GREAT NEWS FOR HOME BUYERS..

Yahoo!!! Great News!

The United States Congress finally passed and the President signed into law new measures to maintain the momentum for a housing market recovery. Action that should really give the real estate market a much needed shot in the arm!

The home buyer tax credit which was going to disappear at the end of November will now be available through the middle of next year (2010) and more potential buyers will be able to take advantage of it.

Guess what else! The income limit was increased so many move-up buyers - not just first-timer purchasers - also will qualify. Furthermore, loan limits will not shrink as was planned for next year; in high-cost areas, the loan limit will remain at near $730,000 in 2010, thereby permitting more consumers to tap into the historically low mortgage rates.

This is GREAT NEWS! Give us call today. Let us help you put the wheels into motion to make your dream of owning a home in Beautiful Raleigh, North Carolina - become a reality!

It's getting cold here in Raleigh (30s-40s at night!) We're hoping to get a good bit of snow this year. It's been a wet 2009 in these parts, which hopefully will translate into some snowflakes for us within the next month or so. It sure would be nice to have a white Christmas.

Blaise & Cathie

WOW Your Family & Friends with Ravioli or Pasta with VODKA SAUCE

During a recent trip to New York City, I tried a dish which I've seen on menues millions of times but never ordered - Ravioli with Pink Vodka Sauce. Let me tell you, it was one of the most beautifully presented and delicious meals I've ever eaten.

Immediately upon arriving home, I put a pot of sauce on to cook all day and decided to look up a vodka sauce recipe. How EASY and how DELICIOUS! And while this is certainly NOT a Southern Recipe (which is what I typically share, ) this is so good, I want you to try it.

NOTE: I make the sauce and pour it over fresh ravioli (either cheese or veal ravioli). You can certainly use a good quality frozen ravioli, or pasta such as penne, rigatoni, bowties, etc.

VODKA SAUCE

1/4 lb. diced pancetta (Italian bacon) (if desired. this ingredient is NOT mandatory)

1/4 c. butter

1/3 c. vodka

1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 1/2 c. heavy cream

1 1/2 c. tomato sauce

Melt the butter in a large frying pan. When the butter foams, add the diced pancetta. When the pancetta browns slightly (takes 2 to 3 minutes), add the vodka and stir.

After the alcohol burns off (about 3 minutes),

SLOWLY stir in the tomato sauce and cream.

Stir continuously for 5 - 8 minutes.

If you want to serve it over ravioli, place the cooked ravioli on plates and nicely drizzle the sauce over the top. Garnish with fresh, grated parmesan cheese and italian parsley.

If you would like to serve pasta such as penne or rigatoni or even shells, then throw the cooked (al dente!) pasta into the frying pan WITH THE SAUCE and toss. Then place on plates, grate fresh Parmesan over the top and garnish with Italian parsley.

Another idea for this sauce that I've tried is adding a cup or so of chopped tomatoes at the very beginning when you are heating up the butter and pancetta, throw some diced tomatoes in at that point. That gives the sauce a real "al fresca" taste.

HOW EASY IS THAT? And oooooh so impressive. It really is delicious. If you don't make your own sauce and want to use jarred sauce, you can do that to. Just follow the recipe using jarred sauce. I do recommend that you use a fine quality jarred sauce that has less sugar.

Drop me an e-mail or leave a comment if you've tried this and let me know what you think.

Now Mange!! Mange!!!

Mange: (from Middle English manjeue, from Old French manjue, from mangier, meaning to eat)

Carolina Picture of the Week....

Here is a picture I took while Blaise and I were cruising the Blue Ridge Parkway on the Harley - early this past fall.


I am humbled by the forces that formed these gentle rolling hills and ancient rocks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. And, as intently as they have been studied - they are only partially understood as the events that took place to create our mountains "were many and complex" and took place millions, even billions of years ago.


" Geologists believe the Grenville Orogeny—a collision of earth's sliding plates—formed the basement rock of the Blue Ridge, forcing up the first Appalachians that wore down before the present-day mountains formed. That event happened more than 1 billion years ago. As the continents broke apart about 750 million years ago, a sustained period of volcanic action followed. Evidence of viscous lava flows can still be found at Mount Rogers in the southwestern Blue Ridge Highlands.

A final orogeny—again a collision caused by continental drift—ended a mere 250 million years ago. The basement rocks were once again forced up and over adjacent younger layers of rock to the west. If layers of younger sedimentary rock such as limestone were on top, they completely eroded away to expose the ancient bedrock once again. Because of the east-to-west direction of the thrust, younger rocks in Shenandoah National Park are exposed to the west, and older Precambrian granites to the east. The metamorphic and igneous rocks—gneisses, schists, quartzites, greenstones, and granites—were formed by intense pressure and heat, and left few fossils."


If you'd like to learn more about the Blue Ridge Mountains, Blue Ridge Parkway and/or the Shenandoah Valley, click here: http://www.sherpaguides.com/virginia/mountains/blue_ridge/index.html

We spend alot of time in these mountains with and without kids! Western North Carolina is only a 1 1/2 -4 hour drive from Raleigh - depending upon where you want to go and offers a myriad of outdoor activities for the entire family.

