I’m getting around a little late today but wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas before the day is over!! I got a super super super exciting gift and I can’t wait to tell you about it but it’s definitely “Thankful Thursday” material (no it’s not a baby, I wish!) so you’ll have to wait a couple days.
Enjoy your holiday and time with family!
Love, Veronica
I have several cookie recipes that I really wanted to share before Christmas but it’s looking like I won’t be able to do it. :( It’s go-go-go right now, not only with Christmas-related stuff, but it just so happens everyone in my family was born in December (maybe a slight exaggeration) so there are a lot of celebrations going on right now. I’m also busy in my kitchen making the only gifts we’re giving this year, and my sister is begging for help with an order for 12,000 lip balms that she has to do on top of her regular orders, and I think we should take pity on her overworked hide. Soooo yeah…nos be bloggin’.
I do have a giveaway that I’d like to do it this week so you can look forward to at least one post if I can find the time. It’s for Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil (it seriously rocks) and I’m writing a review for it too, otherwise I’d just say “hey leave a comment for a chance to win some awesome coconut oil!” I’ll do my very best because I’d love for the winner to get it in time for Christmas.
For now I will leave you with some pictures from my middle sister’s 30th birthday party with an ugly Christmas sweater theme. Of course, pretty much me and the Haus were the only ones who actually wore ugly sweaters (and Danielle b/c I brought one and forced her to wear it). It was obviously a conspiracy to make fools of us…but you’d be surprised how easy that is to accomplish. No, you actually wouldn’t be surprised, would you?
Two additional notes, the party was in Danielle’s shop in case you’re wondering what’s going on in the background, and my little sister dyed her hair black (she was blonde last time you saw her here), just in case you don’t recognize her!
Dennis wore my sweater and said “my rock hard manly abs are stretching it out.” Meanwhile, I was stretching out a friend’s sweater with my bodacious curves (thanks, Stephanie!)
This holiday season I seem to be getting things right. I’m not blogging very much, and sadly not reading blogs hardly at all, but I’m spending more time on Facebook with friends (at least the night owl ones-lol) and *gasp* have even managed to spend time with friends face to face. Like, I could actually reach out and touch them. I forgot there was more to friendship than “liking” their statuses and pictures. LOL! And I’m very thankful for the time spent with them…
I mentioned Margo on Monday and I pretty much mention her any time Moroccan cuisine comes up (like here), and you can check out my all-time favorite picture of her and Danielle in their glorious hippy high school days here. Anyway, Margo and Ali held a game night at their house and I brought some fun to the party in the form of toot and Twinkies.
Toot is a Persian confection made with marzipan that is fashioned to look like mulberries, or toot, with little pistachio pieces for stems. Yes, toot means mulberries! Why, what did you think it meant? ;) (You can read more about it and get the recipe here.)
My sister won the toot from the bake sale fundraiser for Suzie* and I ended up paying for it, so Azita shipped it to me. And of course I just had to have a toot party because, hello, who in the world as ever had a toot party? Come on now, it had to happen.
A friend says Dennis looks like Alton Brown with his glasses. I can see it!
*Quick Suzie update for those who’ve been asking: We raised $1669 in total which has helped her pay down her outlandish medical bills from her initial hospital stay. She is doing much better and is putting off her gallbladder surgery as long as possible since she already owes so much to the hospital, and is taking photography jobs in the meantime. Thankfully she’s able to eat real food again and not just grass and cardboard-lol. Thanks to all who helped!*
We also brought Twinkies because after Hostess went out of business and all their products were quickly bought up by panicked consumers, we were lucky enough to find some at a Walmart Marketplace recently. So we said a fond farewell to this bastion of American snacking during our game night with this final box. RIP Twinkies.
Ali told us that back home in Morocco they called mulberries “toota” and if a girl was pretty, you could say she was toota. How cute! I guess that’s the Moroccan equivalent to us calling a girl a “peach.” :)
There were board games but as we often do, we fell back on our favorite game-charades. We even had a little foodie action going on when Jimmy took his turn (fun fact: Jimmy used to be a professional chef himself!):
I’ll leave you with this important public service announcement.
