#mostly because 1) its our first christmas without my grandma 2) its our first christmas where my brother and his family moved out

[clamorybus]

ngl im not really in the christmas spirit this year

[purplesurveys]

1065

survey by pinkchocolate

Who were you with at midnight on January 1, 2021? I was with my family - my dad, mom, siblings, grandma, aunt, and two cousins. Kimi and Cooper were troopers who slept through the fireworks the entire time, though it probably helped a lot that my dad kept music playing in the living room, where they stayed, to drown out the loud sounds.

What was the last thing you drank? Was it in a glass, mug, can, or bottle? I’m currently drinking out of the glass mug that Angela got me for Christmas. It’s clear and she had it customized with my name, but the letters are in the style of the Friends logo :)

Who was the last person to send you a message on social media? I’m not sure; it was either Andi or Jez but I haven’t opened either.

^ What qualities does this person have, that you appreciate? I appreciate Andi’s loyalty and the fact that I can rely on them about anything and everything. They’re also a fantastic older sibling, honest, witty, strong-willed, supportive, and insanely talented. 

Jez and I were part of the same high school group but we actually do not talk much; for the most part, we only interact twice a year, when we greet each other during our birthdays. But he reached out to me because I had written a year-end essay on Facebook where I reflected on my 2020, and he messaged to tell me it was a good read and that he was able to relate a lot. Anyway, I love that he’s a low-maintenance friend. We were never the closest and I haven’t properly hung out with him in five years, but we have always silently supported each other and I appreciate people who can keep friendships like that.

Look around the room and find any red object. What is it? The handles on my embroidery scissors are red.

Do you enjoy any films with Dan Stevens in them? I’m afraid the name is unfamiliar, actually.

Is there anything in the room that has your handwriting on it? Yeah I have several notebooks here in my room, most of which I’ve written on.

Can you name 3 items you own that are pink? My wallet, my keyboard cover, and my note-taking notebook from college. I was definitely crazier over pink in college and at one point I had a pink pencilcase, highlighters, phone case, handbag, and backpack.

Are there any foods that often give you heartburn or indigestion? I will get indigestion randomly, and the only time I’ve gotten heartburn is the time I got a Double Down from KFC a couple of years ago hahahaha.

What are the initials of the last person you saw naked? Does it have to be someone I know? I watched Midsommar last Christmas and there was lots of nudity in it... the last irl person was still my ex.

^ How did you meet that person? If we’re taking the latter answer, I met her in school.

What was the last thing someone said to you, that sounded like an innuendo? I can’t remember the exact sentence anymore but my mom was talking about nuts in a way that I was easily able to turn it into something a little more inappropriate. My cousin and I also joked about WAP last night, lmao.

Is there something you intend to buy in the near future? Nothing cemented yet. I have things I want to buy, but they’re all luxuries that I have to think hard about. For now, I’d love to be able to keep saving especially after not exactly being able to do so during the holidays. I will say that one big pro of becoming single is no longer having to spend so much for relationship things like dates or gifts or gas to drive around, haha.

What was the last thing that caused you to scowl, or frown? My shoulder blades have been in a lot of pain over the last few days.

Is anyone in your family artistically talented? What about musically? We have members who fall under either. My dad, Nina, my cousin Maggie, and I believe even my grandpa, can all draw. On the other side, my cousin Gage can play the flute and the guitar; a lot of people on my maternal grandpa’s side can play the piano; and one of my mom’s cousins on my maternal grandma’s side is a singer. Of course, I got neither of these lmao

Have you smiled at any point during the last hour? For sure. I’m on a 2 Days 1 Night marathon, which always makes me crack up.

^ What was your reason for doing so? Already mentioned it. I’ve also come across some funny shitposts on Facebook in the last hour.

Can you name 3 foods you like, that are yellow? Cheese, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes.

What was the last thing you consulted Google for? Yellow foods...HAHA

Look around the room - can you see anything that has stripes on it? A paper bag I received from Christmas has stripes as part of its design.

When was the last time you read a non-fiction book? What was it about? I’d say it was a few months back. I believe it was AJ’s memoir.

So, did anyone send you a "Happy New Year" message when midnight hit? A lot of people did, which I appreciate.

Is your television on right now? What are you watching? I don’t have a TV in my room, but I have a YouTube video paused. It’s a segment from 2D1N.

Can you recall the last time you sighed? What was the reason? Maybe last midnight watching the fireworks? It was my first New Year in nearly a decade that I did not greet Gabie. It felt strange, bittersweet, but also peaceful. The mix of emotions made me sigh in contentment.

What cute behaviours or characteristics does/do your pet(s) have? Cooper mostly won’t do tricks just because he’s asked to. You have to hold up a fist (because it looks like you have food hidden in it), for him to respond. We’ve done experiments where we asked him to do tricks with and without a fist, and he only ever responds if you have one up, and it’s priceless every time. Kimi’s nearly 13 but still runs, jumps, and stands up like he’s 2 when he hears us preparing his bowl for meals.

Have you rolled your eyes at anyone/anything lately? My mom was being pretty annoying last night, so yup.

What's the screensaver on your computer? I don’t have one. It just goes black after 15 minutes.

[beshert-bh]

My journey to/with Judaism

***This is a super long post, it’s the FULL story, not a brief overview, but it would mean the WORLD to me if you read it***

Upbringing: very much Not Jewish™️

I was born into a Catholic family. I have a goyish last name. I was baptized as an infant, and my parents took me to church each week as a kid.

In kindergarten — back when I still went to a secular private school — one of my best friends was Jewish. He told me all about the traditions his family did...told me all about the kippahs they wear, and how they had their own game called dreidel for this holiday they celebrated, called Hanukkah. (Of course this convo was at a basic-kindergarten-level of knowledge.) When I came home from school I was fascinated with Hanukkah, (this is cringey to admit but my 5-year-old self tried to integrate the traditions together and so in order to do this I drew up a “Christmas dreidel” complete with Santa Claus’ face on one side, a present on another side...you get it)

And that is when I was promptly put in “parochial” schools. I went to Catholic school from 1st grade to 12th grade. I went through Holy Communion and Confirmation like all the other kids did. My elementary soccer team’s mascot was an Angel. My high school’s mascot was a Crusader. Our high school was located on Rome Avenue. I went to a Catholic youth conference. I considered becoming a nun because I was single all throughout high school.

Growing up, around Christmastime we would always travel to visit my grandma, and she would always say we’re “German Jewish” — but I would write her off. In my mind, I was like, Yeah ok like 1%? .....It felt like my grandma was acting like one of those white people who takes a DNA test and says, “Look! We’re 1% African!” So I would dismiss her and remind her how we’re Catholics and she would drop the subject.

Falling away from Xtianity: my first 2 years of college

My freshman year I changed — politically — as I was only conservative in high school because of the ‘pro-life’ agenda being shoved down my throat. I really aligned more with liberal and leftist policies and views, though. Once I became open to new political ideology, I began to question my theological beliefs.

I always had a strong connection to God. My whole life. But I struggled with connecting to Jesus, Mary, the saints, and so on. So obviously my freshman year of college I began to fall away from Catholicism.

You see, Catholics are “bad at the Bible” as I like to say. Other Christians do a better job of teaching and analyzing the writings. They actually require school-aged children to memorize Scripture passages. Catholics mostly just teach the same stuff over and over. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, blah blah blah. Catechism, liturgical calendar, blah blah blah. Parts of the mass, fruits of the spirit, blah blah blah.

So since I was already doubting Catholicism, its corrupt leadership, and its mindless traditions.... I thought maaaaybeeee I would find purpose, truth, clarity, etc. in plain-old Christianity. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The other Christian churches I went to baptized people (which is a BIG LIFE DECISION) on the spot. For example if a newcomer felt on a whim that they wanted to be baptized, the church would do it right then & there. No learning, no planning or preparing, that was it. They promoted blind faith and circular thinking. I began to realize these were both normal attitudes and cognitive patterns within any and every Christian community that I encountered.

Even the Christians who exhibited curiosity mostly just asked questions in order to be able to understand, and then accept, the doctrine as truth. Questions never ever challenged anything.

Oh and let’s throw in the fact that I’m bisexual. Homophobia, transphobia, biphobia (and more) are rampant in the church. So needless to say, with all my observations about the lack of logical thinking in the church (and considering my sexual orientation) I fell away. I stopped going to church unless my family made me when I was home from college.

Enter stage right: Judaism

In retrospect I happened to have a lot of friends in my sorority and my favorite fraternity on campus who were Jewish (the frat happened to be a traditionally-Jewish one). Thought nothing of it at the time. Fast forward to junior year when I met this cute guy on Tinder. He’s now my boyfriend and we’ve been dating for over a year. He didn’t tell me this on Tinder, but when we went on our first date, he revealed that he’s Jewish and wanted to make sure that’s something I was ok with. Clearly I had no problem with that. I wasn’t too into Christianity anymore but I still identified as one (and I was still surrounded by Christian friends in my sorority) so I told him I was Christian/raised Catholic and asked hypothetically if he would be comfortable with a “both” family. He said yes.

We started dating during an October, so of course Hanukkah came up soon. There was a mega challah bake at our local Chabad, which he took me to, and we had a blast. From then on I decided I wanted to show him how supportive I was of his Jewishness. (The last girl he dated dumped him after 3 months BECAUSE he was Jewish... so I felt that I needed to be supportive)

We started going to shabbat services and dinner every week. We did Hanukkah together (we bought our first menorah together, he taught me how to spin a dreidel, his mom bought me Hanukkah socks...lol). At some point in our relationship I told him I may have Jewish ancestry from my grandma but it’s distant and my whole extended family is Christian so it really wouldn’t even matter. I don’t remember when I had that conversation with him.

Eventually, after another few months of Shabbat services and Shabbat dinners, Pesach came around.

We went to the first seder together. The second seder is what changed everything.

Deciding to convert

At first I wasn’t sure if I belonged at this second seder. My boyfriend had always brought me to every event. I had never attended anything alone at Chabad before. But I went anyway. Throughout the night I felt increasingly comfortable. I had never felt more like I was a *part of something* than I did at this seder.

I sat near a friend who I recognized. (He knows I’m raised Catholic.) Then he & his friends welcomed me. We all took turns reading from the Haggadah, we drank the four cups of wine together, and we laughed together as I had maror for the first time.

Then the familiar faces left to go home, and one of them even went to another table to sit with his other friends whom he hadn’t had a chance to see yet that night. Naturally I thought I was alone again. I almost left, but something tugged at my heart to stay until the very end of the second seder. Something told me to keep going and keep taking in this wonderful experience.

The rest of the night consisted of many songs (most likely prayers, in retrospect) I did not know. Everyone stood to sing and we all clapped to the rhythm. I knew none of the words but I still clapped along, alone at my own table. Then one of the boys — the one who had been sitting with my friends and I earlier — motioned at me to come over and join his other friends. I approached this new table full of people I’d never met, feeling awkward as ever, and they not only hoisted me up to stand on the table with them as they chanted, but they also included me in their dance circle. (no, I don’t think it was the Hora, we just spun around over and over. lol.)

This was the first night I felt at home with Judaism. Going through the Jewish history with the Haggadah, remembering the important occurrences and symbolizing them with various foods, ending the night by being welcomed into the community... it was transformative. After attending shabbat services for months and learning about Jewish values, it changed something in me when I observed Pesach for the first time last year. I knew this path would be right for me. I felt as if my soul had found where it belonged. The Jewish history, traditions, beliefs, and customs resonated with me. It all just... made sense.

I told my boyfriend I wanted to convert. I wrote three pages of reasons. But I sat on the idea of converting and did nothing for a while. I did do some more research on Judaism, though, as I continued to attend services each week.

The exploration stage

I began to actually research on my own time. If converting was something I was genuinely considering, it was high time I began actively learning as much as I could possibly learn. It was time to dive deeper than just attending the weekly services and googling the proper greetings for Jewish holidays.

I started digging deeper into Judaism and Christianity so I could compare and contrast the two. I needed to understand the similarities and differences. And BOY are they different. That was surprising at first, but the more I learned about Judaism, the more I loved how different it was from the Christianity I was indoctrinated into.

Not only are the values and teachings of each religion vastly different, but the Tanakh (which is “The Old Testsment” in Christian Bibles) actually contradicts:

The entire “New Testament”

The gospel books specifically

The Pauline letters specifically

How did I realize this? Some bible study of my own, but mostly through online research. And, of course, I would have gotten nowhere without the help of Rabbi Tovia Singer and his YouTube videos. He debunks everything there is to debunk about Christianity.

