In the meantime

The past few Christmases I've posted some recipes that are traditional here at the Stanley/Lehrman household:  Cheese Ball,   Summer Sausage & Peppernuts,  and  Almond Toast . I think it was last year that Isaac and I enjoyed delivering Summer Sausage and Almond Toast to friends.  This year, however,  I didn't get around to making the almond toast.  Instead, I decided to make Mom's Caramel Corn recipe to go along with the Summer Sausage and Zippy Mustard.   I think it turned out quite well! Christmas Caramel Corn:  Pop roughly 7 quarts of popcorn.   If you're doing it on the stove, you'll need about 1 3/4 cup dry popcorn (1/2 cup dry popcorn makes roughly 2 quarts popped popcorn.) (Don't know how many bags of microwave popcorn that would be...)  Mix together and boil for 5 minutes (while stirring):  2 cups brown sugar 1 cup butter 1/2 cup white or dark corn syrup  1/2 tsp salt  Remo...

Thanksgiving is over and the season for celebrating Christmas is here!  Although I know Christmas isn’t so much about what we do as it is about Who we celebrate , you can’t deny that all of the sights, smells, and traditions have become a part of how we celebrate Christ’s birth.     Over the next few weeks, I’d like to share several more special recipes that, around here, are only for Christmas .  Last year I shared my family’s all-time favorite recipes for Peppernuts  and Home-made Summer Sausage  ( If you’ve never tried homemade summer sausage, you don’t know what you’re missing out on! I grew up on this stuff, and it has kind of {really} spoiled me.) This year I’ll try to post the recipes for Almond Toast,   Grandma Lehrman’s Christmas Cheese Ball ( it’s the best cheese ball I’ve ever had!)and Homemade Zippy Mustard to go with the Summer Sausage (which makes the summer sausage burst w...

 I mentioned in my previous post a few favorite Christmas foods, so here are a couple of the recipes! ************************************************ Up until a couple weeks ago, I thought it was normal to make your own summer sausage.  Only after Isaac expressed much surprise at the fact that I had actually just made summer sausage did I realize that it must just be something that you do when you live in Brazil and you don’t have summer sausage readily available at the store!  This recipe is what I grew up with and has always been my favorite kind of summer sausage!  I had never made it myself until this year but it is so incredibly easy that anyone can do it! Summer Sausage 2 lbs. ground hamburger 2 T. Morton’s tender quick (can be found in the grocery store next to regular table salt) 2 t. black pepper 1/8 t. garlic powder or garlic cloves 1 ½ t. liquid smoke ½ t. mustard seeds ¼ c. water (If the hamburger is exceptionally lean, add 1-2...

(I wrote this post a while before Christmas, but never got around to posting it until now.)  This is now our second Christmas together since we got married.  Neither of us are die-hard “traditional-ists,” so we are still figuring out what exactly “Celebrating Christmas” looks like for us. Isaac did not bring any particular Christmas tradition to our marriage. I, on the other hand, do have a few things that I look back on as a part of how we celebrated Christmas growing up: - Making a big batch of peppernuts soon after Thanksgiving is a must in order for it to “feel” like Christmas! - Almond toast, Grandma Lehrman’s cheese ball, Christmas punch, and home-made summer sausage also come to mind.  - My family did do a gift-exchange.  While at times it did feel like it was easy for it to become all about the gifts, I do remember always reading the Christmas story Christmas Eve before ever opening any presents.  Reading the Christmas Story is a must! - In Bra...