Meatloaf
1 cup fresh mushrooms, diced
1 medium jalepino, minced (leave the seeds if you like it hot!)
1 poblano pepper, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1 on the small side of medium sized white onion, diced
2 big toes garlic, minced
1 bag of Premium saltine crackers, crumbled fine
1-1/2 lb ground chuck
1-1/2 lb 90% lean ground beef
Salt and Pepper to taste

Gently combine above ingredients, shape into 5 or 6 loaves and bake
at 375 for approximately 45 minutes or until cooked thru. If you are
roasting potato chunks, they can be oiled up and put in at the same time.
The potatoes will need tossing a few times, at this temp they brown on
the bottom more than the top. While meat loaves bake, make tomato gravy – recipe below.

Tomato Gravy
1/2 medium onion, diced
3 toes garlic, smashed
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tbl olive oil
1 tbl butter
3 tbl tomato paste
1 small bay leaf
1 15-oz can low sodium chicken broth
1 15-oz can crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper

Cook onions, garlic and oregano in olive oil and butter in a large skillet or pot over medium-high heat until browned – about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and bay leaf, stirring until the paste darkens about 3 minutes. Add the broth and tomatoes and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to simmer and cook until slightly thickened about 5 more minutes.

Turn off heat, remove the bay leaf and set the gravy aside until ready to serve, at which time you will bring back up to a simmer, whisk in the parmesan, vinegar, salt and pepper. Serve hot over your meatloaf with a side of roasted potatoes and smashed minty lettuce and peas.

These small meat loaves are great to freeze, but you’ll want to make fresh tomato gravy – it probably freezes well, but there won’t be any left to freeze!

Send me an email if you would like this pecan sandies recipe!

And oh, yeah, getting back to Easter – have you seen our Easter Flower and Gift selections, there is still plenty of time to order for delivery, we are even open on Easter Sunday at our LaSalle location, so stop in, pick up a centerpiece or an easter arrangement or buy some wholesale bunches to arrange yourself! We have some gorgeous vase selections in lots of price ranges. And we have Easter Lilies. You know mom loves Easter Lilies. Don’t show up at the Easter Egg hunt without flowers!

March 7-9 2008

Saint Louis Art Museum

During the weekend of March 7, before the daffodils rolled out their yellow carpet, the Saint Louis Art Museum combined florals with high art in its ninth annual Art in Bloom. The museum paired nearly 40 works of art, including those of Edgar Degas and Gerhard Richter, with local florists and garden clubs, who had seven weeks to fabricate arrangements using qualities in the original works as a guide.

This year Walter Knoll Florist had two designers asked to participate in this very prestigious exhibit.

Bob Hauck, 2007′s BEST IN SHOW winner, created a design to compliment the “Amphora with Heracles and the Delphic Tripod” and Louise Chambers Kruger created a design for the “Virgin and Child”. In the interview video below, Bob Hauck talks about his inspiration on his piece.  The video is about 4 minutes but Bob tell the story well and is worth your time.

In a large bowl, cut butter into sugar with two knives or your fingers. Add salt and peppermint oil and 1 tablespoon at a time the ice water, tossing with a fork. If it seems crumbly, add more ice water – but it should be somewhat crumbly, it comes together and becomes more elastic as you knead it. Form the mixture into three balls. If it still seems too crumbly, add more ice water 1 teaspoon at a time, until dough presses together easily. Turn each dough ball out onto a work surface and knead until smooth and satiny, 3 to 4 minutes.

Leave one portion of the dough untinted, then tint the other two portions light blue or pink with food coloring (use sparingly – paler colors are prettier). Knead in the food coloring until it’s evenly distributed.

Divide each of the three dough balls in half and roll into a long snake about one-half inch in diameter. (Keep remaining dough covered with plastic wrap as you work so that it doesn’t dry out.) Roll the white dough first to avoid adding color from your work surface – which by the way should be impeccably clean as the dough will pick up anything on the counter. Cut the snakes into half-inch slices and spread out on cookie sheets to dry.

Toss them around on the cookie sheet until set (2 to 3 hours), uncovered, at room temperature. Then transfer them to a covered container and set in a cool place. (To improve flavor and for easier handling, let mints ripen for 2 days before serving.) Mints will keep at room temperature for 2 weeks or in the refrigerator for a month.

