Jenmenke

Road Warrior

christmas

Do Me a Favor: Take Down your Christmas Decorations

Seriously people.

If I had more time, I’d go around at night snapping pictures of houses light up at night with multi-colored Christmas lights and decked-out Christmas trees in living room windows, googling their addresses and calling them out online.

I just don’t get it.

I know, I know: “I love Christmas. I hate when it’s over.” Blah, blah, blah. Some wait for the Epiphany. Fine. But that’s come and gone too. So do me a favor and take down your Christmas stuff. It’s time.

I know not everyone is like me, taking them down the day after Christmas. I’m not a bah humbugger; I do have a reason. We leave for Hayward after Christmas most years and coming back to the Christmas decorations is just a bad thing. I like the new year to come in cool, clean and clutter-free. The tree and all the accoutrements makes for a wonderfully cozy December mood. But the day the presents get opened, it’s over.

Out with the old.

In with the new.

Except…

I seem to have one small problem…

I just can’t seem…

to have the heart…

to take these another 4 steps…

to the trash!

But I’m getting closer.

Must-Have Gift for Teenage Girls

I’m trying to get into the spirit of the season.

We got our tree. We haven’t put it up yet, but we’ve got it. I have the tree tops for the planters. I haven’t put them in yet, but I did haul the soggy pumpkins to the compost, so the steps are an open vessel awaiting my creative touch. I spent the weekend with my mom, like all post-Thanksgiving weekends, making cookies, a gingerbread house and three wreaths (more on that later this week). I’ve thought about gifts, but I haven’t bought any yet. I even started looking through our family photos to start work on Christmas cards. But I was dismayed by our general lack of photogenic genes.

And here is my top gift for a sixteen year old girl. It will work for girls as young as 13 and as old as me, but will be most appreciated for girls right in the middle of the teen years. They can be so hard to buy for!

It is available at Amazon here for $6. You might even find it at Home Depot or your local hardware store. I don’t remember where I picked this one up. I stumbled upon it when I was going through cabinets in the garage. I stuffed it there to hide it, lest my own 15 year old daughter find it and ruin the fun!

Recently, I opened it up for a test drive. To recommend something this highly, I really needed to make sure it was all it promised to be.

And it is! It’s simple to use and cheap to buy.

It will bring hours of entertainment.

It will last for years.

It’s called the Zip It.

And here’s how it works:

You insert the Zip It into any bathroom drain regularly used by a 16 year old girl.

Then twist and pull.

Then repeat a few times.

Your daughter can use the Zip It herself with no help from you.

Or, you can do like I did, and use it for her and simply leave it for her and share the love.

Zip It even works in sinks with no extra hardware!

It’s sure to be at the top of every Mom’s list buying for a teenage girl. Imagine their surprise!

******************

I know what you are thinking:

  1. That I am mean.
  2. That I never clean our drains.

My response to those are:

  1. I cannot deny that it is true.
  2. I do too clean our drains. I believe the last time we routered out Morgan’s shower was a year ago.

In teenage daughter’s defense:

  1. She has beautiful, long, curly hair.
  2. She claims not to allow hair to go down the drain. From the hair I find on the walls of the shower, one might actually believe this to be true. However the Zip It is also a lie detector, because clearly, hair is going down the drain. And it isn’t the boys.

If you can get past the gag factor, Zip It is actually pretty fun to use. No pliers needed to remove the stopper. No fighting with the 12′ long metal snake that is pretty gross since it’s been down so many gross drains already. No reason to put it off.

Buy yours today!

New and Improved Cornflake Wreath Cookies

STOP! Before you scroll through the photos: First, a little background. Please.

These are Charlie’s cookies. We’ve already made several batches of these cookies and Charlie is bored with the standard green wreath. I am also out of cornflakes, and – as it turns out – green food coloring. As usual, I refuse to go to the grocery store. Therefore, the photos taken of the process are going to, no doubt, be a little disturbing. Or at least off-putting.

Additional things that may be helpful to know as you read this post, and all previous and future posts I might make:

I never remember to take photos of the things I want to write about. Or, I start taking pictures, then forget to finish as I start running short of time, we eat whatever I’m making, and I say “Oh shoot. I forgot to take the rest of the pictures.” I never seem to have the correct ingredients. I think of all kinds of clever things to write while I’m cooking and snapping away, only to go completely blank when I sit down to type. And, I still don’t know why I am even doing this in the first place.

Well. I’m never really completely blank.

