Tracking Santa

I wasn't planning on posting today, on Christmas Eve, but I just remembered about one of our Christmas Eve traditions I thought I'd share. 

DR found it a few years ago; every Christmas Eve we track Santa's trip around the world via NORAD. 

Usually we end up turning it on in the afternoon but we remembered early this year and have been watching Santa travel around Asia this morning. The really cool thing about the site is the videos of different parts of the world from Santa's point of view; Wall of China, Eiffel Tower, etc. 

The kids like it and DR and I enjoy watching the videos. 

Merry Christmas everyone! And follow Santa and make sure you are tucked into bed before he gets to your house!! 

Foody Friday - Apple-Orange Baked Chicken

A while ago I was able to download The Everything Potluck Cookbook onto my Kindle for free. I have found so many good recipes in this cookbook that I would say the current price ($9-$13) on Amazon is definitely worth it.

Apple-Orange Baked Chicken sounded rather odd but turned out to be some of the best chicken ever to come out of my kitchen. 

Apple-Orange Baked Chicken

3-4 chicken breasts

1 t. salt

1/4 t. pepper

1 t. paprika

1 orange, sliced

1/2 onion, sliced

1/4 c. butter, melted

1 c. applesauce

1/3 c. orange marmalade

1/2 c. orange juice

1 T. olive oil

Preheat oven to 375. Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt, pepper, and paprika. Line roasting pan with orange and onion slices and top with chicken. Drizzle chicken with melted butter and set aside. 

In bowl, combine remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour over chicken. 

Cover pan with foil and bake for 30 minutes, basting once with orange mixture. Uncover and bake for 30-40 minutes longer, basting frequently until chicken is thoroughly cooked. 

Don't serve the onions and oranges that are under the chicken; they are there to provide lots of flavor and cushion the chicken from the oven's heat. 

Although the recipe calls for continual basting, I forgot to do it. It turned out fabulous nonetheless. This was by far the moistest chicken I've ever eaten. I thought the combination of onion and oranges were odd but the flavor was subtle and just a bit sweet. The only problem with this recipe is that my boys refused to eat the applesauce on top. They thought it was just too weird. I didn't let them see the oranges and onions in the bottom of the pan, that would have resulted in mutiny! But what they don't know won't hurt them! 

Golden Santa Bread..yum, yum.

I saw this on Pinterest yesterday and thought it would be so much fun to make! The kids agreed to help and really, even with three kids swarming around it, Santa wasn't hard to make at all. The kids did most of the work and in fact we started it at 3:30 and were eating it for dinner. (Here's the recipe for the bread and here is the step by step picture instructions on how to put Santa together.)

I tried to teach Yip and Yap how to braid in hopes they would braid all of Santa's beard together. I was hoping to have a Captain Jack Sparrow look to the whole thing. 

They all had to take turns "painting". 

The boys were just sure that Yahoo wasn't doing it right and would mess it up. 

Can't little sisters do anything right? 

Hmmm, ours wasn't perfect but it was fun and tasted great! 

The bread was super easy to make and it was kind of a sweet bread, fabulous when warm and smothered in butter. Isn't everything? 

It was so easy and fun to make I'm trying to figure out how to change it up for other holidays. A big red bread heart, a giant painted Easter Egg,  leprachaun's pot of gold....hmmm, I'm going to have to look into some of these ideas!  

Snow...but no Blizzard.

Well, we did get some snow and it was enough for a day off of school but no blizzard. We only had about 6 inches or so. It wasn't much but it was sure enough to play in. 

Yahoo thought it was sand when she woke up Tuesday morning and saw a fine layer blowing across the road. Ha! 

The kids ended up staying out playing for over two hours. 

As much fun as the snow was, we couldn't stay out all day long. 

The boys decided they wanted to play Rich Farmer, Poor Farmer...a Monopoly like game DR had from when he was a kid. It's 33 years old! 

