History of the Candy Cane

While looking into the history of M&Ms it got me thinking. Candy canes are a fun holiday candy but, where did they come from? Is there a meaning behind the cane shape or the traditional red and white twist? Well, here’s what I found.

The history of candy canes goes back about 350 years when candy sticks were a popular type of candy. People began to have Christmas trees in their homes and they wanted something to put on them. Bent sugar sticks, now known as candy canes were just the right thing to hang on their trees.

The bend in the candy canes came from the idea of a choirmaster in Germany. He bent the sticks into canes, to represent a shepherd’s staff and they were handed out to children during nativity services. Historically the first time candy canes were introduced to American was when a German called, August Imgard came to America and put them on his tree, back in 1847.

Almost 50 years later, the stripes were added to the candy canes, along with their minty flavor. Hanging candy canes on the Christmas tree has become a popular tradition for millions of people, and I’m sure will continue for many, many years.

Source: http://inventors.about.com/od/foodrelatedinventions/a/candy_canes.htm

 

M&Ms

 

Do you ever just think of the oddest, most random questions that float around in your brain unanswered until you forget about them? Well yeah, that happened to me so, I decided to do something about it.

I wanted to know who invented M&Ms and when they came to be, so I did some research. It turns out that chocolate from the Spanish Civil War was the inspiration behind M&Ms.  The chocolate pellets that the soldiers were eating had a hard candy shell around them so the soldiers could carry the chocolate during the warm weather without out melting so fast. This was observed by Forrest Mars, the creator of M&Ms. They were first commercially introduced in 1941, and the people loved them.

The United States Armed Forces quickly adopted the new candy during WWII. During the war M&Ms were only sold to the military but, now everyone enjoys them.

Source: http://rivergrandrapids.com/mms-were-originally-created-to-allow-easy-transport-of-chocolate-to-the-military-fact-of-the-day/

 

Homemade Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows

             A winter favorite for people young and old is hot cocoa with marshmallows. My family isn’t very adventurous when it comes to hot chocolate. We just buy the packets at the store and put some (also store-bought) marshmallows in it. I mean, I’m sure that’s what most people do but, if you’ve ever tried homemade hot cocoa you know that it’s 100 times better than what comes out of the packets.

 It’s pretty easy to make. All you have to do is add cocoa powder with sugar, vanilla, a little salt, and milk. The amount of ingredients varies depending on if you’re making enough for the whole family or if you’re just making enough for you to have. You can click here for instructions:

Personal glass: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Simple-Hot-Cocoa-For-One-369469

Enough for the family: http://www.marthastewart.com/353001/homemade-hot-chocolate

Hot chocolate is believed to have been invented by the Mayans 2,000 years ago. This type of beverage was an essential part of their lives and culture. Hot chocolate became popular in Europe by the Mexicans from the New World. Back then hot chocolate was even used by people to help their liver and stomach diseases. Never would I have imagined that hot chocolate would have been used medically. Since then, it has changed quite a bit, and is now a popular drink among Americans and people all over the world. One of the changes we’ve made to hot cocoa is adding marshmallows to it. Too bad the Mayans didn’t think of that!  

For me, waking up to hot cocoa on a snowy winter day would cheer me up, and definitely warm me up! Of course the marshmallows are my favorite part.  My best friend’s mom makes homemade marshmallows to go in their homemade hot chocolate. She cuts them out into little hearts and plops them right into their hot cocoa. They’re adorable and they taste wonderful!

If you want to make these super cute marshmallows you need to buy three packets of gelatin (unflavored), corn syrup, granulated sugar, kosher salt, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar. There’s a link below that will take you to the recipe and tell you the details of making these marshmallows. Definitely don’t forget the powdered sugar! It’s the most important part. Without it you will have sticky fingers and sticky counters for the rest of the day!

Marshmallow recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/homemade-marshmallows-recipe.html

Homemade is always better than the store bought stuff. It might seem like more work at the time but it’ll pay off. You can save money and it’ll taste better!

