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And last but not least, my gift: Smart Mug for my lunch

28 Jan
One mug has my morning coffee and one mug has my soup for lunch!

One mug has my morning coffee and one mug has my soup for lunch!

I got the coolest gift this year for Christmas!

I wanted a mug that I could plug into my car AC adapter in order to reheat my coffee during the day. Oftentimes, I’ll leave the house for work with a mug of hot coffee, get to my destination in just a couple of minutes, and then when I come out an hour or so later, my coffee is now ice cold. Then I drive around all day, wishing I had that hot coffee.

This year, this was one gift I really wanted, a mug that would warm up my coffee. There are lots of them out there, but this one says “Tech Tools” on it and its official name is the Princess International PI-4121 Red Retro Smart Mug. You can get it here on Amazon.com.

I totally love my mug. This weekend I used it after church. Similar to a work day, I often leave the house to go to church, bringing my coffee in the car with me. Ten minutes later we get there and I sadly say goodbye to my coffee because I know that later when I come out, it’s going to be cold while we run our errands during the hour the kids are at CCD.

Not anymore. This Sunday, my coffee was still semi-warm when I got out to my car, but all I had to do was plug in my mug, flip the little switch on the cup and wait for it to hit about 100 degrees. I was golden. I enjoyed every sip of my coffee during our hour.

With every sip, I thought, “This is the coolest thing.”

But actually, it’s not even the coolest thing of all.

My friend Paula, of the blog My Soup For You, enlightened me to the fact that rather than keeping cookies in my purse and in my car for when I’ve missed lunch and am totally starving after being on the road all day, I could plan ahead just a little bit and make a soup that I could drink, such as her Creamy Lentil Soup, which I’ve linked over to just above. (If you remember, I don’t really love traditional lunches, such as sandwiches, so I never pack one. Plus, I’d rather eat cookies anyway.)

Paula said that now that I had this nifty mug, I could then put my soup into my mug, and flip the switch when I’m ready to eat.

Amazing!

And guess what: She was right!

A couple of weeks ago I did not have enough time to go home in between stories for lunch, so I packed our chicken and veggie chowder for the road. I had time to sit in my car and eat it though, so I took a spoon with me when I left the house.

I left one story and turned on my mug to heat up my soup, so that before I had to go into the next story I had time to eat my soup.  It made my day so much more enjoyable because I was not starving. I don’t like to go and buy food for lunch when I’m working unless I absolutely have to, so I was happy to have avoided that. I went from my second story to my third one with a full belly.

And then, I had my cookies for dessert.

This mug has gotten great reviews from others, and I hope that my experience continues to be as great as it already has been so far, because I really love being able to take soup on the road.

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How cute is that?!

7 Jan
Such a simple thing made for a very unique gift!

Such a simple thing made for a very unique gift!

Christmas was just a couple of weeks ago, but doesn’t it seem like eons ago already? It makes me just a little bit sad, but like we always say, “If Christmas was every day, we would not appreciate it.”

Right?

Right.

The good thing is that even though Christmas is over, we now have the whole year to enjoy our gifts. I know I’ve certainly been enjoying mine, and I know my kids have been enjoying theirs also.

I thought that today I’d share with you a unique gift that Elizabeth received in her stocking from my mom and dad.

A roll of blue painters’ tape.

Yup.

She took it out of her stocking, looked at it, and put it aside and kept going. I don’t think she quite knew what to think, but she didn’t say anything. She was the only one of the three girls to receive this gift.

After the gifts were opened, my mom said, “Let me tell you about the roll of tape.”

It turns out that my mom had seen a link showing all unique gifts for kids and on it was painters’ tape. The link went on to explain that with painters’ tape, kids can create cool designs on the walls, anywhere in the house. As long as the tape is removed in a week or so, it won’t leave any residue.

Immediately my kids were intrigued. They are constantly “creating” things for our walls. As I sit right now there is a four foot mural taped to the wall in front of me in the dining room. I’ll have to show that another day though.

Back to the painters’ tape.

Elizabeth grabbed her tape and the girls went to town. They each did their initials on our wall at the top of our stairs in the living room (which together spells out Elizabeth’s initials also) and then she moved into her room, which is newly painted white as of this summer. She had her walls covered in posters but took some down to make some space.

