Holiday Sangria

A house full of family for Thanksgiving week meant afternoon puzzles and evening card games. And maybe a little sangria. Maybe enough sangria to enjoy for a second night. The recipe said to make it and put in the refrigerator overnight. Jessica mixed it in the morning and we sampled it late that afternoon. It wasn't bad, but it was a little unimpressive. It really did need the be mixed the night before.

It was a night after Thanksgiving that we had a nice cheese platter and this sangria. Made our supper of leftovers feel more like a party. The next night we poured up what was left. And that sangria had pizazz. The cinnamon and fruit flavors were bright and full. It really did need more time in the refrigerator. This was the easiest recipe to put together. Instead of adding sugar, the gentle sweetness came from adding apple cider to the wine. 

The end of last year's Christmas napkins.

This drink looks like a party. It tastes like a party. I'm saving the recipe for Christmas because I'm sure we will make it again. If you're having a very small party. Make a single bottle batch for a very small party. Just allow enough time to let the flavors develop.

HOLIDAY SANGRIA

2 bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon
2 cups apple cider
4 cinnamon sticks.
1 cup fresh cranberries
1 red apple, sliced (don't peel it)
1 orange, sliced & seeded (optional)

Combine all ingredients in a large pitcher. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Serve in a wine glass, being sure to add some fruit to each glass.


Some apple ciders are bolder than others, I like the stronger kind for this mix. But use the one that suits your tastes. Or, the one that you can find in your store.

Christmas Cookie Party

I think I lived an entire year's worth of life last week. I'm not even telling what the whole week held because listing it would make me tired all over again. Let's just say I've come out here on the other side still upright. Last week's crazy/busy was mostly good things, but just too much crammed in together. 

Last night's cookie party that Mommy hosted was a nice end to the week and I only had to help—light duties compared to the other full days. Their neighborhood has an annual "Night Of Lights" and everyone in a three-county radius must know to drive through and look at the decorated houses. One house even had a live nativity scene in their yard, complete with a camel and donkeys and chickens. There was a major traffic backup on the highway to get into this neighborhood.

Mommy had invited a few friends to drop by for cookies, hot cider and cocoa when they came to see the lights. Turns out it was really hard to get here in all the traffic (this is Mommy's first Christmas here and they had no clue what a big deal this night was) but persistence paid off and before it was over, little people filled the house with laughter and shrieking and lots of running about. Then they ate cookies. God bless the mamas of these sugar-filled kiddos today.

Mommy baked and baked and baked to get ready for the party. This new recipe was a big hit with everyone. I want to make these at home soon. Or, maybe after Christmas. I'm kind of full of cookies right now.

BROWNIE COOKIES

2 ounces baking chocolate (semi-sweet or unsweetened or bittersweet)
2 sticks softened butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2-1/4 all-purpose flour
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2  teaspoon salt
powdered sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave, stir, and let it cool.

Cream the butter and sugar together until totally combined. With the mixer on low, slowly drizzle in the cooled chocolate. Scrape the bowl and mix again. Mix in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. Scrape the bowl once more and mix.

Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Stir it together, then add it in large spoonfuls to the mixing bowl, with the mixer running on low. Scrape the bowl again and mix again until all combined.

Scoop generous tablespoons onto a baking sheet lined with parchment, then bake for 11 minutes until puffed and set. Remove them from the oven and let them sit on the pan for 1 to 2 minutes, then remove them to a baking rack to cool completely. Once cool, sprinkle generously with powdered sugar.

This recipe came from one of Mommy's good college friends. It's wonderful how these recipes remind us of friends from years ago.

SPICED APPLE CIDER

4 cups water
2 cups sugar
Bring to a boil in a big pot, them simmer for 15 minutes. Take off heat.

Add:
3 cinnamon sticks
8 whole allspice balls
10 whole cloves
Let sit for 1 hour. Remove cinnamon sticks, allspice and cloves.

Add:
1/2 gallon apple cider
4 cups orange juice
1 (7.5 oz) bottle Minute Maid lemon juice (in frozen juice section)

Stir and heat slowly. Serve hot. Refrigerate leftovers. You can put this in a large crockpot to keep it warm for serving at a party.


I have given beverages as gifts. Your friends and neighbors  might a welcome change from a plate of cookies. Pour cider into a pretty bottle. Use one saved when you empty a bottle of juice or purchase an inexpensive carafe at the grocery store. Add a festive label with heating directions and tie on a bow. What a treat to have homemade hot cider on a cold day!

To help you find the frozen lemon juice, this is the bottle Mommy used. The bottle was packaged in a box in the freezer section. The bottle says it is equal to the juice of 7 lemons. You could certainly use fresh if you've got the time and energy.

