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Saturday, January 1, 2011

Midnight snacks

Each year after the 11 pm Candlelight service, we come home and have yummy snacks together.  The ONE menu item that I’ll never be allowed to skip is stuffed mushrooms.  I can’t make enough of them to last more than a few minutes!  Rachel was a big help in making them this year!

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STUFFED MUSHROOMS

  • 12 large mushrooms
  • 1/4 pound butter
  • 1/2 c. homemade breadcrumbs
  • 1 T. finely chopped parsley
  • 1 T. finely chopped onion
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 1/2 t. pepper
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 1/2 c. freshly grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350.  Generously butter a shallow baking dish.  Remove stems from mushrooms, discard.  Wipe the mushroom caps clean. Melt 4 T. butter...let cool a bit and then coat the mushroom caps in the butter.  Place caps in baking pan.  Mix bread crumbs, parsley, onion, salt, pepper and egg together.  Fill each mushroom cap with mixture.  Melet remaining 4 T. butter.  Sprinkle parmesan cheese over each cap.  Drizzle with butter.  Bake for 15-20 minutes.

DELICIOUS!

Another popular item is the ever so easy Pigs in a Blanket.

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For these, we just took a package of li’l smokeys and a couple of packages of crescent rolls.  I cut each triangle piece of dough and cut it into thirds, and then Rachel wrapped each piece around a li’l smokey.  Baked them at 375 for about 10 minutes and….mmmmmm….yummy!

And this year I made Cheesy Bacon Dip.  It’s almost as good before it’s cooked as it is when it’s heated up!

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CHEESY BACON DIP

  • 1 8 oz block of cream cheese, softened
  • 1 bag of shredded cheddar cheese (2 or 3 cups)
  • 16 oz. sour cream
  • 3 –4 package of real bacon pieces
  • 1 cup of chopped green onions (tops and bottoms)
    Directions:
    1. Preheat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients and place in oven safe dish.
    2. Cover in foil and cook for 35-45 minutes.

Never much of this stuff for leftovers!!

Everyone was VERY happy with their snacks this Christmas Eve!

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I love seeing everyone so happy!!

Merry Christmas

Yes, I’m just now getting around to getting our Christmas Eve photos up here.  I’m sorry…I’ve been SOOOO busy…you know…staying up late…sleeping in…staying in my pj’s…doing a bit of cooking (only what’s necessary to feed the crew, though)…you know…that kind of thing.  Ahhhh…I love Christmas vacation!

We had a lovely Christmas Eve.  I think everyone was very happy with their gifts.  I know I sure was! 

As we traditionally do, we had our Children’s Christmas program at church at 7 on Christmas Eve.  It went very well!  The kids were SO cute!  Then, we came home and had our family Christmas.  My ONE picture of all 4 kids ended up blurry (I HATE that…they were even all looking at me and almost SMILING!  UGH)  But here are some other pictures from the evening.

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Caleb got a 2 x 2 x 2 rubik’s cube! 

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Ethan got  Lego board type game with a Great Pyramid theme.

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and Ronnie got a globe…that opens up into a bar! COOL!

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Ronnie and Rachel enjoy tea from his new tea set.

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and we played Ethan’s new game

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Ronnie studied his new globe.

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Caleb and Ethan built legos together

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Rachel tried on her new clothing (pj’s and a sweatshirt…how good does life get?)

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and Cameron played computer games.

And then we went to church for the 11 pm candlelight service.  My favorite service of the church year!