Merry Christmas!!!

The cat is looking over the Christmas mess.

Chestnuts roasting

A looooong time ago, my mom used to make T-bone steaks and tons of trimmings for our Christmas Eve dinner. But that was before all of her kids were married and there were a sh*t-load of grandkids running around. After that, our cozy Christmas Eve meals turned into a raucous party with more drinks consumed than food. My nieces and nephews will never let me forget the year I knocked down the Christmas tree . . . twice.

Ah. Good times.

Since this is my throw-back Christmas and it's just the four of us for Christmas Eve dinner, I wanted to go back to Mom's original theme. Instead of T-bone steaks, we're grilling NY Strip Steaks because they're Curt's favorite. Also on the menu are old-fashioned baked potatoes and a few side dishes, including this braised cabbage recipe.

I got a little help with the roasted chestnuts here. The house smelled SO good this afternoon!

I haven't made this yet but I'm crossing fingers that it will be a hit.

Braised Red Cabbage With Chestnuts

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons of canola oil
• 2 medium onions, halved lengthwise, and thinly sliced
• 1 head of red cabbage, halved, cored, and thinly sliced
• 2/3 cups of reduced-sodium chicken or vegetable broth (Always buy broth in cardboard containers instead of cans.)
• 2 teaspoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of caraway seeds
• 1 cup fresh chestnuts, cooked, peeled, and halved
• 1/3 cup of cider vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• black ground pepper, to taste

Preparation

1. Heat oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring often, until light golden, 6 to 8 minutes.
2. Add cabbage and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage wilts, about 5 minutes. Stir in broth, sugar, and caraway seeds; bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook until the cabbage is very tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
3. Stir in chestnuts, vinegar, salt and pepper. Increase heat to medium and cook, uncovered, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the chestnuts are hot, 5 to 8 minutes.

Makes 8 servings.

I haven't made Christmas Cut-out Cookies yet!

And they are Santa's favorite!!

The days preceding Christmas are flying by and I still haven't checked off

everything on my list.

- Decorate the house and put up the tree. Check. The girls were extremely helpful this year and put ALL of the ornaments on the tree. And I didn't bother rearranging a thing. I must be mellowing in my old age.

- Make Mom's chocolate nut fudge. Check

- Make Mom's 7 layer bars. Check.

- Make Peanut butter blossom cookies (also mom's). Check

- Purchase gifts for teachers and staff. Check and DONE!!

- Purchase presents for family -- including the items that the girls told Santa they wanted. Check. I think. The list keeps growing. I saw a letter that Vivian wrote to Santa at pre-school the other day asking for a Princess Barbie and a couple of other things. I didn't know anything about a damned Princess Barbie! That's the first I heard of it. She told Mall Santa that she wanted "a little teapot" (also news to me.) Audrey said she "ordered" a Nintendo DSi . . . as if she made a few clicks on Amazon.com.

- Wrap millions and millions of things. Almost check. I got a LOT done last night when my dear friend Sara invited the girls over to her house for a few hours after school. Thank you Brennen for being one of Audrey's besties.

- Make "dough balls" for Christmas morning. Ingredients have been purchased. Check.

- Make Santa's favorite cookies. ACK! I can't believe I have yet to make the quintessential Christmas cut-out cookies! I guess I know what we're doing during the day on Christmas Eve!

And instead of my mom's recipe, Curt insists that I have to follow his mom's recipe. Good enough. They all the look the same and it's the only thing he has had a strong opinion about. Except that I couldn't find the recipe.

Curt dug it up in an email he received from his mom in 2007. Lest I lose it again, I'm placing it on this blog for safe-keeping.

Christmas Cutout Cookies

1 Cup Butter 1 tstp vanilla

1 ½ Cups white sugar 3 eggs

3 ½ cups flour 2 tsps cream of tartar

1 tsp Soda ½ tsp salt

Cream the butter, sugar, eggs, salt and vanilla well. Best to use mixer but not necessary. Add the flour, soda, and cream of tartar by hand. Mix by hand. Chill dough. Roll out and cut with cookie cutters or by hand. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 7 to 8 minutes at 375 degrees.

Let the baked cookies sit for a couple of minutes before removing them from the cookie sheet, as they need to firm a bit.

These are really good cookies. You can handle and re-handle the dough and the little chunks of dough that are leftover from each cutting.

UPDATED POST:

Here are some pictures of what OUR cookies looked like!!

Mom's Christmas Cookies #2 - 7-Layer Bars

I was inspired to make these bars -- also not because they were my favorite -- but because they were my brother-in-law Rick's favorite. We talked about making mom's recipes during our Thanksgiving gathering and his eyes lit up when he remembered Mom's 7-layer bars. I quietly vowed to myself that I would make them this year.

