A Christmas Tradition/ Breakfast

I made these one year for Christmas breakfast and somehow it became a tradition. Because they "wilt" in High humidity, I make these Chrismas morning...not Christmas Eve.This recipe makes 16 to 20 cream puffs.

Cream Puffs-

1 cup butter

2 cups boiling water

2 cups sifted flour

½ tsp. salt

8 eggs

Melt the butter in boiling water. Add flour and salt all at once and beat with a spoon until thoroughly integrated. Stir until the mixture forms a ball that doesn’t come apart. Remove from stove and let cool slightly. Add the eggs one at a time beating well with electric mixer. (The only leavening in this recipe is the eggs, so if you don’t beat well with a heavy duty mixer, you will end up with flats not puffs) Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls 3” apart on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 400° for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and “pull” the tops off. Fill when cooled.

(By the time I get the filling made they are usually cool enough to fill)

Cream puff filling -Makes enough for 16-20 cream puffs (if I don’t double the cream puff recipe, I let the kids have the extra.)

3/4 c sugar

3Tlb. Cornstarch

¼ tsp salt

2 c milk

2 slightly beaten egg yolks

2Tlb. butter

1 tsp vanilla

In a sauce pan, blend sugar, cornstarch and salt; slowly add the milk and mix. Cook, stirring constantly over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Cook two more minutes and remove from heat. Stir a little of the hot mixture into the beaten eggs, then stir the egg mixture back into the hot mix. Return to heat and cook 2 more minutes, then add the butter and vanilla. Remove from heat. Spoon into opened cream puffs (about 1Tlb each and replace tops. Sift confectioners’ sugar over finished cream puffs and serve.

These don’t keep well they lose their “crustiness” after only a few hours. I always make then Christmas morning although the kids don’t seem to care when they get soft, they eat them anyway.

Jessica was Blessed

Christmas is almost here! Today I will post my buried cherry cookie recipe. It is Jessica’s favorite, which in turn reminds me of one of m favorite “Jessica” stories…

Jessica was 4 years old, and generally went to the “nursery” when we attended church, but one year we went to Florida for Christmas and attended the midnight service at St Giles Episcopal Church on Christmas Eve.  When we went forward for communion, we had Jessica cross her arms. After Father Mike gave me communion, He touched Jessica’s  head and said “God Bless You”. After arriving back at our seats, Jessica leaned forward to call me, speaking around her father and brother.  Below is the conversation that followed:

“Psst!, Mom!”
“Shusssh, what?”
“I been Blessed!!!”
 “Yes.”
(even louder) “ MOM!”
“What!”
“How long does it last??!”

I know that Father Mike wondered why there was all that laughter in our section. It was years before I could convince Jessica to take communion….She always preferred to be Blessed!

Jessica’s Buried Cherries

½ c butter

1 c. sugar

1 egg

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1 ½ c. flour

½ c. unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1-10 oz jar maraschino cherries

1 -6 oz package (1 cup) semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ c. sweetened condensed milk

In a large bowl beat butter until soft, add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, beat well. In a second bowl, sift together, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beat well and shape into 1 inch balls on ungreased cookie sheet. Press down center slightly with your thumb. Drain cherries reserving 4tsp cherry juice. Place a cherry in center of each cookie.

In a small sauce pan, combine chocolate chips and condensed milk and stir constantly on low heat until the chocolate melts. (This can also be done in the microwave).Stir in the 4 tsp of reserved cherry juice. Spoon a scant teaspoon over each cherry, spreading to cover the cherry. Bake in a 350° oven for 10 minutes or until the edges are firm.

PB Fudge and Rickie Elkins

Jessica has a friend from high school who loves this recipe. I always made him a batch when he was home on leave, and mailed him a batch for Christmas when he was stationed in South Dakota.
When he was stationed in Iraq I received an e-mail that said:
Mrs. C,
Love you, send fudge.

I replied:
It is so hot there it will probably arrive melted!

His answer:
That’s OK, I’ll drink it.
I made the fudge, put in double zip lock bags and mailed it off! Here is the recipe:

Never Fail Peanut Butter Fudge -This recipe makes 5 pounds.1 jar (18 oz) peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
1 jar (7 oz) marshmallow cream
1 stick butter
1 can 12 oz) evaporated milk
5 cups of sugar

In a bowl combine peanut butter and marshmallow cream, stir well, and set aside. “Butter” bottom and sides of 13X9 inch pan.
In a heavy pan on medium heat, combine butter, evaporated milk (NOT sweetened condensed milk) and sugar and bring to boil stirring constantly. Boil exactly 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the peanut butter and marshmallow cream. Pour into pan.

