Trying out Blogger...and sharing my seasonal dish swap.

Yes, I am still working on my Word Press site…I went back to this original Frog Hollow Farm girl Blogger site and to tell you the truth wasn’t totally impressed….but I do still think that for me, Blogger is easier to use and that means it’s more fun to blog with.

Do you change your dishes from season to season???  I do, and I think that a lot of people do based on the number of blogs I have come across that display beautiful photos of seasonal tablescapes.  For many, the changes occur with the accessories incorporated around simple white dishes, which is probably the way to go….but I am in love with dishes, especially Italian and French pottery (mostly Italian).

Do I need to prove this to you?   We have an old house with an old basement that was remodeled into several office spaces for my husband when he began his business many years ago.   Now that he has moved his business out of our home, one part of this space has become the ‘Dish Room’.  This is where I store all of my seasonal dishes, plates, saucers, mugs, bowls, trays, platters and pitchers.  For the most part they are organized by season, darker browns, oranges, greens for the fall; bright reds and yellows for summer, blue, white and green for winter and lighter turquoise, lemon yellow and white for spring.  Our Christmas dishes include the old Spode Christmas Tree pattern, along with several antique sets of transferware dishes with red, green and cream coloring.  Here are some of the dish room shelves for you to see….

red Polish pottery in the mix

Florentine pitcher, bowls and dishes - used in the Fall

cute crow mug from an weekend market in Piazza Annuziata in Florence

 For the spring I have pulled out some of the Italian dishes with softer colors.  Below are a few photos of  my ‘spring dishes’ and ‘summer dishes’, purchased over the years from Silvia and Maurizio in Florence, Italy.

a mixed set of Florentine dishes

small plates from Maurizio for aperitivi

my very first set of Italian pottery, I add to it every time I am in Florence

 So, here I am back on Blogger.  I'll be taking a look at my front page and see how easy it really is for me to change things.  

Ciao, bella!  xxoo

I'm just not feeling winter this year - maybe for a few days when we had snow on the ground.  The way things look right now I'm expecting to see the forsythia begin to bloom.  The sun is shining but I need that cold, blustery weather to get into the winter mood.  I'm confused, should I be thinking about making comfort foods or begin making salads?  I'm buying tulips every time I go to the grocery store, but I tend to do that anyway.

So, I've been cleaning out lots of our closets and drawers, which always makes me feel good.  I feel better when the things I see on shelves and in closets are all things that we use - our old farmhouse doesn't have a ton of storage so we need to maximize the space that we have and fill it with things that are functional and of course pretty and meaningful.

Even though I love clearing closets and drawers, I actually have to stop myself from buying new things to fill the spaces I've just cleared!  

Tonight we are trying a new recipe at Frog Hollow Farm, from the February 2012  issue of La Cucina Italiana that I picked up at our Whole Foods last week.  I guess I'm going with comfort foods and not salads, at least for tonight.

The recipe is called Scalloppine di Maiale all'arancia - that's Pork Scaloppine with Orange and Lentils for all of the non Italian speaking bloggers out there :).

This is the photo from the La Cucina Italiana website.

Here's the link - http://lacucinaitalianamagazine.com/recipe/pork-scaloppine--with-orange-and-lentils

If you highlight the link you should be able to link right over to it.

I already had all of the ingredients and am even trying to clear out some of my pantry and freezer items, this seemed like a healthy way to go.

For last week's Giant's game I made a new appetizer recipe from skinnytaste.com called  

Bacon Wrapped Chicken Bites 

I ate them all....they had me at BACON.  

I'm reading and hearing a lot about people switching over from Blogger to Word Press - I'm not sure if it's something that I need to do but began reading about it today.  I've been wanting to develop my blog into a business of sorts and have some ideas - Word Press may be the more dependable source.  

What are your feelings on switching?

Ciao, bella!