Green, Green, It's Green They Say

I've been feeling the need to get back to green smoothies for a while. This morning I finally made one. This is about the "greenest" of the green smoothies. I like how it tastes, but there is no confusing this one with ice cream or a milk shake. It tastes....well. It tastes green. It's a fresh clean taste. But if you are new to smoothie making, you might start with a more fruity one. I will usually throw spinach or kale into the fruit-based ones. This one is kind of the reverse—mostly green veggies with an apple thrown in. 

It only takes minutes to make this but it looks like a lot of work when you pull out the ingredients. You busy mamas might decide to take this counter full of vegetables and go ahead and bag up the amounts for several days worth of smoothies. (I might do this, too, in a bit.) You can add the apple as you make it.

You can use other blenders, of course. There are good blenders out there that cost less. The biggest difference is that my high power blender will blend it to a smoother consistency. And you might have to cut the apple and celery into smaller pieces with a less powerful machine. You don't have to spend a ton to make these. But I do love my Vitamix!

This recipe came from the Vitamix man I watched at Whole Foods soon after I got my Vitamix blender. I wanted to watch it in action and learn things that maybe I had missed looking at the book. I remember he said this smoothie was intended to sip on all day long—a constant blast of high-powered nutrients all during the day. He had a web site with all of his recipes. But last week when I wanted to look up this recipe, the site was in "suspended mode." I am so glad I had printed out the recipes when I first found them. 

KEN'S DAILY GREEN DRINK

1 cup water

a handful of spinach

a handful of baby kale

4-5 Romaine leaves OR 1/3 handful of parsley

a stalk of celery

an apple, quartered

5-6 pitted dates (be sure they are PITTED)

2 cups of ice

Place all ingredients into blender in the order listed. Blend, following instructions for your blender, until desired consistency is reached. 

I had one glass for breakfast and filled a container for later in the day. They never taste as good later as the freshly made one, but I'll give it a good shake and enjoy it "cold" instead of "slushy." I don't know who Ken is, but I thank him for sharing this recipe. I feel healthier already.

Drinking this smoothie made me think of the song---Green Green. I remember it from my high school days when I was a big fan of The New Christy Minstrels. Guess I'll just make today green through and through. The drink. The music. I might even find a green shirt to wear.

In The Moment

I miss moments like these. Mommy sent me this photo a few days ago. Little Sister dressed herself up as a princess (her big sister's old dance costume, an undershirt and her Minnie Mouse shoes) and held story time for her baby sister. Stories are better when the teller is in costume.  I'm pretty sure, too, that Little Sister read this book with great expression. Because that is how she has been read to all her life. I loved hearing her "read" when she was here.

All summer when they were at the farm, I marveled at how Little Sister spoke to Baby Girl—even when she was just a couple of months old. She spoke to the baby just like she spoke to the rest of us. To her, Baby Girl was a regular person. The rest of us went into baby speak when we talked to the baby.

As much as we miss having the girls here, we are okay with this season of life, too. One of my favorite Bible verses is from Phillipians 4:11— "...for I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content." So, I will find pleasures in what is here and in front of me. Today that just might be a glass of iced tea on our porch. 

We are not done with summer here. Temperatures are still in the 90s. That's iced tea weather. So many people now buy their iced tea. By the glass. By the bottle. By the gallon. From a restaurant. From the grocery store. (We are not even going to talk about instant tea.) I hear people say all the time that they can't make tea. Well, when I grew up, my mother and her friends would have laughed at that. It's just tea and water!

Here's how you do it:

SWEET TEA (or, Iced Tea if you aren't from here)

Bring 4 cups of water to a rolling boil. 

Pour gently over 2 family-size tea bags. (I like Luzianne or Lipton tea bags)

Let steep for 3-5 minutes. NO LONGER  

Remove tea bags. 

Add 3/4-1 cup sugar and stir to dissolve. (leave it out for unsweet tea)

Add enough cold water to make 1/2 gallon.

Around here, if you order iced tea, you're going to get sweet tea. But years ago, I gave it up for unsweetened tea because I was looking for a way to eliminate some calories. I don't add sweetener or anything. One friend, who also drinks it like that, calls it "naked tea." 

But at home, I need both sweet and unsweet tea to make both me and Daddy-O happy. You cannot add sugar to cold unsweetened tea—it will never dissolve.  So now I leave out the sugar for me and make a simple syrup for him. He can add this to his glass and we can both have it "our way."

SIMPLE SYRUP

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

Mix and heat over low heat, stirring until dissolved. Store in refrigerator. 1 tablespoon of simple syrup will sweeten a tall glass of iced tea. 

Most of the time, I just use 1/2 water and 1/2 cup sugar. That's enough for us.

