Christmas Cookie Week - Butter Tart Bars

I love butter tarts so when I saw this recipe for butter tart bars in my recent Canadian House and Home magazine I thought they would be even better than making tarts - less fiddling around with crust and more of the yummy gooey filling. 

I understand that butter tarts are a Canadian delicacy and if you have never had one then you should run, not walk, to your kitchen and start baking right now because they are fantastic. Butter tarts are usually made with a flaky pie crust filled with a sweet, gooey, runny filling containing raisins, although they can also have chopped walnuts or pecans. These butter tart bars have a buttery shortbread crust with the usual gooey filling. 

I made a few modifications to the original recipe, so here is my version:

Crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tbsp granulated sugar

1 cup butter, cold, diced

Filling: 

3 eggs

2 1/4 cups brown sugar, packed

3/4 cup butter, melted

1 tbsp white vinegar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla 

2 cups raisins

Method:

1. Grease 9 x 13 inch pan and place on a baking tray. Preheat oven to 350F

2. Combine flour and sugar to make crust and cut butter into mixture until it is a fine meal.

3. Press evenly into pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

4. Combing filling ingredients in a bowl and blend together. Pour over crust, spreading evenly.

5. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the filling is brown and is set. Cool completely and then cut into squares. 

I found the edges of my bars were a little overdone and didn't look as nice as the middle part ... so... I cut up the centre part into squares and froze them to be used at Christmastime and ate the outside bits. I know, I know, but someone had to do it. Another little tip that I will pass along is that they cut much more neatly when I let them sit for 24 hours. The crust came out with nice clean edges just the way it should rather than crumbling.

Have you had butter tarts? Are you a fan? This is a new recipe to me and one that I foresee becoming a family favourite.

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Don't forget to come back every day this week to see what other cookies and squares I made. 

Christmas Cookie Week - 3 Holiday Shortbread

Every year I make shortbread cookies using my Grandmother's recipe at Christmas time. Our family loves shortbread and it just wouldn't be Christmas without them. 

This year my friend Kim and I were discussing the merits of different Christmas cookies and she told me that every year she makes shortbread cookies and in addition to decorating most of them for Christmas, she also decorates a few for Valentine's Day and a few for St. Patrick's Day and puts them in the freezer. How clever is that?

So I decided to emulate my wise friend and that is what I did this year.

I cut out most of the shortbread cookies in traditional trees and stars and other Christmas shapes and decorated them with regular Christmas sprinkles until I had a lovely pile of red and green cookies.

And I also made some of the shortbreads in hearts and neutral shapes and decorated them with red and pink sprinkles. They are tucked away awaiting their debut in February.

And finally I decorated a few with only green sprinkles and sugar and will pull them out of the freezer in March. Won't they make a pretty addition to our St. Patrick's Day dinner.

How clever is that? I wish organizing all of life was that easy.

By the way, you can read about my Grandmother, whose shortbread cookie recipe we use every year, here (and see a picture of her and her house and the view from her kitchen window) and find the cranberry-orange shortbread variation I made a few years ago here.

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Don't forget to come back every day this week to see what other cookies and squares I made. 

Snowmen Chandelier

I hope all my American friends had a lovely Thanksgiving. Today seemed like the perfect day to share this adorable Christmas craft idea made by my friend Jill from the art group I belong to. When she sent me a photo of this snowman chandelier she made I asked her if I could share it on my blog because I thought you might find it as inspiring as I did. I asked Jill how she made it and I've included the details.

Here's what you need to make it:

4-inch styrofoam balls

floral wire, cut into 2-inch lengths and bent to form a hook

air-drying clay

black beads for the eyes

orange acrylic paint

black Sharpie pen

Here's how Jill did it:

1. Push the bent wire into a styrofoam ball

2. Carefully cover the entire ball with air-drying clay (be sure to anchor the wire) and form a nose with the clay if you want one.

