Lavinia at Home

It’s December and the busiest time of the year as the Christmas and Holiday season draws near. It can bring out the best or the worse in all of us, as the pressures of today’s world co-mingles with our desire to enjoy the season at its best.

Simply trying to bake some holiday cookies for the family or friends can be stressful. I find that you can even get more stressed out when someone you love tries to tell you to relax. One technique I like, breathing in through the nose and slowly exhaling through the mouth a few times. I think that it really helps. Try it!

And if none of the above works, check out our Lavinia Lingerie site. We have some lovely new items and colors within our active wear collection for yoga or pilates classes. Check out our capri leggings, sports bras, bandeau tube tops and yoga shorts. Maybe there’s a nice piece that’s perfect for one of your friends. Hey, don’t forget something nice for yourself, you deserve it. I know most of my friends seem to forget their troubles when they do a little shopping for themselves; it’s definitely a distressed.

And if you still feel like baking, try out these delicious cookies:

Chocolate Almond Fingers

3/4 cup of butter

3 ounces of almond paste

1/3 cup of sugar

6 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup of finely chopped pistachios

1 2/3 cups of flour

Note: Nuts are optional

Prepare baking sheet with parchment paper or grease and lightly flour it.

Cream butter and sugar until blended; add almond paste and egg yolk, beat until light and fluffy. Blend in flour to make smooth dough; refrigerate the dough for a little while if the dough seems too soft to handle. Lightly flour your baking board and divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a 12 inch rope and cut each cookie into a 2 inch length. Place 2 inches apart on a prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges begin to brown. Place on a rack to cool. Melt your chocolate in a bowl over hot water, stirring until smooth. Dip both ends of the cookie in the chocolate and then in the pistachios, or if you have small children, maybe you can dip them in colored sprinkles. Enjoy!

To all my friends and fellow shoppers, I wish you a Joyous Holiday Season and a Happy New Year.

Enjoy!

Popularity: 45% [?]

May is here - a month when we all focus on planting our gardens, and tiding up the yard, looking forward to those warm summer days.

But wait, this is the month we celebrate motherhood.

While driving up from Virginia, we saw a sign by a garden center that read “Mother called, she needs bloomers”! I must say we had a chuckle.

So on the light side, you should check out our seductive lace lingerie at LaviniaLingerie.com and get mom the “bloomers”, she would enjoy. Lets head for the kitchen and make these delightful Linzer Tarts for Mothers Day.

May is looking really good.

Linzer Tarts
2 cups flour
1½ sticks of butter
½ cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup of grounded almonds(optional)

(Smuckers) red or black seedless raspberry jam
Confectionnary sugar for dusting tarts
Cookie cutters set

Mix the first six ingredients in a food processor or by hand. Let the dough rest for about one hour in the refrigerator. Roll dough 1/3 at a time, 1/8 of an inch thick (more on the thinner side). Using the cookie cutter set, choose your desired size.

For entertaining, I prefer a 2 ¼” round cutter for the base, and the 1 inch for the center cut out on top. You should get about twenty three to twenty five cookies. Bake in preheated oven at 350 F.

Let cookies cool and spread jam on bottom base cookie, placing the ring cookie on top and dusting with powder sugar. ENJOY!!!!

Popularity: 12% [?]