My Bit of Earth

2009 :: Some Highlights

Just a few moments and adventures from the outgoing year....can all of this have really happened in just 12 months?  

 

*January* 

*February*

*March*

*April*

*May*

*June*

*July*

*August*

*September*

*October*

 *November*

*December*        

Quite Possibly the Perfect Buche de Noel

I can't let the year slip out without a post about this guy, but I promise this will be my last Christmas-y post.  (Excluding a little Christmas present knitting, but that doesn't count right? Right!)

Through the whole month of December I went back and forth about whether to make a Buche de Noel (that's a Christmas Yule Log cake, in English, but it's so much more fun to say it in French).  Our local bakery makes them, but they're kind of expensive...which is fair because they can be a big pain to make yourself.

'Round about December 22nd though, I found this recipe promising an "easy yule log".  It looked simple enough, so I finally made up my mind to give it a go.

Seriously--easiest buche ever!  It took me less than an hour (excluding cooling time, of course) to put it all together, and it tasted wonderful!  I'm so excited to find a buche that doesn't take four hours and four thousand ingredients--yay, yay, yay!

Have a happy, safe New Year everyone!

*****

Bûche de Noël (Slightly modified from Easy French Food)

• 4 eggs (these have to be at room temperature)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup cake flour (sifted before measuring)
• 2 Tablespoons Grand Marnier or other flavoring

Butter a 10 X 15 inch jelly roll pan. Line with parchment paper and butter that as well. Preheat oven to 400° F.

In a mixer beat the eggs until they are very thick and light colored (this takes about 7 minutes). Continue beating and add the sugar in 1 tablespoon at a time, allowing each spoonful to mix in before continuing with the next. Beat in the vanilla as well.

Stop the mixer and sift 1/2 cup cake flour on top of the batter. Using a spatula, gently stir the flour into the batter. Sift the final 1/2 cup flour on top and then very gently fold this into the batter. You want to stop as soon as all the flour is integrated into the batter. This will give you a lovely, airy cake.

Pour and spread the batter into the prepared pan and bake for just 10 minutes. Do not overbake or the cake will be too stiff to roll without breaking.

Dust a clean dishtowel with powdered sugar.  As soon as you take the cake out of the oven, turn it out onto the towel.  Remove the parchment paper and allow the cake to cool for a couple of minutes. Douse with Grand Marnier or other flavoring.  While it is still warm, roll the cake up from one of its short ends with the dishtowel inside (this way the cake gets used to being rolled and won't tear when you fill it and roll it back up). Allow the cake to cool completely.

Unroll the cake, and spread about 1/2 of the chocolate buttercream (recipe below) evenly on top.  (This recipe really does make enough icing, so don't be scared to use too much!) Carefully roll the cake back up and neatly place on your serving dish.

Optional: To enhance the yule log effect, cut off the ends at an angle and use these to create stubs on the log (they're supposed to look like cut off branches), attaching them with some buttercream.

Frost the outside of the log and, using a fork, trace irregular lines in the frosting to give it a woody effect. Cover the cake carefully with plastic wrap and allow it to "age" in the refrigerator for several hours.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

• 1/2 cup soft unsalted butter
• 3 1/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup buttermilk 
• A little more Grand Marnier or other flavoring

Whip the butter in your mixer until is is light and creamy. Sift together the sugar, cocoa and salt and add this to the butter. Beat until well mixed then add the vanilla, buttermilk, and a splash of whatever flavoring you're using. Beat until very smooth.  You may have to add a little more buttermilk to give it a spreadable consistency. This makes just the right amount of buttercream for the yule log cake recipe above.

Ornament Swap 2009

Although I believe more will be trickling in still, these are the ornaments I've gotten so far in Freshly Blended's Ornament Swap.  It was a lot of fun this year because I got to see, not only the ornaments I received, but all of Nice Mom and Nice Mom-In-Law's ornaments too.

I've only done this for two years now, but it's become absolutely one of my favorite holiday traditions.  Everyone is so creative and the ornaments are always beautiful!  To see more of them and be completely inspired, check out the flickr pool of all of this year's ornaments.

A Merry Little Christmas (Part Two)

Christmas morning we woke up to this outside...

Inside, for the very first time, we filled stocking for each other this year.  We must have both been thinking along the same wavelength, because both stockings contained (among other things) new wool socks!  

(Beautiful but chilly hardwood floors + winter = a newfound adoration of wool socks!)

Presents were opened and general Christmas morning laziness ensued...

 
 
...but eventually we 'roused ourselves up to go outside...

 

...where we shoveled both at our house and at our "adopted" snow shoveling house for about two and a half hours.  It was a workout!  In fact, we had discussed going sledding afterward, but we were both starving by the time the shoveling was done...

