For me, keeping the magic of Christmas is important.  Its a warm time of the year, not a time to be at war with one another.  It can bring out the best and the worst in people.  I hope to always remain at my best.

I wanted to share with all of you, a few ways to keep wonder alive for the kids and loved ones in your life.  There you have my Christmas tree along with my nieces who helped me decorate it.

As we decorated, I read them The Polar Express.  They loved it.  Its the perfect story for tree decorating too because.  Nice long, lyrical paragraphs that paint a magical journey to the North Pole, large pictures that they can look at just once and be satisfied and get back to tree trimming.

When we got to the part of the story where our hero is chos

en by Santa to receive the first gift of Christmas, I asked them what each of them would ask Santa.  They, of course, never hearing this story before, recited their Christmas list.  I just smiled and we went on to talk of the magical silver bell which they instantly wanted.

Now, if you look closely at my tree, you’ll notice tiny stockings hanging on it.   They are just these simple 98 cent stockings I picked up at Walmart and used a bit of glitter puff paint to put each of my nieces and nephews names who will be in Georgia this year on them.

What the girls don’t know is that after they left, I slipped large silver bells with small pieces of leather lopped through them into each stalking.  When they come over later this month for our little Holiday get together, they’ll be receiving their own copy of The Polar Express and then I’ll send them to get what they think are empty stalkings from my tree.

Magic and the most expensive part was buying the book.

Another fabulous gift idea that was given to me by my other mother is take a burlap sack or something else seasonal but fun.  Put a new pair of pajamas for each child inside, a hot coco kit with their own special mug, a bag of their favorite popcorn or movie snack, and one of your favorite holiday movies that you’ve always wanted to share with them.

Close up the bag or box and write “Do not open until Christmas Eve!”  When Christmas Eve arrives, you have a new holiday tradition.  Cuddling up on the couch and watching a favorite movie with your kids.  Have too many movies?  Get a book!  There are so many great holiday books out there and you’re still creating a warm, fond memory that they’ll take on with them, recreating for their own kids.

What’s even better, if you’re using a burlap sack, not only does it make a fun decoration under your tree, you can fold it up and pack it away with your decorations and use it again for the next year.  You won’t have to go looking for another one time and time again.

And never forget Cookies for Santa.  If you have time to bake with your kids, do it!  You get delicious cookies and again, there’s that all important quality time.

Its easy to get lost in the shopping of the season.  I’ve actually heard a woman tell a couple once, “So you’re getting me two things right since I’m buying for both of you?”  People get into fist fights over things their kids will break in a few months.

I love giving gifts and finding that perfect thing they never even realized they wanted.  But, I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember very many of the gifts I got growing up.  I remember the excitement and the “I wants” of course, but what I remember most of all is my family.  Laying underneath the Christmas tree and looking up at the lights through the branches and thinking I’d stumbled upon a magical world of fairies.

I remember baking with my Nana, taking ornaments and dropping them through the branches like it was a game.  So I’m not saying don’t do that shopping, I’m just saying remember to take the time and rekindle the memories your children and loved ones will truly take away from the season.  You can keep the Magic without busting the bank.  I promise.

Nana & Papa

So the holidays are upon us.  Always a busy time of the year.  I won’t say especially for me but I have a lot of family to shop for and cook for plus my writing and stuff for Georgia Romance Writers and getting ready for a whole new year.

Thanksgiving is a particularly emotional time for me.  You see, a couple of years ago, she died very unexpectedly on November 16, 2010.   One week before Thanksgiving of that year.  The thing is, what made it even harder, was that Thanksgiving was her favorite holiday.

Every year, our family would rent a Church hall and all of Nana’s brothers and sisters and all their kids and grandkids would come and we’d have this huge Thanksgiving potluck.  All together.  We’d have like three hams, five turkeys and more deviled eggs then you’ve ever seen under one roof.

My brother-in-law often jokes that he loves our Thanksgiving because he feels all these old Southern women are having a deviled egg competition, seeing which of us can make them better.  He very much enjoys going around and sampling them all.