Below are some photos of her creations. They are still up, so we will have to see how long is too long before we need to deal with the residue. We’re definitely pushing the one week limit but she wants to leave it up just a little longer.

Painters’ tape. Inexpensive, unique, hours of fun.

Great gift!

Their initials and a little house. I love the smoke coming out of the chimney on the house!

Their initials and a little house. I love the smoke coming out of the chimney on the house!

Some of the bedroom artistic creations

Some of the bedroom artistic creations

Back of the bedroom door

Back of the bedroom door

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End of Year Couponing Update for 2012

3 Jan
Hot off the press!

Hot off the press!

As many of you remember, I accepted a challenge from my college roommate, Karen, last January and tried my hand at couponing. I began at the end of January, right around the 28th of the month, or thereabouts.

My first couponing trip was to CVS and with that one trip, I was hooked on saving money!

This week marks the start of the new year, a whole new year of saving money. To celebrate, I am sharing with you some photos of a local magazine article in which I was one of the couponers featured. This magazine, Prime Time, is the January issue and it’s put out by the same company that puts out the two newspapers I work for, Beacon Communications. I was so excited when they asked if they could feature me for the story. Also featured is my friend Pam, who has been so helpful in teaching me her couponing strategies along the way.

Clip, clip, clip...

Clip, clip, clip…

I thought that with the feature story coming out today, it’d be a great day to share with you some of my couponing savings totals for the 2012 year.

Remember, all of the items I purchased were from places I already shopped, for things I already buy. I did not add any other stops to my already busy schedule and I did not start purchasing things I don’t need, like baby wipes for example, when I don’t have a baby, just to use the coupons.

Ready?

CVS: I saved $1604.36 at CVS this year. At CVS I utilized their own store coupons, stacked with manufacturer’s coupons, along with sales and their Extra Bucks Rewards to make the very most of every penny I spent there. I also made sure to enroll in their Beauty Club and just yesterday, their brand new prescription program, both of which earn you additional Extra Bucks for purchasing things you already were buying.

TARGET: I saved about $90 this year just by using my Target Red Card, which is not a credit card since we do not use credit cards, but rather a debit card. This does not count all of my savings from manufacturer’s coupons or Target store coupons, which I stack in order to make the most of my savings. With the Target Red Card you save an additional 5% off your total purchase after coupons. Caroline recently used our Red Card herself when purchasing an item that was over $200. She had saved up for months and used her Christmas money and a Target gift card for the rest, and saved herself quite a bit of money out of pocket by using the Red Card.

STOP AND SHOP: I only recently started popping into Stop and Shop  due to our new dietary needs, for things that my other grocery stores don’t have. Therefore, I only have one month’s worth of savings on my last receipt there, but I have saved $62 in that one month alone, according my last 2012 receipt.

I have also saved with coupons at Walmart, Staples, AC Moore and Michael’s. I’ve saved online using Groupon, Living Social and other group buying deals, throughout the year. I accumulated over $200 in rebate money through the year, which I used to start off my Christmas shopping early this summer.

My kids and my husband have also picked up some great couponing skills. They all scan the CVS card when we enter the store, as many times as it will let us, and they can spot a good coupon right away. We recently went to CVS to get some Zyrtec. I had a $4 manufacturer’s coupon and when we walked in, a $5 store coupon off that very product came out of the machine. Elizabeth came running down the allergy aisle holding it up. She knew we would now save $9 off a product we used to pay full price for.

Of course, being my competitive self, my goal for the new couponing year is to beat the 2012 totals for the next year in order to save my family even more money!

Time to get clipping!

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A new year, a new direction for The Whole Bag of Chips

31 Dec
Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

It’s New Year’s Eve!

It is the very last day of 2012!

You know what that means? It means that it’s New Year’s Resolution time for many. I know that last year I talked a little bit about the fact that because our entire family runs on a school year schedule, I’m kind of programmed to set my own personal goals and resolutions for the “year” in September, rather than January.

And that’s still true, but this new year is going to be a bit different, and you’ll be seeing it with some changes to The Whole Bag of Chips as well.

This blog is designed so that it often follows the twists and turns of our family’s life. As with any family, there are always lots of twists! We like to keep things exciting at our house.

