Honk for Christmas
One of the things I love about this time of year is the Christmas lights. Since it gets dark so early, it’s nice to be able to enjoy the brightness they bring. I particularly love seeing the different kinds of decorations, sometimes they’re vintage and classic, sometimes classy and new, often around here they’re over the top, but they’re always fun and cheery!
Mr Chiots and I always take an evening, make some hot chocolate and drive around to look at Christmas lights, it’s a fun and enjoyable way to spend an evening. It’s a tradition my family started when I was young. My college girlfriends and I would always “honk for Christmas” when we saw a display we particularly loved, it made those long drives to Chicago at Christmas time more bearable and now Mr Chiots and I do the same thing.
What kinds of light displays do you like to see? Do you have any crazy over the top houses in your neighborhood?
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Quick Last Minute Gifts
This time of year it seems like you get invited to parties and last minute activities and you end up needing a quick hostess gift or a little something to take along. I like to have a few gifts ready for such occasions so I’m not scrambling or I don’t have to buy something.
Of course there are always my homemade jam, I always can some in nice jars just for giving. In addition to jams & jellies I like to have a few other options, each year I make something different. A few years ago I made pancake mixes in nice little bags and had little jars of maple syrup to go with them. Last year I made maple glazed pecans to hand out. This year I decided to make some little jars of mulling spices, I blogged the recipe over at Not Dabbling today if you’re interested. Next year I may make jars of Herbes de Provence with homegrown herbs.
I also like to bake a lot of fresh bread, because who doesn’t love receiving a loaf of ciabatta from a friend? A loaf a bread is also a great thing to go with that homemade jam. 
Next year I may also think about buying a box of olives to cure myself, what a wonderful gift a jar of home cured olives would be! I’m always keeping my eye open for things I can make for quick gifts and I bookmark or try to write them down when I find them.
Do you keep things around for quick last minute gifts? Any great ideas for the rest of us?
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Spicy Gingerbread Cookies
After many of you asked for the recipe yesterday I figured I’d do a new post with my gingerbread recipe (I have it on my blog from a few years ago). These cookies aren’t you typical gingerbread men/women. If you don’t like spicy things, you will not like this version. This recipe has as least double the spices of most recipes and I always use blackstrap molasses to make the flavor even stronger. If you’re a fan of spicy gingerbread you will really appreciate the flavor in this version.
One of my favorite things about these gingerbread cookies is that they’re not too sweet. If you like your cookies sweeter you can ice them, but I think they’re perfect as is. As with most spicy baked items, they’re twice as good the next day and seem to get better with age. They also keep well compared to a lot of cookies so they make a great option for mailing (I just sent some to a family member in Afghanistan). Bake up some of these and some snickerdoodles and send them to a service member you know, they’ll appreciate the holiday cheer!
MOM’S SPICY GINGERBREAD COOKIES
1 1/2 (or 12 ounces) cups dark molasses *I use blackstrap
1 cup packed dark brown sugar (I use regular sugar)
1/2 cup cold water
1/3 cup butter
1 egg
6 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons allspice (freshly ground is best)
4 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Mix molasses, brown sugar, egg, water and butter. Mix in remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
Heat oven to 350. Roll dough 1/4 inch thick on floured* board. Cut with floured cookie cutter. Place about 2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake until no indentation remains when touched, 10 to 12 minutes; cool. *TIP* If you like chewy cookies use confectioners sugar instead of flour when rolling out your dough
Note: Can roll dough 1/2 inch thick and cut with 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter. Place about 1 1/2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake about 15 minutes.
I use all organic ingredients when I make this, since we’re organic eaters. All of my organic spices come from Mountain Rose Herbs, and I get my flour/sugar from a local co-op in big 25 lb bags. This recipe is pretty good for you as far as cookies go, the blackstrap molasses will give you a healthy dose of iron, manganese, copper, potassium, calcium, magnesium, B6 and many more nutrients.
All of the various spices added to the cookies are also super healthy and contain all kinds of vitamins, minerals and trace elements. Here are links for the health benefits of the various spices: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and allspice. A lot of these spices actually help your body fight off the colds and flu, what a wonderfully tasty way to do so. If you want to make the recipe even healthier try swapping out some of the flour for white whole wheat flour. I’ve successfully swapped out half of of the flour for freshly ground soft wheat flour.
I was going to do gingerbread cookies as my Friday Favorite this week since they’re my favorite cookie, but I decided to write about them today. I will willingly pass over any other kind of cookie out there for a spicy gingerbread man. Second in line for my favorite cookie is the Date Pinwheel cookie, after that spritz or cookie press cookies, and most things after that I don’t eat because I’m not a big fan. My least favorite cookie has to be butter cookies, perhaps it’s the icing, I’ve never been a fan of them even when I was a kid.
What’s your favorite holiday cookie? second favorite? third?
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Simply Delicious Gifts
I have a friend who always tells me, “you can just make me a bunch of these for Christmas” whenever she eats one of my gingerbread cookies (she doesn’t cook or I’d just give her the recipe). I’ve always made her something instead, last year it was a nice tree skirt to match her simple mission decor. This year however, I decided I’d finally do it. She gets one of my calendars of course, but I thought a big box of gingerbread cookies would be a wonderful addition to that gift.
I considered doing a cookie of the month club and making her a batch of different cookies each month throughout the coming year, but then I decided I’d rather just go all out and make her 365 gingerbread cookies – one every day for 2011. I set to work yesterday afternoon, mixing, rolling, cutting, and baking 365 little gingerbread people. I packaged them up in the afternoon. One of my favorite parts of making homemade/handmade gifts is coming up with creative tags.
It’s a simple and practical gift, it only took me a few hours to make, and yet it’s something she’ll enjoy. Not to mention she loves the fact that the gift isn’t anything she feels she needs to keep since she’s not big on having unnecessary things in her home. It’s a win-win, I spend time doing something I enjoy, she gets to enjoy eating all the little gingerbread people she loves so much. There are so many options for practical gifts like soup, home canned jams for the mom that’s too busy to can her own, or some take and bake cinnamon rolls for friends & family to enjoy on Christmas morning.
What would be your idea of the perfect edible gift?
**Recipe for Gingerbread Cookies**
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Quote of the Day: Katherine S. White
“From December to March,
there are for many of us three gardens:
the garden outdoors,
the garden of pots and bowls in the house,
and the garden of the mind’s eye.”
– Katherine S. White
When I read this quote I just loved it. I thought about my three gardens. The garden outdoors is covered in snow, but that doesn’t mean that nothing is growing. I’ve got hoop houses protecting some greens and I just harvested some beets last week.
The garden indoors thrives all year long, but it’s even more lush in the winter. I have a corner of the basement filled with pots of herbs, fig trees and other tender plants. My living room looks like a greenhouse at the moment, it’s brimming with dwarf citrus and other tropicals as is the floor in front of my sliding glass doors in the dining room. I just bought a beautiful little jade plant at the farmer’s market last week for my dining room table. One of the things I love about indoor plants is that they help keep the air clean. No spending money on air cleaners.
The garden in my mind’s eye thrives after the holidays are over. I’ve been getting seed catalogs in the mail (is it me or do they come earlier every year, soon we’ll be getting them in August). I don’t look at these quite yet, I stow them away for those dark days in January.
I actually enjoy the down time winter offers for the northern gardener. I spend a lot of time during the winter months reading gardening books, learning more about organic gardening and soil buildings, dreaming of new plants while flipping through glossy gardening books and trying to figure out what new and interesting vegetables I’ll be growing this coming season.
How are you three gardens doing?
