Wishing you a peaceful Christmas time.
Category Archives: Christmas
Yule Logs
I came across this Christmas cookie recipe that I posted six years ago and thought this might be a good time to reblog it for anyone interested in an easy but really delicious Christmas cookie. Just click on the link that says “Continue reading” below.
Your Reward
Thank you, friends, for checking in for the last 26 days while we did the alphabet countdown.
It’s time for your reward. Please help yourself to as many gingersnaps as you want.
If you feel like making your own, I will share the recipe at the end of the post.
Gingersnaps
Put in pot and let come to boil:
1 c. butter
1 c. molasses
½ c. brown sugar
Remove from heat. Put in bowl.
Add:
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground ginger
3 – 3 ½ c. flour
*
Cool in fridge.
Roll and slice or cut with cookie cutter.
Bake at 350* for 8 minutes.
Good frozen.
*Candied ginger pieces can be added to dough. Also grated fresh ginger may be added.
Y is for Yule
Yule is a celebration of the winter solstice as well as the Christian holiday we usually call Christmas.
Often you may hear about yule logs being placed on the fire in the fireplace. Basically that’s just a big piece of firewood, usually oak, burned around Christmas time. In days of old, people saved a piece of the previous year’s yule log to start the new fire.
My favourite yule logs are the kind I can eat. They have dates and coconut in them.
If you’d like to get the recipe for them, please check my post from a few years ago.
Y is for yule.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Crispin’s Christmas Dinner
Hi, I’m Crispin.
Time for my Christmas dinner. I know that little seed in front of me doesn’t look like much, but there are more in the jar.
I’m just saying grace before I eat this special meal. See how I put my hands together to say grace? I don’t care for turkey so I’ll stick to sunflower seeds for this Christmas. All you turkeys out there, you can thank me later.
I put my hands together
And say a little prayer
Of thanks that in this weather ,
My dinner’s always there.
I know that I could look for,
And find my food alone,
But no one needs to cook for
This lad; I’m on my own.
My dinner is a yummy seed,
I’ve many in the jar,
My hostess knows just what I need,
She’s never very far.
So merry Christmas holiday,
Be thankful for your lot,
Appreciate your meal today,
Be glad for what you’ve got.
Here I am eating my Christmas dinner. Seasons greetings to you all.
Anneli sends her apologies for the last few seconds of blur when she tried to zoom in and messed things up.
But in the Christmas spirit, I forgave her because, in the first part of the video, I think I look pretty cute.
Cranberry Upside Down Cake
Just in time for Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law sent me this recipe. As it happens, it’s a great recipe for any time of the year and any occasion. It was my first time making this cake, but it wasn’t that hard to do, and because it tasted SO GOOD, I have to share it.
I used my Kitchen Aid mixer but it occurred to me that it might have been even easier with a regular handheld mixer because you can just stick the beaters into a different bowl rather than wash the bowl and reuse it to do the two steps of mixing (you’ll see what I mean).
Step One
Take an 8″ square cake pan and put two tbsp. melted butter in the bottom of the pan. Then spread 1/2 cup of brown sugar over the bottom of the pan.
Set this aside to put in the oven at 350 degrees for a couple of minutes just before it’s time to add the batter. (You need to have time to make the batter before heating the butter/sugar mixture).
The recipe says to add about a cup and a half of fresh cranberries (or even two cups) to this butter and brown sugar mixture. I always have frozen cranberries for my baking so I put them into a big measuring cup and add hot water to thaw them, draining and replacing the hot water a couple of times to thaw the cranberries. These will be added later to the heated up sugar/butter combination.
About 1/4 cup of pecans will also be sprinkled onto the bottom of the pan after the cranberries are added.
** I heated the oven and put the pan in to melt the brown sugar into the butter when I was finished making the batter in the next step.
Step Two
Now let’s make the batter.