Some of you may know that for years we have had a variety of stomach issues here. I know I’ve mentioned it in some of my posts. It’s one reason we don’t eat out often (besides the financial reason), it’s the reason I do my “sweets” after school rather than at night before bedtime, and it’s the reason why we work so hard to make our meals from scratch, and try to eat as healthy as we can.

That said, we still love our homemade desserts.

A lot.

However, in an interesting twist, it was recently suggested to us that eating a strict low fat/healthy fat/healthy carb diet might  be beneficial in helping us to fight the chronic belly aches here at our house. It was suggested that one of us may have something similar to an allergy to fats.

The first reaction I had was similar to the day I was told that one of my kids was allergic to dust.

She’s doomed.

But, in keeping with my overachiever, Type A personality, my next reaction was to take a deep breath and find out all that I could about cooking a low fat/healthy fat/healthy carb menu for my family.

Immediately.

We needed to see if this suggestion held any water.

And it did.

It was recommended that if we wanted to truly try this out and we were looking for recipes, that The South Beach Diet might be a good one to try for guidelines and new menu ideas. I checked one cookbook out of the library the very next day and read the entire thing cover to cover in about two days’ time, the first weekend of December.

December.

Christmas month.

Cookies, desserts, parties.

Not the easiest time to make such a switch, but I was going to give it 100%.

And so, here it is, December 31, almost a full month into our experiment, and although the chronic stomach pain has not completely disappeared, we have seen an improvement, enough that we want to keep up with this new way of eating. Our family is not on the diet, per se, not following the strict Phase I, II and III plan, but rather using the facts in the beginning of the book about fats and carbs and sugars, along with the recipes throughout the book, to overhaul our menu.

Therefore, in keeping with many people’s top New Year’s Resolutions: losing weight, and staying fit and healthy, The Whole Bag of Chips recipes will be featuring the recipes that we have been using in our meals as of late. We have switched our entire family over to this “diet” so that we are all eating the same thing and all eating as healthy as possible, together.

I tried to keep my healthy versions as close to my regular versions as possible.

I tried to keep my healthy versions as close to my regular versions as possible.

When it came time for Christmas Cookie baking, I made two sets: a regular set of our favorites for our trays and a healthy set of our same favorites, using modified ingredients, for our family. We did not want to give up the things we loved but yet we needed to try to keep to as low fat a diet as possible, even at Christmas.

So today, in preparation for your New Year’s Day breakfast, I will post for you a breakfast recipe that you can use tomorrow morning if you would like to start your 2013 eating healthier too.  The recipe is a modified version of our homemade pancake recipe along with a delicious hot peach compote recipe to go on top. Neither is far off from what we normally would make (in fact this pancake recipe hardly differs from our own), but they both are in keeping with the low fat/healthy fat/healthy carb guidelines. One is a South Beach cookbook recipe and one is from the Farm Girl Gourmet blog that I found online.

Happy 2013 and enjoy!

PANCAKES (from the South Beach Diet Cookbook)

My entire family loved this compote and it was so easy! I'd double the recipe next time.

My entire family loved this compote and it was so easy! I’d double the recipe next time.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups whole wheat or whole grain pastry flour (We have always had whole wheat flour at our house all the time and will often do half wheat, half white flour in our recipes.)

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 egg

1 egg white (we just did two eggs instead of one egg and one egg white)

2 cups buttermilk (to make buttermilk use 1 T. white vinegar to 1 cup milk, so two and two here)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons canola oil (I used plain nonfat yogurt instead of oil, which is a tip we learned a few months back. We love how fluffy it makes our pancakes and waffles.)

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg and egg white until very foamy. Whisk in the buttermilk, vanilla extract, and oil.

Stir into the flour mixture just until the batter is combined and pourable.

Heat a large, nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium heat.

Pour 1/3 cup batter into the skillet to form a 4″ pancake. Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until the bottom is browned.

Turn and cook for 1-2 minutes or until golden brown.

I had everything I needed for this recipe at home already.

I had everything I needed for this recipe at home already.