Rhonda from Dining Alone has a “Best Thing I Ever Made” feature where she highlights a favorite recipe each week from her archives. In October, she shared this stew as the best soup she’s ever made. All I had to do was take one look at her totally delicious picture (please, go look, and grab a napkin to catch the drool) to know I had to make it.
My sister’s best friend, Margo, married a Moroccan man (that’s them up there with the Twinkies during a Toot and Twinkies game night…but that’s another story for a different day) and she introduced me to their cuisine after she learned to cook it from her sister-in-law. Her Moroccan Chicken Couscous is so so delicious, and this stew has very similar ingredients so I was fairly certain I would love it.
Love it? No, I’m obsessed with it. If this soup were a person, it would have filed a restraining order on me because I stalked it for three nights in a row, made inappropriate noises while eating it, and almost cried when it was gone. I might have separation anxiety. Moroccan Turkey Stew, please don’t leave me! Come back!
So anyway, you should try this stew. And please invite me over for dinner when you do. I promise I’ll keep the inappropriate noises to a minimum.
Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture
1 teaspoon ground allspice
Kosher salt
4 skinless, bone-in turkey thighs (about 4 pounds)*
1/2 medium butternut squash, cut into 2-inch chunks
2 15.5-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes with juices, broken up
1 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup golden raisins
8 medium carrots, cut into 11/2-inch pieces
3 medium red onions, halved and cut into wedges
2 whole dried red chiles
1/2 lemon
2 cups fresh cilantro, including leaves and some stems
1 cup fresh parsley
1 clove garlic, smashed
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
*You can also use bone-in chicken thighs, which is what I opted to use since I couldn’t find turkey legs.
Combine the allspice and 3 teaspoons salt in a small bowl. Season the turkey thighs with half the salt mixture in a 5-quart slow cooker.
Toss the squash, chickpeas, tomatoes, apricots, raisins, carrots, onions and chiles with the remaining spiced salt. Pour the vegetables over the turkey (the cooker will be full; arrange the mixture so the lid fits. And don’t be like me and think you can fit extra veg in because you can’t–trust me.). Cover and cook on high for 6 hours or on low for 7 to 8 hours.
Spoon the vegetables and broth into bowls. Remove and discard the turkey bones and place the meat on top of the vegetables.
Juice the lemon; pulse with the cilantro, parsley, garlic, cumin and 1 teaspoon salt in a food processor. Add the oil and process until smooth. Serve the stew in bowls; drizzle with the cilantro sauce.
*Veronica’s note: your cilantro sauce will probably not be as green as mine (compare it with Rhonda’s picture) because I didn’t measure it and probably used twice as much as I was supposed to. I didn’t care, it was still phenomenal.
Recipe source: Food Network, as seen on Dining Alone
***
Disclaimer: I know I said I wasn’t going to apologize for my bad photos, but I do want to explain that I took these with zero natural light–all I had was the light from the light bulb overhead in the bedroom because for some reason, that is the brightest room in our house. So I think they’re pretty good, considering. Except for the swampy green blobs. That’s not cool, but hey, this is real life up in my kitchen and swampy green blobs happen.
I love dreams. I’m not talking about the kind you have while awake, thinking of how great you can make your future (although those are even better), but the ones you have while sleeping. Some people like to look deeper into them for the meaning, but if they had my dreams, I think they wouldn’t bother. My dreams are the stuff craziness is made of, and I love it.
Last night I dreamed that both my sisters and all our men (OK, two of the men were ex’s of my sisters’ but they are still family to me) were gathered together in my parents’ living room with my nephew, who had a bottle sticking out of his stomach. He had been kidnapped and the evil kidnapper had cut open his stomach and forced a bottle into it before returning him. I know that sounds terrible, but in my dream it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. There was no blood and Owen was not traumatized or in pain. He was just kinda, “Huh. There’s a bottle sticking out of my belly. Crazy.” I wanted to pull it out but we decided it would be best to let it come out naturally because removing it forcibly might harm his insides. ???
Danielle puts a cold cloth to Owen’s cheek after he burned it with a punk on July 4th.
