Cute Little Christmas Candy Sleigh

Just a quick little post to show you this adorable little candy sleigh my sister-in-law Jennifer made for all of the kids this year.  She found it on Pinterest, of course!  Isn't it cute?!

You can find instructions HERE.  I believe it says to use a glue gun but Jennifer used glue dots and glue lines.  Then you don't have to worry about melted chocolate or burned fingers!  Maybe you'll try this cute little craft yourself next year since I'm a day late and a dollar short!

"Real" American Cheese

I haven't purchased American cheese for over a year now.  Why?  Because it's not 'real' cheese!  It's nothing more than a bunch of oil and chemicals.  Seriously, don't buy it.  It has always tasted like plastic to me, especially the individually wrapped slices.  Those are sooooo gross.  On a quest to find a better alternative, I found this recipe and decided to make it for my son who misses American cheese.  It was a hit!  It really tastes like American, but without the plasticy aftertaste.  The recipe below makes 2/3 of a batch since I only had 1# of cheese on hand.

You'll need the following:
8oz Cheddar Cheese
8oz Jack or Mozzarella Cheese
1C + 2T Powdered Milk (I used powdered buttermilk because I didn't have the regular powdered milk)
1t Gelatin Powder (Unflavored)
1C HOT water
A Pan lined with plastic wrap or parchment
A Blender

Shred both of your cheeses.

Toss the hot water and gelatin into the blender and give it a whirl.  Guess I forgot to take a pic of that.  Then throw in your cheese and your powdered milk.  Use the liquefy setting and let it run until smooth.  If making a whole batch as shown on the link above, you'll probably have to do it in two batches.  I found that I can easily do this 2/3 of a batch in one fell swoop.  You'll need to scrape down the sides at least one time.

Smear it all into the plastic wrap-lined pan and cover the top with more plastic.  Throw it in the fridge overnight.

The next day, turn it over and slice!  I found that it was a little more spreadable than it was 'cuttable'.  Next time, I might add some more gelatin.  As a disclaimer, it could have been the fact that I used buttermilk powder, not really sure.  I kind of liked that it was spreadable, actually.  I used it for all sorts of things.  We spread it on crackers, made grilled cheese sandwiches.  It would be great in some mac and cheese.  If you want it more slice-able, I would probably double the gelatin.

 Does it melt?  You bet!!  Almost TOO melty!  Very American cheese-like!

Tommy gave it a big thumbs up!  That's all I needed to see!  I will definitely be making this frequently!  It's so easy and MUCH cheaper than those "American" Slices!

The Littlest Black Belt

I just have to take a minute to brag about my little guy and hope I don't sound like a butthead.  My son Tommy, who is only 7, earned his 1st Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do on December 15th.  He's one of the youngest black belts ever in our ATA school and I couldn't be more proud!  If you could have seen him when he started, you wouldn't even believe it was the same child.  Let's just put it this way...they couldn't even keep him out on the mats for the first few days.  Master K (7th degree Black Belt....that's HUGE!) sent the entire class to chase him down and bring him back.  When that didn't work, Tommy was benched for the entire next week because he couldn't follow instructions!  Tommy started TKD a few days after turning 3 and (thankfully) really enjoys it a lot now!  I give a lot of credit to Kassebaum's ATA Academy.  Master K really has a good way with the kids and his assistants, Mrs. Hedenskog and Mrs. Glassburner are outstanding!  If you know anyone who is interested in joining TKD, I highly recommend ATA.  They have locations all over the US.  No, I don't work for them, but I sure think they're great!  Here's my little guy, Master K and they board he broke at testing (signed by instructors).  If you look closely, you can see Tommy's black belt has been embroidered with his last name.  So exciting for him!

And here's a proud mama tying her baby's black belt (incorrectly I found out later) and giving her baby boy a huggy hug.

Christmas Cookies

I hope you all had a great Christmas!  Ours was really good!  We had several places to go but we had a lot of fun!  That was refreshing since I've had a case of the bah-humbugs this year!  I did manage to whip out a few batches of cookies though.  This year, I made three entirely new recipes just for the heck of it.  Rather than show you step by step, I'll just give you links to the recipes below.

Back Row: Caramel (Pecan) Cookies, some without pecans (hubby won't eat them) The ones with the pecans were the BOMB!!!)  Recipe here:  http://www.savoryreviews.com/2012/04/19/caramel-pecan-cookies/

Middle Row: Funfetti Cake Mix Cookies

Recipe here: http://www.lovintheoven.com/2011/07/cake-batter-cookies.html

Front Row: Chewy Sugar Cookies dipped in different sugars/nonpareils

Recipe here: http://trickschefs.com/showthread.php?tid=1108

I hadn't been feeling well for the few days prior to Christmas, so I didn't make a ton of cookies this year. However, I would definitely make ALL of these again.  I loved loved loved the texture of the sugar and funfetti cookies.  They were really thin and crisp, yet chewy.  Totally addictive! I made a double batch of the funfetti ones and my husband wanted to keep them all for himself and not take them to anyone's house!  Greedy little bugger!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and didn't eat too much for a week straight (thus ruining your diet) like I did!