3 "holiday" desserts you should make year round

It really is a shame that some of the very best treats and sweets are intended for just one month of the year!  The reality is, though, that many of these delicious goodies can be made for other occasions, especially for ones that involve red and white (like Valentine's Day, which is just around the corner).  Here are a few suggestions from my holiday list of favorites...

... and then it's your turn!  What are your favorite "holiday" desserts that you can (and do!) make even in the spring or heat of summer?
 

{pictured above}

Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies

Original recipe from my friend Joy.  These cookies are amazing.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter softened  
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar 
• 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar 
• 2 large eggs 
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla 
• 3/4 cup cocoa 
• 1 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. all purpose flour 
• 1 tsp. baking soda 
• 3/4 tsp salt 
• 12 large candy canes or 6 oz. peppermints crushed into pieces (make sure not to crush too much or it will become powdery) 
• 1 (12 oz.) bag white chocolate chips
   
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  
2. Add eggs and 1 1/2 tsp vanilla, beating until blended. 
3. Combine flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt in a small bowl; gradually add to butter mixture, beating just until blended. 
4. Beat in candy canes and white chocolate chips just until combined. 
5. Drop using a 2 tbsp. scoop onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Bake 10-14 minutes. I bake them 12 minutes. 
6. Remove to wire racks and cool completely (about 15 minutes). 

Mini Cheesecake Petit-Fours

Original recipe from paper{whites}.

Makes 24 petit-fours. 

Ingredients

• 1 8-oz. 'brick' of cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
• 6 double squares of graham crackers, roughly broken up
• 1 can cherry pie filling 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line mini muffin tins with liners. 
2. Place graham cracker pieces in a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until they break down into fine crumbs. Melt butter in a medium-sized, microwave safe bowl and add the crumbs to the melted butter. Mix until well combined. 
3. Using a 1/2 teaspoon, spoon the mixture into the lined muffin tins and use your fingers to press lightly to mold them into the bottom and sides of the tins to form a crust.
4. Mix the cream cheese with the sugar until silky smooth (get rid of all the lumps!). Add vanilla, and then the eggs, one at a time. Scrap down the sides of the bowl as you mix.
5. Using a teaspoon, spoon the cream cheese mixture into the muffin tins to about 2/3 full. 
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes and cool in tins for 15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before refrigerating at least 2 hours. (Note: when you pull the petit-fours out of the oven, they'll look underdone, but they'll firm up as you let them cool.) 
7. Immediately prior to serving, top each petit-four with a cherry.

Caramel Pecan Shortbread Pie Bars

Original recipe from ButterBaking.com
Makes 48 small squares, or 24 larger bars.
Ingredients


• For the base 
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 cups flour (+ 1–2 tbsp)
• For the topping 
• 2 cups of pecan halves, roasted
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter 
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 tbsp cream
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F) and line a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with baking paper.
2. To make the shortbread base:
1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.  Add the flour and mix on a low speed until a crumbly mixture forms. If it is too sticky, add a couple more tablespoons of flour. It should be crumbly but stick together when pressed.
2. Press the shortbread into the base of the prepared baking pan. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes until the top is dry and slightly puffed.
3. While the crust is baking, make the topping. 
1. In a medium saucepan, melt together the butter, brown sugar, honey, cream and salt over a medium heat.
2. Bring it to a simmer and let it bubble for about 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Mix in the pecans and vanilla.
4. Pour the pecan caramel mixture over the hot shortbread base and spread out the pecans as evenly as possible.
5. Bake for about 12 – 15 minutes, until evenly bubbling all over.
6. Allow to cool completely before cutting.

a tasty sip :: Pom & sparkling water

While searching for foodie inspiration for the vet clinic Christmas party at our house a few weeks ago, I came across this delicious signature cocktail.  Inspired, I bought pomegranate juice and some Prosecco, and then I also bought sparkling water for the pregnant girl (ie. me).  

I gave the combination a try at the party and was totally hooked!  The sparkling water and tart juice are a refreshing combination.  It's like drinking a fruit soda but with all-natural sugar.  

Want to try?  It's pretty simple...

Gather sparkling water and either Pom or another juice.  I tried this Blueberry-Pomegranate juice because it was less expensive, but it's too sweet for me.  I like the tangy kick of pure pomegranate juice!  (The price of Ocean Spray, however, is sweeter than the price of Pom.) 