Apparently we were all gathered together to face off against this unknown evil force that in my dream wasn’t just out to harm Owen, but our whole family. We had been doing battle all day and were covered with dirt and smears of blood, but I don’t remember the details of that part of the dream. There was a guy who would call me to tell me what to do next and he told us to go to the field so we ran next door and in the back of the neighbor’s house there was a huge field in place of what is usually the backs of other houses. There was a woman riding her dirt bike out in the field with a man watching her, standing in the field as she did circles around him.
The man on the phone told me to “Stand in front of 11-4.” He spoke in a lot of code that I could never understand. I thought he meant 7-11 and I ran to the front of the house, thinking he wanted me to go to the convenience store on the corner. He yelled at me to go back and I asked if he meant 12-4 because that’s Lacey’s birthday. He quickly told me he messed up and meant to say 12-15 so I stood in front of Danielle because that’s her birthday.
Danielle does not appreciate.
As soon as I took my place, the woman on the dirt bike opened fire on us with a machine gun and we were all shot except for Danielle, who was covered by me. The guy in the field hopped on the bike and they took off together, and our bedraggled group stumbled off towards home again. Though we were all shot, none of us really were acting like it and we weren’t bleeding and I didn’t feel any pain but I felt like I was going to faint and I fell. I knew I had 3-4 bullets in my stomach but I didn’t want to look. And that’s when I woke up.
Yup, I’m totally thankful for that crazy dream. It was so much fun! And I have to say it’s the first dream I’ve had where I’ve ever been shot. So cool. I have to say the best part about having crazy dreams is sharing them with the people who were in them, especially my sisters, because it makes them laugh. Though I don’t think I’ll tell my co-worker (or his wife) I dreamt he randomly kissed a cute girl at work-lol.
Have you had any crazy dreams lately? Do you enjoy your dreams or do you have bad ones? Even though most of mine have terrible things happen in them, they usually don’t feel bad, just really entertaining and amusing. Thankfully I’ve never had what I’d qualify as a nightmare before and hope I never do!
I have a lot of faults. I still wear Crocs (and love them). I always want to lose weight, but like cake more. Once you get to know me, I can be kinda bossy. I am a total dessert Nazi and will threaten bodily harm to anyone who refrigerates my goodies and eats them cold. Thou shalt not eat my desserts cold unless they’re intended to be cold or…
Veronica Miller: Dessert Nazi
Another of my faults is getting irritated by things people do that I’m guilty of as well. Such as over-apologizing. I’m a total over-apologizer and I think it’s knowing that and not liking it about myself that also makes me cringe when other bloggers do it. I hate it when a blogger apologizes for bad photos because what they’re considering “bad” is something I could only accomplish in my wildest dreams. And yet here I am, biting my tongue to keep from apologizing for these photos and the over-processing I did to try and remove the blue hue on the background.
Well you know what, I’m not apologizing. So there. You can hate them and I can hate them but they’re the best I can do and if you think I care enough to actually learn how to take good photos and learn how to edit them properly, you’ve totally overestimated my interest in photography. I just don’t care, therefore I’m not apologizing. You might want to change your color settings to black and white to avoid eye strain, though.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about this popcorn. Scratch that, there’s really not much to say. I mean, look at the photographs. It looks delicious, even with the harsh contrast and weird blue hue, right? Well let me tell you, it tastes even better. I mean, Snickers and caramel corn? Yeah, that was meant to happen.
I made this for Christmas treats last year and was a big hit! I now buy mini Snickers on sale after holidays just so I can make this popcorn and Sneaky Snickers Cookies. Fo shizzle, mah grizzle. Get ‘r done, with yonce grizz-maleon toes!
Um yeah. Sorry for the momentary lapse into Vraklis-speak. That didn’t mean anything beyond, “please make this.”
Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture
½ cup popcorn kernels
1 cup salted butter
2 cups light brown sugar, packed
½ cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup salted, roasted peanuts
1 (11.18 oz) bag Fun Size Snickers (about 19 bars), coarsely chopped
2 almond bark candy coating rectangles, melted
Preheat oven to 200 degrees F. Pop the kernels in an air popper into a large bowl. Set aside. In a large 3-quart saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Heat over medium high, stirring frequently, until the mixture starts to boil. Stop stirring, reduce heat to medium, and boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the baking soda. Pour over popcorn and mix well. Transfer to a large roasting pan and bake for 1 hour, 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Stir in the Snickers and bake three more minutes to allow them to melt into the popcorn a little. Spread out onto waxed paper and drizzle candy coating over the top. Allow to cool completely before breaking up and storing in an airtight container or Ziploc bags.