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_chocolate

 

Tips: Preparing Your Holiday Meal

For you, Christmas day might be all about relaxing, opening presents, and enjoying family but, for the cook it can be a hectic race to fill peoples bellies and make sure eveything is on the table. For all you cooks out there, making Chrsitmas dinner doesn’t have to be stressful.

For starters, you can always make a meal ahead of time. If you’re going to make casseroles you can easily make them a week ahead of time and stick them in the freezer. Then on Christmas all you have to do is stick it in the oven and you’re ready to go. That’s what my mom is doing to prepare for Christmas this year. Since she’s vegan she’s making two meals; a chicken dish and a spinach and tofu lasagne (she just stuck in the freezer), which sounds gross but you can’t even tell there’s tofu in it!

Along with preparing the meals ahead of time, know where all of your ingredients are. It would be horrible if on Christmas day you’re making you’re famous apple pie and you can’t find the cinnamon. Just makes sure you know where your stuff is and you know for a fact that you have it.

Another thing that I can’t stress enough is KEEP THE KITCHEN CLEAN! Being the clean freak that I am, I know that it’s hard for me to focus when I’m  surrounded by clutter. You don’t have to be a clean freak to feel that way. The kitchen clutter will add to your stress on Christmas day so, keep it away.

Last but not least, get people to help! Cooking for a Christmas crowd is not a one-man job. You need some helpers in the kitchen with you. Isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Giving to others. If not presents, than a helping hand.

Oreo Balls

            The holiday season is a great time to try new foods or try old foods in a new way. One thing you might want to try, if you haven’t already are Oreo balls. They are heaven on earth.

            Just like cake balls, Oreo balls have become a sensation. Just the other day I was scrolling through my twitter feed and saw a video that Nabisco posted advertising Oreo balls. It was about this guy who couldn’t cook so he made Oreo balls. Basically the video was showing how easy Oreo balls are to make.

 

            It’s true too! They’re super easy! All you have to do if you want to make Oreo balls is buy some Oreos (or if you want to save money you can get the knockoff brand), cream cheese, and chocolate or vanilla flavored almond bark. If you want to know more about chocolate I talked about it in an earlier post.

            The first step to making these delicious treats starts with crushing up a bag of Oreos. If you want to take the easier route, just put them in the food processor and give them a buzz. That’s what my sister and I did tonight and it saves a bunch of time.

Once your Oreos are all crushed up, you’re going to want to put them in a fairly large bowl. If you’re cream cheese is right out of the refrigerator take microwave it for a little bit to make sure that it’s soft enough to stir into the Oreos. Once your cream cheese is soft enough, cut it into cubes then drop it in the bowl with the Oreos. You’re going to want to mix them together thoroughly otherwise you’ll have chunky Oreo balls, and that would be gross (It’s easier to use something like a potato masher to mix them together, compared to using a spoon, because they’re kind of sticky).

Next, take your mixture and form it into balls, and put them in the fridge for an hour. It’s extremely hard to dip the balls in the almond bark if they aren’t hard, so this step is very important. Once they’ve been in there for an hour it’s time to melt the almond bark.

I prefer using the vanilla almond bark but, chocolate almond bark works great too! Using toothpicks is the easiest way to dip the balls into the almond bark. I’ve tried a fork and it’s just too messy for me.

Before the almond bark hardens you can add fun topping like sprinkles or M&M’s. It makes them look more fun and festive around the holiday season, or for whatever occasion you’re making them for.

Gingerbread Houses

Christmas is my favorite holiday! Most of my blogs the rest of this month will probably be geared toward the holiday because it just makes me so happy! It’s a time to be with family, take part in old traditions, eat good food, and make memories that last a lifetime. It’s the time of year where you get to sit by the fireplace and drink hot cocoa with marshmallows, and wear oversized sweaters.

