We believe that spending time outdoors is important year-round. Yes, even in winter! I know that instincts tell us to hibernate when the weather gets cold and the days get short, but that’s when it becomes important to spend some time outside recharging our souls, resetting our state of mind, and burning a few calories.
If you’re new to the activity, snowshoeing is a great way to spend time outside. Once you get the shoes strapped on, just start walking. It’s that easy! Continue reading …
Cinnamon is our ingredient of the season. You can find more cinnamon posts here.
This cocktail was 100% inspired by Mexican hot chocolate. It has the cocoa, the spices, and some milk, but I wasn’t sure what to call it because it’s served over ice. Does it count has hot chocolate when it’s not hot?! Whatever we call it, this is delicious and perfect for when you’re gathered around the fireplace this season.
Cinnamon is our ingredient of the season! You can find our full archive of cinnamon posts here. This particular post was originally published on December 21 2014 (7 years ago!), we’re republishing it today, because I’m making up a fresh batch of ornaments tonight with my little elves.
Hey! We’re popping in this weekend to share another super simple Christmas craft (this is for the folks that have finished their shopping – if you’re rushing around the mall today, don’t even bother to read this post). You’ve probably seen some version of cinnamon ornaments popping up on your Pinterest page? Or even made them as a kid? They are super easy, relatively fast, and a fairly kid-friendly project.
So, why are we sharing yet another cinnamon ornament post? Because as I was prepping mine for the tree, I realized that they would also make a really cute garland! The key here is to make a batch with shapes that are close in size, then your garland will hang nicely and you won’t have really heavy and big ones weighing it down in different areas.
Ingredients
You can use your favorite recipe, but I like the ones that have a little bit of kids’ glue in them.
1 cup ground cinnamon
1/4-1/3 cup applesauce
2 Tbsp white glue
Instructions
Mix all ingredients together, adding more or less applesauce depending upon how dry your mixture is. You want it to form a nice ball that sticks together, but still feels slightly dry.
Cover the mixture and let it sit for one hour.
Break your ball into three or four sections for rolling. Roll out one section at a time between two pieces of plastic wrap or parchment paper. If the dough seems too dry when rolling, you can always spray it with a bit of water.
Cut out your shapes and add a hole for hanging. I used a wooden skewer to make my holes, and I think they were *just* barely big enough. Since there will be some shrinkage as the ornaments dry, you want to err on the side of a larger rather than smaller hole.
Place your ornaments in a 200F oven for two hours to dry, turning them halfway through. If your dough was on the drier side or you live in a dry climate, you may want to check on your ornaments after an hour and a half.
Once cool, using baker’s twine or another string for hanging.
To make the garland, I brought the twine up either side of the ornament and tied a knot at the top, this allowed the ornaments to hang parallel to the string rather than perpendicular.
I ended up making two pieces of garland. The little three-piece one hangs just inside our door on a wall that was just an empty space, so you see it and the tree as you enter the house, creating a nice little Christmas scene when you enter! The longer one hangs on the empty wall going up our staircase, but because the staircase is open, we still get to see it from the living room, which I love.
There you have it, a super simple twist on an old Christmas craft, and one that you can use to decorate a small space that could use a touch of cheer! xo
This is another one of those recipes that I knew I wanted to try… I just had to wait for our first snowstorm. Oh man, we’re still waiting for that snow, but I couldn’t wait anymore to sip a warm and spicy mug of Mexican hot chocolate.
The inspiration for this gift idea developed a couple of weeks ago when I was scanning the library shelves and came across the book called The Bluest of Blues about Anna Atkins and her use of cyanotype photography. That is one of her images above.
If you’re still looking for a gift for a great kid in your life, we may have just the thing.
I recently made another pot of this soup, and it has held up well to the test of time. The combination of simple ingredient list with a rich finish make this the perfect soup for chilly winter evenings.
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Seeing as how the east coast is shoveling out from another storm, we’re bringing you a delicious, nutritious, and simple sweet potato and mushroom soup.
As we mentioned above, sweet potatoes are not within the same taxonomic family as potatoes. Potatoes are in the nightshade family while sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family. If you’ve ever grown a decorative sweet potato vine that bloomed, you would immediately see the resemblance. But for our purposes, this season we’re grouping all of these tubers together.
