Comfort Food

  Let's face it: November can be bleak. The rainy days and nights can lessen our spirits. We need all the comfort we can get in this bleak month. This is why it is so important to make comfort food every so often.

Today, my mother and I made a delicious feast that is 100% comfort food. We made:

• Homemade Cornbread 
• Pork Tenderloins marinated in honey
• Sweet potatoes w/ onions
• Homemade Whipped cream and pumpkin pie
• And a good glass of milk
• And Hot chocolate!

I love delicious food! Comfort food really does revive the body and soul. Especially with the time change and all, we need good food!

Chili!

    My mother and sisters say that my dad makes the best chili in the world. (I don't like chili in general, so I don't get a say) We have recently started making vegetarian chili, which, of course, is healthier than normal chili.

We like to eat mac n' cheese with our chili.

I Bake!

   On a certain wonderful day, (a.k.a my birthday) I received a a delicious cupcake cookbook from a dear friend of mine. It is filled with gourmet recipes and yesterday/today I decided to try my luck.

I decided to make mint cupcakes. With chocolate cake, chocolate filling, mint frosting, and chocolate mints on top, all made from scratch (except the mints), we couldn't go wrong.

The chocolate cake should have been easy to an "experienced" baker like me, but it certainly wasn't. The recipes seemed more professional. It was an interesting challenge.

Well, the batter turned out better than I would have expected. It was delicious, but instead of making twenty-four cupcakes, it made 25 cupcakes with enough batter for an extra large "loaf" of "bread."

Then we made the filling. We heated cream up, then poured it over chocolate chips. Once the chocolate melted, the filling looked like chocolate milk.

(It took forever for the mixture to cool, thus thicken)

By the time we finished the filling and filling the cupcakes (and the loaf with the access filling), it felt like nine o'clock. (it was actually seven) So we had to stop for that day.

The next day we continued. There was only the frosting left to be made, and it was to be green and minty.

Almost all was well, (I accidentally doubled the mint extract) and I am proud to say, that the frosting turned out semi-perfectally.

I frosted them, and and Ella sprinkled crushed mint cookies on top. There was remaining frosting and crushed mint cookies.

But of course, what delicious dessert would be complete without homemade hot cocoa? (See previous post for details)

 Yum! A perfect treat for a cold night!

Jam Making

    Every year, we go to a certain strawberry patch to pick strawberries. We cut them up, mash them and freeze them until the time we are ready to make jam.

Today, we decided to make the jam. The process is not hard, but it is extremely time consuming. (Add the fact that we had to make around six batches: super time consuming!) Today we:

• Defrosted the strawberries
• Put an extremely large pot on the stove (filled with water)
• Put the strawberries in another large pot
• Mashed the strawberries
• added the pectin (I really have no idea what pectin is)
• Brought it to a boil
• Added 7 cups of sugar (wow!!!)
• Brought it to a boil again
• (Meanwhile) Put all the glass jars and lids in extremely large pot w/ boiling water in it and sanitized (Putting the jars in boiling water also keeps the jars from cracking when we put it in water for the second time)
• Took jars and lids out of extremely large pot
• Put the strawberries, sugar, and pectin (a.k.a. jam) into the jars and screwed lids on
• Put the jars in extremely large pot w/ boiling water for the second time
• Took jars out of extremely large pot w/ boiling water in it.
• Stored jars in a safe place

Okay. You get the picture. Jam making altogether is not difficult, but tedious. Imagine doing this whole process six times. (It takes about an hour for each batch) 

Despite some of the tedious elements of jam making, the results are worthwhile. You can make your own labels for the jam, you can give them as gifts, or keep them. There are many different flavors, (your jam does not have to be limited to strawberries) and the delicious (if not nutritious) results make the effort worthwhile!

We Make Hot Cocoa

    Every year, we make a special hot cocoa mix that has a long and complicated history. It is extremely delicious and a joy to make.

Personally, I think that making it on a rainy day makes it even more homey, and homey, (to me) =comfort.