Recipe source: tweaked from Cookies & Cups
I was so going to post a recipe today since I haven’t done one all week, but our cousin, Sherry, shared some pics she took at the wedding reception and hers are soooo much better than my dark and grainy ones that I had to show you guys a couple, especially the cake since you can actually see what it looked like in real life in her photo. I promise I’ll be back on the recipes bandwagon next week!
Am I allowed to be really pleased with my own cake? Because I so am! Please click to enlarge and marvel that I managed to get the corners & edges so crisp on the buttercream–that took hours and hours and I was ready to scream before it finally started to look the way I wanted it to. But this photo is almost enough to make me renounce my “last wedding cake ever!” proclamation that came before it was finished. Like the pain of childbirth (so I hear), it was quickly forgotten and now I’m thinking about doing it again. Silly, silly me.
Hope you guys have a great weekend! See you on the flip side!
So did any of you realize that the cake in yesterday’s wedding photos was the cake I said I was making on Thanksgiving? Oh yes it is! It survived the 1 1/2 hour journey and did not explode, implode, topple over, get dropped, get smashed, get stepped on, sat on, or even sneezed on. It was perfect. Well, as close to perfect as I’ll ever get a cake. Thank the Lord above for small miracles! Or perhaps in my case, it was a miracle of epic proportions.
This was my first wedding cake:
And this was my first wedding cake done for a couple I did not know, so the stress factor and importance factor was even higher (they did not have love for me to help with forgiveness, lol):
Notice the water on the box? Yeah, it was raining. I hope it’s true that the more goes wrong on your wedding day, the smoother your marriage, because if so, this couple must be the happiest couple on Earth! They certainly deserve it.
And here’s the sad little dummy cake (made out of styrofoam) I made in a hurry to replace the cake I ruined…and then proceeded to drop and ruin it as well. It was a bad. day.
So yeah, it’s a pretty big deal that the only snafu I ran into with this cake was that the top tier suffered from icing budge (when the air inside a refrigerated cake expands as it comes to room temperature and causes a bulge and/or eruption in the frosting). I even put a dowel rod in the top tier to keep the budge from happening but should have removed it to allow more air to circulate during the trip, but even so, this was a small problem and I just pressed the frosting back into place with a spatula and it was good as new.
I was so happy you guys! The bride was happy, the groom was happy, and we all lived happily ever after.
Until the cake slid off the table. ;) The end.
Photo courtesy of Mrs. FitzH2O
OK, so I do have a few words to set things up for the photo fest below. Dennis’ cousin, Mike (who was the best man at our wedding), married his sweetheart, Angi, in Jamaica on November 16th and we celebrated with them after their return at a reception last Saturday. Hovering over the pics with your mouse will give more details if you want them, and a few pics you can click to enlarge.
I just got an email from Joy Bauer with the subject line, “12 Ways to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain.”
Say whaaaaat? Weren’t the holidays invented to give me an excuse to gain weight? If not, I guess I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. But it’s so much more fun my way!
(tips snagged from an email)
1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas Spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they’re serving rum balls.
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It’s not as if you’re going to turn into an eggnogaholic or something. It’s a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It’s later than you think. It’s almost Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That’s the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.
4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they’re made with skim milk or whole milk. If it’s skim, pass. Why bother? It’s like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people’s food for free.
6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year’s. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you’ll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10 lb. plate of food and that vat of eggnog.
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don’t budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They’re like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind,you’re never going to see them again.
8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or if you don’t like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?
9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it’s loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all costs. I mean, have some standards. (The one exception: Friendship Fruit Cake. If you receive one, hide it from the family and eat it quickly before they have a chance to impinge on your fruit cake joy.)
10. One final tip: If you don’t feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven’t been paying attention. Re-read tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner.
Now that’s the holiday spirit I’m talkin’ bout!
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