Christmas 2009


Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
    

We had a great day with our family opening gifts and enjoying Christmas treats.
Here is a photo from Christmas Eve. Long after I went to bed, my wild children decided to get up and relocate, camping out in the living room waiting  for Christmas because they were too excited to sleep in their rooms.  I took a picture of them at 3 in the morning when I woke up and found something amiss!  They left me a note in the black chair. "We R waiting 4 Santa."  Texting has changed all our lives!

 

 
The wait ended with gifts and Christmas breakfast of coconut toast, bacon, and fruit.
See our baby tree? Let's just say it looked bigger on the lot! 



Here are a couple of recipes from our day.  Each year I like to try something new. This year it was the Christmas Gift Box Cheese Spread.



Chicken-Artichoke-Cheese Spread Gift Box
(Southern Living)

3 cups diced cooked chicken
2  (ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
2 cups freshly shredded Parmesan cheese
1  (14-ounce) can or jar of artichoke hearts, drained and diced (I used fresh instead of canned)
1 cup finely chopped pecans, toasted
4 green onions, minced (I sauted mine in a bit of butter because I don't like raw onions)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon seasoned pepper (I used 1/2 teaspoon regular pepper)
Garnish: 7 or 8 green onion stems and dried cranberries

Mix all ingredients together except for the garnish.  Place in a straight sided 9 X 5  loafpan lined with plastic wrap. Cover and chill 8 hours.  Invert onto a serving plate and remove plastic wrap.  Cut loaf in half and place 1 half directly on top of the remaining half to make taller.  Smooth sides.  Plunge green onion stems into boiling water and then plunge into ice water to stop the cooking.  Arrange on sides and top to resemble ribbon.  Add dried cranberries on top.  (I decided to halve the recipe so the picture you see is 1/2 the ingredients for a smaller "gift".)

There aren't a lot of steps to show but here it is wrapped in the plastic in the loaf pan.  This was an EASY recipe to make. 




My next recipe is a long time favorite -  Christmas Kringler.  I have made this recipe many, many times over the years.  I make it for other occasions, too.




Christmas Kringler

Crust
1 stick butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon water

Cut butter into flour, moisten with water.  Form into a ball and pat/spread onto ungreased cookie sheet into 2 3-inch by 12-inch strips.

Filling
1 cup water
1 stick butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract

Place water and butter in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil.  Remove from heat; add flour, stirring until smooth.  Beat in eggs, 1 at a time.  Stir in extract.  Continue stirring until filling leaves sides of pan and forms a ball.  Spread on unbaked crusts.  Bake for 55- 60 minutes or until lightly browned.  Cool; frost with icing, and decorate with chopped pecans and maraschino cherries. Cut into 1-inch bars.

Icing
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk or half & half
2 tablespoons butter softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix sugar, half & half, butter and extract.  Add more half & half, if necessary to make a spreading consistency.




Although this is not a difficult recipe, here are some photos of the steps along the way so you can see what it should look like.

Step 1:  Cut the butter into the flour.  Next, you will add the tablespoon of water and mix until it forms a ball.




Step 2:  Pat or spread into two 3-inch by 12-inch strips. It is a little sticky at this point. 


Step 3:  Boil the butter and 1 cup of water.  Remove from heat and add flour until well blended.  I do this by hand with scraper.  This photo shows what the addition of the eggs looks like.  At first they appear a bit slimy but will incorporate if you continue blending.

Here is slimy.




Here is blended.




Now keep stirring until it pulls away from the side of the pan.  It doesn't take long.



Step 4:  Spread on unbaked crusts.



Step 5:  Bake at 350 degrees for 55 - 60 minutes until golden brown.



Step 6:  Let cool.  Frost with icing and decorate with nuts and cherries.  So pretty and so delicious.



Enjoy! 

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