Saturday, October 31, 2009

12 Weeks of Christmas Week 4:All About the Food

I have two Christmas recipes that I would like to share. These have become traditions in our family.

Egg Nog Pie

This recipe is surprisingly light. I usually serve it for dessert for our turkey dinner. If you prepare the graham crust yourself using a non-sugar sweetener, it is suitable for diabetics.

Ingredients:
  1. Prepared graham pie crust
  2. 2 cups Calorie reduced Cool Whip
  3. 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  4. 1/2 tsp rum extract
  5. Jello Fat free vanilla pudding mix (sweetened with aspartame)
  6. 1 cup cold 2 % milk
  7. marachino cherries , drained (optional)


Prepare the Jello pudding mix with half the milk called for in the directions. Add nutmeg and rum extract. Fold in the Cool Whip. Fill pie crust. Garnish with marachino cherries and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Chill. May be prepared ahead of time and frozen. Just thaw on the day you plan to serve it.

If you are unconcerned about your calorie intake, you could used regular Cool whip and Jello pudding mix.

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Chocolate truffles


I made these one year for a Christmas cookie exchange and they were requested every year thereafter. They make great gifts or colourful additions to a goodie tray.

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 (14 ounce) can EAGLE BRAND® Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk)
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • Coatings:
  • Finely chopped toasted nuts, flaked coconut, chocolate sprinkles, colored sprinkles, unsweetened cocoa powder, confectioners' sugar or colored sugars

Directions:
  1. In large saucepan, over low heat, melt chocolate chips with sweetened condensed milk. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla.
  2. Pour into medium bowl. Cover and chill 2-3 hours or until firm.
  3. Shape into 1-inch balls; roll in any of the listed coatings.
  4. Chill 1 hour or until firm. Store tightly covered at room temperature.





If you are hungry for other delicious recipes, and Christmas food traditions, check out the other posts at Red Writing's blog.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Finnish Star (snowflake)

For my Christmas Accent Craft I'd like to show you how to make a 3D paper snowflake (sometimes called a Finnish Star).

To make my snowflake I used:
1. paper cutter
2. 1 sheet 8.5 x 11in cardstock
3. glue stick
4. scissors

Cut 12 strips of cardstock 8.5 in long and .5 inch wide.



Take 2 strips and glue them together at their centres to make a big plus sign.




Take 2 more strips and glue them beside the first.




Weave 2 more strips horizontally through the verticle strips and glue them at the intersection points.



Take the top end of the leftmost verticle strip and the left end of the topmost horizontal strip and glue the ends together. The paper will naturally form a curve.



Repeat for the other corners.




Repeat these steps for the other set of 6 strips.




Place the two halves of the snowflake together so that the curves all point towards the centre. Twist the top half so that the points of the curves are aligned over top of a straight strip.




Glue the curved point to the straight strip and cut off the excess paper on the straight strip at the very end.





Repeat for the other 7 points. Voila!!! Your snowflake(Finnish Star) is complete. These would look very pretty with glitter added. You could hang these from a garland or in a window. I might even make some for package decorations for larger gifts.






You can see other lovely Christmas accent crafts at Red Writing's blog.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Spooky Tablescape




Your dinner companion this evening will be my honoured guest, Mr. Bones.



Eyeballs, bugs, snakes, bats - delicious!

























Check out more wonderful tablescapes at the

61st Tablescape Thursday

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Pink Tablescape

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Today I present a pink tablescape in support of this worthy effort.









The glass tumblers are from Avon's Pink Ribbon collection.


Check out more wonderful tablescapes at the 60th Tablescape Thursday




Tuesday, October 13, 2009

12 Weeks of Christmas No. 2: Christmas Memories and Traditions

For the second week of Christmas, we are sharing Christmas memories and traditions.


A Tradition of Giving:

When I was in grade 5 (many, many years ago) our teacher gave the class a wonderful project. We 'adopted' a family that was experiencing financial hardship and provided a Christmas for them. We made crafts such as candles and wreaths and held a craft sale to raise money. We had a list of the childrens' ages. We chose students to pick out appropriate gifts. I believe the teachers made up a food basket for them. That Christmas I remember wondering how those children enjoyed their gifts. It really made a huge impression on me.

