Happy New Year 2023!

 

Lentil Soup

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 2023!

I follow the Italian tradition of making lentil soup for New Year's Day for 'Buona Fortuna,"  which means "Good Fortune."  Some families actually make a bowl of lentils to eat a few moments after the hour turns to midnight, but I wait until dinner the next day to make sure we can really enjoy the soup as dinner.   There are many recipes for lentil soup and it is easy to make as lentils do not require pre-soaking and cook fairly quickly. It can be made vegetarian or with sweet Italian sausage, which is the way we like it.  Here is a link for a Lentil Sauage and Escarole Soup I shared many years ago.  

An early blog header when I lived in Brooklyn, New York, and frequently explored the city.

It is hard for me to believe that I have been blogging for a little over 15 years!  I began my blog in December 2007.  I was going to use it as a way to save links to websites and ideas I liked, but it eventually became more of a journal of the places I visited around New York City, where I lived at the time, the foods I made, family events, and books I read, etc.  A hodgepodge of my everyday life.  Mille Fiori means "a thousand flowers" in Italian and I looked at each blog post as a flower I was saving... I never thought I'd pass 1,000 posts!

Driving into our neighborhood

My husband and I moved to the Denver area of Colorado 10 years ago to live close to our children and grandchildren, who had settled here. Although it was a big change we do not regret it.  We appreciate seeing our grandchildren grow up and spending time with our family, and we love the beauty of Colorado.  My blog for the past ten years has shown many places and activities we've explored in Colorado, each one more interesting or more beautiful than the last.

We love living where we do amongst nature and we even love the snow!  We see wildlife often and enjoy the hiking trails nearby.

I was busy most of December baking treats...

..and we had the traditional Italian American "Feast of the Seven Fishes" dinner on Christmas Eve.  My husband and I made our savory Calabrian-style zeppole the day before to serve with the appetizers, and I made traditional Baccala (Italian salted cured cod fish), plus many other seafood selections.

There were also many desserts that I baked!

We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope your holiday was also very special.

We can now look ahead to a new year full of new resolutions, hopes and dreams, and accomplishments. 

Let's make 2023 a great year!

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A Merry Christmas Season!

I hope all who celebrate are enjoying a very Merry Christmas Season!  This is our Christmas tree for 2022. It is a true labor of love to decorate it every year as most of my ornaments are keepsakes that bring back memories from our children and vacations and other events.  I also have another small tree in my kitchen/family room that is full of ornaments made by my grandchildren. Each year it takes a little more effort for us to decorate for Christmas--the bins holding it all are not getting any lighter--but once it is finished we are so happy to have it completed and to be able to enjoy it all.  I'm sure you feel the same.

For the Thanksgiving holiday this year, we traveled north to Steamboat Springs where we rented a house for a few days. The scenery we pass as we drive up into the Rocky Mountains is always breathtakingly beautiful! I will have more photos to share of our drive in a future post.  We've always visited Steamboat in early autumn and this was the first time in late autumn when it was snowing on Rabbit Ears Pass, which made it interesting.

I cooked our traditional Thanksgiving dinner ahead of time and we brought it with us in coolers. It worked out well and we had a relaxed and casual dinner.  The house was cozy and had beautiful views as well as a hot tub that we all enjoyed.  We even enjoyed Strawberry Park Hot Springs on a mountaintop one day--a fun experience with snow all around.

As soon as we returned home many Christmas activities began! Our community always hosts a wonderful "Holiday Happenings" event with horse-drawn carriage rides and a visit from Santa Claus and hot chocolate and cookies. Our oldest granddaughter is in her school choir and we joined the choir on a chilly evening to go Christmas caroling. 

Our oldest grandson plays the viola and his Middle School orchestra performed a very harmonic performance for Christmas, which we all enjoyed very much.

Another exciting event for us every year for us is the delivery of our traditional Baccala--salted cod fish--which I prepare two ways as one of our traditional Christmas Eve Italian-American "Feast of the Seven Fishes" dinners. It has been my husband's favorite fish since childhood.  If you'd like to see a recipe for one way I prepare it called Baccala Fiorentina you can see it here in an older blog post.  We order it from Frank and Sal Italian Market on Staten Island, New York, as it is difficult to find it in the Denver area.

There are many lights and decorations everywhere to enjoy in all of Denver's botanic gardens, zoo, and Denver Civic Center.  It is a beautiful Christmas Season here and I hope you are also enjoying all the beauty where you live.

I have lots of baking ahead this week as I make treats for family, neighbors, and friends, and we have some more grandchildren events ahead and parties to attend to look forward to--will show all in my next blog post!

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Linking to Mosaic Monday