Homecooked, Handmade Holidays

This year I didn't get as much holiday crafting done as in past years. And I was up until the wee hours of Christmas finishing a knit hat for my mom. But, what is crafting without some late nights and a deadline forcing you to finish the project? There was a lot more time spent in the kitchen this year, making various sweets (which we are still gorging on), but also some savory, as I cooked the traditional nochebuena feast all by myself this year (this coming from a woman married to a chef...but alas, it's good for the Cuban girl to try her hand at it every now and then....I must say my frijoles negros con sofrito, or black beans with sofrito, turned out amazing).

OK, enough pats on the shoulder. Here are some highlights of the holiday crafting and cooking.


A knit hat for my mom. It's made with a charcoal merino wool and a pink silk accent yarn. The pattern is the roll-brim hat pattern I use for all of my baby hats, except in an adult size.


Rolled beeswax candles are the gift of choice this year. We rolled them in glitter to make them extra festive (and messy).



This year's gingerbread house was having a little weight-bearing difficulty with the overloaded roof, but with the help of some toothpicks, all was well in gingerbread land.

And there were plenty of gingerbread scraps from our gingerbread house. We're still eating this stuff!



Savory almonds for my dad and Charles' stockings. They were supposed to be spicy, but I didn't have any cayenne pepper. The recipe is from my "Christmas with Martha Stewart" book.


My flan turned out OK. The custard was good, but the caramel turned out a bit brown and lumpy. Not my best. I think I can't use hippie sugar for flan.



The table is set for our nochebuena (Christmas Eve) dinner. The menu: puerco asado (garlic-marinated & roasted pork butt), arroz y frijoles negros (rice and black beans), yuca con mojo (cassava root with olive oil/garlic/onion sauce) and flan for dessert.


My gumdrop/toothpick place tags. I punched circles out of white cardstock and used my shimmery watercolors to paint red and green circles around everyone's name.


I made homemade panetone, an Italian sweet bread with raisins, for breakfast for Christmas morning. It was a tradition at my house growing up to eat these after opening presents, with butter and jelly. We had ours with some peach jelly a friend gave us. The recipe for panetone was from Martha Stewart.

National Cupcake Day

Today was National Cupcake Day. The local cupcakery was giving away free cupcakes. The girls & I hopped on the bus into town and got ourselves some yummy treats. I had peanut butter, Olivia had creamsicle, and Frankie had vanilla with chocolate frosting. Another sweet ending to the day.

Hanukkah Jelly Donuts

Our family does not celebrate Hanukkah as part of our spiritual belief or upbringing, but we do like to celebrate and learn about the cultures and festivals from around the world. Like we celebrate Day of the Dead, the Chinese New Year, and the solstices, we also are celebrating a little bit of Hanukkah. I like for the kids to learn about how friends, neighbors, or relatives celebrate their religious holidays and cultural festivals.

Last night was the first evening of Hanukkah. Although we will not light a menorah (or hanukkiah, as we learned today), we have been reading lots of books from the library about the holiday. We're learning about the tradition behind the eight candles, the food, the games, and the music used to celebrate. This morning I made jelly-filled donuts for breakfast. My donuts turned out a little dense (I don't think our kitchen was warm enough for them to rise properly), but I still managed to pipe in some raspberry jelly and coat them with powdered sugar. No one complained about the treat! While we ate our donuts we read some books about latkes, dreidel games, and Hispanic Januca. Hopefully tonight Charles will make some potato latkes as part of our supper. If only I could find a dreidel somewhere so we can play with our chocolate gelt.

I believe it's important to understand the rituals and heritage of different people in our communities. I hope that I have captured the right message and passed it along to the kids. So, to those of you who do celebrate the holiday, I hope you find peace in the spirit of the Hanukkah moon, and the light of your candles.

Chocolate cupcake

Just looking at this makes me want to eat it. I made these chocolate cupcakes for Olivia's school holiday faire. I never got to taste one, but when I licked the batter from the bowl, it tasted pretty good to me!

Birthday Tea Party

All last week I spent planning and preparing for Olivia's 11th birthday party. She had an Asian-style tea party with all of the girls in her class. Some stayed over for a slumber party too. It was tons of fun, but I am pooped. I absolutely love planning parties, and while the kids definitely enjoyed the evening, I think I'm the one that got the most out of the details.

Here are the invites. I used apples to make flower prints. I carved flower shapes in the apples and used tempera paint to stamp the flowers onto brown craft paper. I glued the stamped paper onto blank cards, and I hand-wrote "You're invited..." as well as all of the party details inside.

I made origami lotus flower bowls using paper napkins to hold rice snack mix at each place setting. I also hung up paper lanterns and put out my Asian-style teapots (like my Yixing teapot I got in China).

The cake is a gluten-free chocolate cake with Swiss-meringue buttercream icing. I also made some mandarin orange gelato (Olivia's request).

And Charles whipped up some Asian yummies for dinner: veggie spring & summer rolls, dumplings, stir-fry baby bok-choy & carrots, rice and other fruit, veggie and cracker snacks. The party was a great hit.