Virtual Running Date No. 35: COOKIES!

Hello Crushers!

If today was a virtual running date, I'd tell you that today's post is going to be short and sweet. There is a lot going on because it's MOVING WEEK! We close on our house on Friday, so we can go back to having our own space and Mom and Dad can kick us out of their house. As nice as it has been to be close to family for the past month, it's really time for all of us to enjoy each other a little farther away. Ha!

Anyway, here is a quick recap of the weekend in photos:

I took Steve to see "A Christmas Carol", which is his favorite Christmas story (besides the Bible).
He loved it!

Three baking/mixing stations going on at once!

All the baking supplies!

Halfway done!

A blurry shot of me with some of the cookies.

12 of 15 kinds of cookies we made! Some were still in the oven.

Mom mom used to make Christmas cookies with her mom and grandma. We have been marathon cookie baking with mom and Grandma since I can remember. You can start rolling dough into 1-inch balls at a pretty young age! Now that it's just Mom, my sister and I making them, it was kind of like Grandma and Great-Grandma were watching us from heaven and approving (or disproving - the peanut butter kisses went awry) of all the baking.

Next year, we'll have an 8-month-old baby girl who I'm sure will love to watch her mommy, grandma and auntie as they mix and roll out 1000 cookies. We might even let her have one!

Faith Filled Friday: Through the eyes of a child

Happy Friday, Crushers!

My husband loves Christmas. I don't just mean that he loves all the food and the lights and such, but this guy LOVES CHRISTMAS like he's a 6-year-old waiting in line to tell Santa what he wants in his stocking and then sings "The Little Drummer Boy" while decorating our house and planning the annual Christmas party.

He loves singing along with all the Christmas music whether it's in church or on the radio in the car. He loves seeing Christmas lights and putting them on the tree. He loves the decorations, the cookies, and sometimes, even the shopping. He loves to watch "A Christmas Carol" every Christmas Eve, and read Luke 2 Christmas morning.

Starting to get the idea?

I've always said that he loves this special time of year like a little child. I'm REALLY hoping that our kids are going to love Christmas as much as he does. He is so excited about us expecting a baby girl that he's even talked about how we're going to start our own family traditions and all that. It's so dang cute.

It's like getting to see the wonder of Christmas through the eyes of a child because sometimes, we're all just big kids. He'd probably tell you the same thing about how I act with 4th of July fireworks and my birthday (which is only 32 days away...).

"The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told." Luke 2:20

There were so many people who were excited about the first Christmas. Mary and Joseph, the Magi, the Shepherds in the hills, Anna and Zachariah, Mary's cousin Elizabeth (and the baby she carried, who turned out to be John the Baptist), and many more people were excited for the birth of Jesus. I hope that everyone can be as excited about this holiday and not just the lights and cookies and presents, but that it's a reminder that Jesus came for us. He came to live and die and rise again so that someday we can all celebrate together in Heaven.

Can you imagine how excited Steve will be to celebrate Christmas in Heaven? It'll be the best thing ever.

Happy New Year!

Hello and Happy New Year, Crushers!

Steve and I are blessed with having so many friends and family nearby that we got to celebrate seven Christmases. Yes, seven! We host a friend Christmas party every year. This year we decided we were going to have a Hawaiian-themed party. My sister made pineapple iced tea, which was a hit. We also had some Hawaiian steamed pork dumplings (which I bought), BBQ ham balls (I just couldn't make Spam meat balls), coconut shrimp from Skinnytaste.com and lots of other fun treats. I think next year we're going to go for "Fleece Navidad" and combine Mexican foods with an Ugly Sweater party.

We spent Christmas Eve with my family after going to church. This is my absolute favorite Christmas service because all the kids from the school put together a program (or their teachers do) and they recite passages and sing carols. It's wonderful. My favorite part will always be when they recite the passages from Luke 2 just like Linus in "Merry Christmas Charlie Brown." They do a fantastic job leading the service.

Sadly, it was very difficult to get there because a police officer had been shot and a lot of roads were closed in my hometown where things like that hardly ever happen. We were all able to say an extra prayer for her and the poor kid who fainted and broke a tooth right after singing "Silent Night". It was a rough Christmas for a lot of people in various ways, and I don't mean that flippantly. I hope that yours was much happier with family and friends.

