It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Yes, the date on this post is correct.  It is still June and I'm already worried about Christmas.  Okay, maybe not worried, but definitely taking it into account. 

Am I weird for already considering our Christmas feast?  We don't do the Christmas dinner at our house, but we have a huge brunch for just us, usually consisting of cheese omelets, strawberries, and some sort of delicious baked goods (blueberry muffins, coffee cake, or cinnamon rolls), so I'm trying to make sure we get enough strawberries put up to ensure we don't run out of berries before Christmas!  As I type this (actually last night.  I delayed when it would publish until morning, so people would actually see it), my 7 year old son is finishing up processing an entire flat of strawberries for freezing and we'll be picking up more berries from the market today.

Not only do we need berries for our own personal use for Christmas, but homemade jams seem to be much appreciated gifts, whether it be to un-homesteady family, friends, or just people in our lives we want to show our appreciation to, like coaches, dance instructors, or even the mail lady, so I'm trying to get far more made than we need so I have lots to spare.

I know I'm not super weird for having holiday concerns already, or maybe it just runs in my family, since my mom has been touting her Thanksgiving Challenge since January!  Anyone else thinking about the holidays in terms of what they need to do now?  What's on your to-do list for this summer to be ready for this holiday season?

Upcycled candles

I used beeswax for these because I had some available and that way I could be sure there wasn't artificial fragrances in them that may cause me to have an asthma attack, but they just as easily could be made with any freshly bought wax or recycled old candles.  I could have dyed the wax with food coloring or crayon nubs, but I love that creamy beeswax color almost as much as the smell!  I seriously need to see about getting me some bees!

I got the containers I made them in from a thrift store and most of them were on sale, so I paid $1.48 for all four of them.  They're so cute and smell so nice with their natural, unadulterated beesy smell, I'm rethinking the whole giving-them-as-gifts things.

And they are so easy to make!  I just washed the containers, made sure they were thoroughly dry, melted the wax in a fake double boiler (a small casserole dish floating in a larger pan of water), used some melted wax to affix the storebought wick to the bottom, and poured the wax in.  The teacup, I affixed the saucer to the cup with some adhesive putty the day after I made them so I was sure the wax was really hard.  That's it.  Quicky, super cute gifts for about $2.50 each, including the cost of the wax (which I was given, so I didn't even have to pay that!).

Christmas Crunchtime--my plan to get it all done without freaking out

I can't believe I now have less than a week to go until the Christmas festivities begin.  We're having a celebration on Friday with my mother-in-law, plus Christmas Eve and Christmas day are both completely dedicated to family time.  Here's my plan for getting it all done without procrastinating and hopefully taking life into account:

Today, I will be doing a preliminary cleaning of the house, making sure everything is put away, dishes are done, laundry is caught up, and so forth.  Basically, prepping for more thorough cleaning later in the week and making sure I'm not more distracted from my holiday tasks than I need to be.  I'm also hoping to make some no-bake cookies to have as snacks on hand for the week and to get me a chocolate fix if I start to feel a minor freak-out coming on.  If time permits, I also would like to get started on presents for the adults on my list, by grating beeswax for candles I'll be making, but I don't know if I'll get around to that.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a family day, but if I am already falling behind on my plans, I may try to catch up some in the evening, or sneak a little work on the kids' presents I still have to make after they go to sleep.

Monday and Tuesday are craft days.  I'm tentatively planning on finishing the kids' presents, felt food for my kids, the treasure jar for my nephew, and painting a couple other little things for my kids on Monday, but I may have to shift things around, depending on how I can do things without little eyes witnessing.  By the end of Tuesday, I definitely should have the candles made and, hopefully, the kids' presents will be done too.  By the end of Tuesday, I'll also have put together the menu for Friday's dinner as well.

Wednesday, I'll have Decembers food stamp money in, so I plan on going grocery shopping to pick up any regular food we need for the week, anything I might need to buy for Friday's dinner (quite likely nothing, actually!), and maybe get some treats for the kids' stockings.  I plan on spending the evening wrapping any presents that still haven't been wrapped, like the ones I'll have made the days prior.

