A Ceiling in the Works

It's Christmastime! This year, we have one of the biggest, nicest trees we've had in awhile. We're choosing to embrace its natural beauty - as you can see, our ornaments are a bit sparse!

The main reason we originally thought to go light on the ornaments was because we weren't sure how Tink would react to the tree. She's been really good, though! We hung up a mini stocking for her. :-)

We're under construction!

It turns out it was a good thing we didn't put the lights on the tree, because it's already been moved all over the living room. Everytime I go in there it seems like the furniture is in a different spot. We're planning so that once all of the construction is complete in the living room & den, we can get new carpet. This one has been through a lot (plus it's ugly!).

My amazing husband is redoing our ceiling. Originally, it had ceiling tiles over the insulation pictured above. It was a very low ceiling, so we really had to watch when we turned on the ceiling fan. I hit my hands many times doing yoga in there!

He removed all the tiles & insulation & we're going to have a vaulted ceiling now. I'm so excited!

Right now, we have either bare wood or the pieces that keep the insulation from molding as our barriers from the cold. I'm thankful that we've had a mini-warm-spell since he is doing the majority of the work this week.

This end, the sunroom, has insulation up already. It's amazing how much difference it makes in the temperatures. He's also working on lighting, which so far looks great. It will be hidden in the beams, causing the light to bounce off the ceiling.

I can't wait for the finished product. I'm so thankful to have such a handy husband!

 

Christmas Cookie Baking

Last Saturday we went to my parents' house & baked 6 batches of Christmas cookies!

My mom made the Lime & Ginger Chewies shown above, plus some Spicy Gingerbread Twigs. Both recipes were from the December issue of Better Homes & Gardens. Their cookies recipes for this year are full of variety.

We had some issues with the first batch of the Lime & Ginger Chewies. They spread a lot during baking & we wound up having to cut them apart (hence the squares in the upper right of the pic above). If you make these, space them far apart on the cookie sheet! They really are chewy cookies, which we love. Plus, the lime flavor shines through perfectly without overwhelming the cookies.

The Spicy Gingerbread Twigs are like hard sticks of gingerbread cookie. Much easier to make than rolling & cutting out gingerbread men, but with the same flavor. I'd suggest omitting the cayenne pepper if you're serving them to kids. It adds quite a kick.

I baked 2 kinds of biscotti. The ones pictured above are Anisette Biscotti from BrownEyedBaker.com. I used sambuca for the anisette liquor, & coconut oil instead of vegetable oil.  They're more soft & crumbly than what I think of biscotti as being, but the flavor is sooooo good!

The other biscotti I made was from Eating Well. I made this Double Chocolate Biscotti before a few years ago & it is just as good as I remembered! The traditional Italian biscotti does not have any added oils/fats, but uses eggs instead. This recipe follows that tradition. It has a rich chocolate flavor without being overly sweet.

If you're a huge chocolate fan like me, try dipping these into hot cocoa. It's delicious!!

Dad & Bup made pizzelles. Can you tell we have some Italian background in this family? :-) My grandma gave us this pizzelle iron as a wedding gift. I made pizzelles with it once before the Bup took over that job. He & my dad make a great team.

Dad mixes up the dough & then the Bup cooks them. He has a timing system down pat.

Their first batch was Almond Apricot Brandy flavored & the second was Anise. I'd share the recipes with you, but Dad guards his recipe card with his life. He has so many alterations to the original recipe that you can barely read the card. I'm going to have to copy it down at some point so we can preserve the recipe.

They're hard to tell apart by sight on a cookie platter. We store them in separate tins & label them so we know what we're getting without having to take a bite.

We had pre-dinner drinks to finish off a successful afternoon of cookie baking. This recipe was a new discovery from one of our drink books. It's called Fire & Ice, and is made from equal parts Sambuca, Brandy & Triple Sec.  Our day had an anise theme to it: biscotti, pizzelles, & drinks.

Having tasted these once before, I opted for the small glass. This is a strong drink!

 Here's to a festive & joyous Christmas season full of cookies!

Cheers!

Tasty Tidbits

We celebrated my parents' retirement last weekend. I'm so happy for them!

When we went shopping for celebratory champagne, this fancy bottle caught our eye. Knowing that Dad loves interesting bottles, we thought this was perfect.

Opening it was quite a challenge & required actual tools. 

The hammer was just for show. :-) It must have been just intimidating enough to the bottle, though, because right after Dad picked it up, they got it open.

Cheers to Mom & Dad retiring!

In other news, we were blessed with an abundance of produce this week. In the mix: turnips, Tuscan kale, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, celery & leeks. I used them throughout the week & still have some left for next week.

And just in case you thought I'd move on to the food without the weekly picture of Tink...here are two!

She's so snuggly! (Yes, I'm wearing purple yoga pants. All the cool people are.) :-)

Here's what we've been eating in the last week:

Breakfasts

• Raspberry yogurt with cherry & honey lentil granola 
• Minimalist Baker's Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes
• Whole Food's Flax & Honey Banana Bread
• Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
• Bananas & crunchy peanut butter

Lunches

• Leftovers
• Mama Pea's Kale Sunshine Salad
• Grapefruit & oranges

Dinners

Saturday:

• Ashley's Apple Sage Chickpea Burgers - These were delicious! The apple & sage flavors were subtle but really added to the burger.
• Baked Sweet Potato Fries
• Green Salad with Mama Pea's Orange Balsamic Vinaigrette

Sunday:

• Asian noodle bowls: bean thread noodles, Jenna's Crispy Tofu, steamed broccoli, & sweet potatoes, topped with a lime/ginger/soy sauce 

Monday:

• Root Vegetable Winter Warmer Soup from Everyday Gluten-Free Slow Cooking: More Than 140 Delicious Recipes - Our crockpot was about help about 2 cups too little for this soup, but I crammed it in there anyway. I was able to chop the veggies on Sunday, then just dump them & the broth into the crock pot Monday morning. It was so nice coming home to the smell of soup.
• Bon Appetit's Boston Brown Bread - I didn't have any cans, so I made regular loaves. This paired really well with the soup, plus it's good on its own.

Tuesday:
Friends over for dinner

• Comfy Belly's Cheese Bread Pizza Crust dipped in tomato sauce, pesto, & bbq sauce

Wednesday:

• EatingWell's Moo Shu Vegetables served over millet - We loved the flavor & crunch of this dish. It came together quickly, too, since it calls for a bag of pre-shredded veggies. We used broccoli slaw as the base. I didn't have mung bean sprouts on hand, so we threw in celery instead. I think this is a good base recipe that we could change up a bit for each season.

Thursday:  

• Tortilla Pizzas - Brown rice tortilla topped with bbq sauce, tomato sauce or pesto, onions, broccoli, pineapple, kalamata olive & feta

Friday:

• EatingWell's Parmesan Spinach Cakes
• Sauteed leeks
• Roasted beets & cauliflower

Treats

• Trader Joe's Sipping Chocolate
• Bon Appetit's Cherry Almond Granola Bars
• Deb's Chocolate Sorbet
• Lisa's Chocolate Avocado Pudding
• Mom's Nut Roll