One tradition that used to be number one on my holiday list was making gingerbread houses. Now, this wasn’t just any old tradition for our family. We made it a big huge ordeal. We would get together with two other families and have a full out gingerbread house contest!  Everything was top quality too! We used delicious homemade gingerbread and sugary homemade icing; and of course lots of candy! We even used ice cream cones as trees by turning them upside down and frosting them!

Unfortunately this tradition stopped when both families moved away. It was a while ago so it’s not so sad anymore but, every time Christmas rolls around I think about the tradition that used to be my favorite. Not so much because of what we did but, because of who we did it with.

This year my sister and I felt inspired so, we decided to have our own ginger bread house making contest. Honestly though it wasn’t a contest because we had no judge, so we just had fun with it!

 With years of gingerbread house making under my belt I like to say I’m a pro. The sad truth is that we cheated year and bought ours from the store (but I did a great job assembling mine). So for all of you people who bought them, don’t feel bad; so did we. So maybe I’m not a pro but, I do have the practice!

We wanted to go all out of the decorating so my sister bought tons of different candies. We had M&M’s, Twizzlers, mini candy canes, marshmallows, Hershey kisses, gummy bears, and tons of other stuff.  She even made homemade icing like we used to. It was great! She made blue (which I used for cute, little icicles), and red, and green.

My sister and I have completely different techniques. She decided to go crazy with the frosting and cover her house completely. Then she added sprinkles, gummy bears and kisses. It was awesome when she was done. Honestly I’m sure it’ll be great to eat. The cutest part of her house was by far the gummy bears. She placed them all over the yard and around the house. It was like a little gummy bear army.

 

I, on the other hand took a different approach. I carefully made windows out of Twizzlers, frosted shingles on the roof and added M&Ms on top. I also carefully made a wreath right above the door. And yes, I also had little gummy bear residents living in my house.

 

So if you’re going to make a ginger bread house I recommend putting your own twist on it. Don’t follow directions and go crazy! Express who you are and play with your food! It’ll be more fun!

Vitamin C

With winter basically here, people are getting sick. No one wants to be sick, especially close to Christmas time. A great way to prevent catching anything is by getting enough vitamin C in your diet. It’s really not hard to do at all.  Some of my favorite fruits are packed with vitamin C like, clementines, oranges, and grapefruit. Since winter is orange season, these fruits taste great this time of year! One thing I love to do in the morning is make my own orange juice. I don’t make it by squeezing the juice into my glass. Instead I like to use my mom’s juicer. The great thing about the juicer is that since the whole orange (minus the peel) goes into it, I’m getting extra vitamins from the skin (the white part of the orange). A lot of the vitamin C comes from that part of the orange. Sometimes I juice clementines too, just because they are usually sweeter than oranges.

You can also get vitamin C from vegetables and vitamin pills. According to http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-011101000000000000000-w.html?mbid=enews_nd0823 vegetables that have vitamin C in them are peppers, chives, parsley, kale, spinach, leeks, taro, broccoli, and a bunch more. So if you don’t like oranges, that’s not a problem! You can find vitamin C in a lot of your vegetables. There’s a list on the website above if you want to check that out. There are also certain powders or dissolving tabs that you can put in your water like, Emergen-C and Airborne. They fizz up and make your water taste fruity. This way you can drink your vitamins, if you don’t want to eat them.  

Along with getting enough vitamin C, it’s also important to avoid germs. Wash your hands often and don’t touch your face, eyes, nose, or mouth. Getting a lot of sleep also helps your immune system stay strong, and so does avoiding sugar. Emergen-C and Airborne have sugar in them so if you don’t want that, you can take a vitamin-C pill which probably healthier.

According to http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/the-benefits-of-vitamin-c vitamin C is one of the most affective and safest nutrients. Outside of helping your cold (or helping you avoid a cold) vitamin C may include protection against cardiovascular disease, immune system deficiencies, prenatal health problems, eye disease, and wrinkling. So if you don’t have a cold you can still get these benefits from taking vitamin C.

