Saturday, December 13, 2008

Definitely livin' in Oz

Today we had wind warnings all day long. It's no wonder they made Dorothy from Kansas in the Wizard of Oz. Check out my local weather station data on WeatherUnderground. Temps warmed up to a balmy 56°. Warm enough to have gotten the last of my tulips planted if it weren't for the wind from hell blowing out there. So I put ideas of gardening in December aside and set my sights on other more base pursuits. Food!

I started my holiday baking today, but first on the agenda was to get Matt's (my oldest) birthday cake baked for tomorrow's traditional family get-together. I made him the requested chocolate-peanut butter cake. It's a delectable recipe I found online. We'll see if it becomes a family favorite or a one-hit dud.

Next up was mixing up a batch of sugar cookie dough so Leah, my youngest, and I can do cutouts and decorate them up in our annual ritual. I also started making the white-chocolate covered pretzels and whipped up a quick batch of Puppy Chow.

I decided that since my sister, brother and I will not be exchanging gifts this year (at my brother's request) that I would prepare a little sweets package for them. They can't object to a homemade gift now could they? So I set aside some of the chocolate pretzels and Puppy Chow for their gift and saved the rest for us to nibble on over the next couple of weeks.

The pretzels are such a tedious concoction to make at home, that I wish I didn't love these little treats so much. I got one sheet pan made of them and split that for Shawn and Kate. I still have lots o' chocolate and lots o' pretzels to make more for us.


People Puppy Chow

1 (12 oz.) box Crispix cereal
1 stick butter
1 c. peanut butter
12 oz. pkg. chocolate chips
2 to 3 c. powdered sugar

Microwave on HIGH the butter, peanut butter and chocolate chips for 2 to 3 minutes. Pour the melted mixture over the cereal and stir until the cereal is thoroughly covered. Pour the coated cereal in a paper sack with the powdered sugar and shake until it is covered with the sugar. Pour this onto wax paper to cool and dry. Seal in plastic containers and may be stored in the refrigerator until time to serve.

Serves size: 1/2 cup.

Makes 16 cups

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Brenda,
We enjoyed your blog a lot. We'll check back often. I should encourage Mom to do that since she has been journaling (is that a verb?) since the early 80's, almost without fail except when we are traveling. Even then she does some, but not so diligently as when at home.

Look for a few packages to be arriving soon: one probably tomorrow, and the other…?

It's snowing here now and is supposed to continue through Thursday - yuck! The streets aren't covered yet, so we better go do our errands before it's too late.
I'm not sure what the stuff at the bottom of this window means (e.g., Google/Blogger
You're currently posting as David
Use a different account

Email follow-up comments to david.delcastillo@gmail.com
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Anonymous), but my usual e-mail address is ddelcastillo@comcast.net, although I also have the above mentioned gmail account that I rarely check or use.

Love to all of you. We'll talk to you soon.

Dad