Santa's Cookie Tester

He's a big jolly guy, so he gets the big blue mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and a teeny sprinkle of cinnamon on top.  Cinnamon is good for blood sugar and with all of those cookies, Santa needs a little faux ho ho dieting here and there.

He won't notice the sugar free hot cocoa as long as there is some dreamily melting low fat whipped cream forming a hazy oasis on the top.  Too much milk will make him sleepy and he has to finish all those deliveries before daybreak!

I've tested the hot beverage and a small selection of cookies.  I think it passes Santa's dietary standard requirements.  The reindeer's carrots and apples are going to be fresh when Santa stops at my house.  Dee, there is a Santa stop for me!

What will  you put out for Santa and his reindeer?

Put the Scissors Down Ma'am

Oh, I hope I'm not guilty of true angelcide.  I don't think that's possible.  After all, the angels are superior beings.  Okay, after hearing Christmas music on the radio since before Thanksgiving  and seeing umpteen Christmas sales commercials a week before that, the frustrations of what Christmas is NOT ABOUT but is thrown in our faces everywhere in a chaotic swell of frenzy, well it just got to me. That, plus my backlog of things undone; especially that backlog.

So...I did it. I ripped the head off the angel.  Angelcide.

Confession:  I've never liked this angel.  Do you feel guilty for buying something that you don't really like?  I do.  It was a spur of the moment purchase a few years ago when I needed a little something, it was cheap and I used it until I could not look at it anymore. That's how my thoughts stood at the kitchen counter with the sentimental old wreath needing a little something to make it last another holiday.  Sacrifice one decoration for the life of another.

The Act: Donc j'ai tue' l'ange. So I killed the angel. I removed her wings, tore apart her edging and STILL she remained sweetly composed and took my abuse!  Cleaning up the counter I threw her head without a body onto my desk.  I tried to cover her up and ignore the pain, but she drilled her saintly silent witness in my vertigo laden neck until the sick puppy in me, said,  Ca suffit! Enough!

Days later she was picked up and tossed in the trash can.  I can still revive her, but I refuse.  Je refuse de vous sauver mon ange.  I refuse to save you, my angel.  Christmas is for the living.   Ceci est vraiment la fin pour l'ange.  This is really the end for the angel.  Repos dans paix.  R.I.P. 

The Verdict: Coupable de le meurtre avec l'intention de refaire les papier peints et le cycle ascendant.  Guilty of murder with intent to redecorate and upcycle. My scissors are safely put away and only two decorations were mutilated in that short span of time.  The sentence was considerate in that this was a lapse, a crime made in stressful times.

Punishment: Condamne' pour observer de vieux films, mangez le chocolat et le the' de boisson, confiez-vous a' Lucy et d'autres choses conformement a' la foi de Noel dans mon couer. Sentenced to watch old movies, eat chocolate and drink tea, confide in Lucy, and other things in keeping with Christmas faith in my heart.

(For some reason this overly dramatic post required a few French phrases.  Je parle un tout petit peu de francais.  I've forgotten most of the correct tenses and spelling since learning French years ago.  If you want to share the corrections, please do!  My keyboard doesn't have the punctuation marks for French.)

Joyeux Noel Mes Amis.

Fin

Diet Size Apple Pie

This apple snack is easy and quick.  If you use store bought pie dough, then most of the work is already done. The first time I saw this idea I realized it was all over the web, but credit for where I saw it first goes here.  With a few tweaks away from that recipe, here's a quick, easy, delicious apple pastry snack, diet sized.



Preheat the oven to 425F.

Assemble the Ingredients:
One store bought refrigerated pie crust.  (They come two to a box, and I saved the second pie crust for something else, recipe forthcoming.)  Bring it to room temperature, just leave out on the counter for about 15-30 minutes.

One of your favorite apples, this time I used the Granny Smith; cleaned, peeled, and sliced. If you're using both pie crusts, peel and slice a second apple.

Two tablespoons of butter, melted and slightly cooled.

Cinnamon sugar or just cinnamon if you want less sugar, or a combo of table sugar mixed with cinnamon.  I used Cinnamon Sugar alone.  

Put something under the pie crust to keep it off the counter, I used waxed paper.  Just open the pie crust, no need to stretch it out.  Brush melted butter over crust, sprinkle cinnamon sugar on  top of butter.

With your ravioli cutter or knife or pastry wheel, zip right through this crust, making eight strips.  Look at the teeny one, so funny.


Put your apple on one end of the strip, roll it up.  Repeat 7 times.  Put all the apple snacks on a parchment lined cookie sheet or baking tray. Butter up the tops with remaining butter and sprinkle with cinnamon again.  The parchment will stop you from needing a jackhammer to clean and remove the melted sugar, unless you want the exercise, use parchment paper please.

Bake in a preheated 425 F oven.  Mine were done at 25 minutes, ovens vary, 22 minutes might be average time needed to bake nicely.


I will tweak this again by cutting 16 strips since the snack was a lot of crust to apple ratio.  Still, it was easy and tasty.  Let me know if you try it and how it worked for you.

Fresh Art Mother and Baby Mixed Media

This was made by me a couple of months ago.  I've used acrylic paints, pencils, and clippings along with calendar images, and it's about 5x7 inches.  I'm out of synch with routines due to health concerns, and now the holidays are here so I thought I'd show you this before it gets lost in the vagueness of time and clutter.  Whoops.

My Christmas tree never made it out of the garage and into the parlor last week.  It will definitely come inside and get decorated this week.  It's so cold and lonely out in the garage, sniff.

The colors in the image are a little more vibrant than the actual piece.  I see a few different ideas running in this, what do you see?

Can You Identify This Thrift Find? Limited Edition Artist Bowl

I don't know what's going on with the closing of thrift stores/charity shops in my area.  Two thrifts and one dollar store have closed in a month.  There was a charity shop near the grocery, I donated a lot of items to it and also found lots of old buttons on original cards, ribbons, and little shelves there.  I sometimes bought little kitchen odds and ends and if after a bit of time I didn't like them, I just donated them back to the store.  

I bought creamers and a little metal 1/4 measuring cup to keep in the pancake mix tin.  1/4 cup = 1 pancake, easy to remember.  The shelves and spice racks I bought were painted and hung on the wall to hold paints and supplies above my desk.

A few months ago I spotted this brown and turquoise bowl sitting on the shelf amongst clear glass vases and candleholders.  It doesn't matter if it's valuable or not, the price was good, just $3.00, and this happy color on the interior wanted to come home with me.

This striping reminds me of icing on pastries or chocolates.

Is this an edition number and artist/maker initials?

This almost looks greenish, but it's turquoise, and that's my camera's and lamp reflection inside.

I don't know what style this application on the bowl is called, I've searched the web looking under lots of sites, words, images, etc.  Do you know what this style is, and what does the writing on the bottom of the bowl mean?

Best Wishes

For those celebrating Thanksgiving and for everyone else, my greeting is the same,

 that you would be blessed and have much to be thankful for 

at present, in the past, and in your future. 

Thanks for making your time spent here a gift to me.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

This vintage clip art is available here.  The Graphics Fairy provided the clip art and Picnik provided the free photo editing software.  For some reason, the vertigo is still with me, I'm going back to the doctor and see what the next advice is.  I'll be back here and visiting your blogs, too. Email replies are taking me a little longer to focus on.   Enjoy your holiday!