Welcome to the Carolina Pines Realty Blog!!!!

Remember the song: Carolina in the Morning -- "Nothing can be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning.....??"
Happy New Year to our Family, Friends and Clients from beautiful North Carolina. As you can see we have some beautiful "Carolina Blue" skies today. Believe it or not it's going to be 74 here in Raleigh -- on January 7th!! Last week we had temperatures in the teens and today in the seventies.

Anyway - we would like to welcome you to the "official launching" of the Carolina Pines Realty blog.

The purpose of the Carolina Pines Realty Blog is to introduce you to life in North Carolina. Like our website www.carolinapinesrealty.com this blog will offer you links to various "information" concerning life in North Carolina, but will focus more on the recreational and fun side of living in North Carolina -- with highlights on the people, places and cultural aspect of life in the Triangle Area.

So -- sit back, grap a "cuppa" something -- and explore the Carolina Pines Realty blog. And make sure to BOOKMARK it and visit often as it will be updated daily.

And, to finish what I started, the song, Carolina in the Morning (in case you are interested) was written in 1922 by Kahn/Donaldson team. Believe it or not it was written for a broadway musical called The Passing Show of 1922 -- but it wasn't until Fred Mertz sang it in an episode of I Love Lucy that it became mainstream. Since then numerous artists such as Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Dinah Shore, Judy Garland, Bill Haley and the Comets have performed the song and it caught on like wildfire and has become a very "recognizeable" song -- even to the young 'uns.

Here's the words to chorus to refresh your memory:

• Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning,
  No one could be sweeter than my sweetie when I meet her in the morning.
  Where the morning glories
  Twine around the door,
  Whispering pretty stories
  I long to hear once more.
  Strolling with my girlie where the dew is pearly early in the morning,
  Butterflies all flutter up and kiss each little buttercup at dawning,
  If I had Aladdin's lamp for only a day,
  I'd make a wish and here's what I'd say:
  Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning.

A Taste of the South....

Nothing says "down home" and "Southern" more than a delicious mouth-watering cobbler. Here at the Recca house we love cobbler. I'll make one, take it out of the oven -- and it's gone before it even gets a chance to cool.

Cobber is easy to make and very adaptable to whatever fruit is in season -- or, in the alternative, I've even used canned fruit if I can't get to the store to buy fresh.

Here, is one of my favorite recipes for peach cobbler -- so fire up that oven and put the vanilla ice cream in the freezer -- 'cause there is nothing more heavenly than a piece of this cobbler warm out of the oven and a scoop of old fashioned Vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:
1 large can (29 ounces) sliced peaches in syrup
1 medium can (15 ounces) sliced peaches in syrup
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour (I use whole wheat flour - it's healthier!)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
6 tablespoons melted butter, divided
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons sugar, (you can use 1 teaspoon of granulated and 1 teaspoon of brown sugar, if you like) mixed with 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

PREPARATION:
Drain peaches, reserving syrup in a measuring cup. If you don't have 1 cup of syrup, add water to make 1 cup; set aside. Toss peaches with spices. Combine 3/4 cup of the syrup with the cornstarch; stir into peaches. Arrange peaches in an 11x7-inch baking dish. Into a bowl, sift the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the beaten egg, 1/4 cup of the reserved syrup, 1/4 of milk, and 4 tablespoons of the melted butter. Spoon the batter evenly over the peaches. Drizzle with remaining butter then sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar.

Carolina Photo of the Week...

Nothing says "southern living" like the vision, or the scent of a giant leafy magnolia blossom.

Here is a macro close up of one of the most beautiful flowers the South has to offer.

A Great Day in DC....

Turns out the week before Christmas was the perfect time to visit DC -- no crowds, no traffic and no lines. Awesome! Less than a four hour drive from Raleigh, we got up to DC by 11:00 a.m. We immediately found a place to park (!) and were on our way to the Smithsonian. We parked close to the National Mall so we first took a walk down that to see the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building. It was a beautiful blue, crisp day in Washington and we couldn't have asked for better weather.

Having never been to Washington before, Sabrina and I were both very excited. The city really is very beautiful and immaculately clean -- at least where we were. We only drove up for the day so we were limited in what we could experience. At Blaise's urging we first visited the Air and Space Museum, then the National Gallery and finally the Natural History Musuem. What a wonderful job they did laying these museums out. The buildings are beautiful and the exhibits are meticulously put together and very spacious -- which made the experience all the more pleasant. Did you know that it is absolutely FREE to get in to all of the museums in DC? I guess living in South Florida for so long - I had gotten used to PAYING through the nose for everything -- so I was totally shocked to find out that there is no charge for entrance to all of these spectacular. After the museums closed (5:30p.m.) we made our way over to the White House to take some pictures and then to our ultimate destination -- which was the National Christmas Tree. The White House looked lovely all lit up under the winter sky -- it gave me chills. The National Christmas Tree which was directly across the street from the White House was fun to see as not only was the tree itself pretty impressive, but what we enjoyed even more was seeing all of the U.S. Territory and States' Christmas Trees -- each one decorated by hand made ornaments from the region.


