What?  A first?  Yes, this is the first year I have cooked Christmas Dinner all by myself.  I picked the menu, assembled the recipes, bought the ingredients, and managed the workforce.  The end result?  Three buffet dishes for breakfast at the relatives and dinner for my brood and some friends.

BREAKFAST

Cheddar-Sausage Breakfast Quiche
Sweet Ricotta Breakfast Quiche
Baked Brie with Apples & Cranberries

DINNER

Baked Ham
Au Gratin Potatoes
Paula Deen’s Sweet Potato Casserole
Green Beans
Cranberry Orange Salad
Deviled Eggs
Pecan Pie
Pumpkin Pie

Cooking is the area I am best at expressing my creativity.  It was a wonderful gift for me to be able to pour so much of myself into this simple meal.  Why, then, is the the first Christmas Dinner I’ve cooked this decade?  Simple.  My mother is usually in my kitchen for the holidays and I learned a long time ago to just let her do it her way.  If I want to change my mother’s cooking habits all I have to do is tell her how I do it and guaranteed she will do the opposite.  In the interest of family peace, I live with the same, old bland and boring holiday food every year.  (Well, except for the homemade noodles.  My mother makes exceptional noodles!)  This year she and my sisters stayed in Missouri and we stayed in Kentucky.  Really a win-win if you ask me!

Ingredients

1 lb bulk breakfast sausage
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
4 eggs
1 cup milk or half-and-half
1 tsp ground mustard
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 8″ pie crust

Directions:

• Brown sausage in a skillet and remove with a slotted spoon – you can also let the sausage drain on a paper towel to remove even more fat
• Place crust in pie plate
• Arrange sausage on bottom of crust
• Sprinkle cheese on top of sausage
• Whisk together eggs, milk, ground mustard, and salt & pepper
• Pour egg mixture slowly over cheese and sausage
• Bake uncovered at 350F for 35-40 minutes ~ eggs shouldn’t be jiggly when it’s finished

This recipe was modified from Paula Deen’s Sausage Quiche from the website grandparents.com. I like to add mustard to my sausage quiche and I also wanted more eggs and less milk.

Yummy!

I’m not going to give specific ingredient amounts for this recipe, because it’s very easily adapted to however many people you want to serve.

Basic Ingredients:

Potatoes
Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Flour
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg
Paprika

Directions:

• Choose an oven-safe casserole dish that will accommodate the number of people you’ll be serving
• Thinly slice potatoes in a single layer in the bottom of the dish
• Sprinkle lightly with flour, salt, pepper, and nutmeg – remember, the seasoning will be in each layer, so don’t be too heavy-handed
• Sprinkle a layer of shredded cheddar cheese
• Repeat layers until casserole is filled

• For every 1 1/2 quarts of casserole, make a mixture of 1/4 cup melted butter in 1 1/4 cups milk and pour it over the layers
• Garnish with a sprinkle of paprika

Bake covered at 325F for 1 1/2 hours, or until a nice golden-brown crust forms on top and potatoes are tender.

The more you make, the longer it will take to cook. For Christmas Dinner I made enough casserole to fill a 3 quart dish and I baked it for 2 hours at 350F. I had other dishes in the oven, so 350 was my only choice. :p

This recipe is adapted from Marcia Adam’ Old-Fashioned Escalloped Potatoes in Cooking from Quilt Country: Hearty Recipes from Amish and Mennonite Kitchens.

“If the divine creator has taken pains to give us delicious and exquisite things to eat, the least we can do is prepare them well and serve them with ceremony.”

~ Fernand Point

Tonight is our monthly fellowship dinner at our church.  There is nothing better getting together with folks you love and EATING.  Especially when there are others to help with the clean-up.

I’m bringing:

• Nachos with Beef and Black Beans
• Pica de Gallo
• Refrigerator Pickles
• White Cake with Fruit Topping <courtesy of Princess the Baker>
• Escalloped Tomatoes

After moving to the rural south I *finally* learned what all those strange Tupperware contraptions are for!

I had a life lesson this week.

Frequently I’ll search blogs for tea party ideas and this week I stumbled across one for a self-avowed Tea Lover.  Right.  Tea Snob is a better description.  Why, you ask?  The author spewed on and on over several posts about the inferior quality of store-bought bagged tea and even went so far to say that using such things was akin to using nothing but dried grass.  Wow!

At first I was really affronted!  How dare she! But as the week went on, I realized I’m actually very sorry for her and all of those people out there like her.  I won’t deny that good quality loose-leaf tea is a wonderful treat.  That isn’t the point. Quality costs more because it almost always does taste better.

BUT, just because something is ‘better’ doesn’t make it the only thing nor does it mean that the cheaper option isn’t enjoyable.  And that’s why I feel sorry for this woman.   I can sit in my school nook with a steaming hot cup of Lipton with honey and get the same sense of cozy warmness I get from a cup of imported, expensive loose-leaf tea.  The difference is that when I don’t have enough money for expensive tea I can still sit in my nook and enjoy myself, where the other poor soul will only sit and think about what she had in the past or what she may have in the future.

There is much value in being content with our circumstances!

And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts

which drown men in destruction and perdition. 1 Timothy6:8-9

I have decided to commit to Art Every Day Month 2008 which starts (eek!) tomorrow, November 1st. I’m probably more suited to NaNoWriMo, but my kind of writing is more along the lines of short, non-fiction pieces and the thought of attempting to write a novel in a year, let alone a month, is enough to melt my jello.

Yes, it’s probably nuts to commit to something like this right before the Christmas season, but I’m thinking that since we’re planning some artsy-type gifts this year that this could work well.

This blog has been silent for far too long as the waning days of summer, with its endless food storage chores along with attempts at wrangling the new fall school schedule, don’t leave a lot of blogging time. I did take many pictures and hopefully during the long, dark hours of winter I’ll find time to actually get them on this blog.

In the meantime, check out the challenge. It’s going to be fun!

I’ve neglected this blog for far too long. Too many vain attempts to be pithy and important that came off sounding self-important and silly.

Duh. It finally came to me. I was trying to force my own creativity. Which is insane… I don’t think creative things can be manipulated, they have to flow from life. I also have to remember that I’m going to fail sometimes. But even when my projects don’t turn out as I expect, there’s still joy to be had in the doing of them.

Enriching everyday life isn’t a class or a destination, it’s a process. And I fully intend to enjoy it!

Table centerpieces don’t need to be expensive floral creations.

This one on my dining room table (aka the school table) serves a double purpose. It entices my three children to eat fruit!

Isn’t this a pretty breakfast setting?

p. 122
Dishes should be a part of the background for the colours of the food, and as one chooses dishes there should be some variety — even if the dishes are polished peices of wood, shells, or large leaves from the jungle! Not only does this give interest, atmosphere, and pleasure to the meal, but it gives dignity and fulfillment to the one who prepared it.

Source: Living Well on Less: Breakfast

In addition to ideas on how to dress up the table, Meredith also has tips for breakfast cost-cutting.