After spending some time with my grandparents and opening gifts with my parents, we were 2 down and 5 to go. My grandparents really enjoy holiday parties with everyone so they rallied and stayed up extra late! At my parents' house, I got a... drumroll please... KITCHENAID MIXER! I kid you not, I hugged it. See?

What to make first?

My grandpa on my dad's side is kind of hard to shop for, but there is one thing that he loves to get and that is food! My mom made him a big platter of Christmas cookies, so I tried making homemade rosemary bread since he's a big soup and sandwich fan. I found this recipe and it was super easy to make. See?

Bread finished with a nice egg wash ready to be gifted.
Note: there are no preservatives so if you aren't going to eat it right away, you should keep it in the freezer

Christmas #3 and 4 were on Christmas Day first at Steve's parents' house, to which I brought a no-bake cheese cake, and then at my sister's house, to which I brought a cranberry Jell-O salad. We had such a nice time at church and then at home with everyone!

Although it seemed to be the year of the sweater/kitchen stuff, I got one gift from Steve that should not be used in the kitchen: snowshoes! Please pardon my crazy outfit, but those were really warm pants. My sister said that I looked "like an adorable Christmas Elf." Ha! All of my other snow-wear was in the wash since we did a lot of cross country skiing, too.

After spending Christmas #5 with my extended family, to which I brought an antipasto salad, and singing carols for Grandma, we spent Christmas #6 with Steve's dad's side of the family. There was lots of babies to hold, kids to play with and carols to sing. I was losing my voice! We spent some time up in Green Bay, where I got to see the Packer Hall of Fame for the first time. We ate some really amazing cheese curds at Curly's Pub (named for the Packer's first coach, Curly Lambeau, who is also the namesake for the stadium) and watched the Packers, gulp, LOSE (!!!!) to the Minnesota Vikings. There was a lot of yelling going on in the pub. Fortunately, we are forever fans and have a lot of hope for this weekend where we (pfft, I say this like I'm going to be on the field) take on the Vikings in the first round of the playoffs.

At the Hall of Fame!

Christmas #7 was spent with Steve's mom's side of the family with more caroling and more food! Phew! What a whirlwind!

In case you aren't sick of holiday dinners with ham, here's the BBQ Ham Ball recipe. It sounds weird, but it's really, really good.

BBQ Ham Balls
Ingredients:
Ham Balls
1 1/2 pounds ground ham
1 1/2 pounds ground pork
2 cups Cracker crumbs (I used Ritz)
1 cups milk
2 eggs, beaten

Glaze:
1 can tomato soup
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup vinegar
1 tsp dry mustard


Directions:
Mix ham, pork, cracker crumbs, milk and eggs in a large bowl. Use 1/3 cup of mixture and form into balls. This is also about the size of a tennis ball. Place in a 13 x 9 pan. Bake for one hour in a 350 oven. While baking, mix glaze ingredients in small bowl.  Pour glaze over balls, and bake an additional half hour to glaze. Serve with roasted veggies.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cookies with Links

Hi Crushers,
As you may know from an earlier blog posting, Steve and I are using our Advent Calendar to count down to Christmas with #24daysoftogetherness that I saw on Tina's blog, Carrots N Cake. One of the days this past week was "share your favorite Christmas memory". I told Steve about how we all took my sister's Big Bird themed Big Wheels three-wheeler out for a spin in the snow when she was six. We both talked about our favorite gifts (his: VHS Wrestling game, mine: Cabbage Patch Doll), caroling, Christmas Eve church services with candles, and family time.

I forgot to tell him about Christmas cookie baking with Grandma K, Mom, my sister Lisa and I all crammed in my Grandma's kitchen. This was the same home that Mom grew up in, so there were probably 10,000 cookies baked in this kitchen over the years. This is where we learned kitchen time management, how to grease a cookie sheet, the correct size of a dough ball to roll, how to crush pecans and almonds, and above all that you are not allowed to lick the chocolate or sugar off your fingers before you are done! By the time we finished making candies and cookies, we probably had inhaled a cup of powdered sugar each, but it was so much fun!

This year, we all took turns making cookies with Mom and Dad in their kitchen. If I could nominate my mom as a kitchen crush for only one reason, she would win for most organized. Seriously. She organizes us all by what cookies we need to bake, who has the patience to roll out all the dough balls or dip them in chocolate and what ingredients everyone needs to buy. She's like the general of cookie organization. When other people are freaking out on trying to figure out when to put things in the oven so they all come out at the same time, I am not because my mom taught me that one. Virtual High Five, Mom!

