Teaching Them Diligently: Visuals from the Kitchen for Holy Week

One of our favorite things to do around special holy days is to create

delicious baked treats in our kitchen!

It's the perfect way to involve children and to teach them

principles from God's Word about that particular holy day in the process.

Teachable moments.

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; 

who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,

despising the shame,

and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Hebrews 12:2

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me,

let him deny himself,

and take up his cross,

and follow me."

Matthew 16:24

"Let this mind be in you,

which was also in Christ Jesus;

Who being in the form of God,

thought it not robbery to be equal with God......

he humbled himself,

and became obedient unto death, 

even the death of the cross."

Philippians 2:5,6,8

Something new we tried this year were traditional Hot Cross Buns.

My Mom always talked about these and I remember them from my childhood.

They are associated with European tradition and seen commonly

on Easter breakfast tables in homes of that heritage.

I haven't seen them ever in Texas. 

They are a fragrant sweet yeast roll dotted with either 

dried fruits or raisins or both.

A powdered sugar glaze completes the cross design over the top.

Find a delicious recipe here.

To be fully transparent, we made this late at night, after a very long day,

and we ended up rushing them or something.

I did not love how this particular batch turned out,

though my children really enjoyed them on Easter morning!

Homeschool Valentine's Banquet 2017

On Valentine's evening, our homeschool group hosted our

3rd annual Valentine's Banquet.
What fun we had!!

We spent lots of time planning and preparing,
and the girls in my Advanced Foods class did so much to help!!

Our class was in charge of preparing the twice-baked potatoes...

......as well as the cakes for the dessert table!
Each girl was required to make a beautiful cake of their choice

and use at least decorating element that we've covered in our cake decorating unit

  over the last three weeks.

These girls took us all by surprise and presented the most gorgeous creations!!

Ashlyn presented a Black Forest Cake.

 

I made a Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake.

Grace made this exquisite Red Velvet cake.

These two lovely sisters did equally amazing work!

Rachel blew us away with her White Chocolate/Coffee Chocolate layer cake!

Breanne's "naked" Vanilla Strawberry-Filled cake was a stunner!

Our class also served all the guests "blue-plate" style, and we utilized

the younger girls as waitresses as well!

 

What a beautiful experience for each of these girls as they

worked together encouraging each other in learning new ministry

and entrepreneurial skills!!
I'm just so thankful for the opportunities the Lord has brought our way

as we continue to raise them for His glory and service!! 

Christmas Baking

One of my favorite things to do over the holidays is to create some yummy treats in my kitchen that I remember from my childhood!  Usually I can round up lots of willing helpers, but this year, my helpers were scattered around at or with other various activities.
Honestly, it was kinda nice having the kitchen all to myself and being able to move through each project with out a ton of mess.  No bikering, no crowding, no spills, and lots of Christmas music.
Very relaxing, very little stress!

Because we were so busy preparing for and participating in several different programs and events,
I wasn't able to start baking until everything was over.
So, on the scond day of Christmas break I pulled out all my recipes, ingredients, and baking pans and got busy!!

These yummies elicit memories of Christmas time so long ago in an ancient, brick farmhouse

in Northwest Ohio.

Mocha Nut Butterballs are a cousin to the Mexican Wedding Cookie/Snowball cookie,

but have cocoa and coffee in the dough.  They bake up light and tender and then are rolled

in confectioner's sugar.

Delish!!!

You can find the recipe here.

These Sour Cream Cutout cookies didn't turn out quite like I had envisioned.

It had been years since I have made a cut-out cookie, and it may just be another several years until

I do so again.  This project made me feel like a rookie in the kitchen.

The flavor is wonderful and just how I remember, but they popped up so very thick.

Think biscuit.

I put too much liquid in the frosting so it wasn't as thick as I was envisioning,

but it did dry and set-up nicely so these were stackable after decorating.

I loved them, but my family hardly touched them?

Find this recipe here.

My intent was to make a TON of goodies and then share them with our precious neighbors

who have been such a blessing to us this year.  So as I finished up the baking of each cookie,

I found containers to package them up in.  Here you can see the final cookie I made on baking day.

These Chocolate Mint Drops are another favorite from my childhood that I looked forward too every Christmas as a little girl.  

They have a subtle chocolate peppermint flavor that comes from crushing up candy canes.

A chocolate glaze is drizzled over top to pump up the chocolate goodness of these gems!!

Mom's Chocolate Mint Drops

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup crushed candy canes

2 eggs

6 T. cocoa plus 2 T. shortening, or,

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate squares, melted

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla 

2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup oats

______________________________

Chocolate glaze

1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar

2 T. cocoa

3 T. milk

Cream shortening and sugar.  Stir in candy.  Add eggs.  Blend in chocolate, milk and vanilla.  Stir in other ingredients with oats last.  Chill for 1 hour.  Drop by teaspoon on greased cookie sheet.  

