Juliana's Christmas sayings

Juliana got a Snow White doll and a Cinderella doll for Christmas. She was sitting on the sofa playing and was speaking for the dolls. Snow White worriedly asked Cinderella "What did your grandmother say when you broke your glass slippers!?"

I guess she thinks Cinderella has a fairy grandmother instead of a fairy godmother.

She also was talking with Josh about Santa and that he would come down the chimney and leave presents in the basement. Josh asked what would happen next, and she replied they would stand at the top of the stairs and trap santa. I am not sure why she wanted to trap him, but it was funny.

Cake Mix cookies and a Lovely bunch of chocolates
(Peanut Butter Chocolates, Sea Salt Truffles and Lemon Fudge Cake Balls)
The sea salt truffle recipe comes from pioneerwoman.com, and see Bakerella.com for cake ball recipe. I made a lemon cake and sprinkled some lemon jello in the cake before forming it into balls. I used fudge icing to mix with the cake. I put the cake balls in the freezer for about an hour before dipping them in chocolate. I used Ambrosia dipping chocolate that I got at Maceys.




Phil's cookie creation, Decorated cookies

Decorating Christmas cookies

Peanut Butter Chocolates

3 Tablespoons butter

1 cup powder sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup peanut butter
Milk Chocolate or dark chocolate dipping chocolate.

Mix everything together but the chocolate. Shape into balls and chill for 15 minutes. Melt chocolate in the microwave for 40 seconds, stir and put in microwave again until chocolate is just melted. Dip each ball into chocolate and roll until it is coated. Gently take ball out of chocolate with a fork and tap the fork on the edge of the bowl to get excess chocolate back into bowl.

Cool on a waxed paper.

RAINBOW JELLO

3 oz. pkg. of each of the following gelatins

Lime

Lemon

Orange

Strawberry

Raspberry

Black Cherry

Blue Raspberry (optional)

For each layer dissolve Jell-O in 1 cup boiling water. Divide into 2 equal amounts. To one add less than 1/3 cup sour cream and 1 Tbsp. cold water. Pour into 9x13" pan. To the other half add 4 Tbsp. water and after 1/2 hour pour over the first layer and let set. Continue until they are all done. Top with whipped cream, if desired.

Pretty Jello

Christmas Eve Snack

We had a good Christmas Eve. Good food, fun family, and a nice Christmas program.

Here is the long list of food we made.

Turkey

Ham

Bacon wrap jalapenos

Rainbow jello

Smoked oysters

Crackers

Gossner Cheese dips

Pineapple, oranges, fruit…

Raspberry honey butter

Pop

Cookies

Chocolates

Deviled eggs

Shrimp & cocktail sauce

Stuffed mushrooms

Relish tray

Rolls

Wassail

Pop

Eggnog

Green olives

Ranch

Chips

Ho Ho Ho

Bread Sticks

This is my favorite breadstick recipe. They are topped with 1/3 cup melted butter then sprinkled with Salad Supreme. These are also good with parmesan and garlic salt, or for sweet breadsticks use cinnamon sugar.

Bread Sticks

1 Tablespoon yeast dissolved in 1½ cups warm water.

2 Tablespoons sugar

½ tsp. salt

3 cups flour

Mix and knead for 3 minutes. Let rest 10 minutes. Grease a cookie sheet with butter or margarine. Roll dough out on cookie sheet with a pastry roller. Cut dough into strips with a pizza cutter. Pour 1/3 cup melted butter over the dough. Sprinkle garlic salt and parmesan cheese over the top. Bake at 375˚ for about 20 minutes.

Washer Necklaces

Trace, cut out, glue and dry 24 hr

Glaze (I used Paper Craft from Michaels) Finished with bead and cording.
These are fun to make. I made a little wood craft square into a necklace too. I just drilled a little hole in the corner before I glazed it. Patrea used resin from Hobby Lobby on her necklaces. I like it better than the paper craft, but I had already purchased it. I learned I need to make a thick coating and spread it out carefully with a toothpick.
Tutorial

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-94pom-i1Wc

Popcorn mix I made last year for Christmas treats. Here it is….

Rocky Road Popcorn

¼ cup butter

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

1 cup toasted pecans (or chopped pecans)

6 cups kettle corn ( I just used the microwave kettle corn)

4 cups miniature marshmallows

In a saucepan put the butter, chocolate and pecans. Cook over medium heat until melted, stirring frequently to prevent burning. Pour over popped corn and marshmallows. Stir well. Spread out on a buttered cookie sheet and refrigerate to cool.

