Day Two Hundred and Sixty-Five: Prune Before You Trim

On Monday my husband and I took our kids to the nursery to choose Christmas trees.  We purchased five.  (Three of them are very small, so they almost don't count.)  After reading Martha's Tree Trimming Secrets, I was a little nervous to attempt one step:  pruning.  Martha suggests you prune out the excess branches on some trees to allow more room for ornaments.  The lighter branches are the ones she suggests removing.

I started at the top of our largest tree.

Allow me to make a few observations:

1)  It took about an hour to judiciously trim my tree to allow more room for ornaments.

2)  Since I so nervous about cutting anything, I trimmed maybe four (tiny) branches from the entire tree.

3)  In retrospect, I should have started at the bottom where any errors could have been easily hidden.

4) A large bow works wonders.

Day Two Hundred Sixty-Four: Hang Me Now

This week has been filled with Christmas decorating for me.  I've decked the halls and trimmed the tree all week.  Actually, make that trees, plural.  I have six.  Why I started putting Christmas trees in our bedrooms I will never know.  We started it when our son was born six years ago.  Now it's tradition and I can't get around it.  :such a sucker:

You may be wondering why I'm rushing to decorate.  Christmas isn't for weeks and it's not even December yet.  The push is because Saturday I'm hosting a Sip & See for a friend and her new baby girl and I'm pretty sure the guests don't want to sit on boxes of Christmas decorations I've just hauled down from the attic.

Probably not the most festive atmosphere.

So, when we returned home on Sunday from our Thanksgiving holiday, we pulled out the Christmas decorations and I started trimming the faux tree.  Since we have three ornament murderers kids living under our roof, I wanted to make sure all my lovely ornaments were secure.  Luckily for me, Martha has a tutorial on Tree-Trimming Secrets.  Namely, How to Hang Ornaments.

Now, I'm sure you've been hanging ornaments since your own mother let you hang up that awful thing you made in Kindergarten.  But you've probably been doing it All Wrong.

Martha suggests suspending ornaments from copper wire instead of the tiny hooks that we all use.  To make your own hangers, thread a five-inch piece of wire through the ornament loop, twist one end of the wire to secure the ornament, then wrap the other end around the branch until the ornament is secure.

This is Martha's lovely Visual For Idiots:

The drawing is so nice and neat, no?

Now I will be honest.  I tried this...for a while.  After the first dozen ornaments, I started getting a bit sloppy.  See photo below:  

After my fingertips started going numb, I gave up.

Calling all members of the O.C.D. Club:  this method is for you.

Day Two Hundred Sixty-Three: Acorn Squash Flop

While we were out of town for Thanksgiving, we celebrated my husband's birthday.  His idea of celebration was to grill steaks on the b-b-q for a dozen people in sub-zero weather.

I know.  I tell him he's weird all the time.

As part of the dinner, I made Martha's Roasted Acorn Squash Pasta with Kale and Almonds.  Since we had such a big group, I tripled it.  It turned out pretty tasty.  I've never cooked acorn squash or kale so it was a new experience.  I had to wrestle a large bush of kale, but I eventually got it all in the pot.

It squash part did not go well.

The recipe didn't call for you to peel the squash, but after it was roasted the skin was rather chewy and some pieces were straight-up hard.  My poor, sweet mother-in-law was actually nibbling the roasted squash off the skin.  I'm probably lucky she didn't lose a tooth. 

I'm pretty sure causing dental damage is not Good Thing.

Day Two Hundred Sixty-Two: Hot Buttered Rum

What do you make when you've spent the last two days eating?

A cocktail.

Since it was cold and snowy outside, I decided to make Martha's Hot Buttered Rum.  If you are unfamiliar with this concoction, it's a sweet cocktail, served warm.  I've had it before, but never actually made one from scratch.  If I had given it any thought, I would have assumed that the "hot butter" portion of the drink was only a buttery flavoring or similar.  Possibly a colorful nickname for a more sober (no pun intended) drink.

It's not.

The recipe is basically brown sugar mixed with a bunch of spices and a stick of butter.  Yes, a stick of butter.  Pour rum and hot water over the butter mixture and it's done.  "Hot Buttered Rum" is pretty much just that: hot, buttered, rum.

It's also hot, buttery deliciousness.  I would have drank about a dozen of them, but since I had made the first recipe, I knew each one was the equivalent of eating a couple tablespoons of butter.  One look at my hips made me re-think making more than one batch.

Oh, but I wanted to.


p.s. this is Martha's photo above.  For some reason, my computer did not like the photos I took of my own Hot Buttered Rum. :sigh:

Day Two Hundred Sixty-One: Hostess Gift for House Guests

Thanksgiving.  What a fun day.  I had the good fortune of getting up before dawn to pack my suitcases, drag my children out of bed and fight the other holiday revelers to the airport on one of the busiest travel days of the year.

Yay!

Actually, the airport was pretty quiet at 6 a.m., so I can't complain too much. (But if you want to feel sorry for me, I will accept your sympathy.  I'm sure you were still snug in your warm bed at 6 a.m.)

We spent Thanksgiving and the following weekend with my lovely sister-in-law and her adorable family.  As a thank you for having my family invade her house for the weekend, I brought her a little hostess gift.  Martha suggests giving your hosts a Breakfast Kit complete with coffee, jam and a simple muffin mix.  It's a nice alternative to a bottle of wine and perfect for a weekend stay.  Since my hosts are not coffee people (and because I had limited space in my bag) I chose this little package of pumpkin bread mix and pecan-pumpkin butter.  The pumpkin bread is simple to make and will surely make a nice breakfast after the house is empty...

...And hopefully ensure that I receive another invitation.

Day Two Hundred Sixty: Clever Bottle Wrap

Last week was Thanksgiving and I had the good fortune of going to someone else's house for dinner.  Being a good dinner guest, I brought the obligatory bottle of wine.  I actually wanted to bring more than one bottle so I used Martha's Bottle Wrap idea to wrap them together in one adorable package.

Seriously? How cute is this?

Just take a piece of fabric and lay two bottles on their sides, bottoms facing each other.  Roll them both up in the fabric and tie at the top.  Decorate them with a couple pinecones you nicked from your friend Sybil's yard and you have a unique presentation of a not-so-unique gift.

Day Two Hundred Fifty-Nine: Secret Recipe Cookies

Okay, okay.  I've been busy the last week, but I promise to catch you up on all the fun Martha stuff I've been doing.

Last Tuesday my kids asked to make cookies, so I chose a new recipe from MarthaStewart.com: Jacques Torres's Secret Chocolate Cookie.  I don't know who Jacques Torres is, but apparently he's got one heck of a secret because this recipe is one of Martha's all-time favorites.

If that's not a endorsement, I don't know what is.

Just in case you don't have the opportunity to make these cookies, I'll let you in on Jacques's secret.

:looks left and right:

Two pounds of chocolate chips.  That's approximately three bags of chocolate chips, in case you were wondering.  That's a chocolate-chip-bonanza!

I overcooked mine a bit and they were a little too crispy for my liking.  But the fact that the cookie is approximately 70% chocolate chip made up for any crispy bits.