This recipe makes 5 pounds.

On Christmas Traditions

We are just a few days from Christmas and I am done with presents, baking, and sewing. I delivered cookies to past clients yesterday. I am always doing these things Christmas Eve!  How is it that I have it all done? Today is grocery shopping day and I will be working on my database for work but seems like I actually don't have to do everything in emergency mode. Wahoo!

Christmas is a busy time for all of us. Some of us just plain love the season; others use it as an escape. Some of us do both. Some years I jump in to avoid "real" life- the year my mother passed comes to mind. Last year was one of those "love of the season" years.

I’m having a love hate relationship with the holiday this year. Money is tighter than it has been (isn’t that true for most of us in this economy).  But, I decided that the decorations that didn't get put up this year by December 10th weren't going up. That means the snowman toilet seat cover didn't get put on the seat. The sky didn't fall!  I'm wondering if Bryonna would like to have the bathroom decorations…I’m thinking I will make that December 10^th deadline a “new” tradition.

 At our house this year lots of family traditions are changing. That’s what happens when babies come along. I'm ambivalent on this one: I have always awakened my children on Christmas morning around 5 am, and we open the tree, watch a movie, and eat cream puffs for breakfast. This year we have Ellie (and my new great granddaughter in Wisconsin). Ellie doesn’t get up at 5 am for anyone, not even Grandma Chick.  We will have our “tree” at noon this year. I don’t know how many years this new tradition will hold. I expect more babies will come along…and we will have to be flexible on “tree” times.  OK, maybe I am not so ambivalent on this one-I’ve decided that for more babies, I’m very willing to make that change.

Balish (Cookies)

315 days until I am 60! This second cookie post is my personal favorite.

1 Pkg. Yeast                        

½ c. sour cream

4 c. sifted flour

½ tsp salt

1 ¼ c. butter

3 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla

Confectioner’s sugar

1 can Solo (brand) apricot filling

Stir the yeast into the sour cream, set aside. Sift flour and salt together, cut butter into the flour. Add egg yolks and vanilla; work into flour with a fork. Add sour cream and yeast and work into dough. Chill one hour to overnight.

Preheat oven to 400°. Divide into 10 balls and roll out like a pie crust using confectioner’s sugar instead of flour on rolling surface. Cut dough into 8 wedges (like a pizza) drop  ¼ tsp of filling onto wide end of each wedge, roll up and place on a foil lined baking sheet. You can put approximately 40 cookies on a sheet.

Bake 9-10 minutes, remove from oven, and sift confectioner’s sugar over the warm cookies.

This makes 80 cookies, you can substitute fillings to suit your taste, and the cherry filling is also a favorite at my house.

Red Velvet Cookies

I have just received my fifth request for a Christmas recipe. For the next few days, besides my regular blog I am going to post one of them. My red velvet cookies are always a big hit, easy to do and very pretty.

1 Box Duncan Hines Red Velvet Cake Mix (I buy whatever is on sale.)
2 eggs 1/3 cup oil
Mix all ingredients together. This will make a nice cookie dough. Roll into balls and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet.  (I use a ½ tsp measuring spoon and make is slightly rounded) Flatten down slightly Bake at 375° until the tops crackle (about 7-10 minutes) or until desired doneness. Cool and then frost with cream cheese frosting
Cream Cheese Frosting1 8 ounce package cream cheese -- softened
1/4 cup stick margarine or butter -- softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 To4 cups powdered sugar
Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in medium bowl with electric mixer on low speed until smooth. Add powdered sugar until desired consistency.
The smaller you make the cookies the shorter the cooking time. This recipe makes 18 large (10 minute cooking time) sandwich cookies or about forty 1½ inch. (7 minute cooking time)

Everyone needs a hobby!

I went to the doctor and my blood pressure was 172 / 90, so I had to have Jessica come over every day for two weeks and take my BP and write it down. When I went back to the doctor, she looked it over – and told me whatever I had done the day it was 112/70- I should do every day. I asked for a note to my husband telling him I must paint for 2 hours every day after work and no more cooking and cleaning. Unfortunately she just laughed.