Thursday, I'll make anything I can make ahead for Friday's dinner.  I don't know what all this will include yet, since I haven't figured out the menu, but I'll try to include as much as possible that I can make the day before to free up Friday for other things.  I definitely plan on making pies at least on Thursday.  Apple and pumpkin, maybe?

Friday, earlier in the day will be baking time.  I'm plan on giving my mother-in-law a gift basket of homemade jams and bread (sourdough?) for her birthday, which is on Wednesday, but we won't see her until Friday when she comes up for Christmas stuff, so I'll be baking the bread the same day so it will be as fresh as possible.  After that, I will need to keep the oven available to stick the turkey (and anything else that needs to be in the oven) until after dinner.  After dinner, I'll just stick everything in the fridge to be dealt with later.  Once things wind down for the evening, I'll be making some acorn pound cake to include in my stepmother-in-law and father-in-law's gift basket of tasty things you can't buy in the store.  If I have time, I may also make some green tortilla chips to go with the apple-tomato salsa I'll be including.

Aaaaaaand, Christmas is essentially here with the whirlwind of festivities Saturday and Sunday.

Monday, things will have calmed down and returned to normal, at which time I'll clean up the carnage from Sunday morning's excitement, debone the turkey and freeze the meat, and start the stock, which I will can when it is done.

I'm pretty sure that's everything I have to do yet!  I hope it is, because I'm already getting stressed out just looking at it, even though it doesn't really look like too much.  *deep breaths*  I can do this!

Soft Pretzel Recipe, Felt Breakfast & Eating Steak on Food Stamps--X-Treme Food Stamp Challenge

Yesterday for breakfast, we ate the blueberry bread that had been my blueberry bagel fail with cream cheese.  Not super exciting or delicious, definitely not something I'll make again, but edible and at least fairly nutritious.

For an afternoon snack, I made soft pretzels from scratch.  I initially put cinnamon & sugar on them, but everyone except my daughter decided they were better plain with mustard instead.  Either way, they were a lot healthier than anything you could buy at the store and they were a lot lower sodium!  The kids had milk with their pretzels and I had my second Diet Coke of the day.

Soft Pretzels

1 package yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp honey
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 egg, beaten
cinnamon & sugar for topping (optional)
pretzel salt for topping (optional)

Preheat oven to 425.  Mix yeast, water, sugar, salt, and honey in a large mixing bowl.  Add the flour and stir in completely.  Sprinkle a small amount of flour on a clean surface and knead dough 5-10 minutes, or until smooth.  Divide dough and form into desired pieces (letters or numbers would probably be fun for small children).  Place shapes on greased baking sheet.  Brush with beaten egg and add any additional toppings you desire.  Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.  Let cool slightly before serving.  They can be frozen and reheated in the microwave.

We couldn't end up having pasties for dinner as I had planned because we were almost completely out of butter, so we ended up having a steak dinner instead.  People always rail against people on food stamps eating steak dinners, but, let me tell you, this was a super cheap thing for us to be eating.  First off, the steak was venison that my husband had killed himself.  We did end up paying to have it professionally processed (because he was still working at the time and didn't have time to do it, or a good place, since around the time he shot it was when they were supposed to be remodeling the garage), but even that works out to be about $0.70 a pound and we only ate a pound of meat for dinner between all of us.  The bulk of the dinner consisted of a deluxe baked potato.  The potatoes were the last couple of a 10# bag I had gotten at a farmers market this fall for $3, which was more like $1.50 for the bag with the Double Up Food Bucks program (or free, depending on how you look at it, since they were grown in Michigan and purchased with the free tokens because of that).  The broccoli was some that I'd gotten free from the Broccoli Lady, a person that offered up a bunch of broccoli on Freecycle that I was happy to receive from her.  The cheese sauce was made with the fat drippings of the steak, a little flour, a little milk, and a couple ounces of cheese (so about $0.40 worth at what I paid for it).  So all in all, with the sour cream and steak sauce thrown in there, we paid probably less than $1.50 for all of us for that dinner!  The kids and I had milk for dinner, which might have put us over that $1.50 mark, but it was covered by WIC.