So, back to the old Cornflake Wreath Cookie recipe. This is a favorite of mine and Charlie’s. Dave likes them and so does Morgan. But they are Charlie’s favorite, and I make them for him. These are also my go-to recipe for any event I have to bring a few dozen to share. Since I usually forget that I am supposed to even bring cookies to share, I need to move quickly. I can whip up a batch in about 8 minutes, which might seem impossible to you, if you have ever tried to make the damn things.

Frankly, I have never once, not ever, succeeded in making the recipe according to directions. Have you? Seriously. Have you?

I am positive there is some insider’s secret to creating a ring of sticky, gooey, marshmallow-coated cornflakes. And, even if you DID succeed in getting the mess into the shape of a wreath, it ends up being only a fraction of the amount that you actually want to consume. So you end up eating three. Probably to the horror of the person who made them, since the formation of each fricken’ wreath likely took a minimum of 15 minutes.

Therefore I present to you the New and Improved Cornflake Wreath Cookie recipe.

Here are the changes I made to the original recipe: I add 1 teaspoon each of vanilla and almond extract (instead of 1/2 tsp). I use one 10 ounce bag of regular sized marshmallows (not 4 cups of mini), because I never have the minis. I use twice as much cereal (to make them more nutritional). Do you believe that? I use Red Hots with abandon (not just 3). And, I don’t waste my time forming them into rings. Honestly. You’d have to be insane to even try.

Maybe I’m just jealous that I can’t do it.

But I’m darn good at the rationalizations, aren’t I?

Without further a do:

The Recipe (if you can call it that)

Microwave 1 stick of butter in a large bowl for about 1 minute. It doesn’t have to be all melted.

Add the bag of marshmallows (be sure it’s the 10z bag and not the bigger one),

and toss with the partially melted butter.

Stir well and microwave for an additional 1 minute to get it smooth.

Add 1 teaspoon each of vanilla and almond extract.

Add enough food coloring to get the mixture the color you want. I do not recommend either blue or purple. My kids, however, do.

Add 8 cups of cornflakes (or, as I did here, the third bag of the Chex box you bought at CostCo and your kids won’t eat because they don’t like the wheat. That’ll teach them.), and gently stir marshmellow mixture to evenly coat the cereal.

Spray two spoons all over with non-stick cooking spray and scoop blobs of the mixture onto wax paper.

Immediately sprinkle generously with red hots.

After about an hour, flip the “wreaths” over so that the bottoms get hard. That way you can store them in a ziplock bag.

I just did that, and while I was at it, I sampled these pitiful purple Wheat Chex cookies. Not only are the truly hideous, but I also ran out of almond extract and only had about 1/4 teaspoon.

It doesn’t matter. They were really good. How much you wanna bet I’ll be the only one who eats them? (The blue ones are already half gone).

New and Improved Cornflake Wreath Cookies (in less than 10 minutes)

1 stick (1/2 c) butter
8 cups Cornflakes
10 oz bag Marshmallows
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp (or more) food coloring. I recommend GREEN
red hot candies

Microwave butter in large bowl for 1 minute. Add bag of marshmallows and toss to coat. Microwave marshmellows and butter for 2 minutes. Stir and microwave another 1 minute and stir until smooth.

Add vanilla, almond extract and food coloring. Add cornflakes and stir gently to coat.

Spray two spoons with Pam (or non-stick cooking spray). Spoon large blobs onto wax paper. When mixture is gone, immediately sprinkle with red hots. If you wait too long, the candies won’t stick.

After about an hour, flip the wreaths over to let the bottoms harden. Store in ziplock bags.

Old Fashioned Popcorn Balls

popcorn ball confetti

A Christmas Tradition.
And A Giant Weight-Off When They are Done.

Every year, the weekend after Thanksgiving, I head up to my Mom and Dad’s in Hayward to do an insane amount of activity in about 48 hours. The usual list includes making:

Chocolate Balls (coming soon!), Popcorn Balls, Cornflake Wreath Cookies (with my own lazy twist) and a Gingerbread House. I also then make a wreath with boughs my mom has leftover from a big wreath-making extravaganza weekend with friends. And finally, when I think I can take no more, my 69 year-old mom, with far more energy than I, rallies me into the car to go get my cheap christmas tree from a church lot up there.

Then, I hop in the car with my two kids and usually my niece, but occasionally a nephew or two, and head home.

I would like to say that this weekend is a warm and fuzzy, calm and cozy time of memory making. The reality is that my TV-starved kids, let loose at the cabin, out from under their Dad’s watchful eye, turn into 18-hour TV zombies while systematically clicking off the DVR’d episodes of CSI, NCIS, the Mentalist and anything else my parents have squirreled away.