When I think of comforting cinnamon desserts, rice pudding often comes to mind. Granted, cinnamon is not a key ingredient in the recipe, but we always top our rice pudding with a sprinkle of ground cinnamon.
I’m a huge fan of eating the pudding straight from the pot when it’s ready, having some from dessert, and then having it again for breakfast, but you do you.
Rice Pudding
This is the recipe that we grew up eating. It’s a boiled pudding, as opposed to the baked variety. And we like to keep it simple, no raisins please! And while this isn’t the fanciest of desserts, if serving it to guests, it’s always fun to elevate the experience with fancy dishes and spoons.
1/2 cup rice
3 cups water
2 cups milk, separated
1 can evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 Tbsp cornstarch
3/4 cup sugar
cinnamon
nutmeg
Bring the water to a boil. Add the rice and cook for 20 minutes or until the water is gone.
In a large pot combine the 1 cup of milk, evaporated milk, vanilla, and sugar. Beat the egg and cornstarch into the remaining cup of milk and add it to the pot. Add the cooked rice, warm over medium heat, stirring constantly until it boils. Boil for 3 minutes.
Cool and serve with a sprinkling of ground cinnamon and nutmeg.
Looking for a new stuffing recipe? Every year I pull out my well-loved copy of the 2015 Thanksgiving Special of Bon Appétit and use their handy stuffing customizer.
That article gives you the perfect overview of what makes a good stuffing. Of course there’s bread and butter, but what else should we think about in order to create the perfect combination of both flavors and textures? I love their scientific grouping of the ingredients into specific categories like aromatics, meats, binders, add-ins, etc. And they give you a concise explanation of why you’d want to add something from each category.
Sourdough, Sausage, Leek, and Chestnut Stuffing
What are you going to put in your stuffing? Read through the article and make choices based upon your family’s tastes. For me there were clear choices in each category. Luckily, I hit the nail on the head in 2015 and have been using that same combination of ingredients ever since.
That said, the beauty of the formula is that you can easily make minor (or major) substitutions and still produce a delicious dish. For example, we took this pics last Thanksgiving, and, in pandemic fashion, I wasn’t able to get the chestnuts, so we substituted pecans. Another year we had delicious maple breakfast sausage from our CSA, so I used that in place of the sweet Italian sausage.
binders: 1/2 cup butter, 2 large eggs, 2+ cups turkey or chicken stock
pantry staples: olive oil, more butter
How-To
The afternoon or evening before baking day, cut the bread into 1″ pieces and let dry on a baking sheet overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 9×13 baking dish AND one side of a sheet of foil large enough to cover your dish.
Place the dried bread and add-ins in a large (very large) mixing bowl.
Heat 3 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add your meat to the pan and cook thoroughly, breaking it up into small pieces as it cooks. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cooked meat to the bowl of bread.
Using the same skillet, add the chopped aromatics. Cook, stirring often, until the onions have softened and are starting to brown around the edges. When ready, transfer the aromatics to the bowl of bread.
Place the skillet back on the burner over medium heat. Pour the deglazing liquid into the pan. While it’s simmering, scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Once the liquid has almost evaporated, add the butter and cook until it has melted. Drizzle this liquid (and bits) over the bread mixture.
Whisk the two eggs into 2 cups of the stock. Pour this over the bread mixture.
Mix together everything together until well combined. If necessary, slowly add more stock to until the bread is moist.
Transfer the stuffing mixture to the baking dish, pressing down the mixture slightly if necessary. Dot the top of the mixture with 4 Tbsp butter, cut into small pieces. Cover with foil (buttered side down, obvs) and crimp it around the edges.
Bake for about 30-35 minutes. Remove the foil and bake until the top is starting to brown (another 20-25 minutes). *The original recipe asks you to turn the oven up to 450 for that last 20 minutes. I am never able to do it because we usually have a few dishes going at once. As such, your cooking times may vary depending upon what’s sharing the oven.
Remove from the oven and let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.
This stuffing is so good. It’s good enough that I’m already stocking up on chestnuts so that I can make a second batch, because I’m 99% sure that there aren’t going to be enough leftovers to meet my needs.
What are my needs? A 9×13 pan of stuffing.
We hope your scheming, dreaming, and prepping for a delicious day with your favorite people. xo
