Catch Up!

So as promised many moons ago, here is a picture from Thanksgiving with all the kids and the items I made for them (to keep them busy). It worked like a charm! They loved the Indian headdresses!

Back Row: Christopher, Connor, Brandon. Front Row: Hannah, Jackson, Emily, Colton

 

 

 

 

As for Christmas, it was delicious! My sisters and I all gathered together and made the awfullest bunch of candy and then my Mom and I made even more the next weekend! No, we didn't it all, although I definitely could have and my husband did try his darnedest. Most of the candy was given away to family and friends as Christmas gifts.
I did not try the sandwich cookie pops I had posted about but I did the other three. The Oreo truffles and almond sweets were great! The mock toffee didn't turn out too well, so I probably won't try that one again. Here are some of my favorite recipes we used:

Cinnamon Pecans

·       1 egg white

·       1 tbsp cold water

·       1 cup granulated sugar

·       1 teaspoon cinnamon

·       1 teaspoon salt

·       1 lb. pecan halves

Whip egg white and cold water until foamy, but not stiff. Fold in 1 lb. pecan halves. In Ziplock back mix sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add pecans to bag and shake. Bake separately on a cookie sheet. Bake 225 degrees for 1 hour or until browned.

English Toffee

·       7/8 pound creamery butter (or 1 pound margarine)

·       2 cups granulated sugar

·       ½ teaspoon lecithin

·       1 tbsp light corn syrup (Karo)

·       ¼ teaspoon salt

·       1 cup chopped toasted almonds

In a saucepan melt the butter or margarine over low heat. Add the sugar and lecithin and stir constantly with a wooden spoon over medium high heat, until mixture comes to a boil. Then add corn syrup and continue to cook over medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent burning in the bottom of the pan, until temperature reaches 295 degrees.

To the cooked mixture, add salt and nuts and gently mix in. Then pour into a well buttered shallow pan. Smooth out with a spatula or knife to a thickness of about ¼ inches. Before toffee sets and becomes firm, score into uniform rectangular pieces. Toffee can also be left unscored and covered with melted stored in an airtight container or plastic bag to prevent softening.

Ritz Cracker Cookies

·       80 Ritz crackers (1 box)

·       ¾ cup creamy peanut butter or Nutella

·       3 (14 oz.) bags white chocolate candy melts

·       1/3 cup miniature M&M’s chocolate candies

Take two sleeves of crackers and top each cracker with enough peanut butter or Nutella to coat gently. Then top with remaining 2 sleeves of crackers which makes cracker sandwiches. Microwave candy melts according to package directions. Drop cracker sandwich into melted chocolate, coat completely and remove with fork shaking off excess chocolate. Top immediately with mini M&M’s or sprinkles, or colored sugar. Cool completely before serving/storing. 

 

Fantasy Fudge

·       3 cups sugar

·       ¾ cup butter or 1 ½ stick

·       2/3 cup evaporated milk

·       2/3 cup peanut butter or 1 (12 oz.) package of chocolate chips or ¾ lb. white chocolate, red and green candied cherries and pecans

·       1 (7 oz.) jar marshmallow cream

·       1 tsp vanilla

·       1 cup nuts (if desired)

Combine sure, butter, and milk in a 5 quart heavy saucepan. Bring to a full boil, stirring constantly. Boil 5 minutes over medium heat or until candy thermometer reaches 234 degrees stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Remove from heat; stir in peanut butter (or chocolate) until melted. Add marshmallow cream and vanilla. Beat until well blended. Pour into greased pan (13X9-inch). Cut into squares.

 

 

These are some of my absolute favorite Christmas candy recipes. They are delicious!! 

 

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! 

 

Jess

Christmas Gear Up!

Well, the finger puppets, headdresses, and trivia went over great! The kids loved them (especially the headdresses)! I don't have any pictures yet but soon to come. It was a big help keeping them a little more calm too. I also printed off a lot of coloring sheets for them. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. Pat and I got to attend two! My Mom always has her's on the Saturday after so everyone is not trying to fit in two dinners in one day. That was pretty difficult!

Now that we've got the bird off the table, we are getting ready for Christmas! Pat and I have decided to get a real tree this year. I have never had one before. We always had a fake tree. Pat use to have one when he was little. We are really excited about it! Pat has already found one he thinks will work. He'll go probably next week and cut it down. We are really excited about our first Christmas together! Another way I'm gearing up for the Christmas season is this weekend my sisters are all coming back to Mom's to make Christmas candy! I can already taste Oreo truffles and cream cheese candy! Here are some of the candies I'm going to make this weekend.

Oreo Truffles

Almond Sweets

Mock Toffee

Not sure if I'll try these Sandwich Cookie Pops  or not but they sure do look good!

I'll share all the delicious recipes next time! What are you doing to get ready for Christmas?

Jess

Thanksgiving Shakedown

Hello all! As you know Thanksgiving is approaching. While this is a joyous time of to spend with family and friends it can also be very chaotic around the Ison household. With seven grandchildren between the ages of 4 and 10 you can imagine. There's usually a lot shouting, screaming, bumping, banging, breaking and so on. Although I dearly love all my nieces and nephews, I am going to attempt to capture their attention this year with these great ideas from Martha.

I would love to try this paper-bag turkey. They would love it!

They will have a blast with these headdresses!

Who doesn't love finger puppets?

For the older boys, I was thinking of giving them a little trivia.

I'll let you know how well it works! 

Jess

Happy Halloween!

Well, Patrick and I had an excellent first Halloween! Between our party and our first trick-or-treaters it was a blast!! Here are some of the highlights of this Halloween season!

My costume was a big hit!

He finally caught me!

The cake was a disaster! It looks alright here but this was the day before the party. The next morning my nephew came and woke us up and said "Your cake fell apart. I want you to come and see how bad it is." He wasn't kidding either. Part of the cake itself had slid off and the house fell down!

I decided to turn it into a graveyard and be done with it! It still tasted good and that's what counts right?

The haunted basement was awesome! These bats guarded the entry way.

Can you guess what these brains are made out of?

My icy hands of death lost a finger. Glad it was only the index finger!

The shrunken heads turned out great!

I decided to make mustaches for everyone too, and they were a blast!

We also headed up to King's Island for their Halloween Haunt with one of our good buddies. It was awesome!

This was the first year we actually carved our pumpkins and got them out in time for our trick-or-treaters to see them!

We only had 54 trick-or-treaters but we still had a great time handing out candy. We're looking forward to all the other holidays we get to celebrate as a married couple. Hope you had a fun Halloween!