Category: CHRISTMAS

MARINATED and SEASONED PRIME RIB

My mom and stepdad will be here tomorrow and we are doing the first of 3 Christmas dinners on Saturday.  This will be the most elaborate of the 3 since it is for the most people and my stepdad specifically asked for prime rib.  I went grocery shopping today to one of my very favorite markets and made my menu around their offerings.

Central Market has the most awesome butchers.  I was going to make my life easy and buy a boneless prime rib, but they didn’t have any the right size so I bought a bone in and the sweet man cut the bones off for me and then tied them back on so we will have AWESOME flavor AND the ease of boneless with a BONUS of the bones for a GREAT stew too.

PLUS this market has some great deals and fun new things to try. There was a demonstrator for these salad dressings and I was really hungry so I tried the salad they were offering and it was really good!  I picked up a couple bottles of two different flavors and put them in my cart.  As I began to leave she called out to me not to forget my free items.  Yep, EVERYTHING besides the 2 bottles of dressings was FREE! A retail value of $26.

This is my go to recipe for prime rib.  It never fails!   

MARINATED and SEASONED PRIME RIB
5 pound boneless beef rib roast
3/4 cup Mad Housewife Merlot wine or Velvet Devil Merlot
1 small Vidalia onion, sliced thin
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Avocado oil
*2 tablespoons  Savory Spice Shop Hidden Cove Lemon Garlic Blend
*2 tablespoons  Penzey’s English Prime Rib Rub 
*1 teaspoon  Penzey’s OR Savory Spice Shop’s Horseradish powder

  • Whisk together the wine, water and Worcestershire sauce.
  • Place roast in a large plastic bag that has been placed in a shallow baking dish.
  • Pour marinade over roast and seal bag.
  • Marinate 6-8 hours, turning bag occasionally.
  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
  • Place sliced onions in bottom of roaster.
  • Drain roast and discard marinade.
  • Rub roast generously with the avocado oil. Let roast sit on drainboard a moment to allow excess oil to drain off.  At this point wash your hands to remove the excess oil also so the rub will go on better.
  • Stir together the Hidden Cove Lemon Garlic Blend, English Prime Rib Rub and the horseradish powder until well mixed.
  • Sprinkle rub mixture over roast until well coated all the way around.
  • Place roast, fat side up on onion slices.
  • Insert oven thermometer.
  • Roast until desired doneness (we like medium rare which was 135 degrees and about 2 1/4 hours), but no more!
  • Transfer roast to cutting board and immediately tent with foil for 20 minutes before carving. This is the resting phase and mandatory to the perfect prime rib. During this phase your roast will raise another 10 degrees.

*If you want a thicker rub add more spices making sure to keep these proportions.

DO NOT SKIP THE RESTING PHASE!!

BLOGMAS 2016 ~ DAY 7 ~ COOKIES & GOODIES TO BE BAKED

Now there is much debate over Gran’s cranberry salad recipe, but one thing was for sure, she’d have to make a double batch, one for my mom and aunt and another for everyone else.  Now while I usually helped prepare the above recipe, I hated it!! One year she even decided the grapes needed to be peeled – need I say more?

I much prefer the recipe below.  Shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but I’ve already eaten a whole batch by myself.  In my defense it was while I wasn’t feeling good and had a sore throat.

HOLIDAY SALAD
1 package (3 ounces) cherry Jell-o
1 package (3 ounces) black cherry Jell-o
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 can (14 ounces) whole berry cranberry sauce
1 can (20 ounces) crushed pineapple, undrained
2 cups seedless green grapes, quartered
chopped pecans (optional)

  • Dissolve the jell-o in the boiling water in a large bowl.
  • Fold in the pineapple and cranberry sauce.
  • Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  • Fold in grapes and pecans if desired.
  • Refrigerate until firm.

Now on to the REALLY yummy stuff!

