Something to warm yourself when it's cold outside.

My grandmother Robinson use to make up the best, what we called it..."Hot Spice Punch" every year at Christmas time. I remember going to her house and when we entered the front door, I could immediately smell the most fragrant, wonderful smell. It always drew me to her kitchen where she had a large pot of her hot spice punch simmering on the stove. The fragrant cloves and cinnamon made my mouth water and I couldn't wait until she offered me some. She would then unwrap a tiny candy cane and hook the crook of the cane over the edge of the mug. Those were great memories. I have kept my grandmothers wassail recipe and have integrated it with my own family traditions over the years, and my own children ask me every year if I am going to make the Hot spice punch.

Today I am trying to battle my cold and I decided that I would make some hot spice punch to warm me up and hopefully help me to get alittle extra vitamin C for my cold. This time, I tried to expedite the process and I think that I like the new recipe even better than the old one. I have added a couple new things to mine and taken away one of the ingredients and substituted another.... but it turned out to be absolutely delicious.



In years past, I have made up this recipe and after it had sufficiently simmered, I poured some into a glass pint or a quart canning jar for gift giving. I have made the fabric lids that you can find on this blog, and put them on with a label of one kind or another. This would make a great and easy Visiting Teaching gift.

Let me know what you think of my new and improved recipe, even though you can't compare it with the old one since I am not posting that one. You can print this off to share if you like. Enjoy! Katie G.

Yummy new Freezer Jam recipe

I thought I would like to share a Surprise with you, as you are so good to keep following this blog. This one is another great recipe and simple and quick little gift idea, or can be just for you and your family if you like as well. I have a story behind this recipe creation.
I recently found out that I was the lucky one to get diagnosed with diabetes. (of course I am being facetious as no one who gets diabetes is very pleased about it.) Anyway, I have been on a quest to figure out how to handle this with diet, and going without sugar is relatively a difficult adjustment as sugar is pretty much contained in about everything that we eat. So.... I have started to experiment up some of my favorite recipes of the past, making changes to them using no sugar or sugar substitute, and No fat or fat substitutes such as applesauce, and fruit sauces. Anyway, this is what I came up with for a jam or fruity syrup for pancakes, waffles or PBJ sandwiches or whatever.

I wanted to see if I could double the recipe for keeping production time to a minimum, so I tried it and it turned out wonderful. The apple juice makes such a delicious contribution to the flavor. I had frozen berries on hand, but I will be making some with fresh as the harvesting of fresh picked berries is so plentiful right now. I will be freezing it up to last all winter. If I run out of fresh frozen jam, I can just make up some more with frozen berries, if I can find the right pectin. My thoughts are to keep some pectin on hand so during the winter you can do just that. The particular type of pectin I used, I don't seem to be able to find during the winter months, so stock up! Make a small jar for your sisters you teach and take it over to them. Also this would make a great Christmas neighbor gift, as it is red and we all know what the color of Christmas is!! All you need is the jam that has been made up and put into small freezer sixed containers, fabric rounds that are about 2 inches larger than the diameter of the lid, black stretchy elastic bands that would normally be used to put in your hair, and a cute ribbon to tie to the elastic for an added touch of cuteness.! Oh and you should definately copy the cute tag template and attach it with twine. I should tell you too that I have given away several of this jams and people have loved it. If you don't want to tell them it is sugarfree, don't. When they ask you for the recipe, direct them to this blog and then they will find out. This jam tastes so fresh and not too sweet, but just right! Enjoy and let me know what you think of this recipe. Love, Katie G.