Blaise was amused by me because I was really moved by the experience. It was all very exciting to me and I really felt a sense of pride as I gazed upon the nucleus of our Great Nation (sigh!)

It was a wonderful trip and we are already talking about going back in a few weeks to see more as we barely scratched the surface. Even Sabrina is looking forward to making a return trip as she really wanted to see the contemporary art exhibits and we just didn't have the time.

I'll tell you what -- I think both Blaise and I would take a visit to the Smithsonian over a trip to Disney World any day!

It's Begining to Look A Lot Like Christmas....

Every year the weekend before Thanksgiving, Blaise goes up into the attic and pulls down box after box of reindeer, wreaths and lights so we can decorate the outside of the house and, on Thanksgiving night, be the first family to "light up the neighborhood!" It's been our tradition ever since we've been married. The kids always loved being the first ones to have their house decorated. The tradition lives on!

A Room with a View....

Here is the view outside of the Recca home today! I couldn't resist taking a few pictures and posting them on our blog. If this isn't a reason to move to North Caroina -- I don't know what is!! Having lived in Florida for many, many years where things are GREEN all year long, day after day, year after year -- we all get excited when the leaves start changing and the temperature starts dropping because that means that Blaise will be igniting the fire pit, I will be firing up both ovens for baking, and we all will be decorating the house for the holidays. North Carolinians embrace the onset of fall and all through the neighborhoods on any given day you smell the sweet smell of burning wood in firepits -- burnining leaves -- and burning logs in fireplaces.

HELLO - And Welcome to the Carolina Pines Realty Blog!

We are so glad you are here!
We have created this blog especially for people like YOU. Why should you move to North Carolina???? That's easy - just click on a few of the links over on the right, or explore the information below. Here you will find a plethera of information that will touch on and hopefully answer many of the questions that folks may have who are considering the possibility of relocating to our beautiful State. For example, on the right you will find links to some of our favorite day and weekend trips -- all destinations of which are little more than a 2 - 5 hour drive. Also, down below you will find information and articles on employment, education and housing -- as well as radom informational and fun facts and pictures -- just to help you get acquainted with the area. In no time at all you will see just why the Raleigh area of North Caorlina is the perfect place to live, work and play! And, once your finished here -- visit our http://carolinapinesrealty.com/ website. There you will find all kinds of practical information such as pictures, prices and details of all of the homes listed in our Multiple Listing Service as well as information on school districts, subdivisions, communities and more. So sit back, relax and explore all of the wonderful opportunities that await you in the Raleigh, Wake Forest, Cary, Research Triangle Park, Rollesville, Wake, Johnston and Franklin County areas area of beautiful North Carolina!!

Thanksgiving Fruit Cake Recipe to Die For.....

This week I deviated a bit from my usual Carolina Pines Realty Newsletter contents and instead of writing about Real Estate News, I decided to share one of my favorite recipes instead. So, if you didn't get a copy of our newsletter -- here's the recipe in its entirety:

Alton Brown's (I wish I could say it was my great, great grandma's -- but it's NOT!)
Free Range Fruit Cake

1 cup golden raisins - 1/2 cup sun dried cranberries - 1/2 cup sun dried blueberries -1/2 cup sun dried cherries -1/2 cup dried apricots- chopped Zest of one lemon -chopped coarsely Zest of one orange- chopped coarsely 1/4 cup candied ginger- chopped 1 cup gold rum - 1 cup sugar - 5 ounces unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks) - 1 cup unfiltered apple juice - 4 whole cloves-, ground 6 allspice berries -ground 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon - 1 teaspoon ground ginger - 1 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour - 1 1/2 teaspoons salt - 1 teaspoon baking soda - 1 teaspoon baking powder - 2 eggs - 1/4 to 1/2 cup toasted pecans -, broken Brandy for basting and/or spritzing

Combine dried fruits, candied ginger and both zests. Add rum and macerate overnight, or microwave for 5 minutes to re-hydrate fruit. Place fruit and liquid in a non-reactive pot with the sugar, butter, apple juice and spices. Bring mixture to a boil stirring often, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool for at least 15 minutes. (Batter can be completed up to this point, then covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days. Bring to room temperature before completing cake.) Heat oven to 325 degrees. Combine dry ingredients and sift into fruit mixture. Quickly bring batter together with a large wooden spoon, then stir in eggs one at a time until completely integrated, then fold in nuts. Spoon into a 10-inch non-stick loaf pan and bake for 1 hour. Check for doneness by inserting toothpick into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, it's done. If not, bake another 10 minutes, and check again. Remove cake from oven and place on cooling rack or trivet. Baste or spritz top with brandy and allow to cool completely before turning out from pan. When cake is completely cooled, seal in a tight sealing, food safe container. Every 2 to 3 days, feel the cake and if dry, spritz with brandy. The cake's flavor will enhance considerably over the next two weeks. If you decide to give the cake as a gift, be sure to tell the recipient that they are very lucky indeed.

Due to the alcohol content of this delicious little number - be sure to keep AWAY from open flames (and the kids!!!) Enjoy - and let me know if you try it and how you liked it!