Holiday Place Cards

POST OVERLOAD!! Two in one week! LOL -- my mom asked me to make some place cards for our big Christmas dinner... I've been wanting to make these pie-cards but haven't had the chance, so I started making them, then I read the instructions and they need to dry for 3-5 days... so that wouldn't work for Christmas! I had to come up with a plan B, and fast! And there weren't a lot of options since I didn't want to run out at 3pm on Christmas eve. Then I came across these little cuties - number 17! I found some adorable ribbon and some craft paper I had lying around, and whipped them up!

I did the names on the computer, my secret (since I'm on a mac and I don't have Adobe suite) is to use powerpoint, and just resize the slides to 8.5" x 11". It seems to work better than trying to work in Word or even Excel. I decided to do women, men, and children all in different colors (since I'm a little spiteful I had to sit at the children's table WELL into my twenties). I printed the names in big ovals... maybe 4" x 2" and cut them out. Hole-punched the ends, then threaded some cut ribbon through them. I lucked out because my mom had ribbon with wire in the edges, so it made it a LOT easier. I made sure they could stand, then cut the ends of the ribbon to look like candy, and VOILA! Done :)

These were legit SO easy, and could very simply be made for ANY occasion or even a non-occasion dinner party.

HAPPY HAPPY!
xoxo,
janie from scratch

Friday..err Monday Happy Hour: Coquito aka Puerto Rican Eggnog

I've been remiss about keeping up with this blog this year :( and I've made so many delicious things! One of my favorite part of the holidays is hanging out with the bees when they make coquito (the bees are a group of girls in Orlando). I got a recipe from one of the gals at my new job (YES! new job in Tampa!) and decided to make some to share at Christmas this year. It's pretty simple... here goes:

Coquito

• 2 egg yolks, beaten
• 12 ounce can evaporated milk
• 14 ounce can cream of coconut (you can usually find this with the mixers in the supermarket)
• 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup white rum (okay, I used a whole cup)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Start by cooking the egg yolks & evaporated milk over a double boiler until it reaches 160 on a candy thermometer or it's thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

In a blender, combine the rest of the ingredients. 

When the egg mixture is cooked, add it to the blender and blend for 30 seconds. I left the little middle lid off and covered with a towel just in case it tried to explode like that one time at BTW's (cleaning gazpacho off blinds is NOT fun, FYI). 

Then I cleaned out two wine bottles and poured the mixture into both. It made a LOT! Almost two full wine bottles! 

Then, just let cool and sit overnight and you're ready to share with all your alcoholic friends and family! I should've made fancy labels but it's almost Christmas and ain't nobody got time for that! 

Hope you have a great holiday :)
xoxo,
janie from scratch

Bacon Jam

Last time, I told you about the $9 Crock Pot my AWESOME coworker got me from Black Friday. I needed to christen it and what better way than with a batch of delicious Bacon Jam?! I first heard of this from my friend Flossie who loves bacon just as much as I do.

Now, I know what you're thinking... bacon jam... EW! But, take my word for it, it is AMAZING. It will change your life for the better, nay, the best. I brought a jar to work today for everyone to try and it got RAVE reviews! My officemate and I thought of ways to use it: on sliders, on biscuits or egg mcmuffins, as a "sauce" on a thin-crust pizza with onions, with baked brie instead of fruit jam. The list is truly endless. And, of course, it's SUPER easy. :)

Martha Stewart's Bacon Jam
1 1/2 lbs bacon, cut crosswise into 1" pieces
2 white onions, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves
1/2 cup cider vinegar
3/4 cup coffee
1/4 cup maple syrup (please don't cheat and use Aunt Jemima!)
1/2 cup brown sugar

In a large skillet, cook the bacon until the fat is rendered and the edges are just starting to brown.

Remove with a slotted spoon to the slow cooker. Add the chopped onions to the fat (Martha says to remove most of the fat first, but I refuse... fat=flavor) and cook until translucent.

Pour into slow cooker with bacon. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir to combine.

Cook for 3-4 hours on high with the lid OFF, until liquid is syrupy. Your house will smell amazing, as an aside.

Pour mixture into a blender or food processor, and blend/process until mixture is chunky, but not totally smooth.

 (As a reminder, if you blend hot liquids, leave the little middle lid off, and cover the hole with a dish towel to prevent blender explosions!)

Mmmm looks good!

Pour mixture into canning jars (I don't usually do the whole canning-jar boiling-water process because I put this right into the fridge, but you can if you want). Refrigerate until firm (the mixture will be runny when warm, but firm up in the fridge).

Then share with only your nearest and dearest!

Happy holidays lovies!
xoxox,
Janie from Scratch

Doggy Cookies/I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!

IT'S THE HOLIDAYS!! It's my favorite time of year. I am literally obsessed with all things Christmas. I just got back from a week and a half in Hamburg and I went to every Christmas Market I could find. In Germany, in every city, town, neighborhood, they have Christmas Markets. The closest thing we have in America are fairs. There are big ones and small ones, fancy ones and regular ones. There's booths and booths of everything, food, drinks, toys, crafts, anything you could want. My favorite part is the food (wurst! fried dough! latkes!) and the gluhwein, which is a mulled red wine served warm. And also just being surrounded by Christmas lights and happy people and being outdoors in cold Christmas weather. SO good. I love it and miss it.

Here's a gluhwein stand:

And here's one of the fancier Christmas Markets with all white tents:

Sigh, I digress.

