spread the soft tree love :: eat peppermint bark

  

Finally I can share my soft trees with you!  I made a small forest of them for my siblings and mom for St. Nicholas’ Day which we celebrate (December 6) with small gifts and family dinner.  Thanks to littlebird for sharing her pattern and all the inspiration here.  Everyone liked them!  They are the perfect project for me at this point since they are super easy and quick.  We like instant results!  Now that I’ve given all mine away I need to make some for myself. 

We also put up our tree today – the husband is the light-put-er-on-er and he also ended up doing most of the ornament hanging :: once again he did an amazing job!  Little D was also enthralled by the glowing lights and shiny baubles.  He has also just started to crawl, meaning there is some forward motion to his floor movements.  Yay!

And I made peppermint bark.  When I was working in my pre-Little D days, one of my co-workers always brought us a tin of the Williams-Sonoma peppermint bark - I ate it in like one day, of course I shared it too – sort of!  And since I’m not working now I was missing it and decided to make some.  And with Little D around keeping me busy, I’m not eating as much of it.

t’s peppermint bark

Melt 1 lb semi-sweet chocolate in microwave, add 1/4 tsp peppermint extract.  Spread with offset spatula on parchment paper to about 1/8 inch thickness.  Cool.  Put in fridge for awhile.  Meanwhile smash 10 candy canes in ziploc baggy.  Take the now cooled semi-sweet chocolate out of fridge.  Melt 1lb white chocolate, add 1/4 tsp peppermint extract and 1/3 of the smashed candy canes.  Spread with offset spatula over semi-sweet.  Sprinkle remaining candy cane pieces on top.  Chill.  Cut or break into pieces.  Eat.

I used Ghiradelli chocolate chunks from Trader Joes. 

And if this doesn’t make you feel sad.

creamed spinach

 

So we were eating thanksgiving leftovers and I decided we needed some creamed spinach.  A few years ago I put together a cookbook of favorite family recipes and gave them as Christmas gifts to all my siblings.  Included was Gramma’s famous creamed spinach recipe… little did we know that it was a microwave recipe!  But it is really simple and really good.  I hadn’t made it before but I plan on making it again.  I used 2/3 cup half and half instead of draining the spinach and milk and omitted the allspice, but otherwise here it is.  YUM.

2 tbsp butter
1 chopped onion
2 lbs fresh or frozen spinach (well drained)
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
aromat to taste (optional)
hard boiled egg (optional)

Saute onion in 2 tbsp butter.  Then mix all ingredients in microwave proof casserole.  Nuke for 2-4 minutes at at time, stirring in between until cooked.  Quarter a hardboiled egg and place on top.

sitka & spruce

So we are still getting our new comp all set up, so it might be a couple of days before I’m able to post pics etc…  boring without photos!  We did go to Sitka & Spruce (nondescript website, so check out these reviews, here, here, here and here) tonight for a birthday dinner and Matt fed twelve of us family style.  Here’s what we ate: cheese plate with a wonderful balsamic reduction; smelt and sea scallops with capers, pickled peppers, and grapefruit; green salad; beet green and ricotta ravioli; duck confit with persimmons; whole bronzino; ox tail and parsnips; quail; and the last was the best, pork belly with parsley and walnut salad.  I think that was about everything on the menu.  I go here for lunch almost once a week… they have the best pork sandwiches and it’s such a great space.

Chocolate ricotta muffins

I made these yummy muffins last Friday.  They are rather dense but nice and chocolate-y.  They were excellent with the leftover cream cheese frosting from the coconut cake.  Had them for breakfast over the weekend.

Coconut cake for my sister

Yesterday was our family’s celebration of my sister’s birthday.  I made a coconut cake.  I’ve never made a coconut cake but I have to say it turned out rather well and all the foodies in my family seemed pleased.  After searching through my cookbooks and the internet I decided on this one because of the cream cheese frosting.  I really really do not like buttercream frosting (blch) and this cake fit the bill.  I love my mixer!

For dinner my sister chose mu shu pork and shrimp and veggie stir fry.  My mom also made an asian-y slaw.  Everything was yum.  We came home stuffed.

It’s a sausage kind of week

Since my sister’s birthday celebration turned into an excuse for her and her husband to host an Oktoberfest (yes in November) I was luckily able to join her in a trip to the Bavarian Meat Market. Yay, weiners! We went on Wednesday along with my brother and in the excitement of it all I bought 8 bockwursts and 4 wieners. Decided to make knepfle (that’s spatzle for you non-swiss german speakers) and that has been our lunches and dinners for the last 2 days! And then of course tonight was the Oktoberfest and we had some brats, liverwurst on rye, and amazing preztels from the Columbia City Bakery. YUM!