FRESH PEACH COMPOTE (from the Farm Girl Gourmet blog)

INGREDIENTS

1 pound fresh peaches, skinned, pitted and sliced (or frozen)  *I used a bag of Aldi’s frozen peaches.
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

In a medium saucepan, add the peaches, brown sugar, water and cinnamon, bring to a boil.

Turn heat down to medium low and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally until mixture is thick and liquid is syrupy.

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A week off for me, a cookie recipe for you!

28 Dec
IMG_8409

These are a great cookie for any time of year, but they have made it onto our trays for the past two years now.

With the holidays in full swing, I took a week off from my regular blog posting in order to prepare for, and celebrate the Christmas holidays with my family.

Today, however, I have one last cookie post for you. It’s a recipe I posted last year also, but it’s great for any time of the year, so I thought it would be a good one to post.

Next week you can look forward to a return to my regular posting schedule once again. I will be showing a few of the great gifts that we received for Christmas this year that I think you’ll enjoy, and I will be back to posting recipes again too.

My blog will also be taking on somewhat of a new twist in the new year, but you’ll have to wait until next week to see exactly what that means.

Until then, enjoy today’s recipe!

Oatmeal Scotchies
INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp grd. cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups quick or old fashioned oats
1 2/3 cup (or one 11 ounce bag) butterscotch chips

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.

Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla in large mixing bowl.

Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Stir in oats and chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 7-8 minutes for chewier cookies, 9-10 for crispier cookies.

Cool on cookie sheet 2 minutes, transfer to rack to cool completely.

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Your Tray or Mine? Cookie Tray Recipe of the Day: Chocolate Chip Butterballs

21 Dec

These cookies could be made with nuts instead of chocolate chips if you prefer!

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 5, 2011

Today’s recipe is another one of my favorite cookie recipes, one we’ve made for years and years. Way back when I was a Girl Scout, I used to participate in the Girl Scout Bake Off each year and one of the years I earned second place with these cookies! That’s how long my family has been making them.

We call them Chocolate Chip Butterballs, but they have many other names: Snowballs, Mexican Wedding Balls, Hazelnut Balls and probably other names I don’t even know about.

Traditionally they are made with nuts. I don’t like nuts, my family never baked with nuts growing up and I don’t either We all really love Chocolate Chips though, so my mom has always subbed in the chocolate chips for nuts. You can choose either mini chips or the regular sized chips. Personally, I prefer the big ones, but if you don’t, switch them for the minis instead. If you’re into tasting batter, this one is safe to eat, there are no eggs in this recipe. I’m always pretty sure I’d come out with about six more cookies in each batch if I ate less batter!

This recipe can be made fast and easy if you have extra set(s) of hands to help you roll the batter into balls! This is one I often let my kids help with. I don’t usually have them roll the hot ones in the sugar though, even though I use a spoon for that. Their “part” is the cold batter getting rolled into the balls for baking.

Be sure to check back tomorrow to see what the coordinating kids’ activities are for this recipe!

Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Butterball Cookies

INGREDIENTS

2 cups flour
1 cup butter or margarine
4 TBL granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

one 12 oz. package chocolate chips

Bowl of confectioner’s sugar

DIRECTIONS

Combine flour, butter, granulated sugar, salt, vanilla in bowl of electric mixer. Mix well.

Add in chocolate chips, mix them into the batter.

Refrigerate dough 30 minutes (or longer.)

Form into 1″ balls, place on cookie sheet. These don’t spread, so you can put a lot on a sheet, no need to spread them out a ton.

Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes.

Cool only slightly, maybe a minute or so, and then roll each one in a bowl of confectioner’s sugar.

Roll a second time in confectioner’s sugar before serving.

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Your Tray or Mine? Cookie Tray Recipe of the Day: Chocolate Thumbprints

14 Dec

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 1, 2011

I first posted this recipe on my FB page on December 5, 2008!! It’s a cookie recipe my mom and I make every year, and if I had to pick a top favorite, this would be in my top two. I LOVE these cookies. They’re easy to make and easy to just POP into your mouth!! And, they’re chocolate on chocolate. I mean really…how much better can you get than that?

This is a rolled cookie, so your kids can help you if you’d like them to. They can also use their thumbs to make the indentation in the cookies for the filling.