So now that I'm back, it's time to get ready for actual Christmas. I LOVE making Christmas gifts from scratch, but don't have a whole lot of friends down here yet to give them to. I found something SUPER CUTE on pinterest for the gals at the office, and I might whip up some bacon jam for the guys with my new crock-pot (one of my AWESOME coworkers bought it for me on Black Friday for $9!). One of my good friends here has an adorable and sweet black lab, so I wanted to make something special for Smokey too. On pinterest, I've been keeping a board of things I can make for Christmas gifts and awhile ago I pinned a big list of doggy treats. They looked super easy, so I whipped up a batch last night :) I highly recommend making homemade doggy treats if you have pups. It was seriously so easy, and of course, all-natural, no chemicals, etc.

Kiss Me Doggy Cookies (supposed to help with bad doggy breath!)

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup oats
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 1/2 cup dried milk
• 1 cup peanut butter
• water as needed to combine

Mix everything together in a mixer. The recipe originally called for 2 tablespoons of water, but when it was all mixed, it was still very dry:

 So, little by little, I added more water:

And a little more, until it was balling up in my mixer. My mixer got a little angry at me!

All-in-all, I probably added close to 1/2 cup of water. A LOT more than the 2 tablespoons it called for. So, just add little by little until you get to a more doughy consistency. Remember, you can always add more, but you can't take out! Also, I just thought of this today, but you could probably add in some chicken or beef bouillon and/or use chicken or beef broth instead of water to give these more flavor. As-is, they taste pretty peanut-buttery (yes, I taste-tested a small bite). 

To roll them out is pretty easy. I didn't even use any flour! I rolled them about 1/2 thick and used some cute holiday cookie cutters:

Bake at 300 on a non-stick cookie sheet for 20-30 minutes, depending how chewy you want the cookies to be.

I did about 25 minutes, and they were crunchy on the outside but a little soft on the inside. Let cool on a normal cookie rack:

Then package them up super cute and give them to your doggy-owner friends! This recipe made 36 cookies.

I think Tutu got a little jealous while I was making them... she was keeping pretty good watch. And she taste-tested one for me and liked it too! :)

(She's pretty adorable when she's not knocking all the bulbs off the Christmas tree!)

Hopefully I'll get around to sharing the goodies I'm gonna make for my work peeps, but in case I don't, have a wonderful & happy holidays my lovely blog readers!! :)

Aunt Sybil's Corn Casserole

As you may or may not know, I'm going to Europe over Thanksgiving, so I'll be missing all the traditional fixins' this year (because, as shocking as it is to us self-centered Americans, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Europe). I could really take or leave the turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potato mush. And thank god my family doesn't make that green bean crap. I make enough homemade mashed potatoes during the year that I never crave those. But, one thing I CANNOT live without on any holiday (including Easter sometimes in our family) is corn casserole. My darling Aunt Sybil started making this for us when my brother and I were really young, and Jamers just LOVED it. She has since passed, so now he usually makes it at holidays. Since I'm missing Thanksgiving this year, I wanted to make a whole feast, but decided against it (partially because my roommate is morally opposed to eating meat attached to bones.. weird, I know), but I still wanted to make corn casserole because it's easy and so so yummy and it'll be JUST enough Thanksgiving food to get me through to Christmas!

Aunt Sybil's Corn Casserole
1 box Jiffy Cornbread mix
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 stick butter, melted
1 can creamed corn
1 can whole corn, drained

Mix everything together, pour into casserole dish and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until the middle is set. Last night, mine took over an hour to bake. I baked mine in a 8" cake pan (we are sadly short on casserole dishes at the "penthouse," housewarming gift anyone??) so it was a little thicker than usual, I think that's why it took so long. So if you bake it in a larger pan where the batter is thinner, check on it because it will cook faster (maybe even faster than 45 minutes). You can also easily double this recipe and bake in a 9" x 12".

I just ate this by itself last night (literally 1/3 of the pan and then I felt sick haha), but it's a super easy, Southern side dish that goes with almost anything. It'd be REALLY good with BBQ!

Enjoy :)

4th of July Strawberries

For the 4th of July this year I was invited to a fun pool party in Wilton Manors (a super trendy and awesome neighborhood in Ft Lauderdale). I was asked to bring a dessert, but I wanted to do something healthy and I found on pinterest (of course, do you see a theme?) some adorable 4th of July Red, White & Blue strawberries. They were so easy to make and a BIG hit! Except, everyone's mouth turned blue from the sprinkles! ;)

4th of July Strawberries
strawberries (I bought 3 pints because that day at Publix the strawberries looked a little sad and I wanted enough that I could use that were "pretty"... yes I'm crazy!)
white candy melts (I found these at Michael's using a coupon, but you could also use white chocolate)
blue sprinkles

Wash and dry the strawberries. It's very important to dry them well otherwise the candy melts (or chocolate) won't stick! Pour the sprinkles in a bowl (a bowl is easier than using a plate). Put the candy melts in a microwave-safe bowl, microwave for 30 seconds, stir, and repeat until melted. Dip a strawberry about 2/3 the way up in the candy melts. You might have to roll from side to side to get it fully covered. Then dip about 1/2 the way up in the sprinkles and roll from side to side until evenly sprinkled. Lay on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or tin foil. Refrigerate until firm (this won't take that long, maybe 30 mins-1 hour). Take to a party and show off to all your friends how cute and creative you are! :)

[These would also be super cute for Christmas with green sprinkles.]

ENJOY!