in one direction at a time) using plenty of flour until dough is larger than the pie plate edges. Gently flip dough over onto pie plate and then put into fridge. Repeat once more with the other pie plate. Now place both pie plates in oven for about 8-10 minutes until just lightly browned. This keeps the bottom crust still crispy during the later cooking.

5. Now let’s roll out the top crusts. Do the same as step 4 and make sure the crust is big enough to fit over the pie plate. By now you should be able to take the pie plates out of the oven. Fill the bottom crust pie plates with your filling. Now gently flip over the top pie crusts and seal the edges by pressing them. Trim any excess and cut out some cute vents in the top. Brush VERY lightly with egg wash, do not brush the edges, just the middle.

6. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the top is just golden brown. Do not burn the edges.

7. Let cool for at least 30 minutes. ENJOY!

Serve with something sweet like ice cream or whipped cream and fresh berries. Soooooooooo flaky and GOOD!