Christmas Is Coming

Have a Merry Christmas everyone! We have started making some of our Christmas holiday favorites and came up with a new cookie that is yummy and festive.

Josh made some cookies one day from a chocolate cake mix. They were yummmmy.
I love the Candy Cane Hershey Kisses. I had him mix up some of the cookie dough and gave him a bag of the candy cane kisses. We put the kisses on right after the cookies came out of the oven, and the kisses melted down to round circles that still have red and white stripes; very cute and so tasty. We really loved these and will make some more for our Christmas Eve "Snack." (It really is more like a feast, but the word "snack" makes us feel like less calories are involved)

Use 2 chocolate cake mixes 4 eggs and 1 cup vegetable oil. Mix together until it looks like this:

Roll into balls, then roll in granulated sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Remove cookies from oven and place an unwrapped Candy Cane Hershey Kiss on the center top of each cookie.

We also love grandma Marie's Raspberry Honey Butter, so we are making some for gifts this year. It is the Lion House Recipe. We use freezer raspberry jam made with the MCP pectin recipe.

One pound softened butter, 8 oz. honey, 8 oz. raspberry jam, 1 tsp. vanilla

Whip butter until light and fluffy. Whip in honey then jam and vanilla. Keep refrigerated.

I found some little containers at IKEA to put the honey butter in.

Juliana did her best to butter up Santa. She was so cute. She gave him a big hug and hung on tight. Do you think he will overlook her naughtiness this week?? I think so too. He asked her what she wanted for Christmas. She replied, "presents." He asked, what kind of presents, and she said "pink presents." He thought that was pretty vague but easy enough.

It Is Still Cold Outside!

Shredded Sweet Pork

I love this stuff. If you like those restaurants that make sweet pork salads or burritos enchilada style, try making this. It is so easy and yummy. I had tried several different recipes to get that sweet pork I love so much. I finally found something that worked by accident. I had a recipe that called for green enchilada sauce, but I did not have any, so I decided to use regular red enchilada sauce. It was amazingly similar and tasty.

All you need is a pork butt or shoulder roast (These are the roasts that shred best)
Sprinkle on a little garlic salt, pepper and cayenne if you like it spicy. Cook in the oven or in a slow cooker for 4-5 hours until the roast is done. Drain the grease and take out any bones. It should be easy to shred with two forks.

Next, mix equal portions of enchilada sauce and brown sugar. You can use mild, medium, or hot. It just depends on how spicy you want it. It will not be spicy at all if you use mild, but it is still tasty. I used one cup of sauce and one cup of brown sugar. Mix these two in a bowl then pour over the roast and stir in. Let it warm up.

We like to make a salad or put this in warm flour tortillas with rice and black beans, cheese and sour cream. I have made enchiladas with the pork before and then poured green enchilada sauce on top. Easy and so good.

I asked Josh to bring me some brown sugar from the storage room. He sent it via remote control car. I could feel something hitting against my shoe. I was wondering what was taking him so long, then I saw him squatting down at the top of the stairs with his remote control. I looked down and there was the sugar. Funny! He turned sixteen this week. We got his drivers license on his birthday. Now he just needs some insurance. I would feel more comfortable if he would just continue to drive the little remote control car and stay off the road.

Shredded!

It's Cold Outside

I am not a winter person! The snow is pretty and all, but I wish I only had to see it for a week. We drove down to American Fork yesterday for Brigham's baptism. It was a nice day. Our drive home was fine until we started our descent through the canyon. The road was snow packed and it was snowing. Visibility was not too good, especially as it got darker. We made it home about 6:00. We found out that a truck with two boys and three young men leaders from our ward had a head on collision earlier that day. One boy had a concusion and a perforated bowel. He was operated on last night and will be in the hospital until Wednesday or Thursday. One leader has a separated sternum, and one had internal bleeding. The driver was banged up but okay for now. He had to be cut out of the truck. The other car of boys was ahead of them, so they turned around and came back. The one leader is a retired policeman, and when he saw the wreck he thought someone would be dead. We are sure they were protected and blessed to all be alive. One of the boys came out of it pretty good and was even able to come to Sacrament meeting today and pass the sacrament. Josh would have been on that same trip if he hadn't been speaking at the baptism. Since he is our accident prone child, we are grateful he was not in the truck. We are trying to think of ways we can help the others or what we could get for them to help them. It was an emotional meeting today.