Valentine's Day Cookie Tradition

It's turned into an every holiday tradition at our house to have the missionaries over to frost cookies.  They even had time for dinner this night (just some smothered burritos).

Here are our current crew.  Elder Maxwell and Elder Holder, both of them have pretty special connections at our house.  They are great to have around.

 Elder Maxwell couldn't wait much longer.  The cookie, aka frosting delivery system, was headed for his mouth.

 Elder Holder was spending his time making them purty.

 Lexy was very focused on her cookies.  She must have frosted a dozen each with fun designs. 

Isaac frosted cookies too, but mostly just for his mouth.  I didn't even catch him long enough to get a picture.

Christmas Traditions that HAVE to Stay

I am silly about some of my quirky traditions.  This one is a total keeper.  I wasn't going to let any arrangements of Christmas Day stop us from having our crescents.  I ended up making two batches a few days apart.  SO, SO, SO good.  

 I had tried to make some Christmas Jam, kind of make shift like.  My own recipe instead of Dad's.  It didn't work.  Mostly because I failed to follow the directions of even my version.  "The sugar goes in last...!! CRAP...!!" But, you can't screw up sugar and fruit in the taste area. (Well, some people can, ask Isaac)  So, even though my jam didn't set up, it is fantastic mixed with some cream cheese.  Thus, the traditional crescent dipping 'stuff'.  I took some to a friend's house and their little girl was eating it with a fork.

Then once the house began to fill back up, I got the ham in the oven.  I love me some Christmas Ham.

All in total we ate pretty well for Christmas.

Catch up... Pre-Christmas

I am such a slack blogger...  Just haven't have the heart to do it that last little bit...

Some of you know already but, this was my favorite wrapping paper this year...

 I ordered so much from Amazon.com .  And most of it I had delivered direct.  It worked so well, I was able to get the things that I wanted without braving the stores, AND shipping was much cheaper through that businesses than it would have be on my own.  I so strongly recommend it to anyone in the future.

We held our tradition of having the Missionaries over the help with Christmas treats.  These pictures are from one of the cookie decorating nights.  This is Elder Maxwell, watch for him it future posts...!

 Here is the table full of people frosting cookies, Lexy even had her friend over to help that night.

Here's Elder Dumke enjoying his last Walbeck cookie on this mission.

 And this is a random rack of cookies post frosting.

The kids each got a gift from Grandpa for their Christmas travels.  New books.

Thanksgiving Pies

You most all know that I like to cook... and like to make pies...  Well, here's some shots of the Thanksgiving pile of pies that we made this year.

There are two pumpkin in the oven, Lexy mixed them up.  She sure had fun making pies.

The baby Chocolate Cheese Pies...  There is always so much when you get ready to fill the pies, so, I have been getting the baby gram cracker crusts for give aways. 

 

Here's a shot of most of the pies we made.  Two pickle, two pumpkin, pecan, shredded apple, and chocolate cheese.  It was a pretty tasty haul.

This is the other kind of pie we ate over the Thanksgiving break.  

Mmmmm... Donatos...!!

Lexy's 9th Birthday Cake

It's birthday time at our house.  Lexy has been counting down to her birthday.  I hope that we made it memorable for her.  Here is the cake story for her. If you follow this blog very long you see that we go ALL OUT with the cakes for birthdays.

This year Lexy wanted an 'L' for her cake.  I couldn't let it be that simple.  We had to go big, so I broke out the quarter sheets, filled them with cake batter and off we went.  Here's the rough cut cake stacked up.

 Frosted pink, of course...!!!

How's that for a cake cross section....??

 We took Butch a big piece.  He asked if the cake was really that tall...  Ha... YEP...!!!

Food of this Summer

Boy, I love to eat.  It works out OK because I like to cook too.  Here are some of the treats that I thought to take a picture of over the last month or so.

Seafood Enchiladas with White Sauce, these are pretty good with shrimp and Krab... I just some some sweet salmon this last week, I see salmon enchiladas in our future.

Virginia Apple Pudding with Blueberries.  My parents used to make this.  The recipe is slick and easy, plus you can use about any fruit.  I've done it with peaches, blueberries, blackberries, and blueberry pie filling all this summer.

Seared Ahi Tuna.  This was tuna from the seafood market on the corner of Washington and Brooks in Charleston.  I waited around for a bit to get fresh tuna from their delivery truck.  My goodness was it worth it.  So super good.  This night I paired it with sticky rice, steamed broccoli, and asparagus.

Here is some sushi from that same tuna. Some sashimi, and I tried to make a roll with saran wrap....  Didn't work, I ended up with a sushi heap, it tasted pretty darn good anyway.

And I had to throw down some ribs for Isaac..!!  He loves them, I love them, we just love having ribs.

We've has some cookies from time to time as well.  Here are some Oatmeal Raisin cookies we made both for Butch and my office.  I even experimented with some Strawberries and Cream Oatmeal cookies.  Not too bad.

