This time of year I always get in the mood to freshen up my house. Until we re-do the kitchen I’m not making any major changes, but little things like new tea towels and new rugs can give it a boost. Here are some of my favorites lately:

Well, duh. (via Emma Bridgewater)

Yup! (via Emily McDowell)

So pretty for a seaside home. (via Food52 Provisions)

So cheerful! (via Pomegranate Inc.)

I love these geometric patterns. (via Fine Little Day Shop)

If you read my newsletter last week you’ll know that I was taken down by the stomach flu and didn’t have the ability to type a sentence, let alone cook a speck of food. Luckily, that time is now behind me (seriously, thank god, because I never want to feel that awful again), and I’ve resumed naptime cooking and nourishing to the best of my ability. Over the weekend we had our first Nor’easter of the season which meant it was time for the slow cooker! And, given my recent recovery, I was excited to make something hearty and comforting for my crew.

Last year I was gifted some pretty copper pots by various family members. I love cooking with copper and could never afford to buy a set myself so it was a real treat! The pots themselves are heavier than my favorite stainless steel workhorses, but they conduct heat more evenly and are perfect for warming soups and stews. They even make my kitchen look a little fancier, like a French kitchen! Someday I hope to have a little copper collection that I can hang from the ceiling or on a pegboard like Julia Child. In the mean time, though, I need to the care for the pots I have to make sure they last a lifetime. So! Here is what I’ve learned so far about caring for copper:

Easy regular cleaning – Salt & Lemon:

My favorite easy natural cleaning solution is to cut a lemon in half, sprinkle a generous dose of kosher salt on top, and scrub the outside of the pot. This will instantly lift away grime by acting as a mild acidic abrasive. It doesn’t damage the pot at all and makes the whole kitchen smell heavenly.

Shining up – Vinegar:

When I want to wash off hand prints or marks from water droplets or sauces I use a rag dipped in white vinegar. It polishes the copper right up and makes it look shiny and new. Vinegar is also a good natural way to clean the inside of your pan. Pour about 1-inch worth of vinegar into the pan (doesn’t matter if the lining is tin or stainless steel), and simmer for about 10 minutes. Then rinse out with water and a sponge. This will lift any grime off the bottom of the pan and get the bottom nice and clean.

Extreme Discoloration: Wright’s Copper Cleaner

Sometimes extreme discoloration happens if you hit the pan with a lot of high heat over a long period of time. Or, if you give it a nick or a dent by accident. It is no big deal. Just use the copper cleaner according to directions and it will all come off. If it doesn’t clear up entirely don’t worry, a little patina on the pan is pretty and adds character!

The benefit of having in-law’s in Florida is that they regularly send citrus. Not just any citrus, the real deal Florida fresh citrus. We eat it non-stop, especially during snowstorms, to keep our spirits up. I also use it all the time for baking and cooking. Over the weekend I used one of our last grapefruits to make these sweet little shortbread cookies. I loved how the tangy grapefruit played with the dark chocolate, giving it the flavor of a dark chocolate covered orange peel. These simple cookies are the perfect sweet nibble to chase away the winter blues. Remember people, only 50 days left until spring!

Over the weekend we celebrated my son’s second birthday. I can’t quite believe time has flown so quickly. I remember when he was born so clearly it honestly feels like yesterday. We’ve transitioned from burp clothes and midnight feedings, to diggers and trampoline play dates in just minutes. Though he still has pretty apathetic about having an actual birthday there is no way I’d let the day pass without a delicious cake to celebrate. I let my daughter choose a cake she would love and asked her to help me style it for her baby brother.

In the winter I freeze my herbs from the garden and bring whatever plants I can inside for the winter. This year my Meyer Lemon tree is wintering in our dining room along with this beautiful rosemary plant. Not all herbs tolerate being dragged from inside to outside for season after season, but rosemary is one of the few that can withstand the change. I love that it is so easy to care for and makes the whole house smell incredible whenever I pinch a few leaves. It also means we’ve got beautiful fragrant rosemary to cook with year-round! Here are a few tips for caring for your rosemary plant indoors:

Water: Rosemary likes to stay moist, but not saturated, all the time. Stick your finger 1-inch down into the dirt. If it is dry water it until the water comes through the bottom of the pot.