A bit after dinner, my husband asked if I could bring him some chocolate chips.  I told him I didn't think we had any, but he said we did because he had gotten into some the night before.  Sure enough, I looked and he had found the chocolate chips I'd hidden in case of a chocolate emergency.  *sigh*  So he and the kids had chocolate chips for dessert.

Late at night, to celebrate the completion of my first piece of felt bread, my husband and I had a bit of ice cream with homemade chocolate syrup on top.  That turned out to be a bit of a mistake though, since then I was shivering like crazy as I worked on the second piece of bread.  I got it done though, so now mt felt food totals are 2 eggs, 4 pieces of bacon, and 2 pieces of bread/toast.

X-Treme Food Stamp Challenge--makin' my own bread and bacon

The first part of the day's eatings yesterday wasn't exciting at all:  Honey Kix with milk for breakfast, leftovers for lunch, the kids snacked on Cheerios, homemade applesauce, and cheese, with my husband and I having a little cheese as well.  Dinner though....

I made whole wheat bread yesterday, two loaves: a free form artisan loaf for dinner and loaf of sandwich bread for eating today.  The rest of dinner was broccoli, cheddar, and potato soup.  I grated a couple carrots and threw them in there for a little added nutrition and the pretty color.  I love that soup soooooo much.  I admit, I way over ate.  There is still plenty more for lunches for the next day or two too though.  Yay!

Not only is that soup super delicious, but it is soup-er cheap (hahaha!  I crack myself up!) for me to make.  I made the chicken stock I used, the broccoli and carrots were gleaned from other people's gardens, the 1/2 pound of cheese I used was only about $1.60 when I bought the 10 pound block.  The bread was dirt cheap as well, since I got the yeast with a combination of sale and coupon so each yeast packet was about $0.15.  All of dinner probably cost less than $2.50 to feed the family and, like I said, there was lots of leftovers!

After dinner, I was stuffed for quite a while, but my husband and the 2yo had a bit of ice cream.  I snacked on some caramel-y corn much, much later in the day.

For drinks, we still had to use the bottled water because the boil water advisory became official with a notice on our door, but the kids and my husband had a bit of white grape juice with dinner as well, and I had my usual Diet Coke (yes, I know how bad it is for me).

After the kids finally went to sleep, I worked on making more felt food for Christmas presents for my kids.  I made another egg (using the directions here, but hand sewing, rather than using a machine) and made bacon, which was my own design.  I stripped the papery parts off some twisty-ties and stitched them behind the light strips on the bacon to make it crinkly shaped and poseable.

Tonight, I hope to finish up about 3 more strips of bacon and start something else.  Maybe fake bread?

X-Treme Food Stamp Challenge--in which I make food both real and fake

For the second day in a row, yesterday, the kids were too excited to go outside and play in the snow for me to make breakfast before they went.  Instead, they made themselves sandwiches of cheese and ketchup on bread.  Yuck!  It would probably be considered a balanced meal at schools though, since it had all that ketchup on it!  Double yuck!  I'm so glad I don't send my kids to school (except my 12 year old that lives with his dad 2/3 of the year, but that isn't by my choice.  That was a decision made by his dad that he sadly supports).  Instead of sitting in a boring classroom all day, they played outside, built a snowman for their little brother to knock over, (did some actual bookwork,) went on an adventure to the corner store to get ice cream using their money that their grandma gave them, and built a giant fort in the living room, all before their friends got out of school and even though they got to sleep much, much later than their friends ever do!  I digress though....

When they came back in, my husband, the toddler, and I had had our breakfasts of pancakes with strawberries on them, basically strawberry shortcake for breakfast.  Mega-yum!  The other kids had it for lunch when they eventually did come inside to play (prior to building the fort).