Here were some things I came across when researching:

It confused me how the four Gospels didn’t align (like, major parts of the story did not align at all...and supposedly they’re divinely inspired...but they don’t even corroborate one another?)

It confused me how the psalms we sang in church were worded completely different from the true wording in the Bible (essentially the Christian church is taking tehillim and altering it to benefit Christian dogma and Christian rhetoric.)

It confused me how we read in the Bible that Jews are ‘God’s chosen people’ and yet in every Catholic Church, every Sunday, there is a Pauline letter being read which depicts proselytization of Jews, as if Jews are lost and need Christians to save them. As if Jews would go to hell if they fail to accept Jesus.

It confused me why we would pray to Mary and the saints, because praying is worship, and worshipping anyone but God themself is idolatry.

It confused me why Christians make, sell, and use graven images. Idolatry. Again.

It confused me why Christians give absolute power to humans. For example, if you crawl up the same steps (Scala Santa) that Jesus supposedly crawled up before he died, you automatically get “saved” because *some old men who have no divine power* said so (they have a term for this and it’s called “plenary indulgence” lol).

It confused me why Jesus was believed to be the messiah considering he had to have biologically been from the line of Joseph. Wasn’t Jesus supposedly conceived without any help from Joseph? Wouldn’t that render Jesus, uh, not messiah by default? Even if he was from Joseph’s blood, he still did not complete all the tasks moshiach is supposed to fulfill. And even if he DID fulfill all the tasks required of moshiach... we still would not worship a messiah as he is human and not GOD.

These were all new thoughts I developed this past year between Pesach and Yom Kippur. New questions that challenged everything I thought I knew. It was like teaching a child 2+2≠22 but rather 2+2=4.

Hillel

This fall, after the High Holy Days, my boyfriend began attending shabbat dinners at a rabbi’s home. His new rav lives in the community and it’s exclusive to be invited, so I never imposed. We do Shabbos separately now (with some exceptions, we do it together sometimes).

I continued to go to Chabad with one of my friends who knew I wanted to convert. But one month, she couldn’t come at all, and I felt a little judged there anyway.

So I began going to Hillel a few months ago. And I honestly have found a home there.

From Hillel’s Springboard Fellow reaching out to me and taking me out for coffee to get to know me... to running into my sorority & fraternity friends at every Hillel event (shabbat or otherwise)... From getting included in various clubs like the women empowerment group and the mental health inclusivity group... to being the only college student to participate in Mitzvah Day (hosted by Hillel) with the elderly and the local Girl Scout troop... I feel truly welcome. I’ve started to attend every week. I even talked briefly with the rabbi about having Jewish lineage and wanting to convert.

Discovering new information

I went home to be with family during Thanksgiving break. My grandma flew in so she was there when I got home. She stayed with us from then until New Years (and she’s actually moving in with us next year.)

Of course, now I have a Jewish boyfriend, Jewish friends, and I’ve done extensive research on Judaism. So this time I had background knowledge when she inevitably said... “You know, we’re German Jewish!”

I inquired a little. I asked her what she meant. How is she Jewish? I know my uncle took a DNA test this year and came back part Ashkenazi. But I needed a deeper explanation than DNA.

She revealed to me that her mom’s mom was Jewish. We believe she married a Christian man. Together they had my great-grandmother, who I believe was Christian. She had my grandma, who had my dad, who had me.

And I immediately felt like that changed things. At first I was (internally) like, Now I definitely need to convert! But then I was like, Wait, does this make me Jewish? Am I Jewish-ish? ...Can you be considered Jewish if you’re only ethnically Jewish but not raised Jewishly? ...Can you be Jewish if your dad is your only Jewish parent? ...Can you be Jewish if your dad never had a bris or a bar mitzvah?

I joined a bunch of Jewbook groups, began learning the Hebrew calendar & holiday schedule, and found some folks who assist with Jewish genealogy. They did some digging for me and apparently I descend from the Rothschild family. THE Rothschild family.

Who is a Jew? Who “counts”?

This is something I’ve been muddling over.

At Hillel, at my school at least, most people are pretty Reform. They’re very liberal with their definitions of Judaism (they believe in patrilineal descent and not only matrilineal descent).

They accept me and see me as actually Jewish ...and the ones who don’t... they at least see me as Jewish-adjacent, an “honorary Jew” or an “ally to the Jewish people”.

My boyfriend, however, still sees me as Not Jewish.™️ (For context he’s Reform but he’s trying to become as observant as possible) I know he only thinks this was because of how we began our relationship and because of how I was raised. But I’m very confused here.

Do I count?

Do I not?

Do I count *enough* but still need to go through a formal conversion process?

So...now what?

I don’t know how to navigate this odd journey but I have felt for a while that I have a Jewish neshama and I feel a strong need to affirm it. I just don’t know how or what is appropriate. Do I learn Hebrew? Sign up for a trip to Israel/Germany/Poland? Put up a mezuzah? Or go toward the other end of the scale, and head down a path of a formal conversion/reaffirmation process?

Thank you in advance for your responses and thanks for reading. 🤎

[th3okamid3monart]

Things I’m going to miss this Holidays

There are a couple of traditions we do in my family that I havent seen in other places and with one search on the internet I realize that most of the things we do are from my own country + some that we make up ourselves. 

So Im going to share them here because... Well, there’s a big-ass chance I wont be able to do them this Christmas nor New years. 

NOTE: When I say ‘my family’ in a lot of this, I mean ALL my family. Which means, all my grandparents, all my aunts, all my uncles, all my cousins, and, yes, EVEN my great grandaparents, cousins, uncles, aunts and more. Because we all know each other and we even make a party once a year for my dad’s side of the family 

Here I go:

Las Posadas

There’s this thing that we do at one of my grandparents’ house that involves singing a carol about the time Maria and Jose were looking for a place to stay to rest before travel far away for the birth of Jesus. It is a song which is singed by 2 groups, one that is inside and the other that’s outside. What we do is the following: One group goes inside a room in the house while the other stays outside the door, the group outside sings one part and the other sings the other. We go back and forward until we finish the song. It is pretty funny because no one sings well and its just like a bunch of grown ups practically screaming but we always end up chuckling. I used to think it was pointless and boring but that was because I was an edgy potato, after I enter University i began to enjoy more things and be happier. This is going to be the second time I wont be with my complete family for Christmas and now its all the family who wont be able to go to my grandparents house for a celebration. 

12 grapes, 12 wishes

In both sides of my family we usually fill up 12 grapes in a cup and give everyone 1 cup each. I dont remember what exactly the grapes meant or the story about the wishes but it’s supposedly like before it strikes 12 am on New Years, we have to eat our grapes while also wishing for something. I remember when I was younger I’d wish for peace on the world or that everything went well for everyone. I think I’m going to buy a bigger bag of grapes this year. 

Something that was funny was that everyone would just... Stuff their mouths with grapes, mostly my cousins and I, just to see how many we could fit. Not everyone wished for many things in the family because I think we all feel we had and have enough. If my family does this again on their own, I’m pretty certain their wishes would be to be able to meet with the family. 

Piñata

Every year since I was little, my grandparents buy a piñata to smash before or during Christmas. They find it such a good activity for cousins and even for my aunts, my mom and uncle. They literally havent stopped buying them, the oldest grandchild in that side of the family its in her 30s, but they still buy a piñata. I think its mostly for the youngest which are below 16, never the less, its still super funny and hilarious because we go from youngest to oldest. By the time it gets to my brother, its still intact, he only swings it once and its completely DESTROYED. We just have a lot of fun, and sometimes we make my mom or my aunts to hit it. My mom wasnt as cheery when I was a kid, but now she laughs more and when it comes to the piñata she laughs and enjoys her time even more. 

Games 

Like any gathering, all cousins bring up something we can do to entertain ourselves. At first they were toys my grandparents had for us, then it was videogames and now... Its board games. My bro is the one obsess with different boardgames and DnD and other card games. So, about 5 years ago he began bringing boardgames for all cousins to play along. We either talk with each other or try to destroy each other with any game there is. Videogames are fun but we all find it a drag to bring the console to the place, besides we usually get so busy with each others banter and weird conversations that we just forget about the videogames all together. 

At my other grandparents house it becomes W I L D. Last time someone brough a beer pong table and they all began to take shots with mezcal (I’m trying to not drink a lot of the time ever since I puked one time. If I drink its light things like wine and only one glass). Then my aunts play music and began to sing and everyone follows up, and... Well last time they began to dance.... And all my cousins were very embarassed and I was hella confused. Suffice to say, my dad’s side of the family are super freakishly energetic and wild, while my mom’s side is more of a geeky, nerdy vibe with a lot of meme stuff and political conversations at times (Oh yeah, we talk a lot of different political stuff, but guess what? It never derails into a fight. I note this due to always reading people’s talks ending with fights and stuff and that kinda weirds me out a bit at times) 

Dinners 

I don’t remember the time exactly, probably since I was 15 maybe, my dad and I turned into the designated ‘chefs’. Every year we’ve been deciding and preparing foods for each house. We make the main course while my aunts do the sides (although sometimes it becomes like 3 main courses with 2 sides). Im waaaaaaaaay into the cooking and I try to make it perfect each year. I kinda chillaxed a bit with some foods because it wasnt that big of a deal. Besides the main course, I also decide to make a dessert and sometimes they arent eaten because my families have some sugar regulations. They are stored and kept after Christmas because thats better than eating it all in one sitting and having sugar poisoning (AKA, high sugar that needs a fast Insuline injection afterwards). 

It is always fun to make food with my dad, and to make the famous Tamales from my grandma’s recipe. Last time i think we made around 400? Between green salsa chicken, red salsa beef and pork, and some that were like... its like an adobe, its with achiote and orange juice. It was very tasty. We usually make a lot and freeze them. THEY ARENT COOKED, they are raw and then frozen. Every time we take some out, we make them with vapor, takes around 2 hours and they are always tasty. I remember I made a batch all by myself, I made the feelings, I mixed the masa, and I assemble 100 by my own, the rest was thankfully made by my parents. And it was the best when I gave some to my grandma and she told me that they were super good. Of course, I made a couple mistakes, Im not perfect but she still enjoyed it with the salsa I made. Maybe I can still make some this year and give each family a batch. 

Aunt’s cookies

Every year, every god damn year... We all wait for one thing... It’s not the presents, its not the food... Its the cookies. The motherfucking cookies. My aunt has made this cookies since I was a kid, and we all fought to get a bunch of them. She has made choco chip with nuts cookies every year without missing. And they always end before Christmas even hits. She once gave me frozen batch so I can cook them at home and she told me ‘Dont tell anybody’. Of course I cannot not tell anyone since I live with my parents and siblings but when I made them I made sure to make them when my dad wasnt home. Not only because Im a gluttonous fuck but because my dad is diabetic and he shouldnt be eating anything like that. 

It used to be a battle royal between my cousins, now its a battle against my uncles cause they LOVE TO FUCKING HIDE THE BIG ASS CONTAINER. I swear, i only got 1 or 2 god damn cookies last time. 

Breakfast at...Lunch at...

After Christmas, we always go eat at my grandparents house. Always. And it’s, most of the time, Menudo. The most delicious food you can make with cow stomach. It’s my grandpa’s recipe and it’s always good. Meanwhile, we lunch at my grandma’s house the leftovers of yesterdays dinner which it varies if its turkey or pork but it always ends up as a torta. Delicious, leftover, tortas. 

We end up... SUPER CONSTIPATED because you eat menudo with bread, and you make tortas with bread, and we all eat bread and like... A LOT. Its hella good but well... THERE ARE CONCEQUENCES!! 

I think thats all, at least the most relevant parts. There’s also The Toast of El Bohemio, the stupidity and over eating i do for fun for some cousins, the conversations that go from super deep to stupidity with cousins, the music we play, the hugs... 

THE HUGS

When its the New Year, we scream out HAPPY NEW YEAR. And we proceed to hug each and everyone, one time I waited to see everyone and they all were very very happy. Its something I didnt realize before, but that was a happy thing all the time. Last year we event celebrated with other family, most of this reunions are compose with the nuclear family, but we arent shy about involving more family or friends. So last year not only included some family and their friends, we also included a 2 new members of the family: My newborn cousin and my cousin’s now husband. 

It was like.. One of the best beginnings... Which kind of... didnt prepared us for what this...sucky year. 

I’m sure we’ll make it ok... I sure hope so, I wanna see my grandparents again... I wanna see my baby cousin, he is babbling and has already learned to walk. The little dude doesnt have cousins to play with anymore, I wanna make sure he doesnt confuse me by his aunt ajjajajaja. I want to talk to my cousins, I want to hug them and scream with them and eat with them all. 

But maybe this year it wont happen, and I rather it not happening than loosing any of them. 