And that was BEFORE he landed in the hospital fighting for his life. Rick caught a very severe case of strep pneumonia and was very sick, in ICU and on a ventilator for over a week. After being moved out of ICU, he stayed for another five days before he was able to return home. He remains on oxygen at home and is still working his way back to health. It was surreal seeing Rick hooked up to the ventilator just a year from seeing my own Dad on that very same machine. I'm not sure what kind of sign God is trying to send to us. I suppose it's about feeling blessed and to appreciate the people who remain with us and thankful for the time that we had with those we've lost. That's what I'm going with anyway.

Oh, by the way, we've canceled Christmas.

Well, we've only postponed it a little bit. The Kinninger Christmas will be celebrated sometime in January. That's cool. That will give me more time to make all of mom's cookies!

And, in honor of Rick and my mom, here's the 7 layer bar recipe!

• 1 cup butter
• 3 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1 pkg semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 pkg butterscotch chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (I used hazel nuts!)
• 2 (14 ounce) cans sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/3 cups shredded coconut

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. Melt butter and mix with graham cracker crumbs in a bowl. Spread into 13 x 9 inch pan and and press firmly to make a "crust."
3. Pour condensed milk over crumb mixture, then layer coconut, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and nuts. Press firmly with a fork
4. Bake until edges are golden brown, about 40 minutes. Let cool.

Only 4 more days!

Mom's Christmas Cookies #1 - Chocolate Nut Fudge

Lately, I've been obsessed with the idea of making food from my childhood for the holidays. My mother used to throw down amazing amounts of food every year . . . including tubs and tubs of cookies and candy that were stored away and would make appearances on beautiful trays or in cookie tins to give away.

I want to be like my Mom. I really do. I guess that's what happens during middle age. Life is strange.

For some reason, I decided to start with her Chocolate Fudge recipe even though I was "ho hum" about it as a kid. But it's just SO Christmas to me now!

Here's the recipe in her handwriting straight from her gray-speckled recipe box:

It gets a little hard to follow but thankfully I found two other versions of it in her recipe boxes so I was able to decipher what to do. Here's a cleaner version:

2 pkgs (12 oz. each) semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup butter or margarine

1 jar (any size) marshmallow cream

1 lg can evaporated milk

4.5 cups sugar

2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)

1 tbsp vanilla

Put first three ingredients in a large bowl. (I melted the butter first).

In a heavy pan, mix evaporated milk and sugar and bring to a boil. Boil for 7 minutes stirring vigorously (being careful not to scorch). Pour melted mixture into bowl with the other ingredients and stir to mix. Add vanilla and blend with electric mixer until smooth. Stir in nuts.

Pour mixture into greased cookie sheets. Let sit for 24 hours before cutting into small pieces. Makes 5 pounds.

**I made some of the fudge without the nuts -- I simply poured half the mixture onto a cookie sheet before I added the nuts. Then stirred in 1 cup of nuts to the remaining portion. **

YUM!

[Note to self: You made it too skinny this year. Just pour the whole damn thing into one cookie sheet for big, fat pieces of fudge.]

Tweets from the North Pole!

We had a fun and exhausting trip to the North Pole last night!

Curt makes such a great Santa. He even worked some OT after the show when a friend needed a favor. Her daughter was unhappy and embarrassed about something that was said on TV so she needed a little extra Santa love.

Audrey also called in and did a great job pretending she wasn't talking to her parents. Vivian apparently knew it was me immediately and thought Daddy must have been "at work." She seemed underwhelmed that I knew Santa so well. She was more impressed with my "Christmas-y clothes."

Below are a few shots from the evening, as well as the live tweets from CTN.

Santa Live!

Nutcracker 2010

The girls performed in their first-ever production of The Nutcracker over the weekend. I'm sure it won't be the last.

I had the dubious honor of being the "backstage chairperson" since I'm a seasoned stage mom (with our debut in "Cinderella" last year.) It was fine, however. I was also mom to the youngest cast member (at only 4 years old!) and I figured I'd better be back stage anyway.

Vivian kept up with the 5 and 6 year olds in her Clown group and may have even stole the scene when she expertly dealt with her bow falling off near the beginning of her dance during the final (and videotaped) performance. She has great instincts, that one. although she was very upset with me when we got offstage. "Mommy, you're opposed to put my bow on tight!"

Audrey was absolutely gorgeous as a party girl. She danced and acted her way through the entire party scene with grace and elegance. And if you ask her, she had one of the biggest roles in the show. She really believes she was the star.

My long weekends of hauling the girls to separate rehearsals and then sitting in the basement of the auditorium are now over and I won't miss them. However, watching the girls light up during rehearsals and performances and seeing Vivian dance in the wings before going on stage (usually the Sugar Plum fairy dance) made it all worthwhile.

The Nutcracker!

We just got through our weekend of The Nutcracker. I'm in recovery at the moment but I'll post more about it soon!

What a magical weekend for my girls!