I know, I shouldn’t let them. But the truth is I don’t really care. At least not for this one weekend. We don’t watch TV at home and I fear I am creating the kind of monster I occasionally brushed up against as a kid. The kind whose parents didn’t let them eat candy or junk food and would somehow find themselves at my house where there was always bags of chips, fun-size candy bars, ice cream and pop. My mouth would hang ajar as I watched these seemingly normal kids come unglued in an uncontrolled eating frenzy. It always seemed to me that if the parents had demystified candy and let the kids figure it out, they wouldn’t be such fiends. But who knows.

I really fear that I am just such a parent in the TV department.

I blame it on Dave.

He’s a bit of a control freak, you know.

But I hate TV, too. So I go along with it.

To a point.

What the heck? How did I get going on this tangent? For crying out loud. Back on point.

I’ll cut to the chase and stop beating around the bush: No, the kids don’t help me with the baking. Ironically, they think that I am a control freak.

Funny, isn’t it?

Anyway, I have learned to let certain things go. Like the gingerbread house, for example.

gingerbread

But the popcorn balls? Are you insane? Sorry, but unless you are cruel, don’t make your kids help you with these.

popcorn history

I have never, ever had a popcorn ball like this recipe makes. It was my Grandma Esther’s recipe and she taught me how to make them a few years before she died. I taught my mom (I love to say that), and now we make them every year. We guard them with our life and never offer them to guests. They are too precious.

I wish I was kidding.

Because I feel bad about that, I would like to share the recipe so that you can make them yourself. It takes my mom and I about two hours to make eight batches. That’s how many we need to make it through Christmas. Each batch makes 8-10 popcorn balls.

It’s easy. Just a pain. First, you pop all the popcorn and then measure 8 level cups into a big bowl.

8 cups popcorn ready for the fun

Then you cook the syrup. Remember: DON’T STIR!

Cooking the syrup

Pour over the popcorn:

Careful. It's HOT!And mix it all up really good:

Stir it up!Butter your hands and form them into balls. Work QUICKLY! (Don’t worry, my mom always makes funny faces like this. I’m not worried about her wrath for posting it because, remember? She doesn’t READ my blog! Revenge is sweet. And Dad? Don’t tell on me.)

Go Mom Go!

Then sit back and have a beer before you move to on to the dreaded wreath-making project:

wreaths(which of course by that time of the night you will open another beer for duration of wreath making. Preferably a Negra Modelo.)

Popcorn Balls

Pop enough popcorn for the amount of balls you plan to make. For our 8 batches, that amount is a heaping grocery bag full. I use a StirCrazy popper and it works great. I always lightly salt the popcorn as I go.

CALIBRATE YOUR THERMOMETER! Candy thermometers are notoriously inaccurate. Calibrate it by putting it in boiling water. If it doesn’t read 212 F, then make note of how high or low it is and adjust your recipe accordingly. My mom’s cheapo (which broke in the middle of our frenzy this year) is off a whopping TWELVE degrees. If I hadn’t known that, the popcorn balls would have been ruined. Don’t take this step lightly.

In a regular sized saucepan, add

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 c butter

1/4 c light corn syrup

1/4 c water

1/8 – 1/4 tsp salt

food coloring to make the colors you want.

Place all ingredients into a medium heavy bottomed sauce pan and bring to a boil. DO NOT STIR. You may gently swirl the pan in the beginning melt stage, but then just leave it alone.

Boil to 240. It will rise to about 235 fairly quickly and a take another minute or two to reach the last few degrees. Be sure to take any thermometer inaccuracies into account at this point!

Immediately take off heat and pour over 8 level cups of the popped popcorn (use a large 8 cup measuring bowl to scoop and measure popcorn into a large bowl). Use a rubber spatula to get every last drop of syrup out of the pan.

Stir syrup into popcorn well, so that kernels are evenly coated. Using the rubber spatula, be sure to keep scraping the bottom, where the syrup pools.

Butter your hands well (to protect from heat and to prevent from sticking) and begin forming into small balls. Work quickly! It gets harder to form balls as syrup cools.

Place balls onto waxed paper.

That’s it!

Here’s a few tips:

Begin with the lightest color and work to the darkest. For example this year we made yellow, orange, and 2 batches of red. Then I cleaned the pan by swirling in hot water to get most of the color out. Then we did 2 batches of blue and then 2 batches of green. That way you don’t muddy the color and aren’t cleaning the pan after every batch.

Store the balls in the giant, 2 gallon zipper bags to keep from drying out.

Hide one of the bags somewhere no one else knows about. That way, when Dave (aka ‘the skinny German’) eats four every night and they disappear long before the allotted time, you will be able to have some for yourself.