Bake 350 degrees for 10 minutes.  Cool and drizzle with chocolate glaze.

I also made three batches of Puppy Chow and bagged those up to give away as well.

You can never make enough of this addictive treat.

I rarely make it outside of the holiday season because it is so delicious, and so easy 

to consume an entire batch in one sitting!!

If you don't already have that recipe, you can find it here.

We love to make treats and give them as gifts every year.

You can see what we've done other years by clicking here.

Friday's Fabulous Family {Christmas} Recipe!! Cranberry Orange Struesel Muffins

Since moving toward a more plant-based diet with waaaaaaaay less processed food and sugar, I was looking for some alternatives to our traditional Christmas breakfast of cinnamon rolls from the can.
They are pretty and all.......
so easy to put together on a busy morning.....
and druglike in their addictive qualities.....
can you say......sugar buzz??
So I found these this week,
and whipped up a batch......
and they are just a bite of heavenly!!!

Cranberry Orange Streusel Muffins

**  As a disclaimer:

These muffins still have plenty of sugar in them, but you can reduce that amount and still offset

the tartness of the cranberries.

I substituted whole wheat pastry flour for the white flour,

olive oil for the canola oil (I also tried it with applesauce in place of oil if you go with no oil),

and water for the milk (you could also replace the cow's milk with almond milk......I was just out of it).

You could also skip the confectioner's sugar glaze poured over the streusal to additionally cut down

on some of the sugar.

It's almost better without it!!

You can find the recipe here along with some prettier pictures than mine!!  ;)

Nurturing a giving heart

I have always felt it so important that my children learn to have a giving heart.
To have eyes that see beyond their own little world to the needs of those around them.
All year 'round, but.....
Especially at Christmas.
I mean, isn't that what Christmas really is?
The Great Give-Away.

So I've had my eyes and ears wide open the last month for opportunities we might have to really experience how much more "blessed it is to give rather than to receive."
To learn how to give to those who have no way of giving back.
To be a follower of Christ....don't I want to follow His example?

Last Christmas I really wanted to send a box of encouragement to our dear missionary friends who are on the mission field of Thailand.  They have 8 children and are such faithful ministers of the gospel of Christ.
But I just couldn't get everything together in time and the shipping is so very expensive.
This year I spoke with another friend of mine from church who is Thai by birth, and is going with her family to spend 2 months visiting her homeland.  She told me she would be visiting my missionary friends, and when I asked her if she could take some things to them from our family, she immediately said, "YES!"
I was so excited, but only had a few days to gather together some things.  It was so much fun asking my friend in Thailand what they needed (via Facebook), and then being able to put my hands on those items so quickly.
So we were able to send off some things to Thailand for FREE in my Thai-American friend's suitcase!!

But I'm collecting ideas for next year, and I feel the Lord has already given me an exciting idea for our missionary friends for NEXT Christmas!!

But we've also been busy in our kitchen again this year, making gifts for each of our children to give to their friends.  A few of my children naturally want to give presents to their friends, but a couple have to be taught to think about that.  So every year, for the last several years, we have made it a tradition to make gifts.
Children need to know that not everything can be, nor has to be, purchased to be a treat.
I feel every child has creativity within them and the ability to make beautiful items with the proper supervision.
So we make lists of all the children they want to give to,
and we start creating.

Click here and here for a peek of what we made last year.
This year I saw an idea for making candle jars out of used jelly or pickle or baby food jars, and thought as Charlie Brown....."That's IT!!"
Here's what we did:

Start with any clean used little jar.  

As you can see, we didn't get upset that the label didn't completely wash off in the dishwasher.

Slather the outside of this jar with "mod podge."

 While the "mod podge" is still wet,

cover it with tissue paper in any design you want.

Then slather more "mod podge" over the tissue paper.

Let dry.

Drop a tea light candle inside and wrap pretty ribbon around the top to finish off.

Voila!!!

Easy!!

We've also been making these:

We put two in a snack size baggie per person, and they go into the gift bag along with two of these.....

Our children can't WAIT to take all their gifts to all their friends.

It's one of our favorite ways to teach them the joy of giving!!

Christmas gifts.....DONE!!!

It had taken us a little bit of time every day last week,

with a ruptured hot water heater emergency thrown in to boot, to finally reach the day before we needed to have everything

ready for the big giveaways!!

Here's how we packaged everything up:

We put our chocolate covered pretzels in these cute little cellophane bags.

Wilton does actually have bags specifically made for packing pretzels like this, but I thought these were much more festive.....and cost effective!!!

We formed this sort of assembly line, and I gave each of the children their gift bags to label and load up.

Each of their friends received a bag of chocolate covered pretzels, a jar of Christmas M & M's, and 2 Ritz Cracker Candies.

Oh, yes. We tossed in a Christmas pencil in each bag too!!

Very Yummy!!!

Very Fun!!!

But I'm so glad that it is DONE!!!!

Merry Christmas!!!