Speaking of your kids….. Remember, check back tomorrow to see what I post for your kids to do, a book and a craft that coordinates with today’s recipe. Any guesses?

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
Makes six dozen
Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Thumbprints before baking

Almost ready to go in the oven!

Alex making thumbprint batter

Alex did almost all the measuring and mixing for the thumbprints herself, with very little help from me.

INGREDIENTS FOR COOKIES

1 cup margarine or butter, soft
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 oz (2 sq.) unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

DIRECTIONS FOR COOKIES

In large bowl, cream margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.
Blend in vanilla, chocolate and egg.
Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup, level off. Gradually add flour to creamed mixture, mix well.
Chill dough 30 minutes for easier handling.

Shape dough into 1″ balls, place 2″ apart on ungreased cookie sheets or parchment lined sheets. With thumb, make imprint in center of each cookie.

Bake at 375 degrees 8-10 minutes. Let cool one minute before removing from cookie sheets. Fill with chocolate cream filling.

Thumbprints ready to fill

Thumbprints are ready to be filled!

INGREDIENTS FOR CHOCOLATE CREAM FILLING

6 oz. (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips
2 Tablespoons corn syrup
1 Tablespoon water
1 Tablespoon margarine or butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In small saucepan melt chocoalte chips with corn syup, water and margarine over low heat, stirring constantly. Stir in vanilla.
Spoon 1 tsp into each cookie.

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Your Tray or Mine: Recipe of the Day: Chocolate Buttersweets

10 Dec
Chocolate Buttersweets

These are my other top favorite cookie from our trays!

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 19, 2011

When I first began the Your Tray or Mine series of recipes earlier this month, I began with the Chocolate Thumbprints, which I said were one of my top two favorite cookie recipes from the trays my mom and I do. Today’s cookie, the Chocolate Buttersweets, are my other top favorite cookie on the tray.

This recipe is not complicated, although it does have three distinct steps: the cookie, the filling and the frosting. Because the cookie should be frosted when it’s warm (but not hot) I recommend prepping the filling first, so that it’s ready. Then make your cookies, and after they are filled, make your frosting and frost the filled cookies.

INGREDIENTS

Cookie base for chocolate buttersweets

If you have a wooden spoon with a round handle, you can use it to poke the holes in the tops of the cookies before baking.

Cookies:
1 cup margarine or butter
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour

**Filling:
6 oz cream cheese, softened
2 cups confectioners sugar
4 TBL flour
2 tsp vanilla

Frosting:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
4 TBL butter or margarine
4 TBL water
1 cup confectioners sugar

DIRECTIONS:
**Prepare the filling first. The cookies, when done, need to be filled while warm. Have the filling ready to go.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

FOR COOKIES:
1) In large bowl cream together butter, confectioners sugar, salt and vanilla.
2) Gradually add flour to creamed mixture, mix well.
3) Roll dough into 1″ balls, placing them 2″ apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
4) Press hole in center of each cookie with finger or the handle end of wooden spoon (if handle is round, not flat.)
5) Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes until edges are lightly brown.
6) Fill while warm
7) Frost

Filled Chocolate Buttersweets

Step two: fill the cookies while warm.

FOR FILLING:
Soften cream cheese. Blend in sugar, flour, vanilla. Cream well. Fill cookies.

FOR FROSTING:
In small saucepan melt chocolate chips, butter, and water over low heat. Stir constantly. Stir in confectioners sugar and mix well. Will be lumpy at first until the sugar melts. Spoon a little frosting onto each cookie.

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Family Movie Night & a Recipe: Homemade Hot Chocolate

7 Dec

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 9, 2011

It’s a Friday and for us Friday nights are sometimes Family Movie Nights. It’s the end of the week and it’s often a wind-down night as well. We look forward to it.

In the winter, our Family Movie Night movie is usually “The Polar Express” at least once.

I got this book in 1993, before there even *was* a movie!

We have the hardcover version of the Chris VanAllsburg book, and it’s even autographed. We also have the special bell from the story as well as the cd of the story from a gift set that we received a few years back. You can find the book and the movie here on Amazon.com.

There are several bell crafts you could do to go along with “The Polar Express” if you’d like.

Cups, pipe cleaners, stickers and glitter make for an easy jingle bell craft. If you have a real jingle bell, you can put it inside so that the bell actually rings.