To Warm The Bones

I am Southern to the center of my bones. My ancestors settled in 1769 just two counties away from where we live now. So it's no wonder that I do not tolerate cold weather very well. We are looking for an unusual blast of cold Canadian air to wash over us this week. Just thinking about it has made me cold this afternoon.

Best remedy for "chilled to the bone"?—well, a very good remedy, at least. Hot cocoa. Not the kind that is found in packets in a box. But the real stuff. The kind my mother made when we were little--long before those packets of mix had been dreamed up.

My mother made it with evaporated milk (mixed half & half with water) and I still love that taste. But you can use your regular milk and it will be fine. It is easy. And it's all real ingredients. No chemical concoction here. 

It's simply the recipe on the side of the Hershey's cocoa can. This is what I made for my girls when they were small, usually making a panful. Today I only needed one cup for me. Both recipes work. And both are good. It takes about 5 minutes to get out the ingredients and stir it all together. Treat your folks (or yourself) to something special. You're all worth it.

HOT COCOA (single serving)

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

dash salt

1 cup milk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

MIx sugar, cocoa and salt in a large mug. Heat milk in microwave on HIGH for 90 seconds, or until hot. Gradually add the hot milk to the cocoa mixture in the mug, stirring well. Stir in vanilla.

This next version makes enough for six. It basically makes a chocolate syrup at the beginning. This is what I made most often for our girls, so there would be enough for all of us! Mommy makes it now for her family.

FAVORITE HOT COCOA (serves 6)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa 

dash salt

1/3 cup hot water

4 cups milk

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix sugar, cocoa and salt in a saucepan. Stir in hot water. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture boils; boil and stir for 2 minutes. Stir in milk and heat but DO NOT BOIL.Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla.

Now, if the weather forecasters are right, there might be a snowflake or two falling here in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday. I've never seen snow on my birthday, so I might stake out a window, hot cocoa in hand, and watch for it. Wouldn't that be a grand present?

Over The River And Through The Woods

How much fun it is to get together to celebrate family events. This morning we almost didn't get together. We were hosting a coffee for a bride-to-be. The first people arrived here at the farm right on time. But then we waited and waited on more folks to come. The phone rang. And then someone else's cell phone went off. 

Two cars were lost. Yes, we are completely off the grid. Google, Mapquest, GPS, and whatever other directional tools are out there do not know where the farm is. I gave them new directions. Ten minutes passed and the phone rang again. They were still lost and had encountered another car also trying to find us. 

Daddy-O to the rescue! I had called him after the first "we're lost" phone call and asked him to come back to the house to help figure out where these cars were calling from. But after the third phone call, he told them to stay put and he would go find them. He did and then led all three cars to the farm. Thank you, Daddy-O. We only live six miles from town and we're about five miles from the interstate in the other direction. But in between are a gazillion little roads, one lane roads, and gravel roads--easy to get lost when you don't know the area.

When they finally got here, one cousin said, "We will just have to live here now. We are not leaving your house. Ever." They really think we live on the edge of civilization. Once they got here, I think they all had fun. Here are a couple of the recipes I made for today:

BLUSHING APPLE JULEPS
--recipe from SouthernPlate.com

4 cups apple juice

1 cup orange juice

1 cup pineapple juice

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 jar Maraschino cherries

Place all juices in a 2-qt. pitcher and stir well.

Add in 3-4 tablespoons juice from jar of cherries and stir again. Chill until ready to serve.

Serve over ice, with a cherry in each glass. Garnish with mint or lemon balm.

SWEET POTATO BISCUITS

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

2 teaspoons salt

1 cup butter

1 cup cooked mashed sweet potato*

¾ to 1 cup buttermilk

1.  Combine first 3 ingredients.  Cut in butter with a pastry blender or two forks until crumbly.

2.  Stir together mashed sweet potato and ¾ cup buttermilk; add to dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened.  (Add remaining ¼ cup buttermilk, if necessary.)

3.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead 3 to 4 times.  Pat to a ½-inch thickness.  Cut dough with a biscuit cutter and place biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet.

4.  Bake at 425º for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden.

Yield:  3-inch cutter makes about 14 biscuits

            2-inch cutter makes about 36 biscuits (this time I got about 48 biscuits)

* 1 (15-oz.) can sweet potatoes, drained and mashed, may be substituted.

Note:  To freeze, place unbaked biscuits on a baking sheet in the freezer.  Once frozen, place biscuits in a zip-top plastic freezer bag, and freeze until ready to use.  Before serving, bake frozen biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet at 425° for 15 to 16 minutes.

This recipe is featured on the Meal Plan Monday Recipes linkup at SouthernPlate.com