Christmas 1 of 3

Once you get married, having multiple Christmas get togethers become the norm.  Since my brother and sister-in-law will be traveling to Texas for Christmas (safe travels you two!), we celebrated the holiday together a little bit early.  We had a very nice party- lots of good food, fun together time, and lots of laughs.

All of the food-  from top left, clockwise:  Herbed Quinoa, Black Eyed Peas (my SIL brought this), Moroccan Vegetables, Honey Baked Turkey (my MIL brought this)

YUMMY and filling meal.

Best. Dessert. Ever.  Recipe below- it's really complicated.... you might not want to try it.

Hot Apple Dessert

Serves 6

5 Apples, washed, peeled, chopped
1/2 C Raisins
2 T Cinnamon

Mix together in a casserole dish
Bake at 400 until Apples are tender- about 40 min
Serve with Vanilla Ice Cream

The. End.

Hard recipe, huh?  It is SOOOOO good.  And seriously so easy.  Enjoy!!

Holiday Prep

December is here… in FULL FORCE!  I don’t know where this arctic blast came from (actually, I do- thank you Lake Michigan…) but boy o boy is it COOOOLD!  Ick!  Now that the holiday season is in full swing, I figured it was appropriate for today’s bloggie to talk about how I prepared for Thanksgiving/Christmas this year, and how I’m 95% done with EVERYTHING.   Yes, EVERYTHING. 

I started back in October with the “Cruising through the Holidays” plan that The FlyLady (www.flylady.net) puts together.  This plan gets your house clean, then ready to be decorated, not to mention gets all of your wrapping supplies, food, recipes, etc. ready to go in baby steps so you don’t stress out at the last minute.    

IT.WAS.WONDERFUL.

My entire house was clean and decorated for Christmas by mid-November.  ALL of my Christmas presents are wrapped and under the tree.  ALL of my Christmas cards are signed, addressed, stamped and ready to go in the mail.  My recipes for Christmas dinner (and various other dinners/potlucks/special events) are all picked out. 

Now that all of this prep is done, I have time to do fun things.  I have time to enjoy the holidays.  Once a day I clear out a “hot spot” and do 15 minutes of regular “maintenance” cleaning.  This keeps my house clean and off my mind.  Christmas could come tomorrow and I’d be ready. 

I don’t endorse a lot of things, but one thing that I WILL endorse is The FlyLady.  Check her out!  You’ll be glad you did (and so will your home!)

Eco-Friendly Christmas Gifts!

'Tis the season to be eco... fa la la la la, la la la la.

For my co-workers this year, I made eco-friendly Christmas gifts. I made these for my flute students last year and got really GREAT reviews!

Gift #1 was a homemade sugar scrub. Since I don't cook/bake with white sugar anymore, I have tons that I didn't just want to throw away. So, why not put it to use? Here are my ingredients...



For all of you Gluten Free readers out there, this is a safe body scrub to use because it is completely GF! This is so simple to make- seriously!!

First, you need a container. I used glass BALL brand jelly jars (8oz), and filled them up half way (so, 4oz...) with sugar, then mixed in just enough olive oil to fully coat the sugar and leave a little bit of oil on the top.





Then, I just put 3 or so drops of Lemon Oil in and mixed it all around. Spoon into jars, and you're done!




This is a great gift to make for yourself, or make in bulk to give as a gift. Be careful though- the oil can make your tub slippery.


Gift #2 was a Rice Hot/Cold Pack. All you do is sew up a little bag out of 100% cotton fabric, fill it with white long grain rice (not instant) about 2/3 of the way, drop in some essential oil (I used lavender), and sew it shut.



You can put this in the freezer for a few hours to use as a cold pack (for say, puffy eyes), or put it in the box of death (aka, the microwave) with a cup of water for a minute or two for an instant heat pack. The lavender made it smell so yummy!!!! Here is the little pack I put together for my co-workers.





Cute, no?

Well, that is all for now- I'll be back soon with some raw cookie recipes that I've made, and will continue to make forever because they're SOOOO GOOD!!!