Put these ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix after each addition:
3 tbsp. softened butter
1/4 cup white sugar
2 egg yolks (save the whites in a little bowl for mixing later)
1 tsp. vanilla
Step Three
In a separate bowl, put the rest of the dry ingredients together:
1 1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp.
Step Four
Add the flour mixture to the batter, alternately with 1/2 cup of milk, ending with the flour mixture. If the resulting batter seems a bit too stiff, add a couple more tbsp. milk.
The second time I tried baking this cake I did add a bit more milk (say, almost 3/4 cup altogether) and it was better.
Step Five
This is about the time when I put the pan into the preheated oven, because the next step takes about the right time while the brown sugar is melting into the sugar.
In a clean bowl, put the two egg whites you have saved from when you put the egg yolks into the batter. Beat the egg whites until they are stiff.
Fold the egg white mixture into the batter. (Don’t stir it in. Gently fold it in.) The batter should look slightly foamy.
Step Six
Take out the pan with the heated butter and brown sugar, sprinkle the warmed up cranberries evenly over the brown sugar. Then sprinkle a few pecans over the cranberries. If you have a nut allergy you can easily skip this step.
Pour the batter over the cranberries in the pan and spread it evenly.
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
When it is done, let the cake sit for a few minutes; then loosen the sides by running a knife along the sides of the pan. Put a plate over the pan upside down and invert the cake onto the plate.
Step Seven
Make a pot of tea or coffee and cut the cake. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream or just have it plain. It’s really good all by itself.
The photo below is from my second try, where I added a tiny bit more milk and used 2 cups of cranberries rather than 1 and 1/2 cups. Better, I think.
I want to add that my five novels are now available on Amazon for Kindle for only 99 cents in time for the holiday season. Just click on the cover images on the side of the blog post.
If you have another kind of e-reader, you can visit smashwords.com where you can download my books for the same price of 99 cents for your type of e-reader.
The Most Popular Elusive Guy
I think I see him. I hope he’s got my bag of grubs.
Yes, you’re right! And I see the big sack full of hazelnuts for me.
Er, ah, HERE I AM, Santa. OVER HERE!
Where? I don’t see anything.
When he does come, I hope he brings me a lot of rosehips. Wonder what they’d taste like. In the winter I get tired of these holly berries and mountain ash berries. But maybe the rosehips are too fuzzy inside. They look good though.
Oooooh! Look! He’s got sleigh troubles. His reindeer are conking out. Should’ve got a Tesla Sleigh. With inflation, the price of reindeer food today is high, even for Santa. But even so, the cost of the Tesla Sleigh itself is enough to break the bank.
Yeah, he’s in trouble all right. Look! He’s turning around. Sniff… there goes that box of dog biscuits I asked for.
I see that. Hmm … I think I hear them complaining about being hitched up so close. Something about social distancing.
Sigh! No herring for supper tonight. Not by special delivery, anyway.
Well, I never! He’s going back to the North Pole. There goes that bunch of tree bugs I asked for.
I’ll go round up some recr-hoots.
Hey, you. Santa’s looking to hire you, Al and the Paca, to be his reindeer substitutes.
What’s that you say? You don’t play second fiddle? Huh! You’d think that in the spirit of Christmas, you’d oblige an old man. I see you are related to those llamas next door with all their llammering. You’re just lazy, the All Packa ya. Well, see if I give a hoot.
Here’s a likely crew.
Say, would you pronghorns like to save Santa’s bacon tonight?
But we’re in Montana.
That’s okay. He’ll have to go by there when he limps home with his rainydeer crew and drops them off. Maybe you can hop on and help get them home before the nightshift begins. Thanks a lot.
I’ve been watching and I don’t see him coming back yet. Must be in the workshop, adjusting the harnesses to the new team.
I think I see him now, with his fresh crew of pronghorns. Funny-looking reindeer. Better than nothing, I guess.
Oh, this is so exciting. We just can’t sit still.
Children, children, not so loud,
Reindeer’s nervous of the crowd,
Send a delegation out,
Find that sleigh, and kids don’t pout.
Let’s go meet him.