Right now I cant smell, and everything hurts, but it kinda helps ease things when i remember this and when I think they all are still kinda healthy. 

Maybe when it all passes we can make a march reunion, to celebrate my grandma’s birthday. In the meantime, I’m going to try to get better and wish for this Christmas to not suck now that It’s only my main family and I. 

Hope everyone is safe, I hope you can at least see your parents or siblings. I hope you dont get sick nor have to spend time at a hospital or anything. I hope all who are, get help and dont get worse. I hope you all get better. 

Hope you have Happy Holidays. 

[sunriseoverseauniverse-blog]

The world just chewed her up

And spat her out. 

I always get myself into these situations

I’m just being honest here 

It’s a classic feeling signature and behaviour of mine 

No thanks to any of the people who twisted the knife

Yup, thats you grandma, and whoever ( the fuck ) else 

Ooops using that fucking g word again 

Trying to transfer the blame on someone else 

My poetry is starting to suck 

Cause it’s really just nicely placed words 

Venting my timely swings 

Into dark places...

Calling it:

I’ve had a full on fortnight 

Sick, work, new job, money stress

Child not drinking or sleeping stress

All the usual suspects for an exhausted parent 

Wait what the fuck I’m not a parent? 

It’s really taxing being the one hearing the toddlers cries 

Knowing that you aren’t the one with the milk tap breasts 

The smells, genealogy and presence of their mother 

That would calm that crying child in an instant...

Who is the only one they will eat for, drink for, sleep for... just about

I am a good stand in mother 

But imagine having that much presence in another child’s life 

Taking the pressure of trying to fill their needs 

When you aren’t the one who was biologically tuned to do so

I love what I do 

I really do and I would take this shit any day over any other work

But when they are crying for mum 

Well, I’m just not their mum. 

It’s okay

It just takes time to form bonds right?

If it didn’t it wouldn’t be right

You can’t hurry love... understanding... feeling comfortable with someone

Children need the love

Parents need the space from loving 

Nanny’s need.... 

A BIG FUCK OFF COFFEE OKAY

Like, today would have been good.  It used to be my little fluffy comforter, coffee 

It still is my trusted friend 

In small doses 

I’m basically Lor 

I like to believe I live in stars hollow.

We made a breakthrough today together

Me & the wee one year old cherub I care for 

She is such a strong stubborn self lead little cherub 

She just makes these screechy noises at me, trying to tell me stuff 

I put her in the car, drove to the beach and around for ages 

And then, holy shit, she fell asleep and STAYED asleep for 40 minutes 

It was a christmas fucking miracle 

It is the first fortnight I’ve been working 

But some of those days have been mentally challenging 

I came home with tears of joy whatever I don’t know 

Tears of endurance of frustration of inadequacy for not having the right nipples

Tears about money stuff 

Getting through 

Feeling like I have some worth

Paying for my own health care appointments  Whatever other plans I have made 

Fighting back the tears 

Again 

The stress of all this change 

Feeling for me 

Cause it’s my job too 

Can be full on, it seems 

Lucy ran through the house with muddy paws this arvo 

It was the icing on the cake 

The cherry 

Sarcastic but really she is my

Cherry

She came into my room just now 

To give me a little snuggle 

Probably saying mama thing I hate it when you cry 

It’s cool baby badger 

Crying is one of the many ways to release 

I read a cool article on it today about the healing power 

Of babies crying in the arms of a caring loving adult 

It’s a healthy response 

It is made to be held, seen, heard, recognised as valid 

If your baby needs to cry, let it cry in your arms 

It’s perfectly fucking healthy to cry 

It’s WAY better if it can be done with someones presence 

And I mean, just their conscious presence, approving, accepting 

Being here with you 

Especially for children 

But I just do it alone mostly

Cause people tend to freak out with the water worx 

Probably scared of their own displays of feelings 

I’m used to it I’ve been doing it for years 

I even used to tie up the door to the bathroom 

Where I would be crying 

From a very young age 

Because we don’t have locks in our house 

Because I was raised without being allowed valid boundaries 

Lol fight me 

I’m just being honest 

Act like you got some sense

I’m sorry Mrs Jackson 

I am for real 

Okay there’s my humour coming back 

I’m glad to be free to speak 

That’s why I write things 

I don’t care if anyone reads 

But maybe they will and it will mean something 

That’s cool too 

The universe is a funky little pumpkn

Especially with the platform of technology 

I can reference shit with an inbuilt link 

Would have been handy for my essays back in the day 

Look I just want to be able to meet my needs

Like every human should be able to do 

That’s why I want to care for children 

Help them get their needs met 

I honestly get it, parenting is FULL ON 

I get why kids grow up without their needs being met 

Because not every one can mind read or translate screeching 

But I feel like I’ve been raised to figure out how to MEET NEEDS

My own, and then others, children, whoever I can influence 

In fulfilling ways really 

I guess that’s the goal 

To lead 

Be my own 

Wahine Toa 

Filling my needs has meant money 

Which has been a tool which I cast out of my shed 

From a very young twisted age 

When I was made to feel ashamed 

For having money and choosing how to spend it

Thanks again to the dicks that taught me this 

Is she still bitter about this or? 

Lol, jokes make it better for five seconds 

The story is long but in short basically I fucked it all up 

When I bit my brothers ass cause he stole my toy 

Which, yeah, fair enough, I fuck shit up if things are unfairly taken from me

Then my grandma who is dead now ( cool ) had forsaken me 

Then would refuse to treat me well for the rest of my life 

Neglect me and shit, ridicule me and instil the classic shame 

For being my great self ya know 

Barbaric really 

Then write me poetry about how creative I am

Like, bitch please 

You can’t unfuck with my life now you realised it was a dick move 

Those bridges are burnt bitch 

Wow, vent vent vent 

Has to be said? Mmmm maybe in a less cunty way but that aint me today

So yeah money is a thing I am learning 

Thanks to the past conditioning 

It’s a universal blockage so I’m not half surprised 

I would really love it in my life 

So I can love and care for myself 

So I don’t have to depend on people who can’t do that for me 

Let alone, themselves right!?

Think we’re all learning this right?

So how do you learn to do money?

Well... find the energy that attracts it instead of repels it

Learn to use it wisely for future benefits 

Learn to keep the river flowing constant abundance in and out 

To you and through you 

Hibernate in the winter, keep like squirrels collecting them nuts 

Not just for the now time, for the winter

But if you collect too many and leave them to rot that’s not a flowing river 

So it’s about learning the skills, how to use the tool for abundance 

The dance with life we all are worthy of 

How have I committed to this? 

#1: Decide to stop doing shitty stressful jobs that don’t fulfil me and provide for me in equal abundance of energy exchanges, preferably looking for work with perks that I love and with downsides that I am not too bothered by. 

( I decided upon home based one on one childcare because it’s a nurturing job for me and for the world in order to help people and help myself thrive )

#2: TRAIN OR GET EXPERIENCE OR PREFERABLY BOTH.

(I did my qualification in Nannying, it took 6 months and it was free, it was one of the best most nourishing fulfilling loving moments of my life so far, thank you)

#3: Get your foot in the door. 

( for me, this meant, get an in between starting job which paved my way in order to look forward to and manifest the perfect job to begin my career with )

( it was part time, it was full on, it was amazing because it gave me experience and a reference, it was fun, it had some perks, it also sucked sometimes but it was the perfect launching point... ) 

#4: Get through the period of time where you may not be earning or you may be earning very little, before you find the perfect work conditions that give you what you are so worth earning in exchange in order to sustain and fulfil your life. 

( yup, currently amidst this point, it is hard so hard at times for me, it is mentally consuming and emotionally breaking but it is the deep lesson about the squirrels collecting nuts for the winter... you need not so much that they will rot, you need just enough to get you through without meaning a period of starvation or you need to hiberate like bears. you just have to do whatever you can to get through this phase... its okay to ask for help, just ask people who you can trust to actually care about you and love you and support you, not people who have shown you that it’s conditional or that they actually can’t do this for you )

#5: Eventually, you will be in a cycle of river flowing freely and replenishing you all the time and life giving energy in abundance to you and through you. This is the place we all want to be with our work where we love what we do even on the hardest worst days and we are fulfilled with abundance in all areas of our lives, especially given equally abundant exchange of money to provide for our lives and our desires. 

( I have found the job, the conditons are right, I am working through the moments of stress and I am most of all waiting on those steady free flowing river pay checks of abundance... don’t get me wrong, I also need to learn how to be best with my nuts so that is the next step. I just so hope I can do so this time around because I don’t want to go through periods of starvation of my needs when it is so taxing and mentally emotionally crappy... I suppose though all of those pent up feelings had to come out somehow because I wouldn’t have ever had money blocks if they didn’t exist. Purging the blockages from your system is all part of the transformation here. So, I guess, I’m glad to be deep in full learning ) 

I just wish to feel better

To rewrite the feelings signatures that were assigned to me 

When I was just a young zero years baby 

So I guess the path is set... 

I’d like to see my needs met.

[anneedmonds]

Life Update: The Lullaby Master

It’s life update time again, and rather than bore you with all of the tantrums and CIA-level negotiation we’ve been having to do around here, with our three and a four year old, I thought we could talk about bedtime routines and (more specifically) some of the crazy things I’ve done to get the kids to bed over the years.

Because the other day I suddenly realised that I’d almost forgotten the first little baby bedtime routines. The ones that we started right in the beginning. Those halcyon days when you could just plonk them in the cot and they couldn’t get out. Bliss! Now the routines are more like challenges on Crystal Maze; “can YOU get your three year old boy into his racing car bed without cracking a dent into one of your shins and saying F*CK F*CK B*GGER at the top of your voice whilst managing to give him a drink of fresh water and not allow it to spill which would mean changing his duvet? Work it out, release the crystal and I’ll stand here outside the bedroom door tootling away on my flute.”

I’m not saying that the baby days were easier – the crackling of the baby monitor, half an hour after you thought they were asleep! The feeling of utter weariness at having your three hour window of “me time” interrupted again! – it’s just that bedtimes now are so much more demanding. I’m like a court jester crossed with a minimum security prison officer. I love it and treasure the moments, because I know that in the blink of an eye they’ll be teens and I’ll be barred from even entering their rooms, but my God is bedtime intense!

I’ve nearly always done my daughter’s bedtime, mainly because my son, who is eighteen months younger, never used to go to sleep until he had breastfed from me for hours on end, and so when he was about ten months old Mr AMR started to give him a bottle to make things easier. We then inevitably ended up splitting off into our separate teams in the evening – one child each, and each of us with our own little bedtime quirks and (probably inadvisable) habits.

We’re very lucky in that – mostly – both of us are around for bedtime and so we’ve kept up this “girls’ team / boys’ team” sort of split. Trying to put two young children to bed on your own is chaotic and soul-destroying in equal measures, like herding cats, and I absolutely doff my cap to anyone who does it on a regular basis. Or all the time.

But let’s rewind back to the first proper bedtime era that’s still reasonably fresh in my memory: we can call it the Robot Head Cinema Era. I had bought the kids an Early Learning Centre plastic robot that was large enough to house a moon buggy (toy, not real one) and spacemen figurines. I worked out that if I opened up the doors on its head, the resulting space was exactly the right width for gripping my iPhone horizontally.

And so I used to fire up iPlayer, select a trippy programme called In The Night Garden (if you don’t know what this is then I recommend a viewing for research purposes, but only if you’re not taking mind-altering drugs. It would be enough to send you permanently bonkers) and we would watch baby TV from inside a plastic robot’s cranium.

Total madness, really. I would sit there hunched over, watching along with her (I have no idea why we did this on the world’s smallest screen when we had a huge telly directly beneath us, and a comfy sofa, and a roaring fire, etc etc) and I would feel my neck begin to slowly fuse to my shoulders and my lower back go into spasm, but I was always too tired to shift position.

Then there was the “rap song nursery rhyme” phase. I have no idea why I started this, and it’s the sort of thing that really you should take to your grave, not write about to hundreds of thousands of people, but anyway: I used to do this very bad “beat box” thing and then rap out a version of Little Miss Muffet.

Don’t even ask me to do a rendition, it is never happening and so it’s pointless going there. (I can tell you though that after the “whey” I did do a very funky “hey, hey-hey-hey!” I also did a vague form of twerking when the spider “sat down beside her”.)

The rap rhymes started off a new phase, what is now known as “doing the lullaby”, and we’re still going strong a couple of years down the line. Ah, that’s sweet! you might think, especially as my daughter is going to be five in the summer. But no. It’s not sweet. It’s a magnificent feat of poetic improvisation, that’s what it is. Because not only do I have to make up a new song ON THE SPOT every night, the song also has to rhyme and it also has to be relevant to the chapter of the book we’ve just read.

