Neighbor Gift: Cinnamon Popcorn and a Movie

This year I have neighbors! Ok, I've had neighbors in the past, but I've never felt super friendly with them. Now that we own our home, I figured we needed to get friendlier with the people around us. I decided to make cinnamon kettle corn and give this DVD

It's a short movie about the nativity of Christ. The perfect gift for Christmas, in my opinion. You can order your own here: Joy to the World DVD

Cinnamon Kettle Corn recipe adapted from Something Swanky

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels

Heat the vegetable oil in a large pot over medium heat, covered.

Put in two kernels. When they pop, the oil is ready

Once hot, stir in the sugar, cinnamon and popcorn.  I use a spoon to help really coat the kernels.

Cover, and shake the pot constantly to keep the sugar from burning.

Once the popping has slowed to once every 2 to 3 seconds, remove the pot from the heat and continue to shake for a few minutes until the popping has stopped. Pour into a large bowl, and allow to cool, stirring occasionally to break up large clumps.

This year I tried making kettle corn in my Stir Crazy popper. AND IT WORKS and doesn't ruin my Stir Crazy! It's so fast and easy. Never going back to stove top. 

Cinnamon Kettle Corn recipe for Stir Crazy:

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels

Put all ingredients in the Stir Crazy. Place the lid on top and turn it on. Once the popping has slowed to once every 2 to 3 seconds, turn off Stir Crazy and flip over (so the bowl lid is right side up) and take the heat element off**. Allow the popcorn to cool and enjoy.

**Don't leave the heat element on top while it cools, like I did. It melted the side of the bowl/lid a little. 

Snickerdoodle hot chocolate truffle balls

A couple months ago, we were at a restaurant that was giving out free snickerdoodle hot cocoa. I had to make this at home. Somehow, this transformed into making 200 hot chocolate truffle balls for the neighbors . . . without testing the recipe first.

200 truffle balls later, it has proven worthy.

Recipe (for <200!)

• 1 half pint whipping cream
• 1/2 Tbsp butter (optional, but it adds great flavor!)
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (or to taste)
• 12 oz (2 cups) milk chocolate chips*
• optional: cinnamon sugar for rolling

1. Heat the whipping cream and optional butter in a saucepan over medium heat until butter melts and cream is just barely boiling. Add sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and optional cream of tartar and stir to dissolve and combine.

2. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips. Continue stirring until chocolate chips are melted. (It may look a tiiiny bit grainy; that's okay.)

3. Pour into baking dish or bowl. Cover and chill 2 hours or until firm. (You just made ganache! You can skip to the hot chocolate by adding warm milk until you reach your desired consistency. But come on. Let's go big.)

4. The original hot chocolate truffle balls recipe calls for scooping 2 tablespoons of the ganache mixture, shaping them into a ball by hand, and wrapping and chilling them. When I made these as gifts, I found a much easier method: a small cookie dough scoop and mini muffin wrappers. Scoop, plop, stick into gift bags. BAM.

5. Optionally, you may roll the truffles in cinnamon sugar. However, you'll want to do this immediately prior to serving, and the sugar does make them crunchy, so it's really best for looks on a truffle ball that will be made into hot chocolate momentarily.


Keep finished truffles covered in fridge or freezer until serving. Best yet, keep them under lock and key, because you will be sneaking one every chance you get. Or at least I will.

Yield: 20 small or 10 large truffle balls.

To make hot chocolate: heat 6-8 oz milk and drop in one small truffle. (You might add 1 additional tsp of sugar as well.) Stir until truffle ball melts.

*You can use whatever flavor of chocolate chips you like here. A number of the recipes I came across initially used white chocolate chips, but I wanted chocolate in my hot chocolate (shocker). In my gigantor batch, I used about 20% extra dark chocolate chips and the rest semi-sweet, but the next time I make this, I'm definitely opting for milk chocolate chips, which is what I recommend here.

These may or may not have been so good that more than one of the friends I shared them with commanded me never to do that again . . . because they ate a dozen. By themselves. Without making them into hot chocolate.

That's a pity.

Give the gift of pie!

Last year, my husband’s coworker gave out quart jars of homemade apple pie filling as her Christmas gift. I think that’s a fantastic idea. A one quart jar will fill an 8″ or 9″ pie for a fast, homemade dessert—but the possibilities go way beyond that. My favorite use was as a topping for pancakes. Just heat in a pan until thick, hot and bubbly and voila! Give the gift of pie!

It only takes one county extension class to have the importance of using a tested recipe in home canning. Seriously. They’re tested to make sure that the food quality is as good as it can be while still reaching the temperature to kill of the botulism that may be lurking in the middle of your jars. Botulism, in case you can’t tell, does NOT make a good neighbor gift.