You could:

1) Cut out a bell from construction paper and decorate it with glitter or other materials,

and

2) Turn a styrofoam drinking cup upside down, put a pipe cleaner through the top (gold works well) turning it into a bell that way, decorating it on the outside any way you’d like.

During the winter months, Family Movie Night often includes a special treat: Homemade Hot Chocolate. My kids LOVE this recipe and it came from a cookbook I received as a gift from one of my Stampin’ Up! customers several years back. The cookbook is called “Old Fashioned Holiday Recipes.” It was full of many great recipe ideas, but this one has always been a favorite find and perfect for our Family Movie Nights. It would go especially well with the “Krispie” Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe from yesterday!

Two mugs of hot chocolate

Hot off the stove tonight!

Creamy Hot Chocolate
INGREDIENTS

1 (14 ounce) can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT Evaporated Milk)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 1/2 cups hot water
Marshmallows, optional

DIRECTIONS

In a large saucepan over medium heat combine Eagle Brand, cocoa, vanilla and salt; mix well.

Slowly stir in water. Heat through, stirring occasionally. Do not boil.

Top with marshmallows (optional.)

Store covered in refrigerator. Makes about 2 quarts.

Hot chocolate can be stored in the refrigerator for up to five days. Mix well and reheat before serving.

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The Reverse Dinner Party

3 Dec
Just two years ago, we were in the midst of all this, but a great new tradition did come out of it!

Just two years ago, we were in the midst of all this, but a great new tradition did come out of it!

Some of you know that two years ago my husband had surgery on his leg. He had ruptured his achilles tendon and he had a cast on his leg for several months, and was on crutches with a boot for several more. It was a long year for him and for us, and a very humbling experience, but believe it or not, some good did come out of it.

The Reverse Dinner Party is one of those good things.
During the initial few weeks after the surgery we had lots of help from family and friends. We had people raking leaves and bringing meals and staying over, all to help us out. It was an incredible outpouring of generosity.

When things died down a little, we had some friends of ours, the Garabedian family, ask us if they could bring us dinner and hang out for the evening. We welcomed the fun and the food, and we said we’d make dessert. So they cooked at their house, we cleaned up at ours, and made dessert, and they arrived on our doorstep that evening with their two girls and our dinner.

It was their turn to cook dinner this time, and we were treated to turkey and all the fixins!

It was their turn to cook dinner this time, and we were treated to turkey and all the fixins!

With that one gesture, a new tradition was created: The Reverse Dinner Party. Our friends had brought dinner to us at our house but the next month when Don was more mobile, they asked us to come for dinner at their house. It seemed unfair to have them make dinner for us again, so we decided to treat them and we brought dinner to them at their house and this time they provided dessert.

It became a fun treat and a little bit of a break, too. If you had to clean your house for company, at least you “only” had to make dessert along with the cleaning. If you had to cook the main dish, at least you didn’t have to worry about making your house presentable for guests at the same time.

Monkey bread and pumpkin pie for dessert!

Monkey bread and pumpkin pie for dessert!

There was also an element of surprise with some of our Reverse Dinner Parties. We would try not to tell the others ahead of time, what we were going to make. We’ve had all kinds of things and so far there has never been a time where we haven’t liked what the others have made. It’s also been a fun time to try out something new.

This month, we did know that the Garabedians were bringing a turkey diner, so I planned a pumpkin pie for dessert, to go along with it. I also made a new dessert that I had on hand in my pantry: a banana chocolate chip monkey bread. Both desserts and all of the dinner courses got all thumbs up from all nine of us.

This year we agreed to do a Yankee Swap in between dinner and dessert.

This year we agreed to do a Yankee Swap in between dinner and dessert.

We’ve had our dinners in all seasons, indoors and out. We’ve had drinks and desserts over a fire, sometimes we play games, and this time around we incorporated a Yankee Swap, just in time for the holidays. The kids and the adults all had a blast, so I’m sure we’ll do it again next year.

In the end, it’s a night together with friends and it’s the sharing of a meal that really matters. It amazes me to think that we began this tradition two years ago, and I am grateful to our friends who asked simply if they could bring us dinner.

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