So, for example, we did a great lullaby about George’s Marvellous Medicine and the horrid grandma, although admittedly I did completely crib the tune (and some of the words) from the CBeebies Christmas panto. (Sniff-Sniff, Delicious Children!)

I sang about Grandma’s puckered mouth looking like a dog’s bottom and her face being as hairy as a mole, except that I had to make “bottom” rhyme with “mole” so ended up saying “bottomhole”, which isn’t ideal.

But it’s actually a very good brain workout, making up rhyming songs with no notice. Firstly you have to think of a tune (usually I nick one from an advert or popular song du jour) and then you have to – completely on the hoof mind! – come up with some lyrics.

And it’s not like Baby 1 is a particularly easy customer – she frowns at anything resembling a half-rhyme and definitely picks up on nonsense words that I’ve just thrown in because I’ve gone into panic mode.

George stirred his pot all day and night

Grandma was really in for a fright! 

He stirred it with his wooden spoon 

And even put in some of the moon��

“Mummy what? How did he put in some of the moon? Are you sure he did that?”

Anyway, it’s fun and I wanted to write it down because one day she won’t want the lullaby, she’ll say “ugh, you’re so embarrassing, get OUT OF MY ROOM!” and my heart hurts to think of that so I want proof that it happened.

Mind you, some nights I am totally not up for composing what amounts to an eighth of a low-budget West End musical on the spot. Especially if the chapter we’ve read, the chapter that must (it’s the rules) provide the inspiration and bulk of the content, doesn’t quite lend itself to a lullaby.

Last night I read the bit in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Grandpa Jo uses his last pennies to buy a chocolate bar for Charlie, in the vain hope that there might be a golden ticket inside. It’s called Chapter 10: The Family Begins To Starve.

Not so jolly.

“Do a lullaby about the chapter, Mummy!”

“Why don’t we do yesterday’s chapter, about Charlie’s walk to school and the smell of the chocolate? Sniff-Sniff, Delicious Chocolate?”

“No, it has to be about the old people in the bed and the cabbage soup and the snow. And don’t sing it in the Oompa Loompa tune again!”

Last night’s lullaby tested my artistic talents to the max, I can tell you. I’m the flipping lullaby master. I know you’re desperate to hear some of these lullabies, but again: not going to happen. Satisfy yourselves with the knowledge that I sang about cabbage soup to the tune of a Les Mis hit and managed to rhyme “cabbage” with “baggage”. That has to be enough.

The current nighttime routine doesn’t end with the lullaby however; I then go into Baby 2’s room, negotiate his floor, which should be called “The Torture Garden” because you can’t go two steps without spearing your foot on the upright plastic ladder of a toy fire engine, or the spines of a toy Stegosaurus, and I have to sing him a lullaby.

He only likes two tunes: the first is Soldier Soldier (won’t you marry me with your musket fife and drum? Oh no sweet maid I cannot marry you for I have no [insert item of clothing] to put on) 

and the second is Five Little Ducks (went swimming one day, over the hills and far away. Mummy duck said “quack quack quack” but only four little ducks came swimming back).

With both songs, I have to think of more and more outlandish versions to keep him satisfied. In terms of the soldier’s clothing, we have moved on from actual items (pants, socks, a gaberdine) to abstract ideas (sadness, time, reluctance); last night the solider had “no happiness to put on” and had to get himself a “loud thunder” from the grandfather’s chest.

In the “five ducks” song, the ducks have become dinosaurs. Which would be find, except that they don’t quack, which totally bollocks up my rhyming pattern. I can’t work like this. The pressure is too immense. Especially now that “five little dinosaurs” have become “five big stegosauruses” and they stomp instead of swim, roar instead of quack. I should be paid for this level of superhuman lullaby effort.

Anyway, I’m sure this is boring you to absolute tears, so I leave you with the comforting fact that the bedtime routine, including fetching dolly from two floors down, then coming back up and going back down to fetch Calpol, then coming back up and going back down to find Batman, Bumblebee transformer and Heat Wave transformer, then going to the bathroom to collect fresh water – cold tap run for forty-five seconds to ensure suitably icy temperature – and then supervising various toilet trips and so on, consumes approximately 2,300kcal, which means that the many chocolate-based “evening snacks” I subsequently devour are completely A-OK and justified.

What’s your bedtime routine? Kids, no kids, dogs, no dogs; I need to know any weird, over-indulging stuff you do. If it involves a robot’s head, all the better.

The post Life Update: The Lullaby Master appeared first on A Model Recommends.

©2020 " Life Update: The Lullaby Master published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

[hellogreenweb]

Family History Through Food

Nothing goes together quite like food and family. Traditions, moments, loved ones, memories, seasons and more can be remembered through tasting a dish your Great Grandma would make every Thanksgiving or a breakfast dish your dad would make every Saturday morning. Family history whether written, spoken, recorded or tasted can be tangible through food – no better way to cement memories and build bridges than through something that we must do day in and day out! Whether that be around a small counter top or a large dining room table we know that daily nourishment can mean a lot more than just filling up our stomachs.

Today we are featuring some amazing food bloggers who are sharing some of their favorite family recipes, not only because they taste wonderful, but because of the special memories they hold for each of them. Read on to find out why they love these recipes and the memories and goodness each recipe holds for them. And lucky for us, the recipes are included!

Jen Sattley @carlsbadcravings

 Every Fall growing up, us 5 kids (and all the neighbors, family, friends and anyone else blessed enough to be a recipient of Mom’s pumpkin bread) would eagerly await the arrival of pumpkin cans lining grocery store shelves so mom could make her famous Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread.  The house would fill with the magical Fall aroma of pumpkin and cinnamon and we knew it was going to be a magically delicious day.  But mom wouldn’t just make one loaf, but three beautiful Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread loafs.  We would devour as much as we were allowed and the rest would be gifted to neighbors and friends.  And then she would make more.  My very favorite memory of Fall.

This recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread is over 50 years old.  It comes from my mom’s brother’s elementary teacher who sent home homemade pumpkin bread and the recipe to all the children in his class.  With just a few adjustments by my mom over the years to make it perfect, this Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread has stood the test of time against any other pumpkin bread recipe.  In my opinion, it is simply the best!  So get ready to be loved, adored and applauded for your “famous” supremely moist, Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread riddled with chocolate chips, Fall spices and new memories to share.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

INGREDIENTS

Bowl One

6 eggs

4 cups granulated sugar

1 29 oz. can pure pumpkin

1 cup Vegetable oil

Bowl Two

4 1/2 cups AP flour

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves

1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

add later:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (or half chocolate chunks)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Grease and flour three 8 1/2” x 4 ½” loaf pans or use a cooking spray with flour in it.

In a very large bowl, add eggs and gently whisk. Mix in sugar, pumpkin and oil.

In a separate large bowl, mix together all Bowl Two ingredients (don’t add chocolate chips).

Mix the Flour Mixture into the Pumpkin mixture just until combined, being careful not to overmix. Fold in chocolate chips. Evenly divide batter between 3 loaf pans.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 65 – 75 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let bread cool on wire rack for 10 minutes then remove bread from pans. Let bread cool completely on wire rack before slicing.

Store bread in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Brooke Eliason @femalefoodie

One of my favorite family recipes comes from my beautiful maternal grandmother, Sayo Black. Because of her Japanese heritage, we have called her “Grandma Japanese” since my siblings and I were young kids. We love her ability to cook and share parts of her asian culture and, although this fried rice recipe isn’t an authentic Japanese dish, she has always been willing to prepare this family favorite throughout the years. She often makes double or triple batches of her fried rice for large family gatherings and jokingly comments “I’m cooking for an army”!

As a family, we have enjoyed this recipe on Christmas Eve, as a stand-alone meal, for leftovers (which we fought over relentlessly as children), or served inside an omelet for breakfast. I love that when I make this fried rice I am reminded of the great times I have shared with my Grandma Japanese as she thoughtfully chopped fresh vegetables, cooked each ingredient one at a time, and always let me have the first taste.

 Fried Rice

7 cups cooked sticky Japanese (pearl) rice, cooled completely (see tips below) 1/2 cup chopped onion (yellow or white) 1/2 lb chopped ham (about 1 1/2 cups or two thick deli slices) 2 cups cabbage, sliced thin 4 tablespoons butter, separated 2 tablespoons vegetable oil salt pepper soy sauce 1/2 bunch green onions, chopped white and green parts

Using a large non stick pan, cook each of the vegetables, separately, in a small amount of oil and butter. I use about 1 teaspoon for each vegetable/meat. Salt and pepper each vegetable. Transfer to a bowl or plate after the vegetables and meat have been cooked one at a time. It’s OK to let the vegetables and meat inter-mingle at this point. After cooking all of the vegetables and meat, add about 2 tablespoons of butter to the Teflon pan. Over medium heat, add the cooked and cooled rice a little at a time, breaking apart clumps with two wooden spoons until the rice is evenly distributed in the pan, and the butter is mixed in well. Add all of the vegetables and meat to the rice. Toss lightly in pan. Season again with fresh ground pepper. Add the soy sauce, a little at a time. We don’t like to drown the rice in soy sauce, so I only use about 2-3 tablespoons to 7 cups of rice. Taste, add salt and more pepper, if desired. After heated through, add fresh chopped green onions. Turn the heat off. If you continue to leave the heat on, your beautiful fried rice will end up as gummy rice.

Tips: -Make sure the rice is cooked and cooled completely before starting to make fried rice. It is best to make the rice the day before. If you use hot rice when making fried rice, your dish will turn out to be a sticky, gluey mess. -Make sure to use Japanese, or pearl rice, which is short and plump, not a long grain rice. -When “mixing” the rice and other ingredients together, do not stir this like it’s a cake batter- toss the ingredients, like you would a salad.

Becky http://ift.tt/1dSJQk2

I grew up on homemade hot cocoa. Every year my mom would get out the biggest bowl that she owned and we would dump in a few simple ingredients. Then, she’d let my sister and I have turns with a giant whisk, stirring, while also creating a little cloud of cocoa around us. Once it was made all we needed was a cup of hot water and we could mix this in for a quick treat. Also, on occasion, more frequently than I’d like to admit, we would just sneak straight bites of the powdery cocoa mix, only to be found out by our coughing and laughing.

Last year, I created my own hot cocoa mix recipe so that year after year I could replicate this sweet memory with my kids. We enjoy it with a big homemade marshmallow on top or just on its own, always with warm cosy feelings inside and gratitude for foods passed down from generations.

Homemade Hot Coco Mix Recipe

Ingredients

8 ounces organic cacao, or unsweetened cocoa

16 ounces organic powdered sugar

16 ounces non-fat dry milk powder

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a large bowl and use a whisk to combine. Transfer to a large jar to store. This will last a couple months in a dry cool area.

To make hot cocoa: Add 1/2 to 1 cup of hot water* to 1/2 cup of hot cocoa mix. Whisk to combine.

Recipe Notes

You must use hot water to adequately melt the chocolate into a liquid. If servings kids, mix the cocoa with hot water then add an ice cube to cool it down.

Mel @melskitchencafe

I was very close to my paternal grandmother, Venice Walker, as a child, even though my family lived hundreds of miles away from where my grandmother lived (Rexburg, Idaho). Whenever she and my grandpa would come visit us in Texas or Oklahoma, she would inevitably plan an afternoon to make my dad his favorite treat on the whole planet: raisin filled cookies. I have to be honest, they are probably my LEAST favorite cookies ever (mostly because: where’s the chocolate??) and you’ll never find a recipe for them on my blog (sorry, grams), but my grandma would labor over these cookies! They took forever. A homemade sweet dough was made and rolled out and then cut into circles, creating a sandwich for the homemade raisin filling. Because I loved being around my calm, quiet, kind, always-listening grandma, I would immediately join her in the kitchen to help (bonus, she didn’t have to worry about me snitching the dough or the filling because I didn’t like the cookies!); I probably spent at least half my childhood making raisin filled cookies with my sweet grandma! And I loved every minute.

I can still remember from a very young age watching my grandma in the kitchen (hers or ours) making creamy peas and new potatoes, whole wheat bread, raisin filled cookies, or canning chili sauce. She was an unassuming, hardworking, resilient woman who quietly moved through life serving others and often showing her love to others by making and giving them her homemade food. Even more remarkable, my grandmother suffered from very poor health after she had a stroke when she was in her early 30’s (with many small children of her own to care for). Standing for long periods of time was hard, and she often had debilitating back pain and would sit in the kitchen waiting for her bread to rise or her jars to finish canning while laying back in her plastic lawn chair with a rag over her eyes to block the light. But she never stopped cooking…and serving. And to this day, even though she is no longer here, I know without a doubt that my desire to share good food (and recipes!) with my loved ones (and strangers!) is because of the example my grandma set for me. It was nothing she sat down and taught me, nothing she directly said…just a cumulation of all the thousands of sweet moments I observed and remembered.

