Delights of December Day 22 ~ Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix

Homemade hot chocolate mix was something my grandmother would always stir up for Christmas gifts for her children, grandkids, and their families. I have also found that it makes a wonderful gift. Here's a gift idea for that hard-to-buy for older person : A jar of hot chocolate mix, a container of refrigerator muffin batter, and a box of clementines. We've done this for the past few years for my mother-in-law (the first year we also included a six-cup silicone muffin pan) and she looks forward to it. We have the agreement that I will refill the muffin batter and the hot chocolate as many times as she wants me to.

My hot chocolate mix is one I developed myself by combining my grandmother's recipe with another one and adding in some ideas of my own. I really like the touch of malted milk flavor in this. Here's the recipe:

HOT CHOCOLATE MIX
5 cups instant nonfat dry milk
2 cups powdered sugar
2 cups instant chocolate drink powder (like Quik)
1 cup malted milk powder, chocolate flavor
1 cup malted milk powder, malt flavor
1 cup non-dairy powdered creamer
1/2 cup unsweetened baking cocoa

Mix all ingredients together thoroughly and store in an airtight container. Include these directions with mix:
* Place 1/3 cup of mix in a large mug. Fill mug with hot water and stir to dissolve. *

Delights of December Day 21 ~ Old-Timey Tin Icicles

Old-Timey Tin Icicles

Years ago, my sister-in-law told me about an easy, fun tree decoration. You can actually make these all year whenever you finish a roll of foil, wax paper, etc. Basically, they are icicles which you make from the metal cutting strip on the boxes of these wraps. (As you might guess, this is not a craft small children should help with.)

Nowadays not all wraps come with these metal cutting strips; some are now plastic.  But I've noticed that a surprising number of them still have the metal edges.

Here's what you do: When you finish up a roll of foil or whatever, very carefully remove the metal cutting strip from the box. Once you get the end started, it will come off quite easily. Then take a pencil and, again working very carefully, wrap the metal strip around the pencil in a spiral pattern. Once the icicle looks the way you want it to, slip it off the pencil. There is your tin icicle! These metal strips often have holes spaced along them, and you can slip an ornament hook through the topmost hole. If your metal strip has no holes, you can simply bend the top of the icicle a bit to stay on a tree branch.

These icicles look charmingly old-fashioned on your tree, and they catch the glimmer of the tree lights beautifully. Have fun with this idea!

From a favorite Christmas card by Kathy Lawrence

Delights of December Day 20 ~ ideas for Christmas breakfast

Even though Christmas is a few days away, I thought this might be a good time to share our Christmas breakfast traditions with you. If you decide to try this recipe, you will want to be shopping for ingredients soon. So here are my thoughts on

CHRISTMAS BREAKFAST
 

For Christmas breakfast when the kids were growing up, I always liked to have something easy but hearty. I knew they would be having a lot of sweets and excitement that day, not to mention a lack of sleep. So it made sense to me to be sure that breakfast included some good food, especially protein and fruit. I would plan some sort of egg dish -- usually one that could be made the night before and refrigerated, then baked in the morning. Along with this, we would have muffins or coffeecake, and either leftover ambrosia, fruit salad, or the oranges from the stockings. Here is my favorite egg dish.

EGG BRUNCH BAKE
2 cups seasoned croutons
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
Pepper to taste
4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

Place the croutons and cheese in a lightly greased 9-inch square pan. combine milk, salt, mustard, onion powder and pepper. Pour this over the croutons and cheese in the pan. Sprinkle bacon on top. Cover and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, bake at 350°, uncovered, for l hour. Recipe may be doubled for a 13X9-inch pan.

Yield: 4 servings

This is my standby breakfast recipe when we have overnight guests. I also served it to the wedding party at 2 pre-wedding brunches. So easy, but delicious!

If you click the label for "muffins" in the label cloud to the right, you will bring up some of my favorite muffin recipes.  Enjoy!

Almond Joy Muffins -- photo by Taste of Home

Delights of December Day 19 ~ Christmas Eve Soup

I've been making this soup for probably 30 years or more. It all started years ago when I decided we needed some simple traditions for our own family -- not just going to Grandma's on the big day, but something especially our own. We decided to have a simple meal on Christmas Eve -- when we started, we invited grandparents and other close family, but now it is down to just us, sometimes my dad, and any available children and grandchildren. The menu I chose that first year was this soup, muffins or biscuits, and, for dessert, ambrosia with Christmas cookies. Over the years, many things have changed -- the past couple of years I've eliminated the ambrosia in favor of ice cream, and some years we have cheese pizza instead of bread -- but this soup is a constant. I thought I would share the recipe a few days early in case anyone else would like to try this for Christmas Eve. So here it is:

CHRISTMAS EVE SOUP
6 cups sliced potatoes
1 cup sliced carrots
6 slices bacon
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup sliced celery
1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cups milk
2 cups half & half cream
Finely shredded cheddar cheese
Parsley sprigs

Cook potatoes and carrots in boiling water until tender; drain. Saute bacon until crisp in skillet. Drain on paper towels; crumble. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of bacon fat. Saute the onion and celery in the reserved bacon fat until tender but not brown.
Combine potatoes, carrots, onion mixture, salt, pepper, and cream in a large kettle or Dutch oven. Simmer for 30 minutes; do not boil.

Garnish with shredded cheddar , parsley sprigs and the crumbled bacon.