Sunlight: I’ve positioned our plant directly in front of a sunny window and it is so happy. Rosemary is a Mediteranean plant so it likes at least 6 hours of sun per day if you can manage it. The sunlight doesn’t have to be direct, but any kind of a sunny, airy room is ideal. An atrium is best.

In case of white: If the leaves and tips of the plant begin to turn white my mother has taught me to wrap the pot in plastic wrap so the dirt is covered and place the whole plant in the shower. Let is sit under a gently lukewarm shower for about 5 minutes so it gets thoroughly soaked. This should wash away any white mildew or mites. Repeat as necessary.

Clippings: With plenty of light and water in a warm house rosemary will continue to grow all winter long. Keep it trimmed and shaped by cutting off the green shoots every few weeks. They can be used for cooking. This will keep the plant from getting to lanky and unruly. It will also help it fill out and get bushy in the middle. Santa shopped at Food52 Provisions this year and brought me a gorgeous pair of Japanese garden scissors for this task, but any sharp pair of scissors will do.

With healthy rosemary indoors all winter you can use it for cooking, adding to tea, adding to champagne (crazy, but it is delicious!), and freshening up your house. If you harvest a lot that you want to save for later you can always freeze it!

Here’s a great party idea I picked up over the holidays: the DIY Dark & Stormy bucket. Place a big bucket of ice on top of a table and fill it up with beers and ginger beers. Next to the bucket place a large bottle of dark rum and cups for mixing. If people just want a beer they can grab one and walk away. It is so nice not to have to wait for a bartender to give you a beer! Or, if they want a little something more they can mix themselves a few Dark & Stormy’s. Again, nobody needs the bartender to make one, they are so easy to make yourself. I am definitely planning to make a Dark & Stormy bucket for our next party. It would also be really fun and refreshing at a summer lawn party.

I don’t love the January fad of extreme diets and cleanses, but I do embrace the renewed commitment to healthier eating. I don’t mind giving up sugar and cutting back on gluten. I just don’t like replacing it all with salad. Only salad. Lettuce is delicious, but it doesn’t feel like real sustenance to me. It is not hearty enough and doesn’t fill me up, no matter how much I eat. That is why I am here to give you a new salad recipe that will steer you away from a leafy green-heavy plate but still keep you firmly in the healthy eating category. My friend Lauren made this in December when she had a few friends over for a ladies lunch. She paired it with my most delicious shrimp soup (recipe soon) and it made for a terrific, warm afternoon meal. (Not to mention, her table styling was spot on and her whole house looks like it bounced right off the pages of Domino magazine.)

There was no naptime cooking yesterday. Instead there was naptime book launch work and naptime house work. Ah, well. You can’t win ’em all. In lieu of naptime cooking there was one-pot-meal-night. That is, a quick delicious dinner that I could make in one dish. It was an easy recipe that my mom had given me years ago to try and this week I finally got around to it. Here is the jist:

Happy New Year! I am excited to be back up and running for 2015. We have a BIG year ahead. The next book has an official publishing date: March 31, 2015! On that day all the copies of The Family Calendar: From Birthdays to Bake Sales, Good Food to Carry You Through the Year, will be available for purchase (you can pre-order it now!!!). Stay tuned for book tour information.

I am also back in cooking mode at home. I’ve been hard at work for my articles for Babble and Mom.me which will be published soon. I’ve also been naptime cooking our meals again. My daughter is back at school and my son is back on his regular napping schedule which makes things much easier. I love the holidays, but it is hard being off our schedule for so long!