Thankfully, sparkling water is cheap in Italy; I bought this sparkling water for about 40 cents a bottle.

Pour yourself some sparkling water and then splash in juice to your taste.  I guesstimate that I add 2-3 tablespoons of juice.

And that's all there is to it.  Kick back and rehydrate with this refreshing mocktail!

practicing what I preach :: toy library

Old-time readers of my blog will know that I love the book Simplicity Parenting; I wrote a book review about it for the blog almost a year ago.  In one section of the book the author suggests starting a toy library.  Try putting out only a few toys at at time for your child to play with and then switching up the available toys every few weeks or so.

Well, I've been trying to incorporate this idea into my parenting for awhile now, and anyone will tell you that I've been less than faithful.  However, on Christmas Eve night, as I crawled around the floor on my hands and knees tidying up Lena's toys (as I do every evening... and after every nap... and after we leave one room for another...), my husband shook his head and said, "What about that toy library, honey?"

I looked at the present Lena had just opened and the pile of presents to be opened tomorrow over the next several days and agreed with him.  I dumped out her toy basket and removed everything except a relatively new alphabet puzzle and the gift she had just opened.  Everything else went into her toy library bin.  Many of the smaller items had to be organized into Ziploc bags.

(Do you see that white garbage bag under all these toys?  That is full of infant toys, which I'll be breaking out at the end of January for our new baby!  And so the toy multiplication continues....)

The blue bin went back up on her closet, to be taken down again in a couple weeks, when Christmas toys will be put away and old favorites will be pulled out again.

By the time I was finished (not even 15 minutes later), all that remained in her toy basket was the puzzle, a few balls, and her new baby doll and accessories.  Oh, and the box the baby came in, which I think makes a nice little cradle.  Simplicity parenting, right?!

Have you ever done something like this for your kids?  Or would you like to when you have some? :-)

Christmas morning!

Puuuuuullll off that wrapping paper!

Oh Christmas morning in Sicily, I hope you are the start of our family Christmas tradition!  It was a quiet, peaceful morning for the three of us as we opened a few gifts at a time (still haven't opened all of them!) and ate a big Christmas breakfast together.  Although we kept our gift-giving very simple for each other, our family showered us with many thoughtful presents from afar, and their evident love for us made them seem not so far away.  While we loved our Christmas as a little family here in Sicily, we would have given it up in a heartbeat to share our Christmas morning with them!

Later that day we changed out of our pajamas for a Christmas party with friends at Emily and Patrick's... and then of course as soon as we got home the pajamas went right back on and Elliott started a fire in the hearth.  We finished the evening with Skype chats with our family.  

One thing I couldn't forget all day: last year my family was here for Christmas.  I tried to hold Christmas Past (which included my sister Julia) hand-in-hand with Christmas Present, carrying with me the blessings as well as the aches.  There is so much to be thankful for this year, truly, and even more to look forward to both in this coming year and into the future.

Did you come up with any new rituals or celebrations this year that you hope become traditions?  I'm not sure what I think of spreading out the gift opening over four days...!  Have you ever done that?

Christmas Eve brunch at our home

Buncha munchkins, aren't they?!

We have a huge farmhouse table in our kitchen, a wonderful bonus that came with our house here in Sicily.  I love to fill it up with guests as often as seems feasible; the table is just so empty (and such a good collector of odds and ends!) when there are just three of us eating at it all the time. 

For Christmas Eve, we invited our dear friends the Arthurs and a family we don't know as well to come over for brunch.  All of us contributed family traditions to the Christmas meal: Monte Cristo bake from Jaime, sausage and egg casserole from Becca, and these cinnamon rolls from me.  With fruit skewers, fresh bacon, juices, hot wassail, and big cups of coffee, we feasted! 

All the kids clearly loved being together from that first cup of juice to the last minute of The Muppet Christmas Carol (which they are waiting for in the photo above).  Meanwhile we adults spent hours around the table, nibbling on just one more delicious bite and exchanging life stories, travel wisdom, and how to acquire Polish pottery for the best price (Jaime and I are great lovers of this pottery!).