CHUNKY MONKEYS
3 cups crushed pretzels
1/2 cup sugar
scant 1 cup butter, melted

  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
  • Line a 13×9 cake pan with heavy duty foil, leaving plenty on the edges to use as handles later.  This will make clean-up so much easier.
  • In a medium mixing bowl stir together the pretzels, sugar and melted butter until well blended.
  • Press the pretzel mixture evenly into the bottom of the cake pan.

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
11 ounce package caramel baking bits (or 14 ounce vanilla caramels, unwrapped)
2 cups honey roasted peanuts

  • In a medium saucepan melt butter over a medium heat.
  • Whisk in the whipping cream and brown sugar until sugar is dissolved.
  • Stir in caramel bits, stirring constantly until bits are melted and sauce is smooth.
  • Add in peanuts to coat well.
  • Immediately pour over pretzel layer, spreading evenly.

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
3/4 cup Heath milk chocolate toffee bits

  • Scatter each of these over the caramel layer.
  • Bake 25-30 minutes or until edges are bubbling.
  • Cool in pan on a wire rack.
  • Lift foil edges to remove bars from pan.
  • Cut into bars.
  • Layer between wax paper in an airtight container.  I store them in the fridge, but the can also be frozen for 3 months.

BUTTERFINGER COOKIES
Ritz crackers
creamy peanut butter
almond bark
sprinkles

  • Spread peanut butter on ritz crackers and top with another cracker.
  • Melt almond bark in the microwave.
  • Dip each cookie in the almond bark and set onto wax paper to harden.
  • If you’re using sprinkles do so before the almond bark hardens.

My great aunt who I only got to see a couple times a year used to make these every year special for me.  My cousins and I would wait out on the front steps for her arrive just to see them, the wreaths that is. She always made them soooooooooo pretty and perfect!  Aunt Louise was just plain crazy it seemed to me.  I can’t pinpoint any one thing that made me think that, but as the years wore she continually proved it.  Let’s just say if the made a movie of her life, Shirley MacLaine would play her part.  Aunt Louise reminds me of Shirley’s character Ouiser Boudreaux in Steel Magnolias.

CRAZY AUNT LOUISE’S HOLIDAY WREATHS
(these are better when they are made a few days ahead)
30 large marshmallows (or 1 jar marshmallow cream)
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoon green food color
3 1/2 cups cornflakes
Red Hots

  • Combine marshmallows, butter, vanilla and food color in top of double boiler. Heat and stir frequently until well blended.
  • Gradually stir in cornflakes until well blended.
  • Drop onto wax paper and arrange into wreath shapes. I plop them onto the wax paper and then push out from the center to form the wreaths.
  • Decorate with red hots.
  • Let cool.
  • If your house is warm – chill in refrigerator until set.

A few more favorites are:

 

 

 

BLOGMAS 2016 ~ day 5 ~ PICTURES and MEMORIES of CHRISTMAS past

I can’t actually get to the disks with pictures from some of our more favorite Christmases so will share these 2013 ones with you.  This was a great year as we actually had snow in Oregon. We loved living so close to the Christmas tree farm also.  Beautiful trees for reasonable costs unlike here.

 

The year had been VERY wet which is the normal, but an arctic storm blew in and all of a sudden everything turned white. This was our first snowstorm of the season, just before Christmas.

Hubby made this for me to wake up to in the back yard before the snow got too bad.
The house across the street usually looks horrible, but NOT when it’s under a blanket of snow.

Unfortunately, being in a cul-de-sac, delivery tracks leave MANY tire tracks at this time of year to mar the beautiful snow cover.
Even Rudolph was shivering!
The first day after he storm was absolutely gorgeous though!
The duck pond behind the neighborhood was truly a work of art.
Obviously we hadn’t gone anywhere – no tire tracks!
The fish ladder was like glass with the cold and ice.

BLOGMAS 2016 – DAY 4 ~ FAVORITE MUSIC

I’m all over the place with Christmas music – depends on the day, the occasion, my mood, what food we’re eating – just sooooooooo many factors!

I love the old standards, but I also love country Christmas and Mannheim Steamroller.  I love Christmas carolers, not that you see many these days.  I was even part of the handbell choir at church for Christmas programs.

