Easter Food

I like to make food. I like to take pictures of my food. A friend told me recently that I must be really good at baking because I take lots of pictures of what I do. Ha! It actually it still amazes me that I can cook-- so I have to document it for proof! Also, documenting it will help my family remember the fun we had making things. I try to keep cooking and baking really low-stress. There's no use going through lots of time and trouble cooking if it was a miserable process. In contrast, by keeping it a light-hearted time of togetherness it is a fun event. It becomes one of my favorite traditions with my daughters and they are still wee babies. Now that I have philosophized about food, here are some pictures of what we made this Easter.

Now that we've had our little discussion about how I like to make stuff. Let it be known that Mom H. purchased the ham from Honey Baked Ham. It was delicious and I am really happy I didn't have to make it! Also, the easter egg bread wreath was disgusting and dry. I totally should have used my normal roll recipe. Yes, baking is fun but that junk took me way too long to taste that weak. Remind me that next year so I don't try it again.

St. Patrick's Day Festivities

Now that it is days away from Easter, I will finally post our St. Patrick's Day festivities from two weeks ago! I got the girls dressed up in their new white dresses (go Old Navy) and took pictures of the cuties in Claire's bedroom (thank goodness it is painted green). Hallie and I had traced and cute out shamrocks earlier in the week so they made an appearance in the photo shoot and on the dinner table. That night, we had missionaries over for dinner. Although corned beef and cabbage is a traditional St. Patrick's day dish, not everyone is a fan. So, I made Irish Beef Stew. It's just good old stew but isn't tomato-based. To round out our green meal we had broccoli, herb dinner rolls, lime jell-o fluff salad, and limeade. For dessert we had chocolate-mint brownies. The following day our family had corned beef and cabbage (since they were on a great sale) the corned beef was gross. I'll stick to Irish Stew in the future.

for your baking pleasure

I'm going to let you in on a Christmas secret. For gifts for my grandmothers this year, I compiled a twenty-two page recipe book with pictures of favorite baking recipes. It is called "Hallie and Mommy's Adventures in Baking" because all featured recipes are ones made by Hallie and I together. Here is another Christmas secret-- I haven't even mailed it to them yet! This will be a New Year's surprise for them. The lines won't be so long at the post office by then. So, dear grandmothers, if you see this post-- surprise! And for everyone else, please enjoy some of our favorites from the book. And please let me know if you use any of them. I would love to know what you think!

Almond Eggnog Pound Cake

6 tbsp. butter, divided
2/3 cup sliced almonds
1 package yellow cake mix
1 ½ cups eggnog
2 eggs
1 tsp. almond extract
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Grease a bundt pan with 2 tbsp. butter. Press almonds onto bottom and sides or pan; set aside.
Melt remaining butter. In a large mixing bowl, beat the cake mix, eggnog, eggs, almond extract,
nutmeg and melted butter on low speed for 30 seconds or just until moistened. Beat on medium
for 2 minutes or until smooth. Pout into prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Note: This is what I've made for Christmas Eve the last several years. It always looks so pretty and the mild eggnog flavor gives it a distintive Christmas taste.

___________________________________________________________________

Karen’s Gingersnaps

4 cups flour
4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ginger
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 ½ cups canola oil
2 cups sugar
½ cups molasses
2 eggs

Blend oil, sugar, eggs, and molasses. Mix dry ingredients and add to wet mixtures. Refrigerate one hour. Form into balls, Roll in sugar. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes. Note: This is my sister-in-law's famous gingersnap recipe. To get extra use out of the dough, I make other types of cookies. See below.

Gingerbread People

Freeze dough for one hour. Roll out dough. Cut shapes. Bake 8-10 minutes. Decorate like you are a jolly Christmas elf. Note: Also, consider using this dough to make my favorite Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Cookies in lieu of peanut butter dough (Hallie can't eat peanut butter so that's what I'll be doing this year).

___________________________________________________________________

Sparkling Butter Toffee Cookies

1 cup sugar
¾ cup butter softened
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
½ cup English toffee
Extra sugar

Heat oven to 350°F. In large mixer bowl, combine sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy (1 to 2 minutes). Add flour, baking powder, and baking soda; reduce speed to low. Beat until well mixed (1 to 2 minutes). Stir in toffee bits by hand. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in sugar. Place 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten each with bottom of glass to 1 ½ inch circles. (If glass sticks, dip glass in sugar.)
Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until edges are just lightly browned. Sprinkle with sugar while warm. Cool completely. Note: I like to make these for New Year's Eve. There is something about the sparkly look that makes it feel appropriate for that night.

December

December is flying by! We are loving it though. We've done a little baking and have listened to lots of Christmas music and watched Christmas movies. There are lots of Christmas traditions I want to do, but I try to pace myself and remind myself that they are still little. We can always start new traditions next year and the year after. For right now, the most important thing to me is hugs and kisses by Christmas lights with some festive music playing in the background. That sounds like a good and easy enough tradition for me.

My final Halloween food post for the year-- I promise!

If you are totally DONE with Halloween (which I finally am), I apologize. But, I have to document our last three days of spooky revelry. We made Halloween themed food right up through October 30. And then I was too burnt out to do anything fancy on the big day! Isn't that a riot? I did do a batch of spiced cider. Here are the final things we made: monster mouth tacos, witch finger cookies (such a blast), caramel apples, and snake stromboli. The snake stromboli was a little stumpy so I decided he was slug stromboli instead.

On the night we carved our pumpkin, we had ghost hot chocolate to warm us up. We also toasted pumpkin seeds. We did one batch of traditional salted and one batch of Ranch flavored. We liked them both.

I had so much fun with the festive food again this year. I promise I don't have all the time in the world to do this. I accomplish it because I am a "meal planner" anyway. I plan out my meals one week in advance so during October I just planned around my Halloween magazines. Most of the recipes were so quick, they ended up being easier than the usual meals I make during the week. Not that I spend two hours at dinner; but I usually take anywhere from 20- 45 minutes.

A Haunted Halloween

I love Halloween. I just love holidays in general. If you read this blog frequently, you probably have deduced that already. Here are photos of our recent festivities.

• I wanted fun napkins, so I hand cut napkins and used a Sharpie to make a mouth and eyes. The "Wicked Punch" in the background is orange soda and orange sherbet.
• Hallie had so much fun helping with this cake. She mixed the batter, helped spread frosting and put on pumpkins and worms.
• Our annual Halloween meal: Feet of Meat (meatloaf)- Chris just like to call it "bloody stump" Snake Potatoes Ghost Crescents and plain old Green Beans
• Jack-o-Lantern Cheeseburgers for Tuesday night
• Mummy Dogs, Monster Mouths, and Blood Orange Salad for Monday
• And I had to throw in pictures of my cute kids.