One of her most famous concoctions was her jarred chili sauce. It’s not salsa. It’s not spaghetti sauce. It’s not jam. No, no! It’s a zesty, spicy, sweet, chunky blend that is ridiculously delicious eaten over eggs (my favorite!) or yes, even with tortilla chips. The recipe has been oft-made, much-loved, and greatly cherished. Every year I make a batch of this chili sauce, even though I’m the only one in my immediate family right now who eats it, mostly because the process and smells and work and finished satisfaction remind me of my grandma, and those memories are precious and sweet to me.

 Grandma Walker’s Chili Sauce

 8 quarts tomatoes, peeled

6 large onions, ground

3/4 quart vinegar

3 cups sugar

3 red peppers, ground

1 teaspoon cloves

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon allspice

2/3 tablespoon salt

Cook in microwave (I do it on the stove now). Not written: Simmer sauce for an hour. Can in steam or water bath for 15 minutes.

Thank you to these women for sharing a little more of their family heart and these delicious recipes we can’t wait to try! Now you can get sharing your own stories. We love these resources offered by Family Search on how you can create or carry on your own food traditions and share those food stories! This article shares why it’s so important and how food can pull families together, this site is full of resources to help you get started and this site helps you share those stories with others. Thank you to Family Search for all of these great resources and to these women for sharing a piece of their family with us!

Family History Through Food posted first on http://ift.tt/2ulDYg7

[hellogreenweb]

Family History Through Food

Nothing goes together quite like food and family. Traditions, moments, loved ones, memories, seasons and more can be remembered through tasting a dish your Great Grandma would make every Thanksgiving or a breakfast dish your dad would make every Saturday morning. Family history whether written, spoken, recorded or tasted can be tangible through food – no better way to cement memories and build bridges than through something that we must do day in and day out! Whether that be around a small counter top or a large dining room table we know that daily nourishment can mean a lot more than just filling up our stomachs.

Today we are featuring some amazing food bloggers who are sharing some of their favorite family recipes, not only because they taste wonderful, but because of the special memories they hold for each of them. Read on to find out why they love these recipes and the memories and goodness each recipe holds for them. And lucky for us, the recipes are included!

Jen Sattley @carlsbadcravings

 Every Fall growing up, us 5 kids (and all the neighbors, family, friends and anyone else blessed enough to be a recipient of Mom’s pumpkin bread) would eagerly await the arrival of pumpkin cans lining grocery store shelves so mom could make her famous Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread.  The house would fill with the magical Fall aroma of pumpkin and cinnamon and we knew it was going to be a magically delicious day.  But mom wouldn’t just make one loaf, but three beautiful Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread loafs.  We would devour as much as we were allowed and the rest would be gifted to neighbors and friends.  And then she would make more.  My very favorite memory of Fall.

This recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread is over 50 years old.  It comes from my mom’s brother’s elementary teacher who sent home homemade pumpkin bread and the recipe to all the children in his class.  With just a few adjustments by my mom over the years to make it perfect, this Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread has stood the test of time against any other pumpkin bread recipe.  In my opinion, it is simply the best!  So get ready to be loved, adored and applauded for your “famous” supremely moist, Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread riddled with chocolate chips, Fall spices and new memories to share.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

INGREDIENTS

Bowl One

6 eggs

4 cups granulated sugar

1 29 oz. can pure pumpkin

1 cup Vegetable oil

Bowl Two

4 1/2 cups AP flour

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves

1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

add later:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (or half chocolate chunks)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Grease and flour three 8 1/2” x 4 ½” loaf pans or use a cooking spray with flour in it.

In a very large bowl, add eggs and gently whisk. Mix in sugar, pumpkin and oil.

In a separate large bowl, mix together all Bowl Two ingredients (don’t add chocolate chips).

Mix the Flour Mixture into the Pumpkin mixture just until combined, being careful not to overmix. Fold in chocolate chips. Evenly divide batter between 3 loaf pans.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 65 – 75 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let bread cool on wire rack for 10 minutes then remove bread from pans. Let bread cool completely on wire rack before slicing.

Store bread in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Brooke Eliason @femalefoodie

One of my favorite family recipes comes from my beautiful maternal grandmother, Sayo Black. Because of her Japanese heritage, we have called her “Grandma Japanese” since my siblings and I were young kids. We love her ability to cook and share parts of her asian culture and, although this fried rice recipe isn’t an authentic Japanese dish, she has always been willing to prepare this family favorite throughout the years. She often makes double or triple batches of her fried rice for large family gatherings and jokingly comments “I’m cooking for an army”!

As a family, we have enjoyed this recipe on Christmas Eve, as a stand-alone meal, for leftovers (which we fought over relentlessly as children), or served inside an omelet for breakfast. I love that when I make this fried rice I am reminded of the great times I have shared with my Grandma Japanese as she thoughtfully chopped fresh vegetables, cooked each ingredient one at a time, and always let me have the first taste.

 Fried Rice

7 cups cooked sticky Japanese (pearl) rice, cooled completely (see tips below) 1/2 cup chopped onion (yellow or white) 1/2 lb chopped ham (about 1 1/2 cups or two thick deli slices) 2 cups cabbage, sliced thin 4 tablespoons butter, separated 2 tablespoons vegetable oil salt pepper soy sauce 1/2 bunch green onions, chopped white and green parts

Using a large non stick pan, cook each of the vegetables, separately, in a small amount of oil and butter. I use about 1 teaspoon for each vegetable/meat. Salt and pepper each vegetable. Transfer to a bowl or plate after the vegetables and meat have been cooked one at a time. It’s OK to let the vegetables and meat inter-mingle at this point. After cooking all of the vegetables and meat, add about 2 tablespoons of butter to the Teflon pan. Over medium heat, add the cooked and cooled rice a little at a time, breaking apart clumps with two wooden spoons until the rice is evenly distributed in the pan, and the butter is mixed in well. Add all of the vegetables and meat to the rice. Toss lightly in pan. Season again with fresh ground pepper. Add the soy sauce, a little at a time. We don’t like to drown the rice in soy sauce, so I only use about 2-3 tablespoons to 7 cups of rice. Taste, add salt and more pepper, if desired. After heated through, add fresh chopped green onions. Turn the heat off. If you continue to leave the heat on, your beautiful fried rice will end up as gummy rice.

Tips: -Make sure the rice is cooked and cooled completely before starting to make fried rice. It is best to make the rice the day before. If you use hot rice when making fried rice, your dish will turn out to be a sticky, gluey mess. -Make sure to use Japanese, or pearl rice, which is short and plump, not a long grain rice. -When “mixing” the rice and other ingredients together, do not stir this like it’s a cake batter- toss the ingredients, like you would a salad.

Becky http://ift.tt/1dSJQk2

I grew up on homemade hot cocoa. Every year my mom would get out the biggest bowl that she owned and we would dump in a few simple ingredients. Then, she’d let my sister and I have turns with a giant whisk, stirring, while also creating a little cloud of cocoa around us. Once it was made all we needed was a cup of hot water and we could mix this in for a quick treat. Also, on occasion, more frequently than I’d like to admit, we would just sneak straight bites of the powdery cocoa mix, only to be found out by our coughing and laughing.

Last year, I created my own hot cocoa mix recipe so that year after year I could replicate this sweet memory with my kids. We enjoy it with a big homemade marshmallow on top or just on its own, always with warm cosy feelings inside and gratitude for foods passed down from generations.

Homemade Hot Coco Mix Recipe

Ingredients

8 ounces organic cacao, or unsweetened cocoa

16 ounces organic powdered sugar

16 ounces non-fat dry milk powder

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a large bowl and use a whisk to combine. Transfer to a large jar to store. This will last a couple months in a dry cool area.

To make hot cocoa: Add 1/2 to 1 cup of hot water* to 1/2 cup of hot cocoa mix. Whisk to combine.

Recipe Notes

You must use hot water to adequately melt the chocolate into a liquid. If servings kids, mix the cocoa with hot water then add an ice cube to cool it down.

Mel @melskitchencafe

I was very close to my paternal grandmother, Venice Walker, as a child, even though my family lived hundreds of miles away from where my grandmother lived (Rexburg, Idaho). Whenever she and my grandpa would come visit us in Texas or Oklahoma, she would inevitably plan an afternoon to make my dad his favorite treat on the whole planet: raisin filled cookies. I have to be honest, they are probably my LEAST favorite cookies ever (mostly because: where’s the chocolate??) and you’ll never find a recipe for them on my blog (sorry, grams), but my grandma would labor over these cookies! They took forever. A homemade sweet dough was made and rolled out and then cut into circles, creating a sandwich for the homemade raisin filling. Because I loved being around my calm, quiet, kind, always-listening grandma, I would immediately join her in the kitchen to help (bonus, she didn’t have to worry about me snitching the dough or the filling because I didn’t like the cookies!); I probably spent at least half my childhood making raisin filled cookies with my sweet grandma! And I loved every minute.

I can still remember from a very young age watching my grandma in the kitchen (hers or ours) making creamy peas and new potatoes, whole wheat bread, raisin filled cookies, or canning chili sauce. She was an unassuming, hardworking, resilient woman who quietly moved through life serving others and often showing her love to others by making and giving them her homemade food. Even more remarkable, my grandmother suffered from very poor health after she had a stroke when she was in her early 30’s (with many small children of her own to care for). Standing for long periods of time was hard, and she often had debilitating back pain and would sit in the kitchen waiting for her bread to rise or her jars to finish canning while laying back in her plastic lawn chair with a rag over her eyes to block the light. But she never stopped cooking…and serving. And to this day, even though she is no longer here, I know without a doubt that my desire to share good food (and recipes!) with my loved ones (and strangers!) is because of the example my grandma set for me. It was nothing she sat down and taught me, nothing she directly said…just a cumulation of all the thousands of sweet moments I observed and remembered.

One of her most famous concoctions was her jarred chili sauce. It’s not salsa. It’s not spaghetti sauce. It’s not jam. No, no! It’s a zesty, spicy, sweet, chunky blend that is ridiculously delicious eaten over eggs (my favorite!) or yes, even with tortilla chips. The recipe has been oft-made, much-loved, and greatly cherished. Every year I make a batch of this chili sauce, even though I’m the only one in my immediate family right now who eats it, mostly because the process and smells and work and finished satisfaction remind me of my grandma, and those memories are precious and sweet to me.

 Grandma Walker’s Chili Sauce

 8 quarts tomatoes, peeled

6 large onions, ground

3/4 quart vinegar

3 cups sugar

3 red peppers, ground

1 teaspoon cloves

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon allspice

2/3 tablespoon salt

Cook in microwave (I do it on the stove now). Not written: Simmer sauce for an hour. Can in steam or water bath for 15 minutes.

Thank you to these women for sharing a little more of their family heart and these delicious recipes we can’t wait to try! Now you can get sharing your own stories. We love these resources offered by Family Search on how you can create or carry on your own food traditions and share those food stories! This article shares why it’s so important and how food can pull families together, this site is full of resources to help you get started and this site helps you share those stories with others. Thank you to Family Search for all of these great resources and to these women for sharing a piece of their family with us!

Family History Through Food posted first on http://ift.tt/2ulDYg7

[hellogreenweb]

Family History Through Food

Nothing goes together quite like food and family. Traditions, moments, loved ones, memories, seasons and more can be remembered through tasting a dish your Great Grandma would make every Thanksgiving or a breakfast dish your dad would make every Saturday morning. Family history whether written, spoken, recorded or tasted can be tangible through food – no better way to cement memories and build bridges than through something that we must do day in and day out! Whether that be around a small counter top or a large dining room table we know that daily nourishment can mean a lot more than just filling up our stomachs.

Today we are featuring some amazing food bloggers who are sharing some of their favorite family recipes, not only because they taste wonderful, but because of the special memories they hold for each of them. Read on to find out why they love these recipes and the memories and goodness each recipe holds for them. And lucky for us, the recipes are included!

Jen Sattley @carlsbadcravings

 Every Fall growing up, us 5 kids (and all the neighbors, family, friends and anyone else blessed enough to be a recipient of Mom’s pumpkin bread) would eagerly await the arrival of pumpkin cans lining grocery store shelves so mom could make her famous Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread.  The house would fill with the magical Fall aroma of pumpkin and cinnamon and we knew it was going to be a magically delicious day.  But mom wouldn’t just make one loaf, but three beautiful Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread loafs.  We would devour as much as we were allowed and the rest would be gifted to neighbors and friends.  And then she would make more.  My very favorite memory of Fall.

This recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread is over 50 years old.  It comes from my mom’s brother’s elementary teacher who sent home homemade pumpkin bread and the recipe to all the children in his class.  With just a few adjustments by my mom over the years to make it perfect, this Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread has stood the test of time against any other pumpkin bread recipe.  In my opinion, it is simply the best!  So get ready to be loved, adored and applauded for your “famous” supremely moist, Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread riddled with chocolate chips, Fall spices and new memories to share.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

INGREDIENTS

Bowl One

6 eggs

4 cups granulated sugar

1 29 oz. can pure pumpkin

1 cup Vegetable oil

Bowl Two

4 1/2 cups AP flour

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves

1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

add later:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (or half chocolate chunks)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Grease and flour three 8 1/2” x 4 ½” loaf pans or use a cooking spray with flour in it.

In a very large bowl, add eggs and gently whisk. Mix in sugar, pumpkin and oil.

In a separate large bowl, mix together all Bowl Two ingredients (don’t add chocolate chips).

Mix the Flour Mixture into the Pumpkin mixture just until combined, being careful not to overmix. Fold in chocolate chips. Evenly divide batter between 3 loaf pans.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 65 – 75 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let bread cool on wire rack for 10 minutes then remove bread from pans. Let bread cool completely on wire rack before slicing.

Store bread in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Brooke Eliason @femalefoodie

One of my favorite family recipes comes from my beautiful maternal grandmother, Sayo Black. Because of her Japanese heritage, we have called her “Grandma Japanese” since my siblings and I were young kids. We love her ability to cook and share parts of her asian culture and, although this fried rice recipe isn’t an authentic Japanese dish, she has always been willing to prepare this family favorite throughout the years. She often makes double or triple batches of her fried rice for large family gatherings and jokingly comments “I’m cooking for an army”!

As a family, we have enjoyed this recipe on Christmas Eve, as a stand-alone meal, for leftovers (which we fought over relentlessly as children), or served inside an omelet for breakfast. I love that when I make this fried rice I am reminded of the great times I have shared with my Grandma Japanese as she thoughtfully chopped fresh vegetables, cooked each ingredient one at a time, and always let me have the first taste.

 Fried Rice

7 cups cooked sticky Japanese (pearl) rice, cooled completely (see tips below) 1/2 cup chopped onion (yellow or white) 1/2 lb chopped ham (about 1 1/2 cups or two thick deli slices) 2 cups cabbage, sliced thin 4 tablespoons butter, separated 2 tablespoons vegetable oil salt pepper soy sauce 1/2 bunch green onions, chopped white and green parts

Using a large non stick pan, cook each of the vegetables, separately, in a small amount of oil and butter. I use about 1 teaspoon for each vegetable/meat. Salt and pepper each vegetable. Transfer to a bowl or plate after the vegetables and meat have been cooked one at a time. It’s OK to let the vegetables and meat inter-mingle at this point. After cooking all of the vegetables and meat, add about 2 tablespoons of butter to the Teflon pan. Over medium heat, add the cooked and cooled rice a little at a time, breaking apart clumps with two wooden spoons until the rice is evenly distributed in the pan, and the butter is mixed in well. Add all of the vegetables and meat to the rice. Toss lightly in pan. Season again with fresh ground pepper. Add the soy sauce, a little at a time. We don’t like to drown the rice in soy sauce, so I only use about 2-3 tablespoons to 7 cups of rice. Taste, add salt and more pepper, if desired. After heated through, add fresh chopped green onions. Turn the heat off. If you continue to leave the heat on, your beautiful fried rice will end up as gummy rice.

Tips: -Make sure the rice is cooked and cooled completely before starting to make fried rice. It is best to make the rice the day before. If you use hot rice when making fried rice, your dish will turn out to be a sticky, gluey mess. -Make sure to use Japanese, or pearl rice, which is short and plump, not a long grain rice. -When “mixing” the rice and other ingredients together, do not stir this like it’s a cake batter- toss the ingredients, like you would a salad.

Becky http://ift.tt/1dSJQk2

I grew up on homemade hot cocoa. Every year my mom would get out the biggest bowl that she owned and we would dump in a few simple ingredients. Then, she’d let my sister and I have turns with a giant whisk, stirring, while also creating a little cloud of cocoa around us. Once it was made all we needed was a cup of hot water and we could mix this in for a quick treat. Also, on occasion, more frequently than I’d like to admit, we would just sneak straight bites of the powdery cocoa mix, only to be found out by our coughing and laughing.

Last year, I created my own hot cocoa mix recipe so that year after year I could replicate this sweet memory with my kids. We enjoy it with a big homemade marshmallow on top or just on its own, always with warm cosy feelings inside and gratitude for foods passed down from generations.

Homemade Hot Coco Mix Recipe

Ingredients

8 ounces organic cacao, or unsweetened cocoa

16 ounces organic powdered sugar

16 ounces non-fat dry milk powder

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a large bowl and use a whisk to combine. Transfer to a large jar to store. This will last a couple months in a dry cool area.

To make hot cocoa: Add 1/2 to 1 cup of hot water* to 1/2 cup of hot cocoa mix. Whisk to combine.

Recipe Notes

You must use hot water to adequately melt the chocolate into a liquid. If servings kids, mix the cocoa with hot water then add an ice cube to cool it down.

Mel @melskitchencafe

I was very close to my paternal grandmother, Venice Walker, as a child, even though my family lived hundreds of miles away from where my grandmother lived (Rexburg, Idaho). Whenever she and my grandpa would come visit us in Texas or Oklahoma, she would inevitably plan an afternoon to make my dad his favorite treat on the whole planet: raisin filled cookies. I have to be honest, they are probably my LEAST favorite cookies ever (mostly because: where’s the chocolate??) and you’ll never find a recipe for them on my blog (sorry, grams), but my grandma would labor over these cookies! They took forever. A homemade sweet dough was made and rolled out and then cut into circles, creating a sandwich for the homemade raisin filling. Because I loved being around my calm, quiet, kind, always-listening grandma, I would immediately join her in the kitchen to help (bonus, she didn’t have to worry about me snitching the dough or the filling because I didn’t like the cookies!); I probably spent at least half my childhood making raisin filled cookies with my sweet grandma! And I loved every minute.

I can still remember from a very young age watching my grandma in the kitchen (hers or ours) making creamy peas and new potatoes, whole wheat bread, raisin filled cookies, or canning chili sauce. She was an unassuming, hardworking, resilient woman who quietly moved through life serving others and often showing her love to others by making and giving them her homemade food. Even more remarkable, my grandmother suffered from very poor health after she had a stroke when she was in her early 30’s (with many small children of her own to care for). Standing for long periods of time was hard, and she often had debilitating back pain and would sit in the kitchen waiting for her bread to rise or her jars to finish canning while laying back in her plastic lawn chair with a rag over her eyes to block the light. But she never stopped cooking…and serving. And to this day, even though she is no longer here, I know without a doubt that my desire to share good food (and recipes!) with my loved ones (and strangers!) is because of the example my grandma set for me. It was nothing she sat down and taught me, nothing she directly said…just a cumulation of all the thousands of sweet moments I observed and remembered.

One of her most famous concoctions was her jarred chili sauce. It’s not salsa. It’s not spaghetti sauce. It’s not jam. No, no! It’s a zesty, spicy, sweet, chunky blend that is ridiculously delicious eaten over eggs (my favorite!) or yes, even with tortilla chips. The recipe has been oft-made, much-loved, and greatly cherished. Every year I make a batch of this chili sauce, even though I’m the only one in my immediate family right now who eats it, mostly because the process and smells and work and finished satisfaction remind me of my grandma, and those memories are precious and sweet to me.

 Grandma Walker’s Chili Sauce

 8 quarts tomatoes, peeled

6 large onions, ground

3/4 quart vinegar

3 cups sugar

3 red peppers, ground

1 teaspoon cloves

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon allspice

2/3 tablespoon salt

Cook in microwave (I do it on the stove now). Not written: Simmer sauce for an hour. Can in steam or water bath for 15 minutes.

Thank you to these women for sharing a little more of their family heart and these delicious recipes we can’t wait to try! Now you can get sharing your own stories. We love these resources offered by Family Search on how you can create or carry on your own food traditions and share those food stories! This article shares why it’s so important and how food can pull families together, this site is full of resources to help you get started and this site helps you share those stories with others. Thank you to Family Search for all of these great resources and to these women for sharing a piece of their family with us!

Family History Through Food posted first on http://ift.tt/2ulDYg7

[hellogreenweb]

Family History Through Food

Nothing goes together quite like food and family. Traditions, moments, loved ones, memories, seasons and more can be remembered through tasting a dish your Great Grandma would make every Thanksgiving or a breakfast dish your dad would make every Saturday morning. Family history whether written, spoken, recorded or tasted can be tangible through food – no better way to cement memories and build bridges than through something that we must do day in and day out! Whether that be around a small counter top or a large dining room table we know that daily nourishment can mean a lot more than just filling up our stomachs.

Today we are featuring some amazing food bloggers who are sharing some of their favorite family recipes, not only because they taste wonderful, but because of the special memories they hold for each of them. Read on to find out why they love these recipes and the memories and goodness each recipe holds for them. And lucky for us, the recipes are included!

Jen Sattley @carlsbadcravings

 Every Fall growing up, us 5 kids (and all the neighbors, family, friends and anyone else blessed enough to be a recipient of Mom’s pumpkin bread) would eagerly await the arrival of pumpkin cans lining grocery store shelves so mom could make her famous Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread.  The house would fill with the magical Fall aroma of pumpkin and cinnamon and we knew it was going to be a magically delicious day.  But mom wouldn’t just make one loaf, but three beautiful Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread loafs.  We would devour as much as we were allowed and the rest would be gifted to neighbors and friends.  And then she would make more.  My very favorite memory of Fall.

This recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread is over 50 years old.  It comes from my mom’s brother’s elementary teacher who sent home homemade pumpkin bread and the recipe to all the children in his class.  With just a few adjustments by my mom over the years to make it perfect, this Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread has stood the test of time against any other pumpkin bread recipe.  In my opinion, it is simply the best!  So get ready to be loved, adored and applauded for your “famous” supremely moist, Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread riddled with chocolate chips, Fall spices and new memories to share.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

INGREDIENTS

Bowl One

6 eggs

4 cups granulated sugar

1 29 oz. can pure pumpkin

1 cup Vegetable oil

Bowl Two

4 1/2 cups AP flour

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves

1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

add later:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (or half chocolate chunks)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Grease and flour three 8 1/2” x 4 ½” loaf pans or use a cooking spray with flour in it.

In a very large bowl, add eggs and gently whisk. Mix in sugar, pumpkin and oil.

In a separate large bowl, mix together all Bowl Two ingredients (don’t add chocolate chips).

Mix the Flour Mixture into the Pumpkin mixture just until combined, being careful not to overmix. Fold in chocolate chips. Evenly divide batter between 3 loaf pans.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 65 – 75 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let bread cool on wire rack for 10 minutes then remove bread from pans. Let bread cool completely on wire rack before slicing.

Store bread in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Brooke Eliason @femalefoodie

One of my favorite family recipes comes from my beautiful maternal grandmother, Sayo Black. Because of her Japanese heritage, we have called her “Grandma Japanese” since my siblings and I were young kids. We love her ability to cook and share parts of her asian culture and, although this fried rice recipe isn’t an authentic Japanese dish, she has always been willing to prepare this family favorite throughout the years. She often makes double or triple batches of her fried rice for large family gatherings and jokingly comments “I’m cooking for an army”!

As a family, we have enjoyed this recipe on Christmas Eve, as a stand-alone meal, for leftovers (which we fought over relentlessly as children), or served inside an omelet for breakfast. I love that when I make this fried rice I am reminded of the great times I have shared with my Grandma Japanese as she thoughtfully chopped fresh vegetables, cooked each ingredient one at a time, and always let me have the first taste.