We did make a Deep Fried Peanut Butter Sandwich.  I didn't get a picture of it before it was stuck with a fork completely consumed.  It try again some time.

Another night of Sushi at my house.  So good...!!

Don't worry.  I have not forgotten who I am and where I come from.  Here is some breakfast food.  Steak and Eggs with fried potatoes and watermelon.

Come on over, we'll feed you...

More Cookies

Guess who made this cookie...

 If you guessed Elder Wielderholt, you are right..!!  It goes really well with the one made around Christmas time.

That isn't a peace sign... He's number 2... 

These poor missionaries, I lure them to my house with the promise of feeding them.  Then, after we eat, I breakout the frosting and put them to work.  I think that it helps that I tell them our rule is you have the eat the first one you frost.  Check out this plate of ART...

  That plate was decorated by Elder Dumke.

 Here are both Elders, showing off their wares...

Third time makes it a tradition...

So, this is the third year in a row that we have had the missionaries over to decorate Christmas cookie, make candy etc.  I guess that makes it a tradition. The other night we had Elder Stoker (from St. George) and Elder Wiederholt (from Portland) over to frost cookies.  I am pretty sure that they had a blast.  Here is one action shot.  Lexy was making sure they knew how to frost.

 Then we have a lot of poses with the decorated cookies.  I told them that the standard protocol was to eat the first one that you frosted.  These trees are the first ones that they did.  It was pretty funny they were each claiming to be Number 1.  Then on one picture E Stoker said, "Let's do Number 2."  E Wiederholt fell for it and we got the picture below.

 So, E Wiederholt make a stocking that said "#2"... And E Stoker was teasing E Wiederholt about his crush on Taylor Swift by making a cooking proclaiming the love...

We even got one group shot of all of us.

Isaac's birthday cake...

It's no secret that Isaac is a HUGE Dragon Ball Z fan.  He love the trivia, the show, the books, the costumes, the action figures, the tee shirts, etc.  Anything with Dragon Ball Z.  I figured it was coming, "Isaac what do you want your birthday cake to be this year?" 

"Goku...  Super Saiyan 3... No Super Saiyan 5..." 

"Get a picture and I'll see what I can do."  I said.

So he found one.

And I went to work.

I think we did OK...  It was about 1:30am when I got it done.

  He said the hair was 3D and everything.  I stacked the scraps from cutting out the shapes it different sizes and shapes of wedges for the 3D hair look.  He is pretty excited...!!

Cinnamon Rolls

We got a great invitation to watch General Conference and have brunch at some friend's house. They only asked that we brought cinnamon rolls. So we made some. I just used the old standby roll dough and went to work. Lexy had fun sprinkling brown sugar and the other stuff on them with me.

Here they are ready for the oven.
They turned out pretty nice. Here is an upside down shot of the ones with yummy stuff in them. I put Craisins, pecans, and apples in a third of them. One I stuffed slices of apples in special for Isaac. I put a nice sugary glaze on them as well.

I ate the last one this morning for breakfast. So great...!!

Crepes

Here is my stand by crepe recipe. We get in a kick and eat them 3 or 4 weekends in a row. I have modified the recipes that I have had over the years to make them the way I like them.

Crepes

1c. Flour
1/4c. Sugar
1 tsp Baking Power
1 1/2 c. Milk
2 Eggs
1 T. Vegetable Oil or Melted Butter (optional)
Dash Salt

Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl, push to one side of the bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the empty side of the bowl, whip together with a wire whisk. Combine the ingredients, mix only until they are completely mixed. Some small lumps are fine. Pour approx. 1/2 cup of batter into hot, lightly oiled pan or grill, spread batter out to desired size. Turn to cook both sides. Fill with favorite jam or fruit filling. Enjoy.

I like to make some fresh fruit filling for mine. I had blackberries this weekend. It is hard to put measurements to things that I never measure, but I have tried to make a good guess for you.

Fruit Filling

2 c Fresh fruit, cleaned and sliced if needed
1/4 c Corn Starch
1/2 c Sugar
1/4 c Water
1/4 c Water

Add fruit, sugar and 1/4 c water to a small sauce pan over medium heat. Mix corn starch and 1/4 c cool water in a small dish. Once the water begins to boil stir in the corn starch mixture. Bring to a boil stirring to keep from scorching. Boil until desired thickness. Enjoy.

And we can't enjoy the fresh fruit filling without whipped cream. We make ours at home. Again with the never measure.

Homemade Whipped Cream

1 - 2 c. Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 c. Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla (I love my Mexican WHITE vanilla)

Add cream to a frozen bowl and begin beating with frozen beaters on high. Add sugar and vanilla. Beat until desired thickness.

TIP: Yes the frozen speeds up the process. Remember you are beating air into the cream, bring your beaters to the surface but don't make a mess. (Momma hates cleaning whipped cream off of the walls)

Now that all of that is make put them together.

I like to dust them with a little powder sugar for presentation.