Somehow my husband and I forgot to have lunch, as sometimes happens, but we worked on cleaning out the fridge for dinner.  Cooking up that roast instead of sticking it in pasties yesterday gave us a lot of leftovers that I wasn't expecting to have!  There is still a fair amount of that roast left even now, so I'm thinking of making roast beast and cheddar hot pockets next week.  The kids and my husband had ice cream in the evening as well, but with the house at 65 degrees or below at all times, ice cream doesn't much appeal to me this time of year!  I did have a couple Diet Cokes through the day, though.  I didn't see anyone else drink anything other than tap water, but they might have been sneaky and got themselves something else when I wasn't looking.  Oh, and I also polished of the last of the jar of salsa I've been working on eating up the past few says.

The high point of the day for me was when we checked the mail and found a surprise check from a lady at the church with the subject line of "kids Xmas" (there was also a used book I had ordered from PaperbackSwap for my niece's Christmas presents that looked brand new, so that is awesome too!).  I finally had some money to get the kids some Christmas presents!  In the interest of making it go as far as possible, I headed to the craft store and picked up some felt, poly-fill, muslin, and a couple little wooden things to paint.  I plan on making some felt food, a rag doll, a fairy wand (one of the paintables), and a little train engine (also one of the paintables).  Basically, everything I need for my littlest ones.  I told the cashier that was the bulk of my Christmas shopping for two of my kids and she was shocked.  Like more shocked than the cashier at Meijer was the other day when I just bought the baking stuff and told her that was my groceries for the week.  Her jaw literally dropped.  I explained what everything was going to be and she was suitably impressed and somewhat appeased that I wasn't cheating my kids out of a good Christmas.  Like every kid needs a gajillion crappy plastic toys to have a good Christmas.  Pu-leeeeease!

Anyhoo, after the kids settled down for the night, I broke out the craft goodies and my sewing box and set to work stitching.  I don't know how to use a sewing machine (sad, I know), so all my gifts will be sewn by hand.  I figure it would take as long to learn to use the sewing machine as it would just to do it the easy way...and probably less stressful!  My first project was a felt egg.  I plan on making some bread and bacon to go with it, for sort of a breakfast felt food set, then also making some tomatoes, lettuce, and cheese to go with the bread as a sandwich set.  If I have time, I'll probably make even more.  I'm hoping to do at least one project a night until Christmas.  Here was the result of last night's effort:

Isn't it cute?  I'm starting to think maybe I don't completely suck at stitchy crafts!

Handmade Holidays for Kids--great upcycled gifts and more

I saw on the news last night that there are already people camping out for Black Friday sales.  Seriously?  If I had almost a week of free time, I can think of lots of things to do with it, but camping out for the privilege of buying something wouldn't make the list, even if I did have money to spend.

As it is, I don't know that I'll have any money to spend on Christmas presents!  The adults on my list are pretty easy to take care of gifts for, since I was already leaning toward homemade gifts for them anyway (which I'm not going to say right now, since some of them do read this blog, but I might mention it on my Facebook page), but kids can be a bit trickier.  They tend to know what they like and, thanks to a culture of rampant commercialism (you know, the kind of culture that puts it in people's heads that they should camp out for a week to buy something!), kids tend to want store bought crap.  I have a few ideas that I'm tossing about for the kids on my list though, ranging from toddler to teen.  I don't know if I'm going to make all, or even any of these (and expect a blog post on the ones I do!), since if money were to present itself, I'd rather buy something (I know, I'm bad) that I know the kids would like than rely on my shabby crafting skills to produce something that, if well made, I'm sure they would like, but I can't promise I would make most of these well, since the majority of them depend on some stitching or basic woodworking skills that, frankly, I lack.  Basically, I'm brainstorming very publicly.

I stole the pictures from sites that contain directions, figuring they'd want me to, since you are more likely to go to their site if you see how cute their ideas are.  There are a number of thses that I wouldn't make exactly the same way as the directions I link to, but I linked to something just to give you an idea of what I have in mind.  If I do decide to make those gifts, I definitely will post my own version. 