Dog Treats

This year have you wondered what a good Christmas present for your dog(s) would be? Well, this question stumped me. I have two golden retrievers named Sampson and Kooper. They’re pretty big dogs, and they’re brothers so they love to fight and play. When we give them stuffed animal toys they tear them up so, usually all they get are bones and hard toys. This year I did find them a stuffed Santa toy that was really cute, and I ended up giving it to them before Christmas. Of course, I watched them to make sure they didn’t tear up the “supervise toy” but, somehow Sampson chewed Santa’s little hat right off. This put me in a Christmas gift dilemma. What would I get my dogs?

After thinking about it I decided a great gift to give them would be homemade dog treats! I could make fun shapes, and my dogs would love them! Of course, I had no idea how to make homemade dog treats, so I went to http://www.cesarsway.com/dog-care/dog-nutrition/Recipe-Ideas-for-Quick-and-Healthy-Homemade-Dog-Treats and found some great recipes! One of them was a simple dog biscuit recipe. It called for flour, salt, egg, beef or chicken Bouillon granules and hot water which are all safe for your dog. They say to bake them in strips or bone shapes but, you can do them in whatever shape you want. Since I’d be giving them to my dogs for Christmas I would make them into Christmas trees and candy cane shapes.

Another website I went to was http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Gourmet-Dog-Biscuits/Detail.aspx?evt19=1. If you are feeling fancy and creative I recommend making these gourmet dog biscuits. Juanita, the creator of this recipe says, “Dogs go crazy for these biscuits. When my dogs smell them cooking they know that it will soon be time for treats! You can use any type of meat broth in them, or just use water if broth isn't on hand." These gourmet snacks consist of white and wheat flour, cracked wheat, cornmeal, garlic powder (might give the dogs bad breath), brewer’s yeast, milk powder, beef broth, and milk. Again you can shape these into whatever you want, and they take 45 minutes to bake. To get the details for the recipe go to the website above.

I hope these fun dog treat ideas inspired you and helped you with gift ideas this year!

And P.S. I’d recommend storing them someplace other than under the tree because knowing my dogs, they would plow through the presents to get to those nicely wrapped treats.  

Christmas Baking

It’s that time again. Time to put up the Christmas tree, decorate the house, hang up the stockings, and make Christmas cookies. Today my sister and I spent the day with our Nana and Grandpa. After church this morning we went out to lunch together, and then headed to their house. I helped my Nana decorate the house with Christmassy things while my sister made some really tasty shortbread cookies. She used a simple, 3-ingredient recipe. It consisted of butter, flour and powdered sugar. I tried one and it crumbled and melted in my mouth; just the way it should.

            I decided that I would make some vanilla butter cream frosting for the shortbread Christmas cookies that Halle made. I found a Betty Crocker recipe, which I knew would be really good. It was made of butter (of course), powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla.

These cookies obviously aren’t healthy at all but, if you do want to be a little healthier you can substitute some ingredients. There’s a really good brand of vegan butter called Earth Balance that you can use. You can also substitute the milk in the frosting with almond milk (I promise you won’t be able to taste the difference). If you want to color your frosting, a great way to do it is use beat juice. That way you can make red and white frosting to frost cookies that look like candy canes. 

Christmas baking is something that I absolutely love to do because it makes the house smell wonderful and feel cozy. If you want to be even more cozy light some candles and dim the lights. Relax and talk with your family instead of thinking about school or work. Just take a minute to slow your life down and breathe. It’s good for you.

            Days baking with the family are fun and memorable. To me, they bring the Christmas season to life, and make me thank God for my family. It shows me how special times like these really are. This Christmas season I encourage you to find at least one day to spend baking or cooking with your family. Whether that means baking a cake with your grandma or cooking spaghetti with your kids, I promise it’ll be fun and will help bring you and your family closer together.