When she died, I felt cold.  I was very close to my Nana, she was the very last grandparent I had.  I didn’t want to go to Thanksgiving dinner that year, knowing her brother would mention her death, knowing I’d look on that table and see none of her dishes.  It was going to be too hard and the very thought made it so I couldn’t breath.

It was my sister who told me I had to go.  This was Nana’s favorite holiday and she’d be so disappointed in me if I stayed home.

Nana’s recipe box went to me when she died.  No one argued, I don’t think it occurred to them to.  She taught me how to cook.  In everyone’s mind, the recipe box was mine.

I dug through that box of yellowed, handwritten index cards and I pulled out every single one that she cooked to take to Thanksgiving dinner.  I called my sister and I told her “I need you to come over Wednesday.  I need you to help me make Thanksgiving dinner.  I can’t do this by myself.”

Now my sister did not grow up cooking like I did.  Its a fairly recent development but she does a good job.  While the idea of cooking Thanksgiving dinner terrified her, she did make the 40 minute drive down to do just that.

We made all of Nana’s recipes right there in Nana’s kitchen.  My sister brought her girls and I taught them how to crack eggs in a bowl just like Nana had taught me.  That helped some.  Passing on the knowledge Nana gave me to the next generation, knowing that one day I’d teach my kids and my grandkids as she taught me.

I won’t say it wasn’t a completely stress-free event.  There were tears and yelling (honestly, can a bunch of women try and cook Thanksgiving dinner and not yell?  Come on now, you know better).

When we carried Nana’s casseroles into that church hall on Thanksgiving day, it was a hard.  But surrounded by family on Nana’s favorite holiday, breathing became a little easier.  I can’t tell you how many cousins came by to say they never thought they’d see her Broccoli-Cheese Casserole again.

Holidays are important.  We not only celebrate that holiday but the memories it has created within us over the years and we remember the people who are no longer here.

Nana when she was younger

So in honor of Nana, I’d like to give you the recipes she cooked every single Thanksgiving.  I hope you’ll let them grace your table. While I do not promise that they’ll be good for you, they’re definitely delicious and a tradition in my family.  It would not be Thanksgiving without them

I will also share with you two of her most famous deserts and some stories behind them.  I hope you’ll enjoy.  And please, come back and leave comments if you try even one of these recipes.  Let me know what you think, how your family liked them.  Thanksgiving is still hard to face without her but I do so with her recipe box in hand.  And so it would mean the world to me if you share your experiences with her recipes as well.

Broccoli-Cheese Casserole

1 large box frozen broccoli
1 bag Boil-in-Bag rice  (either brown or white)
2 eggs
1 large jar Cheese Whiz
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup -or- Broccoli Cheese Soup

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.  In a large pot, bring water with a dash of salt to boil.  Add broccoli and cook according to package directions.  While broccoli is boiling, mix all other ingredients except rice in a large bowl.  Pour drained broccoli into mixture reserving broccoli liquid to cook rice.  Bring liquid to a boil and add rice.  Boil rice for fifteen minutes.  Add rice to mixture.  (That hot broccoli and rice will melt the Cheese Whiz).  Pour into greased casserole dish and bake for 30-45 minutes until firm.  Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Casserole

2 eggs, well-beaten
1 cup sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup milk
1 cup coconut

For Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup self-rising flour
1 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup coconut

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.  Mix all ingredients for casserole well.  Nana mixed hers with a mixer.  Pour into a large baking dish sprayed with cooking spray (easier to clean).  Mix together the ingredients for topping before spooning it over the sweet potatoes and spreading evenly.  Bake for 30-35 minutes.

We also made Dressing, of course, but that has no recipe.  We just sort of throw things together.  But those are two things we always make for Thanksgiving.  We even leave a small portion of the Sweet Potato Casserole without topping because my Uncle Steven doesn’t like nuts.

Now, for those dessert recipes I promised you.

Cold Oven Pound Cake

Nana & Papa

This was probably one of Nana’s favorite recipes.  She always had the ingredients to make one of her ‘cold oven’ pound cakes on hand.  She would often add different flavors to the cake such as chocolate chips, coconut and other things.  The recipe has been used so often that the card is distorted by drops and splashes of this and that, causing the ink to smear though one can still read it.

