Cooking on Christmas Eve

We needed a quick and easy dessert for a simple Christmas Eve meal -- easy, but festive.

So Amber's project was to make Sugar Cookies and top them with crushed candy cane. Aunt Bethany's sugar cookie recipe was a perfect choice.

Want the recipe?

Cream 2/3 cups of butter and 3/4 cup of sugar. That is, put the butter and sugar in the mixing bowl and beat until it is smooth and creamy.

Next:  Add 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and 1 tablespoon of milk to the mixing bowl. Mix until the ingredients are well blended.

Now place a flour sifter onto a plate and measure 2 cups of flour into the sifter. Add 1 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt to the flour.  Sift about one fourth of the flour mixture into the mixing bowl of ingredients and stir until blended. Continue to add the flour mixture from the sifter and any that has accumulated on the plate.  Stir until well blended after each addition of flour.

Divide the dough in half, wrap each half in waxed paper, and place in the refrigerator for twenty minutes or more. Chilling makes the cookie dough easier to roll out and handle.

While the dough is cooling there are some tasks to do:

1. Prepare baking sheets. We used silacone baking pan liners on the cookie sheets. These are nice because nothing sticks to them and cleaning up the pans is easier. If you use the cookie sheet without the liner, you could lightly grease the pan or use a spray.

2. Crush the candy canes. We used white candy canes with red and green stripes. The method Amber used to crush the candy was to break them up by hand and place them in a ziplock bag. She placed the bag on a cutting board and struck it with the wooden rolling pin until the candy was rather fine, but with a few small chunks remaing so the color pattern could be seen. The crushed candy was placed in a bowl so it could be spooned onto the hot, glazed cookies.

3. Prepare the glaze. We just guessed at the amount. We probably had about 3/4 cup of confectioner's sugar and added a tiny amount of water. Stir until smooth and a little more runny than you would want for frosting a cookie. We wanted it to just glaze the cookie and help hold the crushed candy cane onto it.

4. Get a surface ready to roll out the cookies. We used a cloth covered pastry board and dusted a small amount of flour onto the cloth. Otherwise, a small skim of flour placed on a section of the counter will work.

5. Lay out the cookie cutter, the turner, and any other equipment you may choose to use.

6. Turn the oven on with the temperature set for 375.

Now it is time to roll out half of the dough to about 1/4 inch thick or a little thinner. Cut the cookies with the desired cutter -- we just used a biscuit cutter, but various shapes could be used. Place the cookies on the pan liner or slightly greased pan. We put the cookies 3 across and 5 down on our large pan but not as many on our smaller pan. Roll out the second half of the dough and cut cookies as you are able (depending on the number of pans you have).

Once the oven is heated, bake the cookies about 7-8 minutes or until the edges just barely begin to turn brown and the cookie doesn't indent when touched lightly with your finger.

Remove from the oven when done, spread with a thin layer of the glaze, sprinkle on some crushed candy cane, and remove the cookies to wire racks for cooling.

That's it! Amber is learning something new every time we cook.

Cooking in a Whirlwind

Christmas means many things to people. We are a Christian family and we like to focus on the real meaning of Christmas so it is mainly a time for remembering how our Savior was born into this world. We worship and adore Him and offer our thanks to Him for the only perfect gift that was ever given.

Christmas is a time of celebration with good music, the sharing of gifts, and spending time with the family.

When we prepare foods for Christmas, we think it is fun to include family favorites -- some passed down through the generations.

So today for our cooking class, we made popcorn balls from a recipe that came from Grampie Jim's family and we made a four minute peanut butter fudge that has been a family favorite since our children were little. They called it Grampie Jim's Peanut Butter Fudge and it was one treat they all really enjoyed and they looked forward to it on special days like Christmas.

Why did I say this was cooking in a whirlwind? Because both of these recipes require quick handling at the end. Oh, boy, do I wish someone had been around to take a shot of Wayne, Marcia, Amber, and me with our buttered hands racing against time to get the popcorn balls formed before the candy was hardened too much. It is HOT work, and we knew it would be! The fudge? We were almost as frantic when I was dumping peanut butter into Amber's pan of hot syrup as she tried to stir it thoroughly before the fudge sat up and couldn't be poured into the pan. We ALMOST didn't make it!

We did it, we did it, we did it! It was challenging for us to get everything done and move quickly enough. We didn't tackle the job unprepared. We read the recipes and talked about the steps we needed to take and when.  We kept wishing we had Jonathan and Michele here to help direct us in the popcorn ball process. Michele's family has a huge undertaking every year with a dozen or so people gathering at her grandmother's. They make hundreds of popcorn balls!  They have a real assembly line with every person knowing his or her role in the process. It sounds like such fun, but in the end our batch of 23 was enough -- at least for this year. (By the way, Michele's grandmother is Grampie Jim's niece.)