...so we feasted instead!  I chose bread and cheese goodies, while Sweet Husband had ribs.  Then we had a movie marathon and knitting session, punctuated by phone calls from family near and far.

It was a very nice little Christmas indeed!

A Merry Little Christmas (Part One)

I hope you'll forgive me as I tie up some Christmas-y loose ends this week.  As is usual, December isn't long enough!

But our Christmas celebrations?  Pretty much perfect, I have to say.

The festivities kicked off Christmas Eve with a little party at Sweet Husband's work.  Every year after the store closes on Christmas Eve they have a little party with champagne to celebrate the fact that they've all survived another Christmas season in retail!

They may look sweet, but these are battle hardened veterans, I tell you....

We managed to get home just before the real snow started....

And, in a wonderful little last minute, impromptu-y thing, ended up having some of the best company I can think of for dinner....

 
After some games and dessert, our guests headed for home and we went out for a somewhat tipsy romp in the (then getting much deeper) snow with the pups.  The Christmas pj's were opened, Twas the Night Before Christmas was read, and we settled in for warm, cozy night....

Wheeee!

    

It only took us four days, but we finally made it sledding!  

Happy Holidays Friends!

Did two Christmas cards this year--dogs weren't being cooperative, so we decided to do one of just us too.  And then we giggled.  

You would too if you were out on your porch with a camera and a tripod and your neighbors laughing at you!

But aside from that....travel safe if you're traveling, bunker down cozy if you're staying home, and have a very Happy Christmas!

 

Porter Speaks: Waiting for the Man With the Bag

Mom says Santa will be coming soon.  I'm watching for him very carefully.

It's my duty to bark at everyone who enters our house, of course, but also I want to be sure to get the jump on Moe vis-a-vis Santa's bag of treats.  While Moe is much quicker than I am these days, I have infinitely more patience--thus, the waiting....

And I'm also hoping he'll give me something extra special if I return his hat!

An Ornament Wreath...Er, Sort Of

 The idea for this project came from Just a Girl.  It's supposed to be--and her's ended up as--a wreath.  

Mine?  Not so much...although it is kind of an attractive "ball of balls", so to speak.

It really should be an easy little project--take ornaments, string them on wire = wreath.

I believe my mistakes were three:

1. I didn't buy enough ornaments.  I started with 36 little ornaments.  I should have had double that number at least.
2. I somehow got glass ornaments instead of plastic.  When you're bending and squeezing the wire, trust me, you want plastic.  I ended with 34 little ornaments.
3. I think the verdict is still out on whether to use a coat hanger as your wire base (as Just a Girl suggests).  If you had the right number of ornaments--or a thin, crappy coat hanger--it would probably be just great.  I evidentially picked the most sturdy coat hanger ever built, which made it very difficult to bend or (when I ran short of ornaments) cut off.  Sweet Husband had to get out the super-duper wire cutters, and even then it was dicey.

Nonetheless, I still think it ended up very passable.

Homemade Holiday Fabric Goodies

If you'd asked me a few years ago, I wouldn't have dreamed I'd be the type of person to whip up my own table runners and pillow covers.  But I wanted some Christmas-y stuff and didn't want to spend a lot of cash on something that will spend most of the year in a box, so I decided to give it a go.

My table runner, while it ended up OK, could use a little work still.  (It's a very long seam to keep straight and even.)  

However, I will probably never buy another pillow cover again.  Literally, it's one of the easiest bits of sewing ever to come out of my machine.  Like, if you've ever made a pillow, it's even easier than that.  I used these directions, and it only took me about twenty minutes to make two.  At that rate, my little throw pillows are likely to get new covers every month!

A Small Solstice Offering

Although I know many people think they're a nuisance, our entire family gets a lot of entertainment value from the squirrels that have built a nest in our backyard.  Sweet Husband and I get a kick out of watching them perch on the fence preening their tails and surveying their territory.  The dogs get a kick out of chasing them up the trees and barking at them.  (I swear they even let Porter almost catch them just to make her feel young and spry....)

And since it's the longest night of the year--and certainly cold enough to be getting on with--I gathered up some goodies from the kitchen tonight and set them out as a small payment for all the fun.

 A little popcorn, orange slices, roasted chestnuts, and some dried cranberries--a solstice feast fit for the king and queen of squirrel-dom!

Milkweed Balls

I first saw these a few years ago around Christmas time at Pendleton's, and have made sure to get some every year since.  

Their common name is, um, not really appropriate for a family blog.  (Hushed whisper:  They're called monkey balls.)  But they're actually a type of milkweed pod that dries up really well.  Flower Garden Girl has a post about growing them--maybe I should try that next year?

I'd have to come up with a new name to call them though--I can just see it now!

Stranger walking in my garden: "Hey, what are these neat-o plants?"

