{"id":888,"date":"2011-12-23T15:47:36","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T19:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=888"},"modified":"2011-12-23T15:47:38","modified_gmt":"2011-12-23T19:47:38","slug":"christmas-eve-eve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=888","title":{"rendered":"On This Christmas Eve Eve"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>First things first. I just spent an hour this morning drinking coffee, looking at the ocean, and watching this guy surf in front of my house. Hailing from Chicago, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever stop getting a kick out of things like surfing on Christmas Eve Eve.<\/p>\n

But, on to more pressing issues, namely food. In case you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t noticed, this is not a food blog. I like food. I have a considerable amount of affection for it, even. But the preparation of said food is not, at this juncture anyway, my gift to the universe. At the homestead, I do some prep work when it comes to dinners, and I do have a few dishes I make on occasion, as well as a handful of breads, appetizers and of course chocolate desserts that I specialize in. Other than that, cooking\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty much LCB\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thing in our family.<\/p>\n

So, An Island Mom does not have any real plans to set the food blog world afire anytime soon. In fact, no one would want that, as people generally read food blogs for tips on improving their food. Who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to read a blog that gives tips for making your food stunningly mediocre? If I had a food blog, even LCB wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read it.<\/p>\n

But, I have developed a small arsenal of what I call \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bang for your Buck on the Road\u00e2\u20ac\u009d recipes. These are recipes that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten generous amounts of positive feedback from, that are easy to make with limited resources on hand.<\/p>\n

Plus, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the holidays, so from what I can tell, everyone and their chihuahuas are posting recipes at the moment.<\/p>\n

Over the years, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve spent many holidays, Christmas and otherwise, away from home, whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been at relatives\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 houses or in temporary housing or even extended-stay types of places due to business obligations. So, when it comes to preparing food, I often don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a smorgasbord of ingredients or special cooking gear and the like at my disposal. With a little planning, then, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made certain things into a trim process, with recipes that require limited ingredients and cookware to make.<\/p>\n

This year, we are at the old house, which is now also a house sometimes used by tenants, so I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t leave a boatload of ingredients sitting around, nor do I want to buy and throw away loads of food each time we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re here. For Christmas, then, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m using two of my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bang for Your Buck on the Road\u00e2\u20ac\u009d recipes.<\/p>\n

Some of you may be in similar positions, even if you are just on vacation or at your in-laws\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 beach trailer, trying to cook with limitations, so I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d share my two recipes.<\/p>\n

The first is a cheese ball I found on allrecipes.com<\/a> that only uses four ingredients. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obnoxiously simple compared to many cheese balls, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve probably had a dozen people ask for the recipe.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Easy Cheese Ball II\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong> (For the record, I have no clue about Easy Cheese Ball I. Or Easy Cheese Ball III, for that matter.)<\/p>\n

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened<\/p>\n

1 (1 ounce) package ranch dressing mix<\/p>\n

2 1\/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese<\/p>\n

1 1\/2 cups chopped pecans<\/p>\n

In a medium size bowl, mash cream cheese. Mix dressing mix and Cheddar cheese into the cream cheese. Shape the mixture into a ball. Roll the ball in the chopped nuts. Refrigerate covered until ready to serve.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I will say, this makes a rather large cheese ball, so I generally half the recipe if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s for a smaller group. I swoon when I see the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153aged 24 months or more\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on my cheddar cheese, so I use generally use sharp cheddar cheese. In keeping with some of the recommendations on allrecipies.com, I sometimes half the ranch dressing mix amount, depending on my crowd, because it still has plenty of flavor with half the mix. I also use either pecans or walnuts, whatever I have on hand at the moment. And finally, for flavor purposes, I do recommend letting it sit overnight before serving if possible, but this is not an absolute.<\/p>\n

My other recipe is a recipe I got years and years ago from my mom for a French Silk Pie. This recipe has six ingredients, including the store-bought crust I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d recommend using if you are aiming for minimal leftover ingredients.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>French Silk Pie<\/strong><\/p>\n

2 stick butter<\/p>\n

1 \u00c2\u00bd cups sugar<\/p>\n

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate<\/p>\n

2 teaspoons vanilla<\/p>\n

4 eggs<\/p>\n

1 pie crust<\/p>\n

Cream butter and sugar. Set aside. Melt unsweetened chocolate and cool. Add vanilla and chocolate to butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating mixture for five minutes after each egg is added (at high speed). Cool for 4-5 hours before serving.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For perspective, this does not have as rich of a chocolaty taste as the Brownie Cookies<\/a> I shared with you a few days ago, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely a respectable level of chocolate involved. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve toyed for years with the idea of bumping the chocolate up a notch, but the overall flavor is so rich that I always wimp out in the end. Like the cheese ball, this tastes best if it has been refrigerated overnight first. And, since it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t baked, I use pasteurized eggs when I make it. When I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on the road without access to a stand mixer, I also reduce the beating time of each egg down to 3 minutes an egg, which has yet to lead to any disastrous results.<\/p>\n

Note: I highly recommend not letting a speck of artificial sweetener anywhere near this pie (unless you have dietary restrictions, of course), particularly if you are making it on Christmas Eve, when all the stores on your small island are closed and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no hope of repairing your damage in time for Christmas, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your only reasonable source of chocolate until the stores reopen after Christmas, which drives you to both insanity and run-ons. Just by way of a hypothetical example.<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth, I bring the necessary amount of nuts, ranch mix, vanilla and unsweetened chocolate from home, so I only have to find cheese, eggs, butter, sugar and a crust when I get to my “temporary” location.<\/p>\n

This is so not<\/em> Julia Child, saying Happy Holidays and Bon Appetit!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First things first. I just spent an hour this morning drinking coffee, looking at the ocean, and watching this guy surf in front of my house. Hailing from Chicago, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever stop getting a kick out of things like surfing on Christmas Eve Eve. But, on to more pressing issues, namely food. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[80,392,764,769,771,770,767,765,766,105,100,768],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islandlife","tag-beach-life","tag-carolina-island-living","tag-cheese-balls","tag-christmas-cooking","tag-christmas-eve-eve","tag-christmas-recipies","tag-cooking-on-the-road","tag-easy-cheese-balls","tag-french-silk-pie","tag-island-life","tag-island-living","tag-surfing-in-december"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}