We always say that, "We don't need to bake so many cookies this year", and yet we still make 13 different kinds! Here they are with links to the recipes (if I could find them).
1. Scottish Shortbread (we melt chocolate on top of ours)
2. Spritz Cookies
3. Molasses Cookies
4. Grandma M's sugar cookies (It's a secret, but this one is pretty darn close. We double this recipe since they melt in your mouth!)
5. Sugar Cookie cut outs (use the dough recipe from my blog post here)
6. Peanut Butter Balls
7. Ting-a-lings (some people call them chocolate haystacks)
8. Raspberry thumbprints
9. Rosettes (my dad is the pro at these)
10. Peppermint Bark
11.Cherry Chocolate Nougats - sorry all, but I cannot find this recipe online!
12. Pecan Fingers - from one of my favorite bloggers!
13. Chocolate-dipped Angel Macaroons (use the recipe for Angel Macaroons from this post here and if you dip one half in chocolate and sprinkle with some ground almonds it kind of tastes like an Almond Joy).

Please note that all of these recipes are actually handwritten on sheets of paper or down on note cards in careful cursive writing. I am supplying the links to the recipes that are the closest to what we made. Also note, we are cookie crazy, and make most of these as double batches so we all go home with at least 4-5 tins of cookies.

Pfew... That was a lot of cookies! I think I need a glass of milk now.

How about you? What are your favorites? Did we miss any?

UPDATE: Here are photos of all the cookies except the Peppermint Bark.

Steak review and our Christmas tree

Good morning Crushers!

Remember last week when I was really excited for our date night at a steak house? No, well you can read about it here. Let's just say I was really looking forward to trying one of the best steak places in the city. I was not disappointed in my steak. I had a great dinner, but I had to wimp out and get a take-home bag. You'll see why in a few photos.

The cool part about the 5 O'Clock Steakhouse is that you feel like you either step back in time or you're instantly transported up north to a supper club. We started out at the bar and ordered a drink. I did get an old fashioned and it was terrific! The hostess explains that you sit and have a drink and your waitress takes your order at the bar. Then she goes and sets up your table.

When we were seated there was a HUGE bowl of salad at the table with a lazy susan filled with different dressings. There was also a relish tray. I almost took a picture of it, but we were really hungry and then... well, it didn't happen. I can tell you that it had a few spicy peppers, sweet peppers, carrots, radishes, olives (black and green) and green onions. I definitely enjoyed the veggies. Our waitress also brought out a warm 1/2 loaf of sour dough bread, which got devoured quickly. It was a nice reminder of our California honeymoon!

The only bummer about steakhouses is that you often have to order everything a la carte. While this was true of this restaurant, I feel like we really got our money's worth. Steve ordered a bowl of French Onion Soup that was amazing (and better than the one I made, but probably because it was not the low-cal version). The soup broth was flavorful and loaded with onions. The croutons and the cheese that was gratinéed over the top was perfectly crisp and bubbly. We also ordered crab stuffed mushrooms because when we get our once-a-year fancy dinner out, we like to splurge on calories and a random appetizer.

These mushrooms were so stuffed with crab and cheese that you couldn't even seem them!
They were very rich and tasty, but I don't know if I would order them again.

On to the steaks, the main event! I ordered a New York Strip Sirloin since it was described as "for the love of the finest". I was served a perfectly "medium" steak with a nice char and a generous portion of mushrooms and au jus (French for "with [its own] juice"). Now, I say steak like it's a regular portion of meat. Ha ha, no. This was the size of a small roast. I'm totally planning on taking the leftovers (I could only eat about 1/3 of the steak) and making them into fajitas later this week.

The whole steak wouldn't fit in the picture. It was HUGE, but so very delicious and flavorful.
The rumor goes that only the chefs know the secret to the perfect char and the seasoning.

Steve ordered Bacon Wrapped Filets which were filet medallions surrounded by bacon and then covered with blue cheese. It also came with a Parmesan sauce. Steve said he could have done without the sauce, but it was a nice way to cut the sharp flavor of the blue cheese. We eat traded bites and declared that we made good choices. The bite I had of Steve's steak was very interesting because it was very tender and yet it had the smokey flavor of bacon infused into it somehow. I'd be very interested in trying to repeat all of these at home.