 Fried Rice

7 cups cooked sticky Japanese (pearl) rice, cooled completely (see tips below) 1/2 cup chopped onion (yellow or white) 1/2 lb chopped ham (about 1 1/2 cups or two thick deli slices) 2 cups cabbage, sliced thin 4 tablespoons butter, separated 2 tablespoons vegetable oil salt pepper soy sauce 1/2 bunch green onions, chopped white and green parts

Using a large non stick pan, cook each of the vegetables, separately, in a small amount of oil and butter. I use about 1 teaspoon for each vegetable/meat. Salt and pepper each vegetable. Transfer to a bowl or plate after the vegetables and meat have been cooked one at a time. It’s OK to let the vegetables and meat inter-mingle at this point. After cooking all of the vegetables and meat, add about 2 tablespoons of butter to the Teflon pan. Over medium heat, add the cooked and cooled rice a little at a time, breaking apart clumps with two wooden spoons until the rice is evenly distributed in the pan, and the butter is mixed in well. Add all of the vegetables and meat to the rice. Toss lightly in pan. Season again with fresh ground pepper. Add the soy sauce, a little at a time. We don’t like to drown the rice in soy sauce, so I only use about 2-3 tablespoons to 7 cups of rice. Taste, add salt and more pepper, if desired. After heated through, add fresh chopped green onions. Turn the heat off. If you continue to leave the heat on, your beautiful fried rice will end up as gummy rice.

Tips: -Make sure the rice is cooked and cooled completely before starting to make fried rice. It is best to make the rice the day before. If you use hot rice when making fried rice, your dish will turn out to be a sticky, gluey mess. -Make sure to use Japanese, or pearl rice, which is short and plump, not a long grain rice. -When “mixing” the rice and other ingredients together, do not stir this like it’s a cake batter- toss the ingredients, like you would a salad.

Becky http://ift.tt/1dSJQk2

I grew up on homemade hot cocoa. Every year my mom would get out the biggest bowl that she owned and we would dump in a few simple ingredients. Then, she’d let my sister and I have turns with a giant whisk, stirring, while also creating a little cloud of cocoa around us. Once it was made all we needed was a cup of hot water and we could mix this in for a quick treat. Also, on occasion, more frequently than I’d like to admit, we would just sneak straight bites of the powdery cocoa mix, only to be found out by our coughing and laughing.

Last year, I created my own hot cocoa mix recipe so that year after year I could replicate this sweet memory with my kids. We enjoy it with a big homemade marshmallow on top or just on its own, always with warm cosy feelings inside and gratitude for foods passed down from generations.

Homemade Hot Coco Mix Recipe

Ingredients

8 ounces organic cacao, or unsweetened cocoa

16 ounces organic powdered sugar

16 ounces non-fat dry milk powder

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a large bowl and use a whisk to combine. Transfer to a large jar to store. This will last a couple months in a dry cool area.

To make hot cocoa: Add 1/2 to 1 cup of hot water* to 1/2 cup of hot cocoa mix. Whisk to combine.

Recipe Notes

You must use hot water to adequately melt the chocolate into a liquid. If servings kids, mix the cocoa with hot water then add an ice cube to cool it down.

Mel @melskitchencafe

I was very close to my paternal grandmother, Venice Walker, as a child, even though my family lived hundreds of miles away from where my grandmother lived (Rexburg, Idaho). Whenever she and my grandpa would come visit us in Texas or Oklahoma, she would inevitably plan an afternoon to make my dad his favorite treat on the whole planet: raisin filled cookies. I have to be honest, they are probably my LEAST favorite cookies ever (mostly because: where’s the chocolate??) and you’ll never find a recipe for them on my blog (sorry, grams), but my grandma would labor over these cookies! They took forever. A homemade sweet dough was made and rolled out and then cut into circles, creating a sandwich for the homemade raisin filling. Because I loved being around my calm, quiet, kind, always-listening grandma, I would immediately join her in the kitchen to help (bonus, she didn’t have to worry about me snitching the dough or the filling because I didn’t like the cookies!); I probably spent at least half my childhood making raisin filled cookies with my sweet grandma! And I loved every minute.

I can still remember from a very young age watching my grandma in the kitchen (hers or ours) making creamy peas and new potatoes, whole wheat bread, raisin filled cookies, or canning chili sauce. She was an unassuming, hardworking, resilient woman who quietly moved through life serving others and often showing her love to others by making and giving them her homemade food. Even more remarkable, my grandmother suffered from very poor health after she had a stroke when she was in her early 30’s (with many small children of her own to care for). Standing for long periods of time was hard, and she often had debilitating back pain and would sit in the kitchen waiting for her bread to rise or her jars to finish canning while laying back in her plastic lawn chair with a rag over her eyes to block the light. But she never stopped cooking…and serving. And to this day, even though she is no longer here, I know without a doubt that my desire to share good food (and recipes!) with my loved ones (and strangers!) is because of the example my grandma set for me. It was nothing she sat down and taught me, nothing she directly said…just a cumulation of all the thousands of sweet moments I observed and remembered.

One of her most famous concoctions was her jarred chili sauce. It’s not salsa. It’s not spaghetti sauce. It’s not jam. No, no! It’s a zesty, spicy, sweet, chunky blend that is ridiculously delicious eaten over eggs (my favorite!) or yes, even with tortilla chips. The recipe has been oft-made, much-loved, and greatly cherished. Every year I make a batch of this chili sauce, even though I’m the only one in my immediate family right now who eats it, mostly because the process and smells and work and finished satisfaction remind me of my grandma, and those memories are precious and sweet to me.

 Grandma Walker’s Chili Sauce

 8 quarts tomatoes, peeled

6 large onions, ground

3/4 quart vinegar

3 cups sugar

3 red peppers, ground

1 teaspoon cloves

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon allspice

2/3 tablespoon salt

Cook in microwave (I do it on the stove now). Not written: Simmer sauce for an hour. Can in steam or water bath for 15 minutes.

Thank you to these women for sharing a little more of their family heart and these delicious recipes we can’t wait to try! Now you can get sharing your own stories. We love these resources offered by Family Search on how you can create or carry on your own food traditions and share those food stories! This article shares why it’s so important and how food can pull families together, this site is full of resources to help you get started and this site helps you share those stories with others. Thank you to Family Search for all of these great resources and to these women for sharing a piece of their family with us!

Family History Through Food posted first on http://ift.tt/2ulDYg7

[hellogreenweb]

Family History Through Food

Nothing goes together quite like food and family. Traditions, moments, loved ones, memories, seasons and more can be remembered through tasting a dish your Great Grandma would make every Thanksgiving or a breakfast dish your dad would make every Saturday morning. Family history whether written, spoken, recorded or tasted can be tangible through food – no better way to cement memories and build bridges than through something that we must do day in and day out! Whether that be around a small counter top or a large dining room table we know that daily nourishment can mean a lot more than just filling up our stomachs.

Today we are featuring some amazing food bloggers who are sharing some of their favorite family recipes, not only because they taste wonderful, but because of the special memories they hold for each of them. Read on to find out why they love these recipes and the memories and goodness each recipe holds for them. And lucky for us, the recipes are included!

Jen Sattley @carlsbadcravings

 Every Fall growing up, us 5 kids (and all the neighbors, family, friends and anyone else blessed enough to be a recipient of Mom’s pumpkin bread) would eagerly await the arrival of pumpkin cans lining grocery store shelves so mom could make her famous Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread.  The house would fill with the magical Fall aroma of pumpkin and cinnamon and we knew it was going to be a magically delicious day.  But mom wouldn’t just make one loaf, but three beautiful Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread loafs.  We would devour as much as we were allowed and the rest would be gifted to neighbors and friends.  And then she would make more.  My very favorite memory of Fall.

This recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread is over 50 years old.  It comes from my mom’s brother’s elementary teacher who sent home homemade pumpkin bread and the recipe to all the children in his class.  With just a few adjustments by my mom over the years to make it perfect, this Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread has stood the test of time against any other pumpkin bread recipe.  In my opinion, it is simply the best!  So get ready to be loved, adored and applauded for your “famous” supremely moist, Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread riddled with chocolate chips, Fall spices and new memories to share.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

INGREDIENTS

Bowl One

6 eggs

4 cups granulated sugar

1 29 oz. can pure pumpkin

1 cup Vegetable oil

Bowl Two

4 1/2 cups AP flour

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves

1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

add later:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (or half chocolate chunks)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Grease and flour three 8 1/2” x 4 ½” loaf pans or use a cooking spray with flour in it.

In a very large bowl, add eggs and gently whisk. Mix in sugar, pumpkin and oil.

In a separate large bowl, mix together all Bowl Two ingredients (don’t add chocolate chips).

Mix the Flour Mixture into the Pumpkin mixture just until combined, being careful not to overmix. Fold in chocolate chips. Evenly divide batter between 3 loaf pans.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 65 – 75 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let bread cool on wire rack for 10 minutes then remove bread from pans. Let bread cool completely on wire rack before slicing.

Store bread in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Brooke Eliason @femalefoodie

One of my favorite family recipes comes from my beautiful maternal grandmother, Sayo Black. Because of her Japanese heritage, we have called her “Grandma Japanese” since my siblings and I were young kids. We love her ability to cook and share parts of her asian culture and, although this fried rice recipe isn’t an authentic Japanese dish, she has always been willing to prepare this family favorite throughout the years. She often makes double or triple batches of her fried rice for large family gatherings and jokingly comments “I’m cooking for an army”!

As a family, we have enjoyed this recipe on Christmas Eve, as a stand-alone meal, for leftovers (which we fought over relentlessly as children), or served inside an omelet for breakfast. I love that when I make this fried rice I am reminded of the great times I have shared with my Grandma Japanese as she thoughtfully chopped fresh vegetables, cooked each ingredient one at a time, and always let me have the first taste.

 Fried Rice

7 cups cooked sticky Japanese (pearl) rice, cooled completely (see tips below) 1/2 cup chopped onion (yellow or white) 1/2 lb chopped ham (about 1 1/2 cups or two thick deli slices) 2 cups cabbage, sliced thin 4 tablespoons butter, separated 2 tablespoons vegetable oil salt pepper soy sauce 1/2 bunch green onions, chopped white and green parts

Using a large non stick pan, cook each of the vegetables, separately, in a small amount of oil and butter. I use about 1 teaspoon for each vegetable/meat. Salt and pepper each vegetable. Transfer to a bowl or plate after the vegetables and meat have been cooked one at a time. It’s OK to let the vegetables and meat inter-mingle at this point. After cooking all of the vegetables and meat, add about 2 tablespoons of butter to the Teflon pan. Over medium heat, add the cooked and cooled rice a little at a time, breaking apart clumps with two wooden spoons until the rice is evenly distributed in the pan, and the butter is mixed in well. Add all of the vegetables and meat to the rice. Toss lightly in pan. Season again with fresh ground pepper. Add the soy sauce, a little at a time. We don’t like to drown the rice in soy sauce, so I only use about 2-3 tablespoons to 7 cups of rice. Taste, add salt and more pepper, if desired. After heated through, add fresh chopped green onions. Turn the heat off. If you continue to leave the heat on, your beautiful fried rice will end up as gummy rice.

Tips: -Make sure the rice is cooked and cooled completely before starting to make fried rice. It is best to make the rice the day before. If you use hot rice when making fried rice, your dish will turn out to be a sticky, gluey mess. -Make sure to use Japanese, or pearl rice, which is short and plump, not a long grain rice. -When “mixing” the rice and other ingredients together, do not stir this like it’s a cake batter- toss the ingredients, like you would a salad.

Becky http://ift.tt/1dSJQk2

I grew up on homemade hot cocoa. Every year my mom would get out the biggest bowl that she owned and we would dump in a few simple ingredients. Then, she’d let my sister and I have turns with a giant whisk, stirring, while also creating a little cloud of cocoa around us. Once it was made all we needed was a cup of hot water and we could mix this in for a quick treat. Also, on occasion, more frequently than I’d like to admit, we would just sneak straight bites of the powdery cocoa mix, only to be found out by our coughing and laughing.

Last year, I created my own hot cocoa mix recipe so that year after year I could replicate this sweet memory with my kids. We enjoy it with a big homemade marshmallow on top or just on its own, always with warm cosy feelings inside and gratitude for foods passed down from generations.

Homemade Hot Coco Mix Recipe

Ingredients

8 ounces organic cacao, or unsweetened cocoa

16 ounces organic powdered sugar

16 ounces non-fat dry milk powder

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a large bowl and use a whisk to combine. Transfer to a large jar to store. This will last a couple months in a dry cool area.

To make hot cocoa: Add 1/2 to 1 cup of hot water* to 1/2 cup of hot cocoa mix. Whisk to combine.

Recipe Notes

You must use hot water to adequately melt the chocolate into a liquid. If servings kids, mix the cocoa with hot water then add an ice cube to cool it down.

