It’s great for the feast, but if you’re like me you always have cranberry sauce left over.  It just never manages to hold its appeal post-Thanksgiving.  So rather than banish it to the far recesses of the fridge’s Land of the Lost try this!

Use this fabulous recipe but instead of all that blueberry jazz, stir in your cup or two of leftover cranberry sauce* into the batter.  TA-DA!!  Cranberry muffins!  And do top them with the sugar/lemon zest crust.  Sweet and zingy and no leftover cranberry sauce with abandonment issues.  The muffins will be pink though, so you fellas will need to check your machismo at the oven door.

* Use cranberry sauce that has whole cranberries in it not the canned, jellied stuff.  **shudder** If you need a recipe (I know the point was to get rid of leftovers, not to propagate more – sorry) here’s a delicious and easy one:

Ingredients

• 1  cup  sugar
• 1  cup  apple cider or apple juice
• 1  (12-ounce) package fresh cranberries

Preparation

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat; simmer 10 minutes or until cranberries pop, stirring occasionally. Chill.

Ava:  Momma?  Am I a boy or a girl?

Me:  A girl.

Ava:  A girl?

Me:  Yes.

Ava:  **pauses a moment to think** Oh…  Good.

Re: The Holidays This May Concern,

I hate the stress and planning – whether it’s the packing and travel or the hosting.  I do however love the actual holi-DAY and all the fun we have on that date.

And by the way – is it too much to ask that we not hear Christmas music or see Christmas decorations until the day after Thanksgiving?  Really?  And why do we celebrate Thanksgiving so close to Christmas?  I love that Canada’s is earlier when the leaves are prettier and the two holidays have a little more time between them.

Maybe nobody agrees with me.  Maybe I’m just easily stressed by the holiday season?  It just feels like Halloween is a big kickoff to a stresstrip that doesn’t conclude until New Years’ Eve!  No wonder people party party par-TAY!

Man-oh-man…the fun of family and friends, cocktails and cooking, decorations and festivities, travel and loved house guests.  But man-oh-man…the go-go-go of it all!

I’m bloody well exhausted and still have to do my Christmas shopping for a rapidly expanding family, travel internationally and be very, very merry and cheery houseguest for almost two weeks.

Sincerely BAH-humbug,

Scrooge

I mentioned a few entries ago my reticence to pick up the book Twilight.  Since then I have not only completed it but also ripped through New Moon in just two days.  I am not proud.

I also ordered the Twilight movie on Netflix (disappointed – just tally it under “the book is always better”).  On paper I would appear to have come under the spell.  Truth be told, I did not enjoy them all that much – but then again I did.

I found practically every character to be immensely irritating in their stock stereotypes and melodrama.  There was a fair bit of eye-rolling on my part.  Although to be fair, my friend Melanie advised me to keep in mind the targeted young adult audience and if I remember high school, it was rife with stereotypes and melodrama; just recall your yearbook superlatives and the seismic breakups of two-week old relationships.

I read an interesting article on Salon that helped me better understand a bit of my love/hate perception of the series.  I think I understand my dislike fairly well but have had a harder time understanding how/why I liked it.  Wuthering Heights is one of my all time favorite books, so when the article drew a parallel I appreciated the enlightenment.  Both books are successful because they embody timelessly appealing character types, only dressed differently for their times.  Heathcliff/Edward: dashing, intelligent, rich and appealingly aloof and difficult.  Catherine/Bella: sweet, loyal, innocent, ingénue, in search of true love.  Who doesn’t like a good ol’ traditional love story?  And feminism aside, women love to be adored, worshipped and protected.  You may shake your fist at me, but admit it.

The writing was fluff – it took practically ten pages of babble before any true description or action occurred.  On the plus side though, this meant that I flew like a (forgive me) bat out of hell through the book and finished them in just a few days!  It was a welcome feeling of – albeit illusory – accomplishment.  I could use a little of that these days.

So I sit here wondering whether to give the book a thumbs up or down?  Well, it’s was like a Twinkie.  Desireable, sweet while indulging, but left me feeling empty and wondering what else I could have had that would have been better.  Mmmm brain candy.  If you’re in the mood for a good fruit salad, read Wuthering Heights.  If you’re in the mood for Fruit Loops, read the Twilight series.

It’s been a while since I did a food-related post, so today I thought I’d take a trip back in time a share a couple recipes from my grandmother’s recipe tin. 

Geraldine was born in the 1910’s so most of these are classic 40’s/50’s style dishes and I just love flipping through them and giggling at the frequency with which canned fruit/vegetables/meat(!) pops up.  But I will spare you these and instead share something sweet with my sweeties.

So today we have (1) my absolute favorite cake recipe of all time – which was her’s.  Ugly Duckling Cake is so named because the finished product takes its name from the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale, resembling a scraggly baby swan.  And (2) peanut brittle, for which my grandmother was well-loved.

UGLY DUCKLING CAKE

1 box yellow cake mix

1 can (16 oz.) canned fruit cocktail in juice, undrained

2 1/2 cups shredded coconut

2 eggs

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup evaporated milk

• Combine cake mix, fruit cocktail, 1 cups coconut and eggs in a large mixing bowl.  Blend at medium speed 2 minutes.  Pour into greased 13×9 in. pan and sprinkle with brown sugar. 
• Bake at 325° for 45 minutes. 
• Bring butter, granulated sugar and milk to a boil in a small sauce pan.  Boil 2 minutes then remove from heat.  Add the rest of the coconut then spoon sauce over the hot, finished cake. 
• Cool and serve!

