Weekend Reflection: Holiday Traditions

Cascia from Healthy Moms started this really neat meme: Weekend Reflection I thought I would give it a shot this weekend.

This morning I was thinking about some of our holiday traditions, and then some traditions that we had when I was growing up. Mainly because I was thinking about food and remembering these hors d'oeuvres my mom used to make for New Year's Eve. They were the best! But they took so long to make, we would all help. She would take a bag of Doritos, spread a little dab of refried beans on a dorito, add a sprinkle of cheese and then a slice of a green olive and then pop them in the oven until the cheese melted. We would do up just about the whole bag. And those things were so tasty that they wouldn't last longer than 30mins tops. Can you imagine how much work that took? But it was so worth it.

I really wanted to make these when we had our first New Year's Eve party as a family. We had my sister in law and her daughter over to stay the night. But of course with the amount of time it would have taken to do those hors d'oeuvres, we settled for a big pan of refried bean dip with cheese and slices of green olives on top. But it just didn't taste the same. One of these New Year's Eves I will totally make those hors d'oeuvres. Maybe it will be in a few years when I will have more than one child able to help put them all together. My mom probably only did it because she had about three of us in a line: one spreading the beans, one sprinkling the cheese and one placing the slice of olive.

I know, crazy to be thinking about New Year's Eve when Christmas is approaching way too fast ;)

With our own family we have started a few traditions of our own that we really enjoy. Every year, the morning after Thanksgiving we always have a pie breakfast. The kids really enjoy that one!

Our special Christmas tradition used to be to make a big fire in the fireplace and get all cozy. But we haven't had a fireplace since we moved up to Wisconsin... But last year we got one of those big heaters that looks like a fireplace, so that was a nice stand-in last year. Also last year the two older girls made their own gingerbread houses and we had tons of fun doing that! We will probably try to do that one again this year. Of course there was a little more licking fingers going on the building ;) but why not?

And for New Year's Eve our special thing is to get a bunch of snacky oven foods (tater skins, buffalo wings, mini tacos, taquitos, etc...) and just munch the night away :) I think that one's my favorite :)

Frankenberry Pie

Ever make something that doesn't look quite right? But then it ends up tasting marvelous?! We had some bags of frozen berries hanging out in our deep freezer for a while, so we decided to try our hand at a homemade pie.
We found a recipe for a mixed berry pie online, and of course I can't find it now to link to it, but the recipe we used is as follows:

• 2 frozen pie shells
• 4 cups berries
• 2/3 cp sugar
• 7 tblsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tblsp lemon juice
• 3 tblsp grape juice

Bring the pie crusts out to thaw for 15-20 mins. Pre-heat the oven to 375. Put the berries into the thawed pie crust. Mix the dry ingredients in a small mixing bowl. Then add the lemon juice and grape juice to the dry mixture. Pour over the berries. Put the second pie crust on top of the first one, crimping the edges together. Cut slits in the top pie crust to vent. Put the pie onto a foil covered cookie sheet (preferrably one with sides as the pie will boil over). Bake it for an hour.

Unfortunately, my top crust had troubles coming out of the foil pan, and this is what I ended up with ~ We decided it looked a little like Frankenstein's monster, so we named it Frankenberry Pie!

But amazingly, it didn't look too bad coming out! It almost looks like the criss cross crust on fancy pies ;) I said almost ;)
The cornstarch really helped hold it all together. We were amazed at how it didn't come spilling over after we cut out our pieces. The fruit usually spills out of the store bought frozen pies.

While it may have looked horrendous in the beginning, we all decided that it was the best pie we'd ever had! We are going to make some more for Thanksgiving this year!

Quick, Easy and healthy yummy fruit salad!

We've made this fruit salad a couple of times lately - over the weekend for our coming home cookout, and made it again tonight because it's so gosh darn good and easy (and because everyone loved it so much there were no leftovers). So I thought I would share it with everyone!

• 1 can of mandarin oranges (drained)
• 1 can of chunk pineapple (drained)
• 2 bananas (sliced)
• 1 cp of chopped walnuts
• 1 bunch of grapes (sliced in half)
• 2 containers of vanilla yogurt (I used light yogurt)

You just cut up the bananas and grapes, and mix it all up! It's so super easy, and you could really put just about any fruit in it (I'm thinking about trying strawberries and blueberries next time). It tastes so sweet that it's hard to believe there isn't anything bad for you in it. We were craving Waldorf salad, which is similar but I think it just has grapes, apples and walnuts in it. All the recipes we found for that were a little involved and used mayonaise and sugar... not quite as healthy as it would appear.

In other news, baby B had her shots today :( Boy do I hate those Dr's appointments. It just never gets any better. Of course you'd never know she had her shots today because she's been just as lively as ever and addicted to the baby swing! She just gets sooo mad when it's time to get out of the swing. I have to pry her little fingers off the ropes.