Four Days Until Christmas

Four days until Christmas and counting down. I have put off heading to the grocery store long enough! Today is the day. Ugh. My least favorite part of cooking is the shopping! However, when I am finished with this day we will have ample supply for our Christmas Dinner: Roasted Turkey with Cory’s newly discovered Cranberry Sauce, Cornbread Dressing, Whipped Potatoes, Scalloped Corn, Broccoli Salad (green and red with Craisins), Yeast Rolls and this year’s Bread and Butter Pickles from the pantry! A dessert bar - which we will talk about tomorrow ☺.

But for today, I pray for patience for the masses, friendly clerks not totally over-whelmed by the fact they are working with holiday exhaustion setting in, and finally, a 14 lb. Butterball turkey – on sale!

Cory tells me this cranberry sauce will mirror Pepto Bismal in color, he says the taste and compliment for the turkey is out of this world. My first time to make it. Give it a try and let me know how you like it!

Cory’s Cranberry Relish

2 cups whole raw cranberries, washed
1 small onion
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons horseradish from a jar ("red is a bit milder than white")

Grind the raw berries and onion together. (use an old-fashioned meat grinder or I'm sure there's a setting on the food processor that will give you a chunky grind — not a puree)

Add everything else and mix.

Put in a plastic container and freeze.

Early Christmas morning, move it from freezer to refrigerator compartment to thaw. ("It should still have some little icy slivers left.")

The relish will be thick, creamy, and shocking pink. (OK, Pepto Bismol pink. It has a tangy taste that cuts through and perks up the turkey and gravy. It's also good on next-day turkey sandwiches, and with roast beef.)

Makes 1 1/2 pints.
** If you are wondering what makes it “Cory’s Cranberry Relish” – it is because he gave it to me. He didn’t invent it – just passed it on.

In The Beginning...

I have always enjoyed cooking. Even as a young girl I liked messing around in the kitchen. I say "messing around" because even though I was "cooking or baking" I know my mother just hated the messes I assuredly left behind in her kitchen! The first cookbook I wrote was a variety of recipes I gathered during the first 15 years after high school. I hand wrote some of the pages and typed (on an electric typewriter) the rest. The book was a gift for my son Cory. Fifteen years later in 2005 I compiled a second cookbook while I was an innkeeper at Walnut Grove Bed and Breakfast in Shelbyville, TN. Our guests regularly asked for "this recipe" or "that recipe" and I was constantly typing and printing out a requested recipe on the spur of the moment! Out of self defense of my time, I compiled a Friends and Family Cookbook containing some of my own bed-and-breakfast recipes, favorite family recipes and many special recipes given to me by friends.

I have found that when you enjoy cooking, friends and "friends of friends" regularly share recipes. After we sold Walnut Grove I intended to write a second book, compiling the many recipes the first cookbook prompted to be given to me! I wanted to include a daily scripture to share along with the recipe.

Instead, two and a half years later, a blog seems a fantastic way that I can share food for both body and soul!

Neither the recipes or the scriptures are in any particular order - other than my own daily devotions and my favorite recipes!
May this blog bless you - body and soul.

*****
Mother and I spent this afternoon baking the traditional sugar cookies and frosting in colors of red and green, sprinkle with colored sugars and silver balls. This is my Grandma Greathouse's Powdered Sugar Cookie Recipe.

Ingredients:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup vegetable oil
1 pinch salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:
1. Beat sugars, margarine, vegetable oil and salt very well. Add eggs and dry ingredients.

2. Make into balls, roll in sugar and place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 8 minutes. For holidays or special occasions, roll in colored sugar instead of white sugar.

*****
Genesis 1 (New International Version)
The Beginning
1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day."