Me: "Oh, they're primate genitalia."

Kidding aside, they really do deserve a better name, as they're such a cool, sculptural looking plant.  Maybe I can call them "Christmas Lanterns"?

Stick Stars

What does one hang in one's bathroom for Christmas?  Particularly when one's bathroom is a tiny, humid, little room where anything fabric-y would look perpetually damp or (ugg!) grow things?  

Why, stick stars, of course!

Also great for last minute decorating--all you need are sticks and string!

Acorn Bells

I saw these on etsy last month and thought they'd be just the thing for the little acorn toppers I've had sitting in my windowsill since Halloween.  I made mine (two words: hot glue), but you can buy them very affordably from pinkbeeb0's shop.  (Go look at the pictures if nothing else, they're beautiful.)  

I think they'd be pretty as present "toppers" too...not in my house, but, you know, in places where the dogs believe in not eating Christmas. 

Recycled Wrappings

For the past several years, I have tried to avoid buying wrapping paper at Christmas time.  I think it started as a way to assuage my eco-guilt for sending out about a million Christmas cards, but more recently it's become more of a for-fun challenge--how to make pretty packages while generating the least amount of waste possible.  

I've done brown paper sacks (recycled from the grocery store and made pretty with yarn, kinda like this), I've done furoshiki (that's wrapping packages in fabric), I've used various other bits of paper we already had around the house....

This year I decided to try newspaper.  

We don't take the paper--read it online instead--but every week we get this unwanted, classified-filled, circular-type thing delivered to our house.  It makes me a little crazy actually, because a) the point in not subscribing to the paper is that we don't want to make the waste, and b) inevitably we forget to bring the stupid thing inside, and before we know it there's a pile of icky wet newspapers littering up the porch.  But for the holidays, at least, I've made good use of it.

A little baker's twine or ribbon or yarn.  A wee paper tag--voila!--nearly free, mostly-recycled holiday wrappings!

A Moving Advent Calendar

Issue #1:  I love advent calendars.  I love counting down the days to anything really, be it Christmas, my birthday, the latest Harry Potter book or movie....But even so, there is nothing appealing to me about pulling an old piece of nasty milk chocolate out of a cardboard box.  In fact, having chocolate out and about anywhere in our house is just a very bad idea in general.  Upshot?  The traditionally little advent calendars sold at the stores just don't work for me.

Issue #2:  Sweet Husband, as many of you know, is a jeweler.  And since people like to buy jewelry for holiday presents--and, don't get me wrong, we like it when they do--his December is sometimes more "crazy-insane-busy" than "merry".

Solution: A "moving advent calendar" for Sweet Husband!

First, I made up a nice little stockpile of treats.  Some were freebies (a note, a book of "jeweler jokes") and some were cheapies (a teeny little moleskin to put in his wallet, some of his favorite jelly beans).  

Then I downloaded these pretty stickers.  

Put sticker on object, put object in place where Sweet Husband will find it, rinse, repeat.  And rather than putting them in the same place each day, to make it more of a surprise, I decided to put each little treat somewhere different.  (Hence, the "moving" part.)

Does anyone else have a favorite kind of advent calendar or other way of counting down the days 'till Christmas?

Bath, Interrupted

So, I come home after work tonight.  It's really cold outside--and, of course, Sweet Husband is working late until the holiday, so I have the house to myself--and I decide to take a hot bath.

I get out the yummy smelling soap and light some candles and am just getting all settled in, when there's a scratch at the door.  And then the scratch turns into a whine.  Not a "let-me-the-hell-in-right-now" whine, but a soft, pleading, "you're-gone-all-day-and-I-miss-you-soooo-much" sad, guilt-trip-y sort of thing.  So I stand up, curse a little at the cold, and let Moe in the bathroom.

And then there was a terrier in my tub.

The Kitchen Reader: Cookie Recipe Exchange Day!

For this month's Kitchen Reader, instead of reading, we're having an online cookie recipe exchange.

I have been baking up a storm this year--peanut butter balls, truffles, candied orange peels, orange shortbreads--but since I've written about all that before, how about something new?

Upon trying this recipe, Sweet Husband declared it his "perfect candy bar".  I have a feeling it's going to become standard Christmas candy in our house, which is great because it was super easy!

 

Cranberry and Nut Bark (recipe slightly modified from Real Simple)

• 12 ounces of chocolate (I used dark, but semi-sweet or even white chocolate would be good too.)
• 2 1/2 cups mixed nuts (Make sure there are some pistachios in the mix, as they'll make it pretty and green.  In fact, I probably would have used all pistachios if they weren't so spendy.)
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries (Optional, but very pretty as a red-and-green-thing in combo with the pistachios.)