PEANUT BRITTLE

1 1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup white Karo syrup

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup water

1 1/2 cups raw Spanish peanuts

1 teaspoon soda

• Cook sugar, Karo and water together to 238°. 
• Add peanuts and salt.  Cook to 300°. 
• Remove from heat.  Add soda and butter and mix. 
• Pour on a well-greased cookie sheet.  Once cool, break into pieces and enjoy!

[Tip:  You'll need a candy thermometer for this or you'll have trouble achieving the "brittle" aspect of the candy.]

Dear Husband:

Just when I think things are too awful to bear, you laugh and remind me that this bumpy road isn’t so much a curse as it is a challenge.

Even after all these years I cannot believe that you accept me as I am, with all my flaws and weaknesses.  On today of all days I was appropriately feeling like a big ol’ monster, but with a big squeezy hug and a chuckle you saved me from myself.

Consider a hypothetical situation:  It’s Friday night, Ang has gone out and I’m counting down the minutes until Ava goes to bed.

I COULD have gotten a babysitter and gone out with the gals, or at least have invited them over here for some wine and conversation.

But my preference is to be alone.  Maybe I’ll read some more of my latest great book, I Was Told There Would Be Cake, or I’ll watch some trashy TV nonreality programming.  And I’ll lovity-love it.

I used to be so social.  I used go out alot and have lots of friends and crave “doing stuff”, but now – and I don’t know when this transformation occurred – I’m constantly looking forward to when I’ll next be able to switch myself off.

Always the overanalytical-overthinker I’m thinking it means I’m depressed.  But maybe I’m just worn the f*** out.  I lack the ability to live purely positively in the moment, which means that no matter how pleasurable the moment is I’m always triangulating future possibilities and anticipating the next challenge and the google of ways that it might manifest itself.  It’s just bloody exhausting.

So I’m quite conflicted sitting here tonight and looking forward to time alone.  I know that I’ll enjoy it but I feel like I’ve thrown away another opportunity to do something meaningful for my psyche.

There’s the old idiom: variety is the spice of life.  Maybe if I stopped focusing so much on checking out as often as I can and instead tried some variety and challenge in my routine I’d feel better.

Any other armchair psychologists out there?  I’ll wait for your analysis while I allow myself to be hypnotized by the season finale of VH-1’s latest carwreak My Antonio.  God I feel pathetic…or would that be apathetic?

I took my daughter to Boo at the Zoo last night.  It’s a terrific fundraiser run by the Smithsonian’s National Zoo here in D.C. with sponsors and donors manning kiosks throughout the zoo, so that the kids can mix a little trick or treating with a little zoological learning along the way.  It is also a complete madhouse.

As with any event upon which a thousand or so children converge, mayhem reigns.  But most parents are experienced in this type of pediatric stampede.  And it’s an opportune time to impose a crash course on sharing, waiting turns and making friends with others.  You can treat it as a glass half full/glass half empty opportunity if you will.  And most parents do as well as the children…exercising appropriate social graces.

And so it is that I am always shocked and disappointed when I encounter graceless parents passing on graceless lessons to their children.  Among them: shoving your child ahead of others in a frenzy; shouting at them that they shouldn’t shout; teaching imperious entitlement by insisting that for whatever reason they deserve more; blaming unacceptable behaviors (e.g., pushing, hitting) on others’ unacceptable behavior.

It just makes me so sad to see these children who are so malleable being lead down the wrong path.  Don’t be afraid to discipline your child – you don’t have to be mean, just keep it simple and be firm.  And don’t lose your perspective – your child is always watching you and the others around you.  Be the example and treat them as you would like to be treated.  Having children or even just being around them is a priceless opportunity to shape a better person.

Redundancies can go suck on a fat ol’ tailpipe.  A tailpipe that would fail emissions testing 1,000,000 times over…and a diesel one at that.

And never underestimate the importance of contingency plans.  They’re your safety net while walking this economic tightrope.

And if you know me well you’ll also know that I always try to battle adversity with a bit of levity.

…but inside it’s not delightful!  What the hell am I going to do all winter?  I need free child activity ideas and I need them badly.

Local meteorologists have promised a 33% colder winter than last (although their accuracy average leaves me with sincere enough doubts that I would not be surprised in the slightest if it turned out to be downright tropical).  National meteorologists are saying practically the same.

Now, three year olds need lots of stimulation in order to be tired enough to take that precious afternoon nap that begets a shaft of sanity sunlight to a parent’s life.  But even if I enrolled Ava in 3 or so weekly programs, that only gives us 5 or 6 hours of entertainment for the week.  What to do, oh what to do?

Thank goodness we have the fortune of living in a government-centric city where most museums are free.  This morning we spent 3.5 hours roaming the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum.  It was terrific to be out of the house, feeling like I was advancing my child’s understanding of the world, and even learning a little something myself.  Ava ran her little legs (and mouth) like the Roadrunner and touched everything in sight – we even found a discovery room where everything is hands-on and learning-oriented.  But mortification snapped me out of my reverie spent coloring a psychedelicly colorful bird, as Ava was busy making sweet music by knocking an alligator and a cat skull together.  She agrees that learning is fun!

If you have kids – what do you do for fun when the weather is rotten?  Those skulls can only take so much crackin’…the museum’s that is, not our childrens’.