Notes: DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT, use your standing mixer for this – it just makes a big ol’ mess! I like the flavor of the peppermint oil better than the extract, but the oil is hard to find. Do not substitute spearmint for peppermint extract, it’s just not right!

Obviously I’m heading to a “boy” baby shower, and I’ll load white cupcake liners with the mints for each guest. If the baby gender is unknown you could do pink, white, yellow, green and blue. Keep the colors pastel, they’re prettier.

So you’re thinking making the mints is too much trouble? Well Walter Knoll Florist has lots of new baby gift ideas . Our New Baby Wreaths are especially popular and so appreciated.

Order Flowers From DiGirl

We have four songs for you to choose from, “Love Me Tender”, “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, All Shook Up” or a “Teddy Bear / Don’t Be Cruel” combo. Our Elvis is a prize winner, she won’t be disappointed.

So have Elvis deliver your flowers on Valentine’s Day! That’s right. Walter Knoll Florist can arrange for your flowers to be delivered to your loved one on Thursday, February 14th by none other than the King himself! Well, actually, he’s a prize winning Elvis impersonator. Elvis will arrive to hand deliver your flowers and sing her a song. As we mentioned above, there are 4 song choices to choose from, but Elvis will of course entertain a special request, just ask, we’ll see what he can do. Imagine the impact this will make! Hurry and order today as there will be a very limited number of deliveries that can be made. The cost for this service is $75.00. When you check out your order on the web, it will pop up as an option add on, or ask your sales representative about it. This service is available only in the Saint Louis Metro area. If ordered on the web we will call to confirm your order.
Walter Knoll Florist, Your Personal Florist Since 1883 – and now also your Florist with the “King”!
Elvis Delivers Valentines on 2/14

Now what could be more romantic? C’mon, you can think of something great, can’t you? No? Well, here’s an idea –
Valentine’s Day is on a Thursday this year, so you have a great chance to show off for her office peeps. Why not start her work week by having Tender Tulips delivered to her office and on the card ASK her to be your Valentine!

Then on Tuesday, (assuming of course that she said “yes” to yesterday’s ASK) send over a box of our locally grown and produced Chocolate Covered Strawberries! Chocolate Covered Strawberries.

Perhaps two boxes if her office has a large staff.
Then on Weds the 13th her office peeps will be waiting for the WKF delivery man when he shows up with Dapper Dozen and Jewelry!

You’ll save money on delivery by having the big Vday gift delivered on the 13th and she’s gonna be expecting you in person on the 14th anyway! Use that saved money to stop in at one of the Walter Knoll Flower shops and pick up one of our giant Epic Roses then head over to her office to take her to lunch and invite her to your pad for that romantic dinner you are going to make! You don’t have to tell her you got these ideas from An Amusing Florist, I won’t tell either!

Implants are not an inexpensive procedure, but to me the alternative was unthinkable. I found Dr Monterubio very friendly at my consult with him, and one month later for the “procedure” found him to be exceptionally skilled and obviously respected by his staff. The surgery took a bit less than 2 hours (I was not sedated) and 5 days later I’m healing up nicely – still a bit swollen & bruised and beginning to be able to chew somewhat solid food again. (Goodbye sweet cool slippery jiggly Jello and pudding cups!)

My office mates had one of our floral designers (Louise) create this fantastic arrangement to be delivered to me – see the “teeth” in the carnations?

Well I can’t tell you how amused I was to receive the flowers and scare off our driver, Don. (He wasn’t expecting to see me wrapped in ice answering the door.)

You can have anything created at Walter Knoll Florist, from a wacky “International Year of the Potato” arrangement to memorial easel pieces, if you can describe it – our designers can make it!

Both of the above dentists are located near Brentwood and Clayton Rd – easy to get to even with the Highway 40 demolition – so if you need a dentist I hope you will call Dr McClellan and if you need more than a dentist Dr Monterubio is your man. Tell them A Musing Florist sent you.

Here’s the recipe:

Hershey’s Cocoa Pudding/Pie Filling

1 cup sugar
3/8 cup Hershey’s Cocoa (I like the “Special Dark” now)
4 tbl cornstarch
½ tsp salt
3-3/8 cups milk
2 tbl butter
1 tsp vanilla
Baked and cooled 10″ pie crust

Combine sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt in medium saucepan; gradually whisk in milk. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until mixture boils; boil and stir one minute. Remove from heat and blend in butter and vanilla. Pour into cooled pie crust.