Each year I try to continue the tradition of giving. One year my husband and I built and furnished a dollhouse to donate to a toy drive. Every year our church puts up a tree with gift requests from various charities. We pick one or two and buy toys (or whatever was requested). Each year our family participates in Operation Christmas Child. We fill shoeboxes with items such as school supplies, toothbrushes and toiletries, small toys and hard candy. You can check online to find a drop-off location near you. The deadline is usually mid November. These boxes are shipped all over the world to needy children by Samaritan's Purse.

I'm sure there are many opportunities for giving in your community too!


A Tradition of Music

Even as a child, I enjoyed singing in choirs. In elementary school we performed in Christmas concerts and music festivals. In highschool I joined the church choir. Every fall we practiced music for Midnight Mass. This is my third year with our Diocesan Choir. There are over 50 members in the choir and music is absolutely gorgeous! Each year we have an advent concert. We take collections at the concerts and raise money for various charities. One year we raised enough money to finance quite a few eye surgeries at a hospital in South America. Unfortunately the weather always seems to be horrible for these concerts! I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for this year!

I'm sure I'll have more chances to share my favourite traditions as we work through the 12 Weeks of Christmas. Others have been describing their Chritmas traditions at Red Writing's blog.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

12 Weeks of Christmas Week 1: Lists


C'mon, it's barely October and I'm blogging about Christmas lists? It's later than you think! There are only 12 weeks till Christmas!

Red Writing has launched a new Christmas countdown series. The 'Twelve Weeks of Christmas' should be a great way to keep on track with our Christmas preps and have a lot of fun comparing notes. This week the focus is on Christmas lists.

I am a big fan of lists. They give me the illusion of being in control. So, it is only natural that my pen and pad would come out at the very thought of Christmas preparations.

First, I start my master 'To Do' list. This list of lists might look something like this:

To Do:
- Gift list
- Dinner menu
- shopping list
- Christmas baking list
- seasonal activities
- decorating
- Christmas cards
- wrapping

Every year I struggle with finding the perfect gift for each and every person on my gift list. This year I thought I might consult a Christmas gift giving expert.

Dear Santa,

I don't know how you do it - finding just the right gift for all the good boys and girls. I hope that you can give me some Christmas list tips.

Should I try to adopt a "Naughty" vs "Nice" strategy? Most folks seem to be a bit of both, so I get confused. And I am told it is sometimes nice to be naughty! Help!

I think it is a terrific idea to ask everyone to send in a wish list. Yet when I ask people on my gift list what they are hoping to receive, the responses range from " I dunno", "Oh, you don't have to get me anything" to "a HORSE". That doesn't help me too much. It also seems a little unfair that you get to deliver coveted gifts like ipods, Nintendos and Lego sets leaving me with exciting options like underwear and socks.



I have a proposal for this year. You bring the cool gifts, I'll wrap up the underwear. And on Christmas morning I'll just switch the gift tags! It'll be our little secret!

I feel better about my Christmas Gift list already!

I'll send MY wish list in a few weeks.

Cheers, Maureen


PS. In spite of reports to the contrary, I've been a REALLY, REALLY GOOD girl this year!
PS2 Be sure to get your flu shots this year (I hear there's a nasty bug going around)


Let's see how everyone else is doing with their lists at Red Writing's blog.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Fall Luncheon Tablescape

It's definitely feeling like fall now. For today's tablescape, I'm dabbling in warmer colours to reflect the glorious hues that will soon be everywhere you look.




These dishes were acquired by saving cash register tapes from the grocery store (A&P, if I recall correctly). We even had other family members saving their receipts to help us collect more placesettings. They've been our 'everyday' dishes for many many years. It's 'Cordella' stoneware, made in Japan, that is almost indestructible. You can microwave it and run it through the dishwasher a gazillion times. And since so many folks got the same dishes, it is pretty easy to find replacement pieces should accidents happen.



They're not that fancy, but on a chilly autumn afternoon, I think they look pretty comforting. Who knows, someday my great grandchildren might consider them antiques!

You can see many more lovely tablescapes at Susan's
58th Tablescape Thursday.

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