The truth is that if we were living back in the States, all of us would probably have spent Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day at our parents' homes.  This long and leisurely brunch make "home" seem not so far away, which I think is always true whenever you make someone your favorite dish, join hands with them in prayer, and linger long at their table.

Were you away from family this Christmas?  What did you do to make it memorable?  With one more Christmas ahead of us here in Sicily away from family, I'm eager to hear suggestions!

our book tree + Christmas cheer!

our book tree! 

now with presents... all we need is Christmas morning

Merry Christmas, dear readers!  I've been wanting to share our holiday decor with you for awhile, but... well, until a few days ago we didn't have a tree at all, so that would have been a bit of a bust.  The other afternoon, though, I had an extra hour and decided to surprise Elliott when he came home with another book tree.  We made our first one last year and loved it, as there is no better tree for budget-conscious nerds like us.  (It also completely eliminates the "are we fake tree people or real tree people??" debate.)  This year our tree is elevated out of the reach of little hands on my craft table, and it has made that dark corner of the living room come alive.

(By the way, I scored the cute vintage mitten wrapping paper and the retro stripe paper from IKEA earlier this week.  So pretty!)

And, of course, there are the other holiday decorations for our home, like garlands on the bannisters and bows on the door (although I loved our red ones last year even more than these glittery gold bows).  I also love displaying my grandmother's gift to us: a tiny little tree from Switzerland with its precious wooden ornaments.

I will tell you that I had another tree first.  It was quite beautiful and creative, and I was pleased today when Martha Stewart's Organizing Tip of the Day email had the same idea.  I took two medium-sized tree branches, spray-painted them gold, and put them in a glass vase.  I then carefully hung all our beautiful handmade ornaments (again, thank you, Grammie, for your gift of a handmade ornament every year of my life!) on the branches as well as two beautiful glass ball ornaments that Elliott and I had purchased soon after we got married.

Unfortunately it was a little top heavy, I guess.  It fell over.  The casualty?  One of those newlywed glass ornaments smashed into a million pieces!  I dismantled the tree and took the branches out to the trash heap.  Sorry, honey, I have a long way to go before I'm Martha!

life lately

 washing, sorting, and storing clothes for our little man!

& someone "helps" me with her baby brother's socks and onesies

 the new puzzle from Grammie is a huge hit 

& part of a photoshoot for my sister-in-law Jess to thank her for a great birthday present: maternity duds!  

33 weeks now :-)

 Lena discovered this photo album of me in my college days and loves to page through it

& knitting, reading, a Maine Coon kitten, and a baby bump

best buds

& opening the Advent calendar from Auntie Eden

 rockin' out in a pharmacy in town (where they provide toys for children?!  I love Italy!)

& more baby boy clothes... I couldn't resist

 mop bucket madness

& photo from a classical piano concert we attended with friends 

(and stayed out till 2am... I had forgotten I could do that!)

what happens when you ask your hubby to "just let me finish knitting this hat"

& Daddy's warm weather gear on a blue-eyed babe

***

Linking up with Lindsay of Hello Hue today!

Advent calendars

Eden and David, two of Elliott's siblings, have given us not one but two Advent calendars this season.  They are both unique and so beautiful, and they really have made this season all the more special each day.  As the chapel services on base do not discuss Advent besides lighting the Advent wreath each Sunday, this is a way to incorporate the anticipation and joy of the season into our everyday lives at home.

David sent us this Advent calendar, which he purchased from JohnsonMade on Etsy.  I hung the calendar with the help of 5 carefully spaced nails on our kitchen wall as well as red ribbon and clothespins.  I love the artwork on each card and the verses and activity suggestions on the back.

Eden knows her brother loves birds, and so her choice of Advent calendar is especially sweet for Elliott.  Every day we help Lena open one of the little windows in the calendar and pull out the tiny paper bird inside.  Then we help her choose a spot on the tree to place it.  Bit by bit, the tree is filling up with a flock of many colored birds.  I wonder what's hiding in the big window for the 25th?

Do you have an Advent calendar, either new to you or filled with family tradition?

My favorite DIY Advent calendar idea this year is from paper{whites}.  Her calendar has 25 pockets that she filled with tiny ornaments; each day her little daughter takes out an ornament and puts it on her very own miniature tree!

Night of Noel

Lemme just say... Night of Noel... around here, it's a big deal.

