Christmas Creations

This Christmas I created a little more than I have for the past three years.  You see, David and I spent the previous three years in St. Louis, MO and I haven't been able to contribute a whole lot to our family Christmas dinners since I had to travel 8 hours.  We are finally back in OKC and I enjoyed being able to contribute again this Christmas.  


I took care of our ENTIRE Christmas Eve meal this year and had an absolute blast!  Here are a couple of lists of the things I made.


Christmas Eve:
Turkey Noodle Soup:  Made from the leftover Thanksgiving turkey, including the stock.  
Salad
Rolls:  Completely from scratch
Pecan Pie:  I used pre-made crust, but everything else was from scratch.  The pecans came from Nifty Nut House in Wichita, KS.
Pumpkin Pie: I used pre-made crust and canned pumpkin
Sweet Potato Pie X 2 (one was a gift for a bro in-law) :  I used pre-made crust, but everything else was from scratch.  I even boiled my own sweet potatoes for this one.  It was phenomenal!
Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookies




Christmas Day:
Marinated Veggie Salad:  made with Splenda
Salad
Rolls:  Completely from scratch
Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
Molasses Cookies:  My Christmas FAVORITE!
Sugar Cookies: All individually decorated by hand
Protein Bars
Protein Fudge
Layered Ribbon Birthday Cake for Jesus
Pecan Pie: Yes, I made two.  One for Christmas Even and one for Christmas Day.  = )




In case you're wondering, we DID eat REAL FOOD on Christmas Day.  We enjoyed turkey, ham, AND smoked ribs.  The ribs were to-die-for!  There were also mashed potatoes, green bean wraps, dressing, cheesy mashed potatoes, and more.  It truly was a feast.


In addition to all that, I made David a delicious breakfast of multigrain pancakes and spinach bacon quiche on the morning of Christmas Eve.  He really enjoyed it!  


I feel that I need to make a little comment to explain my obsession in the kitchen.  It's healthy to have hobbies.  Many of "healthy people" have music as a hobby.  I'm one of the luckiest gals in the world in that my hobby of music turned into a career for me.  I live and breathe music for a huge chunk of my day and wouldn't trade that for anything, but I also believe we can have more than one hobby.  I have many, many hobbies.
Cooking and baking has definitely turned into a hobby for me.  I'm glad my Grandma took the time and had the patience to teach me some things and let me experiment in her kitchen when I was a child.  I'm glad I payed attention during my home economics class in middle school.  And it's a good thing I have a family that enjoys to eat.  Creating culinary compositions in the kitchen is something that brings this musician so much joy.