I went a little crazy this year with my crust, from my little tin of alphabet cutters I pulled out the letter J and grabbed a skewer too, ’cause it’s hard as %$#^!* to get the pie dough out of that J! Anyway, before baking the crust, I carefully placed the J’s to look like candy canes around the edge – here is a shot of the baked edge, beautiful isn’t it!

But I wasn’t happy with beautiful, I decided the candy canes needed to be colored like candy canes! (And oh, did I mention I did all this with a fever thanks to the flu / cold I was suffering?)

Well as you can see, the pie came out pretty darn cute and the family loved it. Chocolate Pudding Pie is their favorite.

Decoratively piped whipped cream made the candy canes pop and I was very happy with the look!

I’m sure by now you have learned that 2008 has been declared by the United Nations to be the International Year of the Potato – lets have some fun with potatoes and not lose sight of the reasoning of the United Nations of “the need to revive public awareness of the relationship that exists between poverty, food security, malnutrition and the potential contribution of the potato to defeating hunger.” Here is a link to the official International Year of the Potato website.

First it’s probably a good idea to find some accessories for your snowman, this old guy won’t miss his hat or scarf or nose!

And then the floral foam needs the basic shape!

Start adding flowers

And then those “borrowed” accessories!

Make me a smile please!

Angela’s finished snowman.

So . . . who needs snow! You can get yourself a snowman from Walter Knoll Florist any time of year – check out our Flowerman. Every Flowerman will be different, just like snowflakes!

Pictures above are of Angela Collins idea of “Flowerman“. We think he is even cuter than Matt up there in the first pic. Matt is one of several wonderful professional sales staffers you may get to talk to in our phone room and I feature him with Flowerman because he sold him.

Filling
3/4 cup raspberry jam
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water

Icing
1.5 cup confectioners’ sugar
5 to 7 teaspoons water

Make dough: Combine flour, sugar, and salt in food processor. Pulse in butter until mixture is crumbly but still has bean sized lumps of butter still visible. Mix egg and milk, and add it to the dough, mixing just until everything comes together – it should still be slightly crumbly, dump onto lightly floured surface and need into cohesive ball of dough. Divide into 4, shaping each portion into a rectangle, smoothing edges. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 1 hour, or for up to 2 days.

Make filling: In a small saucepan, mix jam with cornstarch/water. Bring mixture to boil, and simmer, stirring, for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Assemble tarts: Remove dough from the refrigerator, and if it’s been chilling for longer than 1 hour, allow it to soften and become workable, about 15 to 30 minutes. Place one piece on a lightly floured work surface, and roll it into a rectangle about 1/8″ thick, large enough that you can trim it to an even rectangle. Set it aside. Roll second piece of dough just as you did the first. Beat egg, and brush it over entire surface of one rectangle of dough. Use a ravoli sized scallop edged cookie/biscuit cutter or whatever shape you want your pop tarts to be to cut shapes into the egg brushed rectangle of dough. Place a heaping 1/2 teaspoon of jam into center of each rectangle. Place second rectangle of dough atop first, using your fingertips to press firmly around each pocket of jam, sealing the dough well on all sides. Gently place tarts on a lightly greased or parchment or silpat-lined baking sheet, and refrigerate, covered, for 30 minutes. Roll out other 2 rectangles the same way. Make cute little slices with a very sharp knife into the top of each tart just before putting into a preheated 350 oven – do not cut into the filling tho or you’ll get tarts that look like this:

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until lightly golden brown. Remove from oven, and allow them to cool on pan on racks.

Combine confectioners’ sugar with 3 teaspoons of water, adding additional water if necessary to make a pourable glaze. Pour the glaze into a quart sized ziplock bag and snip the corner and squeeze decoratively onto the cooled tarts.

Makes about 60. This is a variation of a recipe I found at the King Arthur Flour website created by Joanne Chang of the Flour Bakery & Café in Boston, MA. Thank you Joanne, these are going to be a regular bake of mine!

Have you checked out our Holiday Fun photo contest submissions lately! Getting more photos every day Holiday Fun. We’d love to see your idea of holiday fun, and I’d personally like to see some “snowman” photos! But hurry, contest ends 12/22!