A Christmas to Remember: recipes

I've always been intrigued by the notion that certain people simply know how to do certain things without training. For example, my husband understands the inner workings of a car in a way I never will. Is he a mechanic? No. Was he ever trained in automotive work? No. He just intuitively knows how things work in a vehicle and what it will take to fix problems that arise. Last night, he replaced the terminals on my battery connection (or whatever) with his own custom designed cables.

This year for Christmas, my family has decided that in lieu of traditional gifts, we will do a family recipe exchange. Cooking and baking comes mostly natural to me, and surprisingly to my brothers as well, and both my mother and father have recipes and traditions in cooking that are worth sharing and preserving. One of my favorite 'Dad cooking traditions' is frog eggs. Not to worry! This recipe has nothing to do with frogs. Instead, frog eggs is an egg fried into a square hole cut into a piece of bread, toasted during fry. Why frog eggs? Because the little 'frog' is sitting on a 'lilypad' of course!

For my recipes, I've chosen two desserts and a main dish. I haven't completed my main dish recipe yet, but my two desserts are chosen and already scrapped. The first is a recipe for pistachio ice cream. I recently tried this recipe from a mediterannean cook book because my husband is a big fan of pistachio ice cream and because the recipe didn't require an ice cream maker (which I do have but never have ready, i.e. frozen). The ice cream has a fairly significant orange flavor, but boy is it good! like frozen custard.

My second recipe is for Sticky Toffee Pudding. As you'll see from my layout, this recipe came to me from a restaurant I contacted, asking about an item on their menu. They no longer serve the dessert, but shared a 'similar' recipe with me.

The collection I used for both layouts is A Christmas to Remember from Rosey Posey. You can find the entire mega collection at Scrapbook Graphics. Buy it bundled, or in parts. It's very artsy and quite fun to work with!