P.S. Since I printed up and customized a gift tag for this jam recipe, I thought I would share it with you. You can find a page of these tags as well as a customized page for this Freezer Jam Recipe from "Your Visiting Teachers", for printing at http://visitingteachingsurprisedocuments.blogspot.com/2009/09/blank-gift-tags-and-one-printed-for.html The original gift tag can be founnd at http://alenkasprintables.com/freeprintables/blanktemp/gift_tag.png

Pink Popcorn Recipe

For those of you who want the pink popcorn recipe to put in the bags and use the popcorn header below, just go to http://visitingteachingsurprisedocuments.blogspot.com/2009/06/pink-popcorn.html
 You will need to copy and past this into the address bar because when I list this as a post, it doesn't let me activate the link. Sorry for the confusion, but you will get the recipe if you will copy and paste.

Thanks for asking. Katie G.

Fresh Frozen Strawberry Jam recipe

I made these recipe cards up today to go with with the Mother's Day gifts that I am giving to my daughters and daughters-in-law. My daughters love to cook and since everyone is concerned with getting some food storage, I thought that this kind of a gift would be more thoughtful, last longer and would be more needed than something else I could buy. What I did was to buy some plastic containers to put their frozen Jam in, some Sure Jell Fruit pectin, sugar, and strawberries. I am offering to get together to make the jam as well at my house, which we love to do!

I decided that since I went to all the work to make up these recipe cards, I may as well share and let others get the benefit of my work. I made them up to print 4 per page, and if you copy them on white card stock you can print on both sides so that they can have the sugar free or low Sugar recipe on the backside as well as the regular recipe.

Tip from Katie - When I print my recipe cards, I ALWAYS laminate them because if I don't they will inevitably get ruined with spills while I am preparing the recipes. Laminating lets me wipe off the spill off the card and it stays as good as new! If I print a page recipe off the Internet, I always slip them into a plastic sheet protector and put it in a tabbed loosleaf or binder for storage. They too can be easily wiped off without ruining the recipe page. Recipe binders store easily too!

My other thought for posting this on the Visiting Teaching blogs would be that if you make up one batch of jam, it makes 5 - 6 jars of jam, which would be a perfect and very yummy gift for the sisters that you Visit teach. If I were giving this as a gift to them, I would also print off the recipes, and attach that to the jar of Jam. You could also use my pattern for the jar lids below and make up a fabric jar lid for decoration.

For a gift for friends, it would be fun to have some rolls or a yummy loaf of Great Harvest Bread, or even some Sour dough or Artisan bread and a jar or two of Jam, and even a little crock of homemade butter. (You could fake it and just put a cube of butter inside a crock.) Then put them all in a cute basket or a cute decorator box or folded lunch box that you can get from Xpedex, and lined it with a fabric napkin, cute printed dish cloth, tissue paper or even just a cut square of fabric that you have laying around your house. Make sure to print off a recipe card and include it as well. Very fun and cute and thoughtful gift for anyone!
Enjoy and let me know how your jam turns out! Katie G.

ESPANOL

Nota Adicional: Las cuatro tazas de fresas probablemente se conviertan en dos ya siendo machacadas(trituradas).

La receta se agrega la pectina de la caja Sure-Jell (USA) ... aqui esta la foto de la caja... en los paises hispanos probablemente puedan encontrar una caja de pectina para fruta-mermeladas... Traducido por Maria

Some fun Easter recipes & ideas

I was on the internet looking, NO, searching for some cute ideas to do for my family this Easter. Of course all of these types of things are also applicable for you too, because it doesn't take much to make a couple extra goodies and take them with you when you go do your Visiting Teaching. Right? Anyway, I found a new blog called Olivia Wagner food spot located at http://oliviawagnerfoodspot.blogspot.com/ and I emailed Olivia to see if I could use a couple of her wonderful photos of Easter treats and direct my readers to her blogspot. She graciously gave her permission and she said that the photos were hers but the ideas came from other sources. Well since I don't know where those other sources are, I am just going to tell you to go to her blog to get the recipes. The top photo is Cotton Tail Cookies, and they look so darling that I could imagine anyone would love them! The photo below is of Jelly Bean Nests, however I think I would not add Jelly Beans but Cadburry mini eggs, like is pictured. Such cute ideas for Easter!!! Thanks Olivia!