Christmas

Holiday Gifts: Salty, Sweet and Crunchy

/ TaMara

Like much of the country, we are having a day of weather and are advised to stay home. Perfect. That gives me time to make a few more treats for the holiday gift trays.

Caramel Corn 12-17-11

I love popcorn. The more salt and butter, the better.  But my true weakness is caramel corn, so one year,  when I was trying to think of something fun to give in those neighbor Christmas treat boxes, I decided to try my hand at caramel corn.

And to take it up a notch, I decided to make Bacon Caramel Corn.  Recipe below.

But let’s begin with some other salty-sweet ideas for the holiday gift box.

Tex-Mex Popcorn Mix, recipe here.

White Cheddar Popcorn and Chili-Cheese Popcorn, recipes here.

And if popcorn is not your thing, how about some Cajun Spiced Nuts or Indian Spiced Nuts, recipes here.

And finally, the featured recipe:

If bacon isn’t your thing, just omit it from the recipe below to make regular caramel corn or caramel corn with nuts.

Cashew Bacon Caramel Corn

  • 8 oz maple smoked bacon, cut into eight pieces per strip
  • 12 cups (3 quarts) of popped corn
  • 10 tbsp butter
  • 1-1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup light corn syrup
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1-1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 cups salted cashews (or peanuts, or peanut/cashew mix)
Skillet, saucepan, baking sheets*

In a skillet, cook bacon until mostly crisp, drain on paper towels and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.  Reduce to 200 degrees after 15 minutes of baking.

Place popcorn onto well-greased baking sheets.

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Bring to a low boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to med-low and simmer until thickened, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat, add vanilla and baking soda (yes, it will foam up so be prepared). Gently stir nuts and bacon into the sugar mixture and pour over popcorn, toss, coating popcorn evenly. Bake, stirring occasionally until popcorn is a deep golden brown, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours  – mine was done at the 1-hour mark. Cool and break apart.

*most recipes call for a roasting pan, I had better luck on my second batch using baking sheets – the popcorn cooked more evenly and was very crisp.

cropped-christmaslights.jpg

Holiday Gifts: Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

Someone asked me for this recipe this morning, and after I shared it with them, I decided to make a batch myself.

From June:

I really like these cookies, they’re simple to make and gluten-free. But one thing about them is they are terribly sweet. So I decided to see what would happen if I cut the sugar down considerably.

They turned out super – not too sweet and super peanut butter flavor.  Changes are in blue.

Peanut Butter Cookies (Revisited)

(makes 12-18)

  • 3 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 3 tbsp packed brown sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup peanut butter
  • 1 egg

baking sheet

Cream ingredients together and drop by spoonful onto a baking sheet. Dip a fork in sugar and press down the dough. Bake at 300 degree F for 10-13 minutes.

This usually gets a good, soft cookie, but I wanted to try for a crispier outside. But they are prone to burning. So at the 13-minute mark, I turned off the oven and let them sit for 5 more minutes. They turned out perfectly – crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside.

Maybe this will keep me from eating all the toffee that is supposed to be for Christmas Eve, LOL

Holiday Gifts: The Cookie Tray

/ TaMara / 3 Comments

We haven’t done the annual cookie bake – where a few of us get together and bake our favorite cookies and swap them for our gift trays – since pre-pandemic. We had good intentions this year, but we couldn’t get the timing right.  But I thought I’d still share all the recipes.

From 2017:

Sunday is my annual cookie baking day with friends. Most of goodies are going into gift boxes, but I’ll hold enough back for my annual Christmas Eve dinner. This is the usual round-up.

Pictured above:

Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies, recipe here

Spritz Cookies, recipes and instructions for using a cookie press here.

Pecan Cookies, recipe below.  Much more below the fold.

But wait, there’s more! Click to read

Holiday Gifts: Cranberry Upside-Down Cake

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

The recipe can be found here. 

I wasn’t in the mood to chop cranberries or drag the food processor out, so I left them whole. I think I prefer it that way.

Also, I bought a bag of White Lily Unbleached Self Rising Flour, 5-lb bag a while ago to use in biscuits and decided since this is basically a biscuit cake, I’d try it this time around for this recipe. It was a game-changer. Especially at altitude, it’s so difficult not to end up having a heavy (yet yummy) cake like this.

It’s probably not a necessity at sea level, but up here, it was worth the expense (and yes, it is expensive to order a bag of flour, LOL).  The flour makes authentic southern biscuits that I can’t replicate with regular unbleached flours (even King Arthur).  I should probably do a post on how using the White Lily flour came to my attention. That’s for another day when my kitchen doesn’t look like it qualifies for FEMA assistance and the dogs need walks.

This recipe is for sure going to end up in either the Halloween or Christmas Duxbridge Mysteries Novellas.

until then…

Holiday Gifts: Sesame Brittle

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

My kitchen looks like a small disaster zone. I’ve been cooking all afternoon. Most of the lasagnas are together, but I ran out of mozzarella, so I’ll have to finish up tomorrow. I’ve got a batch of Almond Toffee done and I’ll be making Pecan Toffee tomorrow and the Cranberry Cake.

As promised, here’s one of my favorite (and easy) holiday gift box or dessert platter recipes:

I try and make this every year.  It is so easy. Recipe here.

Next up I’ll post some favorite cookie recipes. Until then…

Holiday Excitement

/ TaMara

We are just full of excitement here these days

Synchronized snoring with Scout and Trixie

May be an image of cat

15 lbs of cuddles with Sully

May be an image of dog

And finally, Trixie snoozing with Jasper.

She’s doing great after a minor hitch with her spay. She’s back to herself, but for some reason, the ducks want nothing to do with her. This upsets her, so I’m hoping it is a short-term rejection.

I’m putting together the ingredients for a bunch of Christmas gifts. I’m doing 8×8 pans of lasagna, toffee and cranberry upside-down cake this year. I was clearly in the mood to cook.

I’ll also post my holiday gift idea favorites over the next few days.

Until then…

Feeling Nostalgic

/ TaMara / 2 Comments

My mom always had a bowl of nuts in their shells on the table during the holidays. This year, I was feeling a bit nostalgic and decided to continue the tradition. Got home and wondered if I even had a nutcracker. Lo and behold, I did! A Christmas miracle.