Mel @melskitchencafe

I was very close to my paternal grandmother, Venice Walker, as a child, even though my family lived hundreds of miles away from where my grandmother lived (Rexburg, Idaho). Whenever she and my grandpa would come visit us in Texas or Oklahoma, she would inevitably plan an afternoon to make my dad his favorite treat on the whole planet: raisin filled cookies. I have to be honest, they are probably my LEAST favorite cookies ever (mostly because: where’s the chocolate??) and you’ll never find a recipe for them on my blog (sorry, grams), but my grandma would labor over these cookies! They took forever. A homemade sweet dough was made and rolled out and then cut into circles, creating a sandwich for the homemade raisin filling. Because I loved being around my calm, quiet, kind, always-listening grandma, I would immediately join her in the kitchen to help (bonus, she didn’t have to worry about me snitching the dough or the filling because I didn’t like the cookies!); I probably spent at least half my childhood making raisin filled cookies with my sweet grandma! And I loved every minute.

I can still remember from a very young age watching my grandma in the kitchen (hers or ours) making creamy peas and new potatoes, whole wheat bread, raisin filled cookies, or canning chili sauce. She was an unassuming, hardworking, resilient woman who quietly moved through life serving others and often showing her love to others by making and giving them her homemade food. Even more remarkable, my grandmother suffered from very poor health after she had a stroke when she was in her early 30’s (with many small children of her own to care for). Standing for long periods of time was hard, and she often had debilitating back pain and would sit in the kitchen waiting for her bread to rise or her jars to finish canning while laying back in her plastic lawn chair with a rag over her eyes to block the light. But she never stopped cooking…and serving. And to this day, even though she is no longer here, I know without a doubt that my desire to share good food (and recipes!) with my loved ones (and strangers!) is because of the example my grandma set for me. It was nothing she sat down and taught me, nothing she directly said…just a cumulation of all the thousands of sweet moments I observed and remembered.

One of her most famous concoctions was her jarred chili sauce. It’s not salsa. It’s not spaghetti sauce. It’s not jam. No, no! It’s a zesty, spicy, sweet, chunky blend that is ridiculously delicious eaten over eggs (my favorite!) or yes, even with tortilla chips. The recipe has been oft-made, much-loved, and greatly cherished. Every year I make a batch of this chili sauce, even though I’m the only one in my immediate family right now who eats it, mostly because the process and smells and work and finished satisfaction remind me of my grandma, and those memories are precious and sweet to me.

 Grandma Walker’s Chili Sauce

 8 quarts tomatoes, peeled

6 large onions, ground

3/4 quart vinegar

3 cups sugar

3 red peppers, ground

1 teaspoon cloves

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon allspice

2/3 tablespoon salt

Cook in microwave (I do it on the stove now). Not written: Simmer sauce for an hour. Can in steam or water bath for 15 minutes.

Thank you to these women for sharing a little more of their family heart and these delicious recipes we can’t wait to try! Now you can get sharing your own stories. We love these resources offered by Family Search on how you can create or carry on your own food traditions and share those food stories! This article shares why it’s so important and how food can pull families together, this site is full of resources to help you get started and this site helps you share those stories with others. Thank you to Family Search for all of these great resources and to these women for sharing a piece of their family with us!

Family History Through Food posted first on http://ift.tt/2ulDYg7

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Family History Through Food

Nothing goes together quite like food and family. Traditions, moments, loved ones, memories, seasons and more can be remembered through tasting a dish your Great Grandma would make every Thanksgiving or a breakfast dish your dad would make every Saturday morning. Family history whether written, spoken, recorded or tasted can be tangible through food – no better way to cement memories and build bridges than through something that we must do day in and day out! Whether that be around a small counter top or a large dining room table we know that daily nourishment can mean a lot more than just filling up our stomachs.

Today we are featuring some amazing food bloggers who are sharing some of their favorite family recipes, not only because they taste wonderful, but because of the special memories they hold for each of them. Read on to find out why they love these recipes and the memories and goodness each recipe holds for them. And lucky for us, the recipes are included!

Jen Sattley @carlsbadcravings

 Every Fall growing up, us 5 kids (and all the neighbors, family, friends and anyone else blessed enough to be a recipient of Mom’s pumpkin bread) would eagerly await the arrival of pumpkin cans lining grocery store shelves so mom could make her famous Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread.  The house would fill with the magical Fall aroma of pumpkin and cinnamon and we knew it was going to be a magically delicious day.  But mom wouldn’t just make one loaf, but three beautiful Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread loafs.  We would devour as much as we were allowed and the rest would be gifted to neighbors and friends.  And then she would make more.  My very favorite memory of Fall.

This recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread is over 50 years old.  It comes from my mom’s brother’s elementary teacher who sent home homemade pumpkin bread and the recipe to all the children in his class.  With just a few adjustments by my mom over the years to make it perfect, this Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread has stood the test of time against any other pumpkin bread recipe.  In my opinion, it is simply the best!  So get ready to be loved, adored and applauded for your “famous” supremely moist, Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread riddled with chocolate chips, Fall spices and new memories to share.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

INGREDIENTS

Bowl One

6 eggs

4 cups granulated sugar

1 29 oz. can pure pumpkin

1 cup Vegetable oil

Bowl Two

4 1/2 cups AP flour

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves

1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

add later:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (or half chocolate chunks)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Grease and flour three 8 1/2” x 4 ½” loaf pans or use a cooking spray with flour in it.

In a very large bowl, add eggs and gently whisk. Mix in sugar, pumpkin and oil.

In a separate large bowl, mix together all Bowl Two ingredients (don’t add chocolate chips).

Mix the Flour Mixture into the Pumpkin mixture just until combined, being careful not to overmix. Fold in chocolate chips. Evenly divide batter between 3 loaf pans.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 65 – 75 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let bread cool on wire rack for 10 minutes then remove bread from pans. Let bread cool completely on wire rack before slicing.

Store bread in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Brooke Eliason @femalefoodie

One of my favorite family recipes comes from my beautiful maternal grandmother, Sayo Black. Because of her Japanese heritage, we have called her “Grandma Japanese” since my siblings and I were young kids. We love her ability to cook and share parts of her asian culture and, although this fried rice recipe isn’t an authentic Japanese dish, she has always been willing to prepare this family favorite throughout the years. She often makes double or triple batches of her fried rice for large family gatherings and jokingly comments “I’m cooking for an army”!

As a family, we have enjoyed this recipe on Christmas Eve, as a stand-alone meal, for leftovers (which we fought over relentlessly as children), or served inside an omelet for breakfast. I love that when I make this fried rice I am reminded of the great times I have shared with my Grandma Japanese as she thoughtfully chopped fresh vegetables, cooked each ingredient one at a time, and always let me have the first taste.

 Fried Rice

7 cups cooked sticky Japanese (pearl) rice, cooled completely (see tips below) 1/2 cup chopped onion (yellow or white) 1/2 lb chopped ham (about 1 1/2 cups or two thick deli slices) 2 cups cabbage, sliced thin 4 tablespoons butter, separated 2 tablespoons vegetable oil salt pepper soy sauce 1/2 bunch green onions, chopped white and green parts

Using a large non stick pan, cook each of the vegetables, separately, in a small amount of oil and butter. I use about 1 teaspoon for each vegetable/meat. Salt and pepper each vegetable. Transfer to a bowl or plate after the vegetables and meat have been cooked one at a time. It’s OK to let the vegetables and meat inter-mingle at this point. After cooking all of the vegetables and meat, add about 2 tablespoons of butter to the Teflon pan. Over medium heat, add the cooked and cooled rice a little at a time, breaking apart clumps with two wooden spoons until the rice is evenly distributed in the pan, and the butter is mixed in well. Add all of the vegetables and meat to the rice. Toss lightly in pan. Season again with fresh ground pepper. Add the soy sauce, a little at a time. We don’t like to drown the rice in soy sauce, so I only use about 2-3 tablespoons to 7 cups of rice. Taste, add salt and more pepper, if desired. After heated through, add fresh chopped green onions. Turn the heat off. If you continue to leave the heat on, your beautiful fried rice will end up as gummy rice.

Tips: -Make sure the rice is cooked and cooled completely before starting to make fried rice. It is best to make the rice the day before. If you use hot rice when making fried rice, your dish will turn out to be a sticky, gluey mess. -Make sure to use Japanese, or pearl rice, which is short and plump, not a long grain rice. -When “mixing” the rice and other ingredients together, do not stir this like it’s a cake batter- toss the ingredients, like you would a salad.

Becky http://ift.tt/1dSJQk2

I grew up on homemade hot cocoa. Every year my mom would get out the biggest bowl that she owned and we would dump in a few simple ingredients. Then, she’d let my sister and I have turns with a giant whisk, stirring, while also creating a little cloud of cocoa around us. Once it was made all we needed was a cup of hot water and we could mix this in for a quick treat. Also, on occasion, more frequently than I’d like to admit, we would just sneak straight bites of the powdery cocoa mix, only to be found out by our coughing and laughing.

Last year, I created my own hot cocoa mix recipe so that year after year I could replicate this sweet memory with my kids. We enjoy it with a big homemade marshmallow on top or just on its own, always with warm cosy feelings inside and gratitude for foods passed down from generations.

Homemade Hot Coco Mix Recipe

Ingredients

8 ounces organic cacao, or unsweetened cocoa

16 ounces organic powdered sugar

16 ounces non-fat dry milk powder

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a large bowl and use a whisk to combine. Transfer to a large jar to store. This will last a couple months in a dry cool area.

To make hot cocoa: Add 1/2 to 1 cup of hot water* to 1/2 cup of hot cocoa mix. Whisk to combine.

Recipe Notes

You must use hot water to adequately melt the chocolate into a liquid. If servings kids, mix the cocoa with hot water then add an ice cube to cool it down.

Mel @melskitchencafe

I was very close to my paternal grandmother, Venice Walker, as a child, even though my family lived hundreds of miles away from where my grandmother lived (Rexburg, Idaho). Whenever she and my grandpa would come visit us in Texas or Oklahoma, she would inevitably plan an afternoon to make my dad his favorite treat on the whole planet: raisin filled cookies. I have to be honest, they are probably my LEAST favorite cookies ever (mostly because: where’s the chocolate??) and you’ll never find a recipe for them on my blog (sorry, grams), but my grandma would labor over these cookies! They took forever. A homemade sweet dough was made and rolled out and then cut into circles, creating a sandwich for the homemade raisin filling. Because I loved being around my calm, quiet, kind, always-listening grandma, I would immediately join her in the kitchen to help (bonus, she didn’t have to worry about me snitching the dough or the filling because I didn’t like the cookies!); I probably spent at least half my childhood making raisin filled cookies with my sweet grandma! And I loved every minute.

I can still remember from a very young age watching my grandma in the kitchen (hers or ours) making creamy peas and new potatoes, whole wheat bread, raisin filled cookies, or canning chili sauce. She was an unassuming, hardworking, resilient woman who quietly moved through life serving others and often showing her love to others by making and giving them her homemade food. Even more remarkable, my grandmother suffered from very poor health after she had a stroke when she was in her early 30’s (with many small children of her own to care for). Standing for long periods of time was hard, and she often had debilitating back pain and would sit in the kitchen waiting for her bread to rise or her jars to finish canning while laying back in her plastic lawn chair with a rag over her eyes to block the light. But she never stopped cooking…and serving. And to this day, even though she is no longer here, I know without a doubt that my desire to share good food (and recipes!) with my loved ones (and strangers!) is because of the example my grandma set for me. It was nothing she sat down and taught me, nothing she directly said…just a cumulation of all the thousands of sweet moments I observed and remembered.

One of her most famous concoctions was her jarred chili sauce. It’s not salsa. It’s not spaghetti sauce. It’s not jam. No, no! It’s a zesty, spicy, sweet, chunky blend that is ridiculously delicious eaten over eggs (my favorite!) or yes, even with tortilla chips. The recipe has been oft-made, much-loved, and greatly cherished. Every year I make a batch of this chili sauce, even though I’m the only one in my immediate family right now who eats it, mostly because the process and smells and work and finished satisfaction remind me of my grandma, and those memories are precious and sweet to me.

 Grandma Walker’s Chili Sauce

 8 quarts tomatoes, peeled

6 large onions, ground

3/4 quart vinegar

3 cups sugar

3 red peppers, ground

1 teaspoon cloves

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon allspice

2/3 tablespoon salt

Cook in microwave (I do it on the stove now). Not written: Simmer sauce for an hour. Can in steam or water bath for 15 minutes.

Thank you to these women for sharing a little more of their family heart and these delicious recipes we can’t wait to try! Now you can get sharing your own stories. We love these resources offered by Family Search on how you can create or carry on your own food traditions and share those food stories! This article shares why it’s so important and how food can pull families together, this site is full of resources to help you get started and this site helps you share those stories with others. Thank you to Family Search for all of these great resources and to these women for sharing a piece of their family with us!

Family History Through Food posted first on http://ift.tt/2ulDYg7