Maine Nesties
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
What's Cooking?
What is everyone making for the holidays??
I wish I was able to do a lot more and I feel like I've already signed up to make more than I can handle but I love holiday cooking/baking. I've already made toffee and peppermint filled whoopie pies. I'm also making orange ginger tofu and a vegetable parmesan. I plan/hope to make chocolate truffles, peppermint bark, chocolate cake roll and a pretzel and hershey kiss thing that I can do with Catie.
I was just looking at Food Gawker and drooling!
Re: What's Cooking?
We are going to he home by ourselves for Christmas, but here is what I have planned.
Cinnamon rolls for breakfast/brunch
Tourtier (a traditional Acadian meat pie) and mashed potatos for dinner.
I'm leaving Christma Eve to other people- we're buying all cheese and related prepped foods.
I've made gingerbread cookies for gifts and am going to make "Yum Yum Balls" (chopped dates, nuts, and rice krispies held together with sugary goo, rolled in powdered sugar, and chilled) and maybe my grandmother's Italian anise cookies.
Dried cherry and cream scones (along with bacon and mimosas) will be Christmas Day breakfast.
Not sure what my mom is going to have me make/ bring for Xmas dinner. I've got Thursday and Friday off though, so not knowing yet isn't stressing me out... yet!
Bri- don't get yourself all worn out trying to be master chef and new mom. I know how it is- cooking is a joy for you and you want to keep that part of yourself... but if it's too much, it isn't worth it to push it just yet. Last year I didn't do much, but just 12 short months later I can pretty much pick up most of my old cooking habits again and the break wasn't so terrible.
Just my fellow foodie/ mom $0.02.
For my family we are doing a cookie exchange amongst the adults. My contributions will be Dark Chocolate Cookies with the Cherry Cordial MnMs. I was going to do something a bit more complicated but then after trying those MnMs I decided those would be fun to try....
I am cooking a baby. She won't be done in time for the holiday (I'm kind of like a crockpot), but that's all I'll be making this year.
I made gingersnaps, sugar cookies with royal icing, peanut butter chocolate chip biscotti, KA thousand dollar bars (like twix), and brownie covered oreos (OMG- so good!) for our cookie trays. I made caramel corn for my co-workers.
I'm making crockpot meatballs for Christmas Eve and for Christmas morning we'll have sausage breakfast casserole and pumpkin chip bread.
So far, I've made 12 pounds of peppermint bark, 3 batches of chocolate chip cookies and a few batches of my stacked sugar/peppermint cookies. Fudge and more pepermint/sugar/choc. cookies get made this week along with Christmas Dinner: Pork Tenderloin with honey mustard and wrapped in bacon, lots of fixings and a peppermint chocolate truffle torte for desert.Oh, and it smells like fall because I've been making apple sauce too
It seems like everyone I spend Christmas with is on a diet, so I haven't really made much this year. I made some cookies for the Nestie GTG and the same cookies for DH's work. I also made some peanut butter cup cookies for his work too. I'll be making double chocolate cookies tonight to give to our neighbor. Oh, I made a gingerbread cake a few weeks ago, which was good. We aren't celebrating Christmas at home, so I won't be making anything for Christmas weekend really.
I really want to celebrate Christmas or Christmas Eve at our house next year and invite people over so I can cook, bake and play hostess.
Since this is our first year having to travel for Christmas (back to NY to see our family and friends), I needed to make things that would travel well - traditional cookie-cutter sugar cookies with sprinkles and mini cupcakes - chocolate with peppermint frosting and gingerbread with cream cheese frosting. Cookies are done and I'm doing all the cupcakes today and frosting them once we get to NY, so there's no risk of smooshing.
We also have a friend who is celebrating her 30th birthday on Sunday, so I, for some unknown reason, volunteered to make cupcakes for that...car bomb cupcakes need to be made probably early Christmas.
I freaking love you.
I had grand visions for tons of homemade holiday treats to share with family when we got up to Maine, but since being preggo, that's all pretty much gone out the window, due to my level of exhaustion most of the time. I did get gifts taken care of for everyone, and plan on wrapping tonight, so that should be good enough. In lieu of sharing fresh baked holiday treats, I sent Kyle to the liquor store today and he picked up 18 bottles of wine. That should do the trick.
Oh, and the sign at the liquor store read "The holidays are time to spend with family; we have liquor". After my own heart.
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware; joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. -Henry Miller
http://cookthehumbletable.blogspot.com/
I made eggnog cupcakes for my coworkers and mint chocolate delight cookies for our cookie exchange. We are hosting Christmas Eve at our place so today I made toffee (thanks Brianne) and chocolate peanut butter bars (thanks Erika). I will also be making macaroni and cheese, Italian chicken, kielbasa in BBQ sauce, and gingerbread cupcakes with limoncello cream cheese frosting. I will also have some lobster salad and french bread.
I am excited!
Today I'm making gingerbread whoopie pies and a few jars of cinnamon honey butter for gifts. I haven't been in the mood to cook or eat anything this week so this is as good as its going to get.
My mom has a problem with delegating and NOT cooking, so last week when I offered to help her out she told me to make celery & cream cheese sticks.
Now I'm glad that is all I'm signed up for.