the kids and I had fun,
making holiday wreaths."
With my $4 natural grapevine wreath and my big hedgetrimmers, the kids and I headed outside to make a wreath out of what we could find in the yard. Luckily, this includes a ton of boxwood. And so we set to clipping branches and stuffing them into the entwined wreath base, which was so easy we didn't even need the floral wire I had. Really, the only challenge was trying to get them to lay all the branches in the same direction. We attached a big red bow and, voila, our own holiday wreath. I'm actually pretty impressed with it, considering the ease of creation of low price.
Then we wandered the yard and found ice in most of our outlying toys. I hadn't realized that it had frozen. They loved playing with the ice but then decided they were too cold, so we headed inside and made our traditional snow snack--popcorn and hot chocolate--sorta for practice. I made the hot chocolate off the Hershey box (I can't find my preferred Dutch-processed Droste anywhere this year), which entails a sugar-cocoa slurry added to milk. I added cinnamon (and to mine, dried grated orange peels, though, next time, I will steep and then remove the orange peel. But it was good). Then, we made popcorn balls, instead of just plain popcorn, because Buddy really liked those at Halloween. For this recipe, you make them just like rice krispy treats. And, burning my fingers on the hot mixture, I came up with the idea of scooping them out on waxed paper with a ladle, which provides a vaguely round shape, and then forming them into tighter balls once they've cooled a bit. Bud (and later, Mama) loved them and they were pretty good, though microwaved popcorn just doesn't hold its crunch. Sis remembered that last year we had special snow snack dishes, which I have yet to unearth this year. I guess we had a lot of memorable snow snacks last year; we sure did have a lot of snow.
So, a good kick-off to our advent activities, even if I haven't finished putting together the drawing basket yet. And I'm not sure what today's activity is, except we're heading to a holiday puppet show, which should be fun.
-=-=-=-=-=
Hot Cocoa
1/2 cup suga
1/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
Dash salt
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (my addition)
1/3 cup hot water
4 cups (1 qt.) milk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Miniature marshmallows or sweetened whipped cream(optional)
1. Stir together sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt in medium saucepan; stir in water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Boil and stir 2 minutes. Add milk; stirring constantly, heat to serving temperature. Do Not Boil.
2 Remove from heat; add vanilla. Beat with rotary beater or whisk until foamy. Serve topped with marshmallows or whipped cream, if desired. Five 8-oz. servings.
VARIATIONS: Add one of the following with the vanilla extract:
SPICED COCOA: 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon and 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg. Serve with cinnamon stick, if desired.
MINT COCOA: 1/2 teaspoon mint extract OR 3 tablespoons crushed hard peppermint candy OR 2 to 3 tablespoons white creme de menthe. Serve with peppermint candy stick, if desired.
CITRUS COCOA: 1/2 teaspoon orange extract OR 2 to 3 tablespoons orange liqueur.
SWISS MOCHA: 2 to 2-1/2 teaspoons powdered instant coffee.
COCOA AU LAIT: Omit marshmallows or whipped cream. Spoon 2 tablespoons softened vanilla ice cream on top of each cup of cocoa at serving time.
SLIM-TRIM COCOA: Omit sugar. Combine cocoa, salt and water; substitute nonfat milk. Proceed as above. With vanilla, stir in sugar substitute with sweetening equivalence of 1/2 cup sugar.
CANADIAN COCOA: 1/2 teaspoon maple extract.
MICROWAVE SINGLE SERVING: Coombine 1 heaping teaspoon HERSHEY'S Cocoa, 2 heaping teaspoons sugar and dash salt in microwave-safe cup or mug. Add 2 teaspoons cold milk; stir until smooth. Fill cup with milk. Microwave at HIGH (100%) 1 to 1-1/2 minutes or until hot. Stir to blend; serve.
-=-=-=-=-
Popcorn Balls
5 cups popped popcorn
1-10 oz bag of marshmallows
1/4 cup butter
Melt butter and marshmallows in pot on the stove. Stir in popcorn until coated. Scoop onto waxed paper with ladle. Wait a bit to let them cool some. Shape into balls with hands sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.
the back of Buddy's advent calendar
No comments:
Post a Comment