3. Push two black beads into the clay for eyes.

4. Then allow to dry for 24-36 hours (depending on the thickness of the clay)

5. When they are dry you can paint the nose orange and use the black Sharpie to draw a mouth and enhance the eyes.

Aren't they adorable. I love all the different expressions on their faces. Jill hung them from an ornament-photo chandelier from Crate and Barrel (which you can find here). It is a fun way to hang the ornaments, but wouldn't they also look sweet strung in a garland across the fireplace (or maybe they would melt, Ha!) or hung from your real chandelier or hung on the Christmas tree. 

Thanks Jill for sending allowing me to share your great craft.

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I also want to mention that it will be Christmas Cookie week here on the blog starting on Monday - which really is just an excuse for me to get my Christmas baking done on time. I do share my favourite recipes and tips though, so check back every day next week.

Our Christmas Mantel

I've always liked Scandinavian decor and with Kate having just fallen in love with it too, I thought this would be a great year to decorate our mantel for Christmas in that style.

So what key elements of Scandinavian design did I use when decorating the mantel? Well, I used lots of candles and shiny objects,

and white was the main colour,

and plenty of natural elements like pine cones (and fake pine cones) and evergreen boughs (also fake),

There you have it. I really like the soft effect against the light green walls, but when the husband first saw it he asked me why there wasn't any colour on the mantel. Sigh. I think it is growing on him though as we both like the simplicity of the decor.

Have you got your tree up? or your mantel decorated? I'm having our annual Christmas Craft party here next weekend so I wanted to get some of the decorating done to set the mood for the party.  I'm still working on the sideboard and plan on putting the paper snowflakes that we made last year up on the walls. I've got some fun crafts planned for the party. I'm looking forward to it.

When I was finished decorating the mantel I had to look back at how I decorated it in previous years. You can see the past four years in the collage below (clockwise from the top left - 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013).

Gourmet Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Squash Soup

Does the thought of grilled cheese sandwiches get you salivating? I think they are the best and have been dying to make some fancy versions with up-scale ingredients.

When Malcolm and Christie came over for lunch this past weekend I just knew they would enjoy making gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches as much as I would. And they did.  There were many yummy noises as we tried each of the four grilled cheese sandwiches we made. Everyone voted on which was their favourite and the funny thing was we each selected a different sandwich as the best. So they're all winners!

We used two types of bread - multigrain walnut bread and challa bread.  And four kinds of cheese each paired with some delicious ingredients.

I made the caramelized onions the night before as they take a ridiculously long time to cook. Have you ever made them? They are really simple, but cooking them a long time at a low temp is the key.  I chopped four onions added two tablespoons butter and cooked on low for 50 minutes until they were mouth-wateringly caramelized.

I also roasted some red peppers to use and then we set to work making our gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches. We buttered the outside of each slice of bread, added the ingredients, and broiled them in the oven.

We also had squash soup with them because grilled cheese and soup go together like a hug and a squeeze, like salt and pepper, like bread and butter ... well, you get the idea. 

I had some frozen squash on hand so used that to make the soup. I modified a recipe from Skinny Taste which tasted great. Here's my version of it:

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

2 teaspoons curry powder

4 cups cooked squash

3 cups chicken bouillon

1 400 ml can light coconut milk

pepper to taste

Method:

1. Cook the onion, celery, and garlic in the olive oil until softened (about 10 minutes)

2. Add the spices and cook for a minute longer

3. Then add the bouillon and squash and bring to a boil.

4. Cook for about 15 minutes and then add the coconut milk.

5. Use an immersion blender and blend until smooth. 

6. Bring up to heat and serve.

When I looked at my photos that night after we had eaten our grilled cheese sandwhiches I realized about half way though a greasy finger (mine no doubt) had touched my camera lens and all the photos looked like the one below with the greasy smear on the top half of the photo. Thank heavens for Picmonkey so with careful cropping I was able to get some photos for this post.

Have you ever made gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches?  I thought they were so delicious that I had to have them again the next day for lunch. I would seriously eat them every day if I could.