A Cookie Cutter Diva's Life

made this for the Christmas Party we are attending tonight!


Ingredients
1 16-ounce can whole-berry cranberry sauce
4 large (9- or 10-inch) spinach-flour tortillas or flat breads
Mayonnaise
3/4 pound thinly sliced Monterey Jack or American cheese
3/4 pound thinly sliced smoked turkey
1/2 head green-leaf lettuce
Toothpicks
Red and yellow bell peppers
cocktail onions, for garnish
Instructions
Spoon the cranberry sauce into a food processor and pulse it briefly.
Then lay the tortillas or flat bread on a flat working surface and lightly spread them with mayonnaise (a rubber spatula comes in handy for this). Now your kids can top each tortilla with a layer each of cheese and turkey. (Tip: When stacking ingredients, leave an inch margin along the top of the tortilla. Roll the bread toward that edge to keep the filling from falling out.)
Spread cranberry sauce on the turkey layers and cover them with lettuce. Snugly roll up the sandwiches, ending with the loose edges underneath.
With a serrated knife, cut each roll-up into 1 1/4-inch-wide pinwheels and insert a toothpick to hold each one together.
On a serving platter, arrange the pinwheels in rows to create a Christmas tree. Garnish with pepper-star ornaments (cut out with a small cookie cutter) and cocktail-onion lights.

Reindeer Chow Snack Mix
Posted by Cynthia Ewer on December 4, 2010

Description

Looking for a last-minute stocking stuffer? It's Reindeer Chow! Sweet and crunchy, this seasonal snack mix is a favorite with kids, not just reindeer!

A simple concoction of cereals, pretzels, peanuts and M&Ms-brand seasonal candies sparked with a white chocolate coating, Reindeer Chow is a fast, last-minute snack mix recipe for holiday giving.

Package Reindeer Chow in zipper food storage bags or cellophane snack bags for an easy classroom treat or Secret Santa gift. Add a free printable gift tag with the Reindeer Chow poem to make an easy holiday gift.

For a fun and festive family gift, fill a pet dish (from the Dollar Store!) with Reindeer Chow. Inexpensive self-adhesive "foamie" letters spell out the name of your favorite reindeer!



Ingredients
1 pound white chocolate chips or almond bark-brand white chocolate coating
3 cup Rice Chex-brand cereal
3 cup Corn Chex-brand cereal
3 cup Cheerios-brand cereal
2 cup pretzel sticks
2 cup dry-roasted peanuts
12 ounce M&M-brand chocolate candies
10 copies printable gift tag
Instructions
Slowly melt chocolate in double broiler over water. Alternately, place almond bark or white chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl, and microwave on high for 30-second intervals, stirring between each, until chocolate is melted.

Combine remaining ingredients in large bowl, then drizzle melted chocolate over top and mix well. Spread in a shallow layer on a cookie sheet or broiler pan.

Allow to cool completely, then package in single-serving bags or an inexpensive pet bowl.

Print 10 copies of the Reindeer Chow gift tags and attach to gift. Or, create your own tag using the poem below.

Makes 30 servings.

Notes
Use this Reindeer Chow poem to create a gift tag for your holiday gift:

When reindeer fly on Christmas night,
They work up quite an appetite!
But Mrs. Claus knows what to do,
To feed them when the flight is through.
She mixes up some Reindeer Chow.
A secret only she knows how.

With something salty, something sweet,
It’s Rudolph’s favorite reindeer treat.
Back in her kitchen at the Pole,
She heaps it high in every bowl
To welcome her returning crew.
So here’s a batch that’s just for you!

Reindeer Chow Poem Copyright © 2009 by Cynthia Ewer.


http://christmas.organizedhome.com/recipes/snack-mix/reindeer-chow

Oreo Brownies
from Eat Me, Delicious

2 sticks (1 cup) butter
1/2 pound semisweet chocolate chips
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
3 eggs
1 tablespoons vanilla
1 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups chopped Oreo cookies (25 cookies)

Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Butter and flour a 9"x13" baking pan.

In a heatproof medium bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, heat butter, chocolate chips and unsweetened chocolate until melted and smooth. Allow to cool slightly.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs, vanilla and sugar. Blend chocolate mixture into egg mixture; cool to room temperature.

In a medium bowl, sift together 1/2 cup flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to chocolate mixture. In a small bowl, stir Oreos and remaining 2 tablespoons flour. Add Oreo mixture to chocolate mixture. Pour batter into baking pan and smooth top with a rubber spatula.

Bake 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted 3 inches from center comes out clean; do not overbake. Allow to cool. Refrigerate, tightly wrapped, until cold; cut into squares.

this was fun to make! A cute twist to the normal cheese ball!



Ingredients
8 ounces of cream cheese (softened)
1/2 teaspoon dried dill
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
Scallion
Red bell pepper
Instructions
Mix the dried dill, garlic powder, and salt into the softened cream cheese.
Pack the mixture into a rectangular container lined with plastic wrap (you can reuse the cream cheese box).
Refrigerate it for at least 3 hours. Before serving time, set the unwrapped block of cheese on a platter and decorate it with a scallion bow and red pepper polka dots and gift tag.

The Christmas Pickle


The tradition of the Christmas Pickle has got to be one of the strangest modern Christmas customs in that no one is quite sure why it exists at all!

In the 1880s Woolworth stores started selling glass ornaments imported from Germany and some were in the shape of various fruit and vegetables. It seems that pickles must have been among the selection!

Around the same time it was claimed that the Christmas Pickle was a very old German tradition and that the pickle was the last ornament hung on the Christmas tree and then the first child to find the pickle got an extra present. However, this seems to be a total myth! No many people in Germany have even heard of the Christmas Pickle! (Like in Russia virtually knows the story of the supposedly Russian story of Babushka!)

There are two other rather far-fetched stories linking the pickle to Christmas.

One featured a fighter in the American Civil War who was born in Bavaria (an area of what is now Germany). He was a prisoner and starving, he begged a guard for one last pickle before he died. The guard took pity on him and gave a pickle for him. The pickle gave him the mental and physical strength to live on!

The other story is linked to St Nicholas. It's a medieval tale of two Spanish boys traveling home from a boarding school for the holidays. When they stopped at an inn for the night, the evil innkeeper, killed the boys and put them in a pickle barrel. That evening, St. Nicholas stopped at the same inn, and found the boys in the barrel and miraculously bought them back to life!

There is an old legend about St Nicholas rescuing boys from a barrel but the barrel was originally holding meat for pies - not pickles!

So it's most likely that an ornament salesmen with a lot of spare pickles to sell invented the legend of the Christmas pickle!

The American city of Berrien Springs, MI (also known as the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World) has an annual pickle festival held during the early part of December.






So this is one of our favorite Christmas traditions we have adopted as a family! Every year when we wake up Christmas morning the kids unwrap their gifts and at the end the kids look for the "Christmas Pickle" which is a pickle that my son Keagan made that was hidden on our tree by Santa! The child who finds it, gets the extra gift! They have a ton of fun with this every year! Our pickle isn't the traditional ornament but rather looks like this

just got done baking a favorite in the family that has been made for years growing up as a family tradition even back when I was little and my siblings were little! They're gingerbread men cookies but we call it alien men because they look like little alien men lol


1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
2tbs molasses
1 tsp cloves
pinch of salt
1 tsp cinnamon

raisins or red hots for decoration.

Cream butter and sugar. Add molasses and unbeaten egg. Beat until smooth. sift all the dry ingredients and add to molasses mixture. Roll 3 pecan size balls for each. Flatten first ball for head. Roll 2nd and 3rd slightly into a rope for arms and legs. Flatten slightly. Decorate adding eyes and buttons and bake at 375 for 8-10min.

Today we made our traditional gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, icing, and lots of goodies from coconut for snow, marshmallows, candy canes, gum drops, chocolate chips and more! The kids had a lot of fun this year since they are getting older and can really get into making them even bigger and better!