This story is my way of saying “Get a Hobby!”

I like to keep busy. I do lots of things with my hands, I paint rocks, (see the above "Eagle" paperweight), walls and canvases, I sew anything from wedding dresses to doll clothes. I smock and crochet.  I bake cookies, pies and breads. Some of these things I do well, not fabulously mind you, but well. Some of these things are only acceptable for someone who really loves me.  I once told a friend that I’m a jack of all trades- she replied “ No, no, no, Mary Beth- You’re a Renaissance Woman.” While I like the sound of that, I know the truth! -Obviously I am ADD and unable to stay focused on any one thing.

 I have also decided that “art” type hobbies skip generations. My grandmother sewed, she even taught me to make a pattern. My mother sewed only when she had to. She knew how, but probably only because most women in her generation did. My mother did embroidery, and OMG her work was beautiful. When I was 10 or 11 she taught me. I’d bring my work to her, and she’d turn it over and look at the back to see if I’d made a mess. I truly hated that!

Embroidering names on Christmas stockings is the extent of my work. My daughter Jessica learned to embroider as a teen, when she brought me her work…you guessed it, the ghost of my mother turned up and forced me to look at the back! Today, Jessica does lovely work, certainly better than mine-but she doesn’t sew….It is easier to ask mom to do it.

I used to worry that craft arts would die out with my generation.  Computers and video cameras have relieved my mind on that score.

Want a pattern for a crocheted hat? http://vallieskids.blogspot.com/2009/06/olivias-butterfly.html

Want to learn to “double crochet”? Here’s a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1txJLRPfuE

Want to see step by step instructions on painting a rock? http://www.wikihow.com/Paint-a-River-Rock

So- lower your blood pressure! Get a Hobby!

Things My Momma Said

Things my Momma Told Me

We have all heard that eventually become our mothers. I fear it's true. Any parent will tell you that as a child they were never going to say certain things. Inevitably, we do. Andy Andrews, a motivational speaker has a video on "youtube" of the 50 most used parental phrases, you can view it here.

Of course some things can’t be re- used. My mother said she needed to make a tape recording of “Mary tuck your shirt tail in- Barbara tie your shoes” Mom just didn’t understand that we were way ahead of our time. Today no one tucks their shirt tail in (wonder how many kids even know what a shirt tail is) and if kids have shoe strings rather than Velcro how many know how to tie them?

Like me, Jessica could trip over a thread on the carpet but she has changed that to tripping over a wireless phone cord. Close enough to get her a dislocated knee from taking out the trash.

Other phrases are timeless…”Look at the back of your neck, it’s filthy!” I have actually heard myself say that even though as a child I remember hearing it and thinking “How am I going to see the back of my neck???”

One I never used is “Why did you do that?” My husband used it all the time with our son….to the point it became a litany. That question suggests that the child thought the action out. Imagine that mental conversation. “What should I do next- gee what if I threw a rock at the side of the house- that might be fun- maybe I’ll get lucky and it will hit the window and break it- yea that would be fun, then dad will chase me down-more fun-and then he can ask me his favorite question.”

Just once, when asked “why did you do that?” I’d have loved to hear Bennie say “ Because I’m mean and rotten and I want to make your life miserable!” Alas, Bennie never did. I have to wonder if Ellie (my perfect adorable granddaughter) will think of saying it to Bennie in a few years when he asked her that truly stupid question.

Then there are the funny things my mother told me. Like:

“It’s easier to pick a good horse than a good man, because you know the horse will never turn into a jackass” I have faithfully repeated that one to my daughter- every time I get mad at her father.

Accidents Happen

According to a friend who lives in the area, my home town has more than a foot of snow or the ground and they are expecting an additional 4 inches today. Ashtabula is right on Lake Erie and is subject to “Lake Effect” snows. Ashtabula averages 85 to 100 inches of snow per year.

Growing up I can remember snow before my birthday (November 2) and snow falling as late as May 10^{th --}I got my drivers license the spring after I was 16. So the winter I was 17 was my first year driving in the snow. My sister had also just gotten her drivers license (right after her 16^th birthday). The first storm of the year had a layer of ice under the 2 feet of snow fall.

My sister borrowed my uncles car and left in one direction to pick up her boyfriend (now husband) and I left 15 minutes later, in my Grandmothers car, on some errand in the opposite direction.