It was smothered! We both agreed that it could have done with less sauce.

This dinner was a nice kickoff to a fantastic weekend. On Saturday we did some marathon shopping and I got to see the Nutcracker ballet with some of the ladies from church. The dancers did a great job! We ate dinner at Elsa's, which makes fancy sandwiches the size of your face. If you go, I highly suggest a burger or the turkey and avacado club. So good!

Sunday was another Christmas-y day. After church we spent time with my sister-in-law's family making Christmas cards and then we went home to decorate our tree. It was a wonderful weekend of family, food and friends!

Makes you want to sing some carols doesn't it?

Advent by Candlelight with Easy Chocolate Cherry Trifle

Hey Crushers,
This past weekend was full of getting ready for Christmas Spirit! Every year for the past 15-ish years, our church has hosted a Christmas program for women called "Advent by Candlelight" or ABC. The idea behind the program is that the holidays are always filled with hustle and bustle, so sometimes we forget the real purpose of Christmas is to celebrate Jesus' birth as the fulfillment of a long-ago promise that God would send a Savior to the world. This often gets mixed up in the cookies and lights and stockings and cards and shopping and wrapping and groceries and cooking and more and more... Although you hear about the true "reason for the season", this really makes you stop and think about it.

For ABC, there are table hostesses that invite friends, family, acquaintances and neighbors to join them in a relaxing afternoon of fellowship, faith and desserts. I was a reader for ABC and I am in the handbell choir which played "Tree of Life" and "Here I am Lord" as part of the program. The theme for this year was "Here I am Lord" about how God often used the unexpected woman in the Bible to help bring about His promise of a Savior. You never know when you're going to be called to a bigger purpose!

Jen's ABC table (before we lit the
candles). Note the baking soda
on the table in case of fire.

Part of the fun is that we hold this whole event with only a few electric lights for the readers and musicians. All of the tables for participants are lit by candles. Every hostess is encouraged to decorate her table and bring a dessert to share. Since my sister and I got married this year, I was able to recycle a lot of the table decorations from our weddings. I wrapped mason jars (from my wedding) with sheer ribbon for a nice glow and used a Christmas/wintry centerpiece that my mom gave me as a gift a few years ago. She also let me borrow some of her white dishes so the whole table was red and white. I got lots of compliments, so that was very nice, but I must say that each hostess really showed how creative she is!

For the dessert, I wanted to make something that I could just hand out individually instead of needing to slice and serve. Cupcakes are a great option, but I was feeling a bit caked-out after all the weddings this year. So, I made individual Chocolate Cherry Trifle cups! Instead of putting it in one big trifle bowl (which would give me the scoop and serve problem), I put them in clear plastic cups. They were easy to make, easy to serve, and everyone enjoyed them!

Chocolate Cherry Trifle Cups
Ingredients:
1 box of chocolate cake mix (plus 3 eggs, 1 1/3 cup water, 1/2 cup oil)
2 packages instant chocolate pudding (plus 4 cups of cold milk)
1 large tub of whipped topping
1 can of cherry pie filling
1 square of semi-sweet baking chocolate (mini chocolate chips would work, too)

Directions:
Bake the chocolate cake according to the directions on the box. If you're feeling ambitious, go ahead and make chocolate cake from scratch (I ran out of time because we were giving the house a good pre-Christmas decorations cleaning). While that is in the oven, make the chocolate pudding according to the package. I sound like I'm on "Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade Cooking", don't I? It works!

Assembly process

Once the cake has cooled (takes about an hour), it's time to start assembling. I needed to make enough for 12 servings, so I grabbed a muffin tin to help me keep the cups from tumbling over, plus it's easy to carry! Cut the cake in 1 x 1 inch squares or just tear it with your fingers in little clumps. Layer each cup with the following: cake, chocolate pudding, whipped topping, cherry pie filling, cake, whipped topping. Be sure and spread out each layer so you can see it from the outside.

All done! I saved putting on the chocolate shavings until I was ready to serve them.

Tip: You can cover these and put them in the fridge overnight, but I wouldn't make this two nights ahead. That might make them a little too soggy. For a pretty garnish on top, take that chunk of baking chocolate and shave off some with a veggie peeler.