Christmas Cooking

My regular routine is to make cupcakes on Tuesday or Wednesday so that I can review them on Thursday.  That's not going to happen this week.  The Tornado's birthday is this Sunday so I'll make the cupcakes for then and get Week 24's done on the very last day possible.

I made about 5 million things (well not really but it felt like it) leading up to Christmas but I'm going to talk about the ones I thought were the most interesting and different.  All 4 of these are definitely on my make again list.

Sweet and Spicy Nuts

These were a recipe from Carla Hall on the Chew and were super easy to make.  You whip up some egg whites, dump a bunch of seasonings that seem like they're going to taste kind of odd together, bake them for a little bit and you have crunchy mixed nuts that are just the right amount of seasoning.  The brown sugar keeps it from being to savory, the ginger keeps it from being to sweet and the black pepper adds just the right amount of balance.  

Also from Carla Hall were these Sugared Cranberries.  These were amazing.  Even my kids who aren't completely sold on cranberries liked them.  They're completely different from most holiday baked good and they're super pretty.  Also these take awhile but most of that is soaking and drying time all of which the cranberries can do on their own while you're doing other things.

Sriracha Salt from Little House Living - This look so intriguing that even though I've never tried Sriracha I just had to make it.  It's super easy and is really interesting.  The salt ends up being a coral color that is pretty in a glass jar and gives just a bit of a kick without being overwhelming.  It'd be great in eggs or on any kind of vegetable dish.

Peppermint Sugar Scrub from The Idea Room - I've made different sugar scrubs before and they're absolutely wonderful after leg shaving.  Most have a pretty high oil content but this scrub was a little different.  It's mostly sugar with a little bit of oil and it's an absolutely fantastic hand scrub.  It's just the right amount of moisturizing without leaving your hands to greasy to do anything.  The peppermint scent removes garlic and onion odors and it can also be packaged really prettily.  I ended up making a batch to keep in the kitchen for myself after I tried it.

I also ended up making Oreo Truffles, Cream Cheese Mints, Saltine Toffee, Peanut butter crackers dipped in chocolate, Chex Mix and those oyster crackers in Ranch seasoning.  There are about a million recipes for all of these floating around and they're all good and will also be repeated next year.