As for favorite songs I have a few that top the list:

  • Silent Night

  • White Christmas

  • Jingle Bell Rock

  • Winter Wonderland

  • Frosty the Snowman

  • Little Drummer Boy

  • The twelve days of Christmas

  • Deck the Halls

  • Come All Ye Faithful

  • It Came upon a Midnight Clear

  • We three Kings of Orient 

  • Joy to the World

  • Rudolph the Reindeer

  • Do You Hear What I Hear

  • The Most Wonderful Time of Year

  • It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

  • Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

BLOGMAS 2016 – DAY 3 – WISH LIST

Participating in BLOGMAS helps get me in and keep me in the Christmas spirit. There is a new prompt for each day.  It is a lot of fun to read about each other’s traditions and family recipes and pictures. Be sure to join up with Sandra at DIARY OF A STAY AT HOME MOM to play along with BLOGMAS 2016.

This year we are forgoing BIG gifts again and doing stockings only since this house has eaten up all our disposable cash so fast!  We are planning a trip in the spring though and calling it our Christmas present to each other.

BLOGMAS 2016 ~ DAY 2 ~CHRISTMAS MOVIES ON THE MUST WATCH LIST

Today’s category is an easy one for me.  I start taping Christmas movies on Lifetime, Hallmark and INSP as soon as they air so I can watch all year long.  I’m a sucker for a happy ending and let’s face it, Christmas movies have happy endings.

So this list could be reallllllllllly long, but I will just keep it to the top 5 MUST watch each and every year movies.

 It’s a toss up for me about whether White Christmas with Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Vera Ellen and Danny Kaye or It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart, Lionel Barrymore and Donna Reed is my absolute favorite, but I think I’m leaning towards It’s a Wonderful life! This year we watched it on our wonderful early Christmas present from my mom, a 50 inch SMART TV!
 Which Miracle on 34th street version (the original with Natalie Wood or the remake with Richard Attenborough) is the best?  BOTH versions of course!
The Santa Clause with Tim Allen quickly became a favorite – who could resist visiting the North Pole every year?
 Now Home Alone is just silly, but it never fails to make me laugh!

BLOGMAS 2016 ~ DAY 1

✨What is Your Favorite Holiday Movie? Home Alone, Miracle on 34th Street and they never get old.  

✨What is Your Favorite Christmas Color? Red and silver. 

✨Stay in Your PJs Or Dress Up For Christmas? I always dress up.

✨If You Could Only Buy One Person a Present This Year Who Would It Be? WOW, can “one” person just be one age group, all the kids in my life? This is a hard one.  I love buying presents for everyone. 

✨Do You Open Your Present Christmas Eve Or Christmas Morning? It used to be Christmas Eve when I was a kid though we saved the Santa presents for Christmas morning. Now we open them Christmas morning.

 ✨What Do You Like To Do On Your Christmas Break? Wait, there’s a Christmas Break? I don’t seem to get an actual break, but I do allow myself a holiday movie or two throughout my day as I’m working.

✨Any Christmas Wishes? To have my house done so we can actually enjoy it for awhile before we sell it.  Safe travels for everyone over the holidays and world peace.  Was that too Miss America?  I really do want peace for EVERYONE!

✨Favorite Christmas Smell? A fresh cut tree, baking cookies full of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves)

✨Favorite Christmas Meal Or Treat? Prime Rib, Fudge, Corn flake wreaths

✨What are you doing for the holidays this year? Staying home and having Christmas 3 times.  My mom will be here later next week, Christmas day with hubby and I and then again on the 27th with the rest of the family

✨What’s your favorite holiday drink? Coffee and hot toddies

✨Candy cane or Gingerbread men? I like the chalk style peppermint, but not real keen on actual candy canes and I like soft gingerbread men.

 ✨What’s your favorite holiday/Christmas song? That’s a tough call – depends on my mood… White Christmas, Silent Night and I’ll Be Home for Christmas

✨What is most important to you about the holidays?  That it is genuine and homemade for the most part.  It is not a commercial holiday for me.  I believe in trying to remember the real reason for the season and keep the Christmas spirit in my heart and life ALL year long.