It was a good day having the kids home all day. We stayed busy but we were definitely stir crazy by the end of the evening. It makes me wonder what we'll be doing to combat cabin fever over Christmas vacation. 

Spiral Barbed Wire Painting

No school today!! Yip and Yap and I have a list of things to do; make noodles, stay in our jammies, watch movies and eat popcorn. 

Since I'm writing this Monday night I can't tell you the latest update on our blizzard other than it is blowing hard outside and there is snow on the ground. I guess the brunt of the storm will hit overnight. Although the weather guy is calling for over a foot of snow I can't see that it will be here for long. As hard as the wind is blowing I think it may all end up in Oklahoma...but we'll see. 

Anyhow...I finally finished my latest painting Sunday night. As you can see I'm still on a circle kick.

 I love this one! It's acrylic on a cereal box, about 7 1/2 inch square. DR asked what I was going to do with all these little circle paintings. I think I'll do a few more and then frame them all together in one big frame. We'll have to see how many I get and how they look together. 

I intended it to look something like the middle of a corn cob with some abstract qualities to it. 

I love painting on cereal boxes. 

Once they are covered in acrylic no one can tell that it's cheap and besides, it's free. I do wish I had planned better though because the staple marks are showing through the paint :( 

YAY!! A BLIZZARD!! (Not the DQ kind either...)

So sorry it's been a few days since I've posted. Substitute teaching, sick kids, Christmas programs, doctors appointments...I've been running everywhere!  Blogging has had to take a back burner. 

But good news for my blog, according to the weather I will be stuck at home for a while so maybe I'll catch up on some posts! After Kansas enduring the driest and hottest year on record this year it looks like we are going to get all of our moisture at once for 2011. 

This is our forecast for the next 24 hours. We are right under the "R".

Yay!! A Blizzard!!! A White CHRISTMAS!! 

I say "yay" but I'm pretty nervous. If I were in Indiana I wouldn't be too worried about a foot of snow but being out here in Kansas this could really screw some stuff up. I really doubt that Kansas is ready to deal with this much snow and ice. Oh yeah...ICE...cuz it's been raining all morning with temperatures quickly dropping to freezing. I doubt they have bunkers full of salt and I couldn't even tell you if SW Kansas has snowplows. Add in the fact that there are so many people living far from towns on not the best roads, this blizzard could strand a lot of people at home. Stranded at home wouldn't be bad, people have been stocking up for this storm all weekend but I'm just hoping that we don't lose power for too long. That could be disaster for some of the more rural folks. 

So keep the Southwest, me and all my Kansas friends, in your prayers today! 

And I hope you are blessed with a white Christmas too! 

Foody Friday - 19th century Gingerbread

During our Christmas party at Fort Larned last weekend our family indulged in LOTS of goodies baked from 19th century recipes. Yap ended up falling in love with traditional gingerbread. I think he must have eaten at least 6 or 7 slices! 

We decided on the way home that we needed to find a similar recipe to make the wonderful gingerbread at home. I happen to have the cookbook A Prairie Kitchen which is a compilation of recipes from the Prairie Farmer magazine between 1841-1900. 

The Gingerbread recipe in The Prairie Kitchen was approved by Yap. 

Soft Gingerbread

published in Prairie Farmer - May 5, 1877

1 c. dark molasses (I only had 3/4 c. light)

1/2 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 c. butter

1 t. ground ginger

1 t. cinnamon

1 egg

1/2 cup sour milk (or buttermilk)

2 1/2 c. flour 

2 t. baking soda

1/3 c. hot tap water 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. In a medium saucepan combine the molasses, brown sugar and butter. Heat until just boiling, remove from heat and it cool. Add the ginger, cinnamon, egg, milk and flour and mix well. Carefully add the baking soda to the hot water. It will bubble up. Then add the dissolved soda to the batter. Bake in five mini loaf pans for 45 minutes or until the center is firm. 

I used a regular loaf pan and it took close to an hour and half before the bread was done. I might kick up the heat to 350 next time.   

Wouldn't this make great toast on Christmas morning?