(OK, it's a big deal for the group of Christian women connected to a rather small Naval Air Station on a rather small island in a rather small sea.) 

For the past couple of years, Night of Noel has been ah-may-zing.  My friend Joy (creator of Peppermint Bark Chocolate Chip cookies) transformed our chapel fellowship hall into a land touched by elves with twinkle lights.  Unfortunately two things happened between last year and this year: Joy moved away this summer, and I volunteered to be the Hospitality Chair for my Bible study this fall.  Unconnected, right?  I thought so... until I found out that part of my new job included all the decorating for Night of Noel. 

For those of you who don't know me that well, I'm not much of a decorator, or even that creative.  Sure, I like making things, like Peppermint Bark Chocolate Chip cookies and felt baby shoes, but generally I follow recipes or adapt patterns... or take a little jaunt around Pinterest.

Well, it was too late to turn back now.  Recreating the magic of Night of Noel was up to me.  Or so I thought.

What I found out, however, was that even though Night of Noel's beauty was up to me in theory... whereas in reality I had a small army around me of dedicated, creative, and profoundly hardworking women.  I showed up on Friday for an evening of decorating the hall and couldn't believe it when about 10 other women showed up too.  On Sunday afternoon even the guests who showed up early were happy to put the batteries in the last set of twinkle lights or take pictures of my table when I didn't have time.

And my table that I was hostessing?  It was a collaborative effort between my dear friend Becca and me (Becca Squared was at it again) and pretty much every idea was hers.  Don't you love the pine branches with the little place cards and the burlap straps that make the table look like a rustically wrapped gift?  I added gilded pine cones that I'd collected on our latest Mt. Etna hike and spray painted gold, and then sprinkled greenery and cranberries around some of the candles on the table.

Christmas trees decorated with simple white lights were an easy solution to my decorating woes for the rest of the hall.  Next year (did I just say that?) I might elevate the smaller trees onto tables so that the whole room could see them.   There are at least five trees that are invisible in this picture:

The delicious meal was perfectly prepared by one of Lena's favorite Italian babysitters, Maria.  We started with bruschetta and Maria's famous campanada, a Sicilian specialty.  Later the main course included a chicken cutlets and the local classic: pasta alla Norma (eggplant, tomato, and ricotta pasta).

And then, just as I was beginning to breathe a sigh of relief, disaster struck.  

We hostesses were responsible for our table's dessert, and I thought chocolate fondue would be an easy and elegant option. Unfortunately I had no idea how many things were wrong with this plan.   

1. I have never made fondue before in my life.  
2. The commissary (grocery store) didn't have the right kind of chocolate, but I didn't know that so I just bought baking chocolate.  (Gag.)  
3. I made it in a crock pot over the course of several hours while I furiously finished decorating and then began hostessing my table.

When I hurried into the kitchen to supervise the serving of my dessert, the fondue was not fondue.  As one friend aptly put it later, it looked like coffee grounds.  Coffee grounds!!!  The chocolate had formed large, grainy clumps and separated from the oil.  I swirled a spoon around the pot with horrified despair.  

Meanwhile my guests in the hall sipped their hot cider by candlelight and waited for dessert.  The waiters around me were quickly plating white chocolate raspberry cheesecake and individual dark chocolate mousse that other table hostesses had brought.

In the end, Maria saved the day.  She had made a huge Italian cake just because... because she's Maria and she does unexpectedly sweet things like that.  I asked the waiters to plate slices of her cake with the best of our fondue dippers: oranges and coconut cookies.  It was a meager offering compared to my dreams, and I ate it like humble pie.

For the first time in my life that evening I received a public thank you and a gift for decorating the event.  I have always wondered what it feels like to be one of those extraordinary, capable women who gets a gift bag and a big thank you in front of a room of applauding people enjoying her handiwork.  Now I know how it feels.

It feels undeserved, because there are probably 15 other people who deserve this applause more than you do, 15 people who worked just as hard as you did but with no job description to egg them on.

It feels false, because "Becca's beautiful vision" was all from those 15 other women.  And Pinterest.

And it feels so sweet, because the people applauding are grateful and appreciative even when they eat oranges for dessert instead of chocolate and when they can't see the miniature Christmas trees on the floor. 

There is no Pleasure like that of receiving Praise from the Praiseworthy.

-Richard Steele-