I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (Happy Holiday, etc.). I had a very nice Christmas week. Over a three-day span, I was able to spend time with three of my brothers and their families (well, partial families, in some cases).
On Christmas Eve, my mom and I were preparing our traditional Christmas treats – peanut clusters, Rice Krispies Treats®, and Chex® Party Mix. We ran into some problems, which ended up providing us with much humor.
Due to my last minute, two-week trip to London, I wasn’t quite prepared for Christmas, so I was shopping on Christmas Eve – the lines in the stores were crazy, by the way. My mom called and said she had run into a problem with the peanut clusters, and needed some help. So, after a fruitless shopping experience (I ended up buying stuff on-line and printing out a picture of the item to be unwrapped. Lame, I know, but what are you going to do?), I returned home to see what she needed. My mom has been using the same recipe for peanut clusters for, oh, about as long as we’ve had a microwave, so what, 20-some-odd years (maybe 30)? For some reason, this time, as she melted the butterscotch and chocolate chips, the butterscotch chips caramelized instead of melted. I really think she had a bad batch of butterscotch chips – because the next batch came out OK. However, my mom kept the messed up batch because, in her words, it was sweet so someone might eat it. OK…Rice Krispies Treats® are my FAVORITE holiday treat. My mom has doctored up the usual recipe a little bit (including adding more marshmallows AND a tsp. of vanilla). Anyway, I got out a bag of marshmallows – they felt a little old, but they weren’t TOO hard, and since we were melting them anyway, I figured we’d be OK. Well, we weren’t OK. As the marshmallows started “melting” (and I use the term loosely), I quickly realized that this batch just wasn’t going to work. This mishap following so closely after the Peanut Cluster debacle, caused my mom and me to double over with laughter – we were laughing so hard we were crying. My mom had the genius idea to mix the caramelized chocolate/butterscotch mixture in with the clumping marshmallows– again, using the reasoning “they’re both sweet.” Needless to say, it was a mess and ended up in the garbage. Luckily we had some newer marshmallows on hand, so Rice Krispies Treats® were to be had.
All in all, we had a very nice, white Christmas (the snow has been crazy) – we were able to spend time with family, eat good food, watch Christmas shows (we watched A Christmas Story, finally), and celebrate the birth of our Savior.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Sunday, December 28
Christmas (mis)Adventures
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2 comments:
Merry Christmas, belatedly, dear friend. :)
And I love the butterscotch/marshmellow "clusters"recipe you and your mom made (I believe I have some marshmellows that have been in my cupboard for at least a year...my girls love them in hot chocolate and they seem to last longer than fresh). I'm sure the garbage was delighted by such a sweet treat. lololol.
I loved your story! I'm glad to hear about your fun christmas and don't feel bad about the "picture gifts," that's life! I'm sure they were thrilled away. I loved to read about your travels. That chocolate shoe was tempting, but I'm sure it wouldn't of tasted as good as it looked. LOL Happy Holidays!
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