Over the holidays I took some time to reflect on my kitchen and my goals for the new year. Here are a few of my resolutions if you’d like to see:

1) Organize!: For an OCD Virgo like me, organizing is rarely a problem. The challenge for me as how well I can organize since I love it so much. Nothing makes me happier than an orderly, clean pantry! Kidecals sent me these cool chalkboard labels last fall and I’ve been using them to label all the foods I keep in mason jars and OXO Pop containers. They are so handy and I love that they are reusable.

2) Return to old favorites: Since I develop new recipes all the time I sometimes forget to return to old favorites. This year I pledge to return to my archives and revisit meals for years past that we’ve loved like this, this, and this. One of the first things on my agenda is making Barbara’s Gorgeous Meyer Lemon Marmalade. Now is the time to preserve all that gorgeous citrus!

3) Continue renovation research: We are inching closer to drawing up our big renovation plans and I’ve been doing lots of research on appliances, materials, and design. The options can get overwhelming and intimidating at times, but I remind myself to persevere. As daunting as the project is, the more I research now, the happier I’ll be in the long run.

4) It’s Book Season!: I am bursting with excitement about the new book and promise to do my best to make this the best book season yet. Let me know what you want to see and let’s all enjoy this journey together.

5) Join me on Instagram: I am so grateful that so many of you join me on Facebook. But sometimes Facebook can be a real pain about who gets to see what post. This year I’m launching a daily photography journey on my Instagram account. Search the hashtags #familycalendar and #dailynaptime so see everything so far. I hope you will come along!

I am over and done with rich food this winter. Christmas season was an ongoing feast of eggnog french toast, short ribs over potatoes, and much, much more. For January I’m dialing it down, pushing aside sugar, and focusing on small easy snacks into of large gluttonous meals. Here are a few things we’ve enjoyed so far:

Cheddar & Chutney Rolls: I love these King’s Hawaiian sweet rolls. Layered with a thick slice of sharp cheddar and a generous dollop of chutney they are the perfect little sandwich to serve along a fresh salad.

Strata: For an easy dinner last week I made ham and cheese strata. It was easy to scale down my favorite recipe and make just an 8×8 pan size strata for my family. I used chopped King’s Hawaiian rolls to in lieu of ciabatta.

Mini Pizzas: When my husband travels the kids and I make mini-pizzas for dinner. So easy and so delicious!

(Disclosure: I was sent King’s Hawaiian rolls to try out for my New Year’s entertaining this year. The recipe ideas and photographs are wholly my own.)

Earlier this fall I had the pleasure of meeting Anna Watson Carl at a potluck celebrating Dana Cowin’s new book. Anna and I hit is off immediately and I’ll admit I was secretly thrilled to finally meet the master behind the gorgeous blog The Yellow Table. I’ve been a longtime fan! When I met Anna she was in the process of wrapping up her first ever cookbook named after her blog. She chose to go the self-publishing route which I deeply admire. I love being a part of the Running Press family and can’t imagine doing all the work she did on my own (!!!) It is truly a labor of love and the result is gorgeous.  Her recipes are indeed simple and seasonal, and the gorgeous photographs by Signe Birck echo Anna’s commitment to easy, warm gatherings. Every scene looked so cozy and welcoming I wanted to jump right into the pages and join the party. To I am thrilled to share a little chat I had with Anna recently about her book and offer a chance to win a copy!:

1.) Your book is so inspiring. It invites us all into your kitchen and you share the ways in which you connect with your family and friends through cooking. What is your favorite tip for entertaining that you give to novice entertainers?

Thank you 🙂 My biggest piece of advice is: Don’t try and do it all. I’m a big fan of making a one-pot main dish for a dinner party – lamb ragu with pappardelle, for example, or Tuscan white bean soup with Swiss chard – and letting everyone else contribute in some way, whether it’s bringing a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, dessert, or an appetizer. People love to feel like they’re contributing in some way, and it spreads the workload a bit! The main goal of the evening is to enjoy spending time with your guests, and if you’re exhausted and stressed, what’s the point?!