Barb had tried to drive up hill and over a railroad track and couldn't make it. She slid back down and spun into a snow bank on a side road. She left the car and walked to her boyfriends and then headed back to the car with shovels to dig it out of the bank.

In the mean time, the road I wanted to take was blocked....so I made a right and ended up on the same road where Barb had left the car. You guessed it....I was giving Uncle Brock's car a wide berth and I literally slid sideways right smack into the side of it. Went to the closest house to call home (imagine doing that today). My mother answered, the conversation went:

“Hi mom, I had an accident.”

Mom- “Is everyone OK?

Me: “No one was injured”

Mom: “OK sweety, did you call the police.”

Me: “No mom I wasn't sure you'd want me to.”

Mom: “Mary Beth! You always call the police!”

Me: “But Mom, you don't know who I hit!”

Silence-

Mom: “Who did you hit?”

Me: “Barbara”

Silence-(I found out its possible to hear someone grind their teeth over the phone)

Heavy sigh-

Mom: Mary Elizabeth Broadston! 40,000 People in this town and You have to hit your Sister!

It has been my experience that when your mother calls you by your first, middle and last name you are in major trouble. I was.

The Nutcracker

I think my mother started her Christmas shopping in June. The Christmas after my mother passed, there was one present under the tree for me-with love, from Mom. It was a Nutcracker Soldier. The base was warped so it never stood right…but obviously I wasn’t going to return it.

Over the next 15 years I put him on display. He fell over so often that his hat came off, he lost an arm and his paint was all chipped. I quit putting him on display- rather he stayed in one of the boxes in the basement.

Several years ago, some switch within the washing machine stopped working and we ended up with a flood in the basement. The kids, their spouses, Ben and I spent an entire day cleaning out the mess. I went through so many boxes I began to wonder how I had managed to acquire so much!

I started through a box of Christmas stuff and came across the Nutcracker.  I couldn’t even find the arm. I handed it to Bennie and asked him to toss it. I said “I just can’t watch you do.” it and went upstairs for a cup of coffee.

That year when I decorated for Christmas, I thought about the nutcracker, and that thought let to Christmases past with my mom-lots of good memories.

Christmas morning, as I opened packages I opened one from my son. It was a nutcracker, for a second I thought he’d found one like the one from my mother-until I saw the warped base-and then I started crying.

Bennie had taken the Nutcracker home, photographed and cleaned it. He went out and bought another Nutcracker and took the arm from it to put on mine. He repaired the hat. Then he carefully repainted him using the photo he had taken, wrapped it and put it under the tree-with love, from Bennie.

Outside of the religious meaning, Christmas is all about family -my Nutcracker symbolizes the love of three generations- a gift from both a mother and a son.

14 Bins of Decorations

My little darlings are arguing over who has to take my Christmas decorations when I die (seeing as it's only 333 days until I am 60) .
I admit I love decorating for Christmas, it  gets me in the holiday mood.
So far, the tree is up, alas, it looks like I may have to remove the animated "Tigger" from the tree, he creaks with every movement he makes-so loudly it interferes with the TV- you'd think he was almost 60, too. At least Winnie the Pooh still moves easily.
The front porch is done, though Ben tells me the three trees out there keep tipping over, so I may have to get out my trusty glue gun and glue the darn things down. 
The dining room is almost finished. I have to laugh, the last time Ben sat at the table to eat was Thanksgiving, before that it was Easter! Now Ben is whining that he can't sit and eat at the dining room table for the next month. I am posting a picture of my nearly finished dining room- finished except for chargers and china. Pay attention to the candle holders-with tree toppers instead of candles. I love my trusty glue gun!

And the Nativity set takes 2 bins all by itself....OK maybe I shouldn't have made camels that were more than a foot tall. When I brought home the boxes of ceramics to paint, Ben asked me which child I was kicking out to make room for the nativity set. I am considering donating it to a church, but I'll have to make myself another one (small enough to actually all fit on the fireplace mantle) first.
My children act as if 4 trees, 14 bins and 3 bags of Christmas decorations are too much! Counting the baths that's only one and three-forth bins per room! The village takes up an entire bin, and at least three of those bins and three of the trees are for outside!

OK I admit, I may have gone slightly overboard with the snowman toilet seat cover...But hey! It's Christmas!