Serves 4 to 6.

(Note:  Sometimes I just saute the onion and celery in canola oil, butter, or bacon fat, then add the potatoes, carrots and water and cook till the vegetables are done.  Then I add the cream ~ fat-free half & half works fine ~ and just sprinkle purchased bacon bits over the soup when serving.  The taste is pretty much the same, and it's quite a bit easier.)

Delights of December Day 18 ~ Christmas Heirlooms

 
Sorry I am a day late in posting this!  Yesterday was a very busy day.

CHRISTMAS HEIRLOOMS

I was extremely fortunate to have some special Christmas things handed down to me. Oh, they weren’t big, expensive, valuable items. Some would probably call them “trinkets” or even “junk”. But to me they are very precious -- part of my heritage.

I have 2 of these vintage felt snowmen.  See how they resemble snowflakes?  Love the "holly berry" hands & feet, too.

Many years ago my great-aunt gave me some old glass ornaments that had belonged to her and her late husband. Even though the ornaments are faded now and some are chipped, I continue to put them on the tree each year, along with some antique felt snowmen and elves. There were also some of those colored heavy foil reflectors for use with the old-time Christmas lights. On years when we put colored lights on our tree, I still use the reflectors even though our modern lights are much smaller and they have to be put on just so to make them fit.

Here you can see several vintage glass ornaments, plus a felt elf lady and one of the heavy foil reflectors in blue.

The same great-aunt also gave me some wonderful vintage Christmas fabric and a box full of Christmas candles. There were carolers and a lamp post, angels, and other things. I always loved seeing such candles around when I was a child, but it’s hard to imagine actually lighting one of them. (Incidentally, the Vermont Country Store carries such candles, so they’re still available if you know where to look.)

One of my favorites from childhood

My grandmother was a real lover of Christmas, and she kept a good stock of whatever was needed to make the holiday special. She gave me a whole box once of things she was getting rid of -- mostly paper goods -- and in it were some real treasures. I had always marveled that there were actually such things as paper doilies done in Christmas prints. Gram had lots of them -- with holly, poinsettias, and so on. I felt extremely fortunate to find some of those -- several different sizes and prints -- in that box, and for years I used them very sparingly. In the past few years I have found some lovely Christmas paper doilies in the dollar stores and at Target, so they’re still out there.
Gram also gave me a box full of wrapping paper, ribbon, and tags. I have had a wonderful time using these things over the years. I still have some of the ribbon and tags, and included some of the tags and a few snippets of ribbon in the Christmas memory books I’ve made for family members.

What about you? What are your Christmas heirlooms? If you don’t have any, you might like to consider making some special things to hand down to your family.

The plastic reindeer is from my childhood.  Bottle brush tree and glittery house are newer treasures from Gooseberry Patch.

Delights of December Day 17 ~ Two nutty confections

At Christmastime, all types of snack mixes are popular as gifts and just to have around the house for family and friends to nibble on. These two nutty treats have been particular favorites with us and with those we've shared them with.

The first is a treat for coffee lovers.

COFFEE WALNUTS
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
 

Combine ingredients in a saucepan and cook to the soft-ball stage.
Remove from heat and toss in: 3 cups broken walnuts.  Spread on wax-paper-lined cookie sheets to dry. The nuts should be fairly separate, not in large clumps.

Next, we have

ORANGE SUGARED PECANS
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
3 tablespoons evaporated milk
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon freshly grated orange peel
2 cups pecan halves
 

In small heavy saucepan, combine the sugar and evaporated milk. Cook over medium heat to 234° (soft-ball stage), stirring occasionally. Add butter and orange peel; stir to blend. Add pecan halves; stir until all are coated. Spread the pecans on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper. When candy coating is firm, gently break pecans apart. Store in covered containers.

The first nut recipe is from Cook & Tell. The second is from a Taste of the Country cookbook. Both of these nut recipes make wonderful gifts. You can buy tins or jars to put them in, or, for a vintage look, save cans through the year from peanuts, mixed nuts or cashews and cover them with Christmas wrapping paper. That’s the old-timey way!

Christmas 1950

Delights of December Day 16 ~ My simple Christmas-card system

My simple Christmas-Card system...

So many people struggle with trying to get their Christmas cards sent out. For years I watched my mother labor with a list, checking off cards received, listing cards sent out... and when I started sending my own Christmas cards, I did the same. Then came a couple of very busy years when cards just didn't get sent. Finally I decided to try a different way of handling this... something that would make it a blessing rather that a chore, that would keep the enjoyment in this special way of keeping in touch with friends and family.

I decided that when we received a card from someone, then I would send that person a card. It keeps the task very manageable. Writing only a few cards a day keeps it enjoyable and gives me time to add a little note to the card if I like. This system is almost foolproof. The only thing that keeps it from being ideal is that invariably we receive some cards from people at the very last minute, like the day before or the day after Christmas. I noticed this the first year, so the next year I bought a couple of nice New Year's cards to use for those people. (If you are trying this for the first time, I suggest buying a couple of New Year's cards right now, to have on hand for this inevitable happening.) By now, I have it pretty much figured out who is going to be late with their cards -- in our case, it's only two people -- and I just send their cards now before we receive one from them.

This system works beautifully for us. Is it perfect? Of course not. But it sure beats struggling to get your cards sent out or just giving up on sending cards entirely, as many people have done. Give it a try and see what you think!