Fact of the Week: December 30, 2013

There are an estimated 40 calendars that are currently used world wide. However the most common calendar,  which marks the new year this week,  is the Gregorian calendar.  Which was implemented in 1582 by skipping 10 days in October that year. 

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Quick and easy butterbeer

This is for Ron's birthday.  It's nice to make the full on butterbeer  (http://kneadtoknowmo.blogspot.com/2013/07/butterbeer.html). However I don't always have the patience or time for it. So here is my quick and easy butterbeer.  

Ingredients:

1 bottle cream soda

1 TBS of butterscotch toppings

makes one glass of butterbeer

Directions:

Add butterscotch to a large glass. Pour in the soda and gently stir, don't stir too vigorously since it cause the soda to foam. You might want to add some whipped topping, I've used cool whip and home whipped heavy cream. I like the cream better but cool whip is easier.  Then drizzle on more butterscotch for effect. 

Enjoy in your very own house cup! 

Happy birthday Ron. Hope you're drinking some now with Hermonie!

Peppermint Frosting

This is a great way to add a little holiday flare to an old standard. This was my aunts birthday cupcakes, so I made these gluten free cupcakes with the frosting. And added some crushed candy canes to it. Looks pretty good if I do say so myself!

Ingredients:
1 stick of butter softened
1 cup of powder sugar
1 tsp of peppermint extract
2 candy canes
(optional: red food coloring)

Directions:
Blend the butter till creamed. Then add the powdered sugar. Mix till well combined. Finally add in the peppermint extract. (I then added red food coloring to half the batch).

Frost your cupcakes however you want, knife, pastry bag or just a sandwich bag. Stripe the red and white frosting together to get a candy cane look. Mine was put on with a bag, and unfortunately the red bleed into the white too much, and didn't look as stripy as i wanted it too.

Put the candy canes into a sandwich bag, without the plastic wrapping on the canes. Then crush them with a rolling pin. Sprinkle them on top of the frosting and you have one festive cupcake!

Fact of the Week: December 23, 2013

There are two different ideas on when winter officially starts, one is astronomical the other meteorological.  In the astrological definition, the start of winter is on the shortest day of the year, the solstice.  In meteorology winter is defined as the coldest months of the year, being December, January, and February in the northern hemisphere.  Thus winter starts December 1st.

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Fact of the Week: December 16, 2013

Jane Austen had only completed six novels at the time of her death, two of which were published posthumous. She also left us one unfinished novel, Sanditon. Nevertheless, her timeless work lives on in over 60 films and tv series based on her novels and in the hearts of her fans worldwide.

Happy 238th Birthday Ms. Austen

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Reindeer Cookies

These are so cute to give away for the holidays. I made these last year to give as gifts. They were eaten fast, which is good since the antlers are prone to fall off. The cookie is gluten free, and you can find the recipe here for the cookie. The chocolate covered pretzels, which I like the look of better, are gluten free. However for the taste I enjoyed the slated pretzels best, it give that salty sweet flavor that I love a lot. 

Ingredients: 

The makings for peanut butter cookies (could make almost any cookie if you wanted, but here is a link for quick peanut butter cookies that I like) 

1 large bag of m&ms

1 bag of pretzels (use gluten free pretzels) 

Directions: 

Once you take the cookies out of the oven set in the pretzels on the top of the cookie at an angle. Place two brown m&m's in the middle of the cookie like eyes. Then add the red m&m as the Rudolph nose! You can have blue and green eyed reindeer as well, which I did after a while since I ran out of brown m&m's. Set on a cooling rack and let the decorations set. Then you will be ready to spread the cheer! 

Fact of the Week: December 8, 2013

Today would have been Admiral Grace Murray Hopper's 107th birthday. Hopper was in the Navy and a very valuable software engineer. Her work lead to many programs we still use today.
To learn more about her, click here: 

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies (Gluten Free)

So I found some form of this recipe on pinterest. I originally tried this with Chocolate Almond Butter from Trader Joe's and it fell a little flat, like literally! They ended up like some kind of brittle rather than a cookie. If you want to try plain Almond butter, please let me know how it goes. I frankly don't want to waste more Almond Butter figuring it out.

Anyway these are quick and very delicious for the peanut butter lover like myself! You could definitely try adding in chocolate chips too!

**Side note: Please excuse my bad photo quality. I only had my camera phone that day.

Ingredients:
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar (best to do half white and half brown)
1 egg







Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F

Stir together peanut butter, eggs and sugar in a medium bowl. Mix until well combined, to the point that you can form them into nicely mixed cookie balls. Lay them out, with some room between them, on a cookie sheet. I used wax paper to keep the cookies from sticking.

Pop them into the oven and bake them for only 12 minutes or so. You want them to be a golden brown on the edges. Transfer them to a cooling rack and you have some very quick and easy cookies ready to go!

Enjoy!

Fact of the Week: December 2, 2013

In the United States you must be 25 years old to run for the House of Representatives, 30 to run for Senate and you have to be 35 to run for President or Vice President.

It's almost like the founding fathers didn't trust young people.

Cite: Constitution