My Casa Bella

COME IN THE EVENING, OR COME IN THE MORNING;

COME WHEN YOU'RE LOOK'D FOR,

OR COME WITHOUT WARNING.

KISSES AND WELCOME YOU'LL FIND BEFORE YOU,

AND THE OFTENER YOU COME HERE

THE MORE I'LL ADORE YOU!

-Thomas Osbourne Davis



Welcome To My Casa Bella

My Casa Bella- means-my beautiful home- but it can mean so many other things. How you make your home a home. The sounds of children or pets playing. The aroma of scones in the oven or a lilac candle burning. The flowers blooming in your garden. The home grown vegetables ready to be picked. Grandma's quilt at the foot of the bed. A fire to curl up to with a good book. Or just a family spending time together with love, laughter and a good time.





















Thursday, April 14, 2011

Gluten Free Chocolate Cookie Pie (Chocolate Town Pie)

This pie is one of the easiest,
simplest pies to make,
that is,
unless you make it
Gluten Free.
I've made this pie for years,
and just
LOVE IT!
But now with my Gluten and Wheat
intolerance's
I've had to stop making some
things.
But, now with great GF flours
out there,
I can make my favorite desserts
again.
The hardest part is the crust!
What a nightmare.
The directions tell you to place dough
between parchment paper
and roll.
Easier said than done.
I'm rolling it out like I did when I made
regular pie crust,
well big mistake, you can't do that.
You have to GENTLY
roll it out,
barely pushing down otherwise it
just separates.
It takes a lot of patience to make
GF pie crusts,
but it is worth it in the end.
Now after rolling it out,
flip it onto your
pie dish

Oh  my, now I'm frustrated,
they also don't tell
you that this is going to happen,
why bother rolling it out?
So after some fixing up, squeezing
together, piecing it like
a puzzle
Voila!
Looks pretty, heh?
Then they tell you to fold over edges
and crimp,
HA! Yea right, I wasn't messing
with it after what
happened, so I took a fork and press
along the edge of the crust.
Pretty enough!
So the filling I made GF as well, not
a problem there.
Filled the crust and baked it and
this wonderful
chocolaty
heavenly
sweetness
came out,
YUM!
I was a very happy girl,
that's for sure!
So, I will attach the crust recipe for you
(this is a pumpkin pie recipe but it has the crust recipe as well)

(I'm having some for breakfast can't help it)

Chocolate Town Pie:
9 in. unbaked pastry shell
1/2 cup of butter, softened
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla (there are GF Vanilla extracts out there)
1 cup of sugar
1/2 flour or Gluten Free flour mix
1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup of walnuts or any nuts

Prepare pastry shell, set aside. Heat oven to 350. In small mixer bowl cream butter, then add eggs and vanilla. In separate bowl combine flour and sugar and add to the
butter mixture. Stir in chips and nuts. Pour into your pastry
shell. Bake for 45-50 minutes or til brown.
Cool for one hour and serve warm.
You can serve with ice cream or whipped cream.
ENJOY!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Rain, Baking, Relaxing....

So it's one of those days,
rainy, cold, and windy.
Yesterday it was
80 degrees
and gorgeous, so I took
advantage of
that
but I knew that today I would
feel miserable.
My FM has flared up, not a
surprise
Fall and Spring wreak havoc
on that.
I love those times of the year
but my body
does not
So today, I am attempting
to make a pie
out of Gluten Free products
which I will
post later today whenever
I get it
done.
Making a pie today is an all day
affair when you
feel like I do.
The sun tried to come out
after it poured all morning
but now its dark
and dreary again,
welcome to
SPRING!
But I got laundry almost
done today,
we had our Open House this
past Sunday
and it turned out well,
that was stressful.
I will tell you the one benefit
to selling your
home,
you are FORCED to keep your
house clean and organized.
You just don't know when you'll
get a phone call
telling you
someone wants to
see your home!
YIKES!
But, we have been
disciplining ourselves
to keeping up with our home
every single day.
Otherwise it's not fun having
strangers walking through
your home,
I feel like my privacy is being
violated but I know it's
part of the process,
but I don't have
to like it.
I also got to reorganize
my closet
and swap out my winter
clothes.
I enjoy doing that because
I forget what I had
for the Spring/Summer
season so it's like
shopping in
my own closet every
season.
I bought a skirt
at JC Penney and have been
trying to find the right
top for it, mainly
because the color is so hard
to find
and who would of known
that I had two tops
already
that go great with it.
You see, like
shopping!
And the other great thing is
that I get to sort through my
things and decide
what to pitch, donate
or take to a consignment
shop. I have two
bags to take.
I need to stop shopping.
That is a goal that I
am setting
for myself.
Buy only what I NEED,
not what I want,
plus my closet is not a walk in as
some of you women
are blessed with,
so I have to be careful with
the space that I
have to work with.
(Yes I did NEED that skirt that I bought at Penney's)
On another note, I saw
this on a site, wish I
could remember where,
 I just love it
Isn't it  beautiful?
I'm trying to figure out if it's
a dresser at the end
of the bed or
one solid bed frame?
This would be great in a small space.
Well, just wanted to stop
in and say
hello!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

An Adventure

So DH and I are planning a new
adventure!
We have our home on the market,
yes I know,
of all times, right?
It's one of those things, you know,
there's someone
out there who's looking for a home
like ours
in this area,
we hope.
Today is a week it's been for sale
and we've had
one showing, so that's good.
We'll have our first
Open House
on Sunday,
so we shall see.
But in the meantime, we've
been busy
staging our home.
Fresh paint,
organizing,
rearranging,
cleaning,
etc..
Our Kitchen:

Dining Room
Sitting Area
Living Room
Master Bedroom
lots and lots of stuff to
get our home
ready.
This is our first house together
so it's hard to
try and let it go but
at the same time
we're excited about our future
plans and are ready
to move forward.
No matter where we live
it will be our home.
It's kind of exciting
decorating a new place,
although we'll be renting
for a bit
so we can't do
whatever we want,
but
that's
OK,
we're ready to let some one
else worry
about the leak
under the sink,
or the toilet
not working.
And we'll
get to live outside
of a
big city,
and I am a city girl
at heart
so it'll be fun.
We shall see what happens.
On a cute note,
here are my
"kids"
looking so cute
Kahlua was trying to figure
out how
he could
fit in there with them,
but it wasn't happening,
poor baby!