This way! This way!
Santa’s big sleigh.
Sliding, gliding,
Santa’s riding.
Now settle down or Santa will think you’re all quackers.
Look how well behaved we are; black and white, eating at the same table together. One big happy flock. We’re a “blended flock.”
Oh, listen to you guys. You think it’s easy being the black swan of the family?
Whaddaya mean? You think you’ve got it bad? You try being a rat. All I did was chew on a few of those lovely black licorice cords in the truck and WHAM! They lifted the trunk and exposed me to the elements. But they won’t see me hiding in the corner. Bet you can’t see me either. I’ve got a really good hiding place in the door well too. I’ll just wait there until Santa brings new wiring for me to nibble on.
One thing we all got for Christmas – not sure if Santa had anything to do with it – was darn cold weather. So when Santa had to fly back to change his Rainydeer tires for the more heavy-duty Pronghorn brand, he asked the North Wind to provide some Puddle Puzzles for us to play with while we await his return.
Actually, I thought the puzzles were more like A-maze-ing. You just try it. See if you can find a path out of this maze.
I hope your Christmas holiday time is amazing too.
Did you find the rat in the truck? Look on the far back right-hand corner of the picture (actually the left side of the truck).
Holiday Time
It seems to be snowier this year, but only in dribs and drabs. It snows, and the next day it rains and the snow is gone. But the wind is bitter cold and the air is raw. I hope all the little birds and squirrels find warm places to spend the night. I know they’re out and about even in terrible weather, looking for bits of food to keep them warm enough. Even the hummingbirds that didn’t fly south are sipping at the cold sugar water in the feeder. Poor little things.
I hope you are all helping to keep the birds alive this winter by putting out suet or bird seed. Please don’t feed them bread. It’s not going to do them any good. They need proper bird seed and sunflower seeds. And if you have a cat, be sure not to put the feeder where a cat could get to it. On second thought, if you have a cat, don’t feed the birds. Let your neighbour do it.
I hope you all have a happy time over the Christmas holidays. Be good to your friends, neighbours, and families. There is probably not enough of that kindness in the world.
With so much Covid fear, it seems that we are losing the closeness we had with friends and family. Everyone is afraid of this monster illness. But maybe we need to work harder at keeping up our friendships by writing, or phoning, or having more over-the-fence visits, until we get a handle on this virus.
Let us try not to forget that humans are meant to hug, and smile without masks, and love each other. I worry about the toddlers who are not learning to read their parents’ facial expressions as they grow up. Somehow, someday, we need to get back to the way things were.
Have a healthy and happy Christmas time. I wish you all the best for 2022.
PS. I noticed I said, “I hope” several times in this post. I was going to change it, but then I thought, “No, I DO hope a lot.”
I hope you have a lot of hope too.
Yule Love Yule Logs
This is a very Christmassy recipe, but it’s good any time of the year.
Simple to make: all the ingredients are in the picture below. No baking powder or baking soda or salt. Just butter, sugar, flour and an egg, vanilla, dates and nuts (you can do without the nuts if you have an allergy). Recipe is at the end of this post.
You can see that I’ve chopped the dates (except for one to show you) and the pecans (you can use walnuts if you prefer them).
Mix the butter and sugar, add an egg and mix again, add the vanilla and then the flour. You’ll get a gooey batter. Add the nuts and dates.
Drop by spoonfuls, a couple at a time, into a bowl with shredded coconut, and to avoid getting batter all over your fingers, take a big pinch of coconut and push the batter off the spoon with it. Then coat the batter over and over in the coconut, pressing lots of coconut into the batter as you shape it into a roll (a yule log).
Place the logs on a greased cookie sheet and bake them at 350 for 15 minutes.
They should be golden brown when they’re done.
Now all you need is a cup of something to go with the logs.
I copied my mother-in-law’s recipe years ago. She used walnuts, but I like pecans too, so sometimes I substitute.
Easy recipe. Enjoy!
wordsfromanneli 