BE SURE AND JOIN UP WITH SANDRA AT DIARY OF A STAY AT HOME MOM TO PLAY ALONG WITH BLOGMAS 2016.

BLOGMAS 2015 – DAY 22

WOW seems like we just started this journey through BLOGMAS 2014 and here we are 3 days until Christmas.  Today and tomorrow are my BIG days for preparing for Christmas.  These are the days that I’m mostly in the kitchen or cleaning the house, wrapping last minute packages or running last minutes errands for ingredients for the BIG DAY.  The only thing on my list that I didn’t accomplish was the cleaning so will spend all day tomorrow doing laundry, vacuuming and cleaning the bathrooms.

Remember when I told you I was a list girl?  Well, these help – A LOT!  I couldn’t get very good pictures, but those little presents are battery operated lights that change colors (red, blue and green) that I’m going to include on the plate when I deliver the goodies to the neighbors.  The purple list is accomplished and half the green list is done and will be finished up tomorrow and Wednesday.

This is Cinnamon Roll day too – YUMMY! One of my favorite days of the year.  The recipe originally came from one of my favorite aunts who taught me a lot about art, cooking and just plain being creative.  I have made a few minor updates to suit our tastes, but this recipe was ALL her and a secret that my cousin and I kept until the day she died.

ROLLS OF SHARON aka CINNAMON RAISIN BUNS
ROLLS
2 packages Fleischman’s Rapid Rise Yeast
1/2 cup + 2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 cup WARM water
1 cup scalded milk (2 minutes in the microwave)
1/2 cup Crisco stick
5 cups flour, divided
2 large eggs, well beaten
1 teaspoon salt

  • In a small bowl combine the warm water, 2 teaspoons of sugar and both packages of yeast until well blended. Set aside.
  • In a mixing bowl combine the scalded milk, Crisco stick, 1/2 cup sugar and salt. Blend well.
  • Add yeast mixture and blend well.
  • Add the well beaten eggs and half the flour. Mix until well blended.
  • Add the remaining flour (a little more if too sticky) and mix well until dough leaves the sides of the bowl and is elastic.
  • With vegetable oil, wipe the inside of another bowl.
  • Place dough in bowl and turn once.
  • Cover with wax paper and a towel.
  • Let rest in a warm place until double in size.
  • Punch down and divide into 2 balls.
  • Put one on the pastry board and one back in the bowl.
  • Let rest 10 minutes.
  • While resting prepare the filling ingredients.
  • Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness in a rectangle about 18×24 inches.
  • Spread half the melted butter over the dough and sprinkle with half the cinnamon sugar.
  • Spread half the raisins over that.
  • Roll tightly jelly roll style and cut into 18 rolls.
  • Place rolls in greased pans 1/4 to 1/2 inches apart.
  • Cover with wax paper and a towel.
  • Let rise again until double in size.
  • Bake 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.
  • While baking prepare the icing.
  • When rolls come out the oven, put globs of icing on each one. Return to the oven for a minute or two to melt icing all over the rolls.

FILLING
1 stick melted butter
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon Pumpkin pie spice
1 cup golden raisins

  • Whisk together the sugar and cinnamon until well blended.

ICING
1 stick butter, softened
3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon powdered vanilla
4-6 tablespoons milk

  • Mix all together until smooth.

When re-heating rolls, put a pad of butter on top of roll before microwaving.
These freeze really well.

As we get to the end of our countdown I have remembered a few more fun anecdotes.

  • Every year we received a box of See’s candy and I was ALWAYS on the search for the sprinkle coated ones a.k.a. Milk Bordeauxs YUMMY!

  • One year my dad got my mom diamond earrings.  He wrapped them in their original box and then with my brother’s and my help we proceeded to nest these in other boxes (wrapping each box as we went) culminating with a Dishwasher box full of bricks in the bottom – Boy was she surprised and it made for chaotic family fun on Christmas Eve.

  • Another year we built an elaborate scavenger hunt all through the house to lead my dad to his ultimate gift in the garage.