Melt the chocolate in whatever way you see fit.  Real Simple recommends doing it in a double boiler setup, but I just did mine in the microwave.  (Carefully--go thirty seconds at a time and give it a really good stir in between each spin in the microwave.)

Spread the chocolate evenly on a parchment lined baking sheet that's at least 9x13.  While the chocolate is still hot, sprinkle on the nuts and cranberries.  Pat them down gently at the end to ensure good contact.

Put in the fridge until it's all set up--about 30 minutes.  Then break the chocolate into pieces and enjoy!

*******

For more cookie ideas be sure and check out these lovely Kitchen Reader blogs:

Blue Ridge Baker
Cooking for Comfort
Food.Baby by Susan
Jill's Blog
Laws of the Kitchen
Shortbread South
Someone's In The Kitchen
Spike Bakes
Tea and Scones

Virtual Advent Tour: My Perfect Christmas

 

One favorite topic of conversation among my knitting group while we were working on our wee tree was "What's your idea of a perfect Christmas?"  As in, if you had no obligation to tradition or family or anything, how would you celebrate the holiday?

This question has been particularly pertinent to me these past few years.  

Some background....

I grew up splitting Christmases between Mom and Dad (one year with Mom, next year with Dad), but at each house there was a very specific set of traditions.  

At Mom's it was Christmas Eve with extended family (which involved mass orgies of present opening among me and my 20-ish cousins), and Christmas mornings with "just us".  For "Christmas dinner" everyone got to pick their favorite food.  If my brother wanted jelly beans and I wanted chicken noodles, that would be what we would have.  (I have to think that there were some limitations to that, but I really don't remember them if there were.)  

At Dad's, Christmas Eve was a soup buffet at my Auntie's house.  Christmas night was at Grandma's where the present opening (very orderly, from youngest to oldest) was always preceded by a reading of the nativity story from my grandmother's bible.

Then, sometime in late high school/early college, all of that got turned topsy-turvy, which screwed with my Christmas for several years--it just didn't feel right without the established procedures.  I always felt like something was missing.

When Sweet Husband and I moved to Lawrence, Christmas fell into a kind of rhythm again (Christmas Eve with my side of the family, Christmas Day with his side), but it's always been a temporary state of affairs.  Sweet Husband gets off at four on Christmas Eve and often has to be back at work by the 26th, which makes for a whirlwind 36 hours of get-togethers.  I love seeing our family, but it makes me dizzy!

This gets us back to the original question.  Because, if I kinda-sorta get to start from scratch at making a Christmas, it makes sense to do it right, yes?  So, what is my idea of a perfect Christmas?

I'm not religious at all, but I do love the stories of the various religions that have holidays at this time of year.  And it seems to me that the main connecting thread of all those stories is that they're all celebrations of light.  Jesus bringing light to the world, the oil in the temple burning to keep the lights on, St. Lucia's Day, Yule....So, my perfect Christmas has that as a sort of guiding principle--a celebration of light and warmth in the cold, dark winter.  

I also like having friends and family around, so if any of them want to show up for some of my perfect Christmas, the door is open.  

And really, if you're going to do Christmas right, well, there just must be feasting!

With that all being the case, I think I want to have a fabulous Christmas Eve dinner--something we don't get to have almost any other night of the year (I'm thinking crab legs, maybe?)--by candlelight.  Then go outside for a beautiful (hopefully snowy?) bonfire or tromp through the woods with Christmas carols.  Then I want to snuggle up in new Christmas Eve pj's (a tradition from my Auntie's house) and read some of my favorite Christmas-y books...maybe The Polar Express or some Lemony Snicket (his Christmas books make me laugh so hard).  And, of course, the evening must end with a dramatic reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Sweet Husband has fond memories of eating German Pancakes (aka Dutch Babies) on Christmas morning, so that's a must.  But this year I think we're also going to work in a few morning hours serving breakfast at our local homeless shelter.  (I used to do something similar for Thanksgiving and it always made me feel incredible.)  Then home for presents and a continuation of my family tradition, which I have affectionately nicknamed "The Feast of Whatever" (being short for "The Feast of Whatever You Want to Eat").  And I definitely think that's going to be especially "open" for whomever wants to come, especially considering that--given the nature of the celebration--I don't feel at all like a bad hostess for telling people to bring their own food! 

Yep, that sounds like a pretty darned good Christmas celebration to me.  Anyone see any obvious bits that I'm missing?  And how would you spend your perfect Christmas?

*******

This post is part of the Virtual Advent Tour.  Please check out today's other "tour stops" ....

Jenn @ Jenn's Bookshelves
Rob @ Books Are Like Candy Corn
Cam @ epiBlouguer

Confidential to My Book Blogger Holiday Swap Secret Santa....

 

....while I do not know who you are, sir or madam, you rock!