Toddlers to Early Elementary Ages

felt food (a ginormous list of tutorials for tons of foods can be found here)

a bean bag toss game; maybe like this one, maybe something a bit different

sock monkey

bath crayons

salt dough jewelry
sewing cards
rag doll

puppet theatre

puppets made from old stuffed animals

Elementary Age to Teens
wobble board
journal

jean purse

Triple Layer Cookie Bars--Week #8 of the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies

I wanted to make 7-layer bars for this week's cookie, because I have a bit of a weakness for them and suspect it will be a loooooooong time before I can go to a coffeehouse and have one as one of my rare ultimate indulgences.  When I started to look over the ingredients to make them to see if I had everything I needed, I discovered some oversized varmints, ie the kids and hubby, had eaten all the graham crackers!  I decided this recipe with its three delicious layers would be close enough to satisfy my craving and just used ingredients that no one had gotten into (probably because I tend to hide certain valuables, like chocolate chips!).

My cell phone camera does NOT do this thing justice!

Triple Layer Cookie Bars

1 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup cocoa powder (the baking stuff, not the hot cocoa stuff)

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter, cold

2 eggs, beaten

1 7oz pkg flaked cocnut

1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk

2 cups chocolate chips

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9x13 baking pan.  In a medium mixing bowl, mix together flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.  Use a pastry blender to cut in butter, until mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Mix in eggs; you may need to use your hands to get the last bit of powderiness mixed in.  Press dough into the bottom of the baking pan to form a crust.  Bake for 8 minutes.  Spread coconut in an even layer over crust.  Drizzle sweetened condensed milk over the coconut.  Bake an additional 20-25 minutes, until lightly browned.  Melt chocolate chips and peanut butter in a double boiler (or in a saucepan over really, really low heat!), stirring constantly until smooth.  Spread over bars.  Let cool completely before cutting.

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Molasses Glazed Carrots--a holiday season side

This is the second in a series of posts dedicated to fancier-schmancier holiday sides, for those that don't like to keep it basic like I do for more versatile leftovers. My husband didn't care for the crisp-tender texture of these carrots--he prefers carrots that have been boiled, so next time, I may cook them like that and make the glaze separately and pour it over the carrots before serving, just to make him happy.

Molasses Glazed Carrots

 2 tbsp butter

about 1 lb of carrots, peeled, quartered, & cut in 2-3 in lengths

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp molasses

1/2-1 cup water

In a large skillet, melt the butter.  Add the carrots.  Stir the carrots to coat them in butter.  Cook for about 5 minutes; stir in brown sugar and molasses.  Add water to prevent burning the sugar.  Continue to cook until crisp-tender, about 5 to 8 minutes. 

Cheddar Mashed Potatoes--a holiday season side

As part of my continued effort to make the world a tastier yet healthier place (although, I admit, this is of questionable healthiness, but at least it is from scratch and not boxes or mixes!), I am starting a new series of posts highlighting side dishes that would be a wonderful addition to holiday meals, whether it be Thanksgiving, Christmas, or what-have-you.

If I was hosting such a dinner, I'd actually prefer to keep holiday meals basic, just a big bird or chunk of roast or something, with fairly plan mashed potatoes (with gravy of course), veggies, etc, to allow for more versatility in the utilization of leftovers (which I will probably post about at some point, like the day after Thanksgiving), but some people like to have some fancy-schmancy holiday sides too and others may wish to just have these sides whenever.  We had these potatoes last night with venison steak and glazed carrots and it was good!  Definitely one I'll be making over and over!

Cheddar Mashed Potatoes

about 1 1/2 lbs potatoes

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp chives, finely chopped

1/3 cup sour cream

2 tbsp-1/4 cup milk

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

salt to taste

Peel potatoes, rinse, and cut into chunks.  Place in a saucepan with water just to cover.  Place over high heat and boil until soft, about 20 minutes.  Pour potatoes into a colander and set aside.  In the same saucepan, place butter and chives and heat over medium heat until butter melts, stirring frequently.  Remove from heat.  Return potatoes to pan.  Add sour cream, 2 tbsp of milk, and the cheese.  Mash with a potato masher until fairly smooth.  Add more milk if necessary.  Salt to taste and serve.