 

After the cooking was done, Amber wrapped some peanut butter and some fudge individually and packed them in a tin for Erika. Oh! I noticed that the popcorn balls didn't cool for very long before Amber was nibbling on one.

 

Amber left for home with enough butter and the recipe to make Scotch Shortbread. Those delightful, little treats were among our favorites when the children were young. I think she will enjoy cooking those because she will be able to set her own pace. The whirlwind cooking is over for now and she is probably breathing a sigh!

 

 

Ratatouille and Herbed Chicken -- 9-14-12

What a great time of year to make ratatoulli. Right now zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, and tomatoes are all in season. We always say vegetables are never better than when they are freshly gathered from the garden. We already had a few other items in our refrigerator, so a quick trip to the store to buy an eggplant, a few mushrooms, and parmesan cheese was all it took to be ready for tonight's adventure.

Joshua said he thought Amber ought to have a classmate for the cooking class, and what a great idea that was. The two tackled the slicing and dicing of vegetables with confidence and competence. And they sprinkled in a good measure of humor as they worked.


In no time, the vegetables were in the oven and the chicken was cubed and cooking slowly on the stovetop in an herbal basting oil.

While we waited for dinner to cook, we watched a video on setting the table for a family dinner and set the table according to instructions.

The classmate/cousins enjoyed their masterful cooking. And so did the adults who were here.

Congratulations to Amber and Joshua. You did a superb job! I would assign an "A" over-all.

The health lesson tonight covered several aspects of foods and their preparation:

1. Brighter colored foods are richer in vitamins and a variety of colors is healthful. Tonights meal includes bright red, green, purple, and yellow vegetables. We spoke of how the dish we made is nourishing and also appealing.
2. Foodborne illnesses include bacterial and parasitic infections such as salmonella (common in chicken), tapeworm (found in pork, beef, and fish), and trichina (found in pork). Cooking meats, fish, poulty, and eggs thoroughly prevents disease. Handwashing and thorough cleaning of surfaces exposed to raw meats is imperative.  
3. Although some produce is more tasty to us when cooked, we learned that ingesting some raw vegetables and fruits is beneficial. This is because the heat used in cooking destroys some vitamins.

Freezing Produce and Cooking an Omelet

It is September 5, 2012. Today is the beginning of a new adventure and a new blog. It started this way: Amber wanted to work with her grandmother to develop some home making skills. We talked about some of the things we could work on and a few days ago, we decided on cooking and nutrition.

We spent about 3 or 3 1/2 hours together and we really had a very good time:

1. First we had a discussion of basic nutrients found in foods (protein, carbohydrates, and fats), with examples of foods to be found in each category. Good nutrition, we believe, will result if we follow the Biblical principle of "all things in moderation". Amber is trying to follow a healthful diet and is taking walks a couple of times every day for fresh air and exercise. I am very proud of her for her commitment to take care of the body God has given her.

2. We prepared and froze approximately 1 1/2 gallons of fresh beans from our garden. There were some pole beans and some purple bush beans. By doing this, Amber got some hands-on experince with blanching, chilling, draining, and packaging the beans. She was surprised after the heating that the purple beans turned green! We discussed the purpose of blanching vegetables prior to freezing. At the end of the day, she had three bags of beans to take home and store in her Mom's freezer.

3. Amber had asked the other day if she could
learn to make an omelet, so I asked her to watch some You Tube videos on how to make an omelet and to include one with Julia Child. My purpose in having her watch the videos was so she could see that there seems to be almost as many methods for making omelets are there are people making them! But Julia Child, of course, made the classic French omelet and I felt it would be helpful to know how they were originally made.

Amber had already decided the method that she wanted to use for cooking her omelet. She decided to make hers with diced, fresh tomato (also from our garden) and some cheddar cheese. It was delightful to see how her video viewing prepared her so well. She demonstrated proper use of equipment, utensils, and food prep techniques. She made an attractive and delicious omelet as you can see from the picture above.

To evaluate: Amber met my goals of using equipment correctly and safely. She showed a great deal of interest and enjoyed working on building skills in this hands on experience. If I were to give her a grade, it would be an A-minus only because the omelet tore a bit when being transferred to the plate. This was a splendid first effort and comparable to what to expect from someone with more experience. We decided the tomato was a little heavy, causing the tear, and talked about how to prevent this from happening the next time.

Amber's evaluation: She decided to make an omelet at home alone, now, because doing it without an audience would be less pressure. I can hardly wait to hear what she says about her solo omelet-making!

She is going to write a couple of paragraphs about today's experience and I hope to include them in this blog, along with a couple more pictures.