One of my favorite stories is one that she and mom told me often.  I was two years old and it was Christmas Eve.  I got to open one gift on Christmas Eve and mom tells me I had opened up some dolls and was playing with them.  As I played, Papa, who was not a very ceremonial man, got up out of his recliner and said “So we’re giving gifts?  Alright.”

Papa then proceeded to go downstairs to his office in the basement and bring back out a large box in a K-Mart bag – the box wasn’t even wrapped – and sat it in front of Nana.  I looked up from my dolls and said, “Oh Nana, you got a mixer! Let’s go bake a cake.”  I dropped my dolls and toddled off into the kitchen, Nana at my heels and we did, indeed, bake that impromptu cake with her new Sunbeam mixer.  Her Cold Oven Pound Cake.

3 cups sugar
1 cup Crisco
3 cups plus 2 tablespoons Self-Rising Flour
6 large eggs
1/2 pint (1 cup) whipped cream
1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

Sift flour 3 times.  Mix sugar and Crisco together.  Mix eggs one at a time into mixture.  Alternate flour and whipped cream.  Add vanilla.  Cook at 300 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes in tube pan.  Do not preheat oven.

Old Fashion Banana Pudding

This Banana pudding recipe is very special to Nana.  It was taught to her by her sister, Coriene.  Aunt Riene told me the day of Nana’s funeral that when Nana was younger, whenever Aunt Riene would come to visit, Nana would go out and buy all the things Aunt Riene would need to make this pudding until one day Aunt Riene said “Paula, I’m going to teach you how to make this so that you don’t have to wait for me every time you want it.” 

Aunt Riene laughed and told me that Nana’s reply was “Oh no!  I can’t separate eggs.”  But Aunt Riene was true to her word.  She sat there in the kitchen and just instructed Nana on how to make this banana pudding.  In the end, Nana told Aunt Riene that “If you ever have kids, you’ll have them cooking by the time they’re two!”  Well, Aunt Riene wasn’t the only one, Nana.  I was two when we were cooking those Cold Oven Pound Cakes.

3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsps flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups milk
3 egg yolks
2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
Nilla Wafers
6 very ripe bananas, sliced

Mix together all ingredients but vanilla wafers.  Cook on stove top until pudding thickens.  About 5 minutes.  Take vanilla wafers and line the bottom and sides of baking dish.  Pour in pudding mixture.  Float more wafers in pudding if desired.  Top with meringue.

Preheat oven at 425 and bake about 5 minutes.

(Please Note that while Nana wrote 5 minutes, it took more like 10 to 15 minutes in each place.  So you just need to watch it.)

Meringue for Banana Pudding

3 egg whites
1/4 cup sugar

Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.  Add ¼ cup sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  Bake at 425 degrees about 5 minutes.

In Loving Memory of
Paula Ray Cox
“Nana”
August 13, 1944 – November 16, 2010

Paula Cox was a loving wife, mother and grandmother.  She was married to William Toby “Papa” Cox (May 17, 1937 – January 13, 2000), whom she reunited with again November 16, 2010.  This post and these recipes are dedicated to her loving memory.  For she may be gone from our sights but she will always be there in our hearts.

Hello, I’m Bryonna Nobles, the newest member of the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales Blog Group.  To say I’m a little nervous, this being my first post and all, is an understatement.

I honestly had no idea what I would talk about today.  Not until I was at work and one of the ladies there told me about how she’d made a cookbook.  Her daughter had been asking her for years to take all the recipes in her head and make a cookbook of them.  So two years ago, she did, giving it to her daughter for Christmas.

As she described how her daughter began to cry, tears came to my own eyes.  I know exactly how her daughter felt.

My Nana passed away unexpectedly in November of 2010.  While we readied for her funeral, my aunt handed me her recipe box.  This old fashioned wood one that had definitely seen better days.  As I opened up the box I knew so well from baking with my grandmother, I fingered through the stained index cