Santa.

Fredrik met Santa at the Forest City Stockade Pioneer Christmas and it was pretty reminiscent of last year's visit, but this time he shouted " 'Lectric A-tar!" This is what he wants for Christmas, and boy, he really really wants it. I'm a little nervous that he isn't going to like any of his other gifts until he gets this one, but he has to wait for Santa to bring it... We've been trying to use the whole "making a list and checking it twice" when he is misbehaving but he just gets really hyped up about Santa. The other day I sat with him while he tried (for over an hour) to fall asleep and asked him what was wrong. He told me that he was too excited about Santa and presents to sleep. I think that was on Dec. 2nd. This poor kid isn't going to get any sleep during Christmas week. AND, I'm getting pretty tired of talking about Santa.

On Thanksgiving Day my aunt set the stage for lefse making AND gluten free lefse making. Here's my big sister Amy rolling some of it. It went ok. I really didn't do a great job with the recipe. I forgot my potato ricer (which has play-dough stuck in it) and then misread the part about chilling the mixture before adding the TWO CUPS of heavy cream. Still, it rolled out well. Transferring it to the griddle was a challenge, without gluten it just broke where it hung from the lefse stick. Still, we came out with a pile of decent looking pieces. The texture was pretty doughy. It was like flattened dough that was warmed on the outsides. Even with butter and sugar it tasted pretty weird. Then, it seemed to congeal back into a ball of dough in my stomach. I thought it might be better after it chilled, but, alas, it became the merry treat of some dogs that snuck into the box where it was being stored in my in-laws chilly garage. Oh well, maybe I'll try it again in the coming weeks.
Next on the list, macaroons. I used this recipe from Martha. Apparently they are called Fraser Bells, as real macaroon are those little egg-white fluffed meringue sandwich cookies. I like these. I don't know if I used this method last year, but sweetened condensed milk certainly made this recipe easy and tasty. Freddy helped, he made some mini cookies and thought of adding sprinkles. He loves sprinkles.
Thirdly, we tried toffee. Here Peter is the designated stirrer. I didn't have a candy thermometer, but Target had this deep-fat-fryer/candy thermometer that I decided would be pretty necessary in making candy. It burned a little because of the spot under the (very large) thermometer not really allowing stirring to occur right there. The slightly burned flavor is delicious, as are the almonds, chocolate chips, and pecans. This treat is hiding in the basement in a sealed tupperware. The caramel/toffee mixture was not adequate in volume to cover the pan, so I think I will do a 1 1/2 batch next time.

We get our tree soon which is exciting and space-consuming.

Also, I have decided to run a last minute pre-holiday sale. Well, it will probably be going on post-holiday as well. With coupon code "swirling2010" you will get 10% off your order! Yay! I will do another post about it later since this is at the end of a very wordy post. I have done some etsy shopping of my own and am excited to wrap up all the goodies being delivered to my door.