Holiday Cheer

Last year I had grand ideas of decorating for the holidays by cooking figgy pudding and boning ducks. This year, while still in the holiday spirit, I have been a bit more realistic, and unlike my usual procrastinating self, I've also started early. Here's a glimpse into a few of the holiday crafts I've been attempting around the house.


I made my first holiday wreath from stuff in my yard. I started with a $4 twiggy wreath from Michaels.

I cut some bay grasses from my yard that needed to be trimmed down before winter anyways.

 I added the grasses by tucking them in while going in one circular direction. A lot of the grass stuck out pretty far, but I liked it that way.

 Then, with my flashlight (it was late) and scissors in tow, I cut some sprigs off of my holly bush out front. The one downside to taking your materials from outside, and not buying them, is that you have to deal with all of the spider webs and creepy crawlies that get tangled up in your flora.

 Again, I just shoved the little holly springs into the wreath, in one main circular direction. I quickly learned that if I only decorated the "face" of the wreath, then the top, and inside would look really bare when I lifted it up, so I had to go back and do some adjusting. I also found some baby pine cones from the pine tree out front and jammed those in as well.

I wanted it to look really earthy, so I loosely stuck some grass on top of the holly.

Here are a few shots after I hung it on the front door.

 I've been "etching" to try this project since I saw this post last year. First, I printed out the words "holiday cheer" in 72 pt font, scotch taped the words to painters tape, which was on a wooden cutting board. I cut out the letters with an exacto knife. As you can see, the letters aren't perfect, but I sort of liked the imperfections.

 

 This was the scary part. The etching cream has all kinds of warnings on it. It even uses the word "fatal!" I mean, it dissolves glass, what could it do to my insides?! I was worried I would accidentally get some on my hand and then wipe my eye, and that I would get a globular shape etched into my eyeball

 

 
 I watched it from the inside to make sure it wasn't bleeding. You only need to leave it on for 60 seconds, so I was kind of anxious about making sure that I didn't over-etch.

 After washing it thoroughly and pealing off the tape, here's the result.

 Then, I cut out the word holiday and repeated the process.

 

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For this last project, I simply grabbed a square glass vase and picked pine cones from my front yard. There were lots of baby cones when I went out, and only a few that had the typical pine cone shape. They also came pre-sapped. No white spray paint needed.

I put up my tree, but one of the lights is broken, so the top of the tree isn't lit. I'm waiting until I can replace the bulb to hang the ornaments. I already broke out the Christmas music, however, and my cheese factor is getting dangerously high. You might say I'm pretty "sappy" over Christmas this year. (haha, get it?) I might have even been singing "fa la la la la to the dogs last night..."

Just throwing on some chili tonight while I grade leftover papers that I should have done over Thanksgiving. I hope you're having a great start to the Holiday season!

Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving! Here are just a few of the things that I am thankful for this year. I also included a little pre-Thanksgiving recipe. I hope you have a terrific holiday!



5. Music. Yes, even us top-40 radio-listeners can appreciate music. So thank you to all of the girls and boys with guitars and pianos who make me sing squeak along like I'm on American Idol. (I like Adele when I'm feeling contemplative.)

4. My job. Teaching has got to be one of the best professions in the world. I got really frustrated this year because it seems like the media just can't get enough of bashing teaching and American education. But policies and politicians don't make up education, teachers and kids do. I am so lucky that my classes are full of kids who are thoughtful, intelligent, curious, and creative. Teaching is the most fun job out there. Where else do you have a group of 30 people all together in a room with the sole purpose of learning, discovering, and exploring?  We can joke, we can laugh at ourselves, we can connect music and film to literature, we can talk about our favorite books, we can debate and give our opinions, learn our strengths and work on our weaknesses. I mean, last week a student gave a persuasive speech about the Zombie Apocalypse. He brought in props, threw his papers on the ground, and banged his fist on the podium in a passionate fit! Afterwards, the students broke into spontaneous applause. It was incredible!

 3. The precious pups. Even though they eat my books, pee on the throw rugs, and bark all night, all of those things are worth it for the endless love they give. They are so hilariously entertaining and cuddly.

 2. My family. Especially my sister for getting home from college in one piece! She rented a car and drove herself 10 hours through the middle of the night and the rain to get home for Thanksgiving. Sarah, you rock! And I'm glad you are finally home.

1. No Thanksgiving list is complete without being thankful for the impending feast! I'm thankful that I finally got around to making this Turkey Roulade after not getting up the motivation to do it  last year. It was fun and not even too difficult (although I did cheat a bit.) Here is the end result. If you want to see the steps on how I put it together, I've included ten-thousand pictures and a bit of instruction below.

Here's the whole process from the beginning, if you're interested!


 Greg and I bought this almost-two-pound Turkey breast at the grocery store on Saturday.

Scarily, it still had bones in it. I had not idea what to do, so I just felt around for where I could feel all of the bones connecting, wielded my knife and cut.

I made have cut a tiny bit more than needed on the end, but I still had plenty of meat left, so I figured I could make it work. 

I then had to "butterfly" the breast myself, which I didn't really do too prettily, but after I flattened the breast with a crab mallet, I doubt you would have been able to see that handiwork anyway.

Then I chopped some walnuts (about a 1/4 cup) and toasted them in my toaster oven.

 I sauteed 1/4 of a medium diced onion, garlic, and eventually the walnuts and craisins in 1 tablespoon of hot Canola oil. The recipe I was using called for making my own stuffing, but I just made a 3 minute box of Stovetop (I've got to save myself something to do next year!) 2 cups of the cooked stuffing also went into the pan. I also poured about 1/3 of a cup of chicken broth to the steaming pan so the stuffing didn't stick to the bottom and to moisten the mixture. You don't want it too moist because the Turkey lets out moisture while it's cooking.

 Then I spread the stuffing mixture onto the tukey that I salted and peppered on both sides. Then I rolled that sucker up nice and tight. Thanks to Greg for getting the kitchen twine at the very last second! He was pulling into the driveway with it as I was rolling!

Then I browned the Turkey on all sides in my dutch oven in about  tablespoon of canola oil.

 Then I added 1/2  cup of chicken broth and put the lid on tightly.I cooked it for about 30 minutes on medium because my turkey was not even two pounds before I removed the skin and bones.  For a breast of 2 1/2 pounds, the recipe recommended 60-65 minutes.

The recipe told me to "tent" the turkey while I made the gravy. I figured this is what it meant. For the gravy I added 1 cup of apple cider, another 1/2 cup of chicken broth, and 3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. It also said to add 1 tsp of dried sage, but I didn't have any. Then I let it boil for 10 minutes to reduce by a third. Then I added  slurry which was 1 tablespoon of cold water mixed with 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. This thickens the gravy just enough. It is not supposed to be too thick though.

I was in a lot of anticipation when Greg cut her open. Would it be done? Would it be overdone? Would it have the circular effect that I was going for?

Just perfect! Woo Hoo!

This by no means would have fed a whole family but it was perfect for us, with some leftovers to spare.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!