Fortunately, other cooks, like the awesome people behind Our Best Bites, understand the importance of tested recipes. She used a recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preservation. And here it is:

	Quantities of Ingredients Needed For
	1 Quart	7 Quarts
Blanched, sliced fresh apples	3-1/2 cups	6 quarts
Granulated sugar	3/4 cup + 2 tbsp	5-1/2 cups
Clear Jel®*	1/4 cup	1-1/2 cup
Cinnamon	1/2 tsp	1 tbsp
Cold Water	1/2 cup	2-1/2 cups
Apple juice	3/4 cup	5 cups
Bottled lemon juice	2 tbsp	3/4 cup
Nutmeg (optional)	1/8 tsp	1 tsp
Yellow food coloring (optional)	1 drop	7 drops

A note about ClearJel: it’s a modified cornstarch that stands up to heat, freezing and/or acid from fruit, unlike plain old cornstarch or other thickeners. The NCHFP says (emphasis mine):

Before assembling the other ingredients, including fresh fruits, to make the pie fillings in Extension canning recommendations, check to see if you will be able to get ClearJel®. There is no substitution for ClearJel® that can be made in these recipes. This means do not use other corn starch, flour, tapioca, or other thickener in our recipes. You also must use ClearJel® and not Instant ClearJel®, ClearJel A®, any other form of ClearJel®, or any other modified corn starch.

However, Sara at Our Best Bites contacted her local extension office and they said that Ultra Gel is the same product and it’s a bit easier to find than ClearJel. (But still—call ahead.)

And as with any home canning, double check the steps, especially the processing time for your altitude. If you don’t have a lovely water bath canner like the one above (and I don’t either), I’ve canned a few things without expensive equipment. I have to use pint jars and at least one site I looked at said to leave the processing time the same. Of course, this might affect the food quality, but I do believe in being safe rather than sorry.

Once your pie filling is done, tie it up with a bow and give the gift of pie!

What do you like to give your friends and neighbors?

Photos by Kurt and Sybilla

Jaime Approved HOLIDAY Baking

This year I made three of my favorite things for gifts for my co workers:

Oreo truffles. About 80 of them!

Source: the-girl-who-ate-everything.com via Jaime on Pinterest

A crowd favorite. I have been assigned to make these at Jasmine's wedding (in 10 days!)

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Puddle cups.

Source: oneshetwoshe.com via Jaime on Pinterest

I made these for Thanksgiving last year. Weird contribution but it does not matter because they were amazing.

Three Ingredient Pumpkin Cookies, only I left out the chocolate chips.

Source: waywardgirlscrafts.com via Jaime on Pinterest

I wanted one thing to not have chocolate. We made homemade pumpkin pie spice to go in them too!


And for my flop:

Source: stephenandnat.blogspot.com via Jaime on Pinterest

Don't these look amazing? Well I would suggest you have a real doughnut pan to make them. I was at my aunt's and using a plug in doughnut maker and it just didn't work. Then we tried to fry them. And that didn't work. So I made the pumpkin cookies instead. Next year I'll have that doughnut pan!


Now for my tips:

Make sure the treat boxes you buy are big enough! I accidentally bought tiny boxes so I have to pair the box with a plate. I ended up putting the Oreo truffles in a mini cupcake liner and then in the box.

Tiny boxes make me weep

Plan ahead! I did plan ahead but I didn't count on the doughnuts not working out and had to scramble with the pumpkin cookies at the last minute.

Make sure you don't save your baking until the last minue. Because you just may end up boxing treats until 10:30 pm.

Neighbor gift: the scents of Christmas (with printable tag!)

Oranges and Christmas have gone together (in the US at least) for over a hundred years--and a lot longer if you've ever head the traditional tale about the St. Nicholas, which is also a folkloric explanation of the tradition of Christmas stockings.

These days, gift boxes of oranges and bags of clementines and tangelos are on sale at Christmastime. I confess that we probably eat more Cuties in December than . . . wait, do they sell Cuties the rest of the year?

A few years ago, I started saving the peels from our Cuties early in December. Once it gets a little closer to Christmas, I put the peels in a pot, add some cinnamon sticks and water, and put it on to simmer for hours. Our whole house smells Christmas-y.

A couple months ago, a friend showed me an idea: putting these "aromatics" in jars. They'd make great neighbor gifts! The article has several other scent ideas, but the one I whipped up took these things:

Christmas Scent Jar

• peels of 2 large Cuties
• ~1/2 navel orange, cut into crosswise slices (and then in half, but that's optional)
• 1 cinnamon stick (scored and broken into inch pieces, which is optional)
• 5-6 whole cloves
• 1 pint jar, ring & lid
• water

I put the peels in first, then used a knife to move the peels away from the sides of the jar to slide in the orange slices (to look pretty). I added the cinnamon pieces and cloves that way, too, then filled it with water. Screw on the lid and ring, and voila!

There are tons of options for what to do with the mix. I'll probably do the same thing I've done in years past: the stovetop method. But you can also use an open slow cooker, a fondue pot, a candle warmer, a mug warmer and more. (Though I should say my friend tried the candle warmer method and didn't smell anything.)

Want to share these with your neighbors? Here are some free printable tags to go along with them! They're 3"x4.5" (small enough to fit on an index card). Feel free to glue them on cute paper and sign the back.

And of course, you don't have to use oranges and cinnamon. You can use pine needles or small branches, your favorite herbs, a gingerbread spice blend with slices of ginger and cinnamon sticks), or anything else that says Christmas to you. Maybe your spent vanilla beans can find one last use (after you've scraped out the seeds and made vanilla sugar, naturally).

I can't wait to get this simmering on my stove today!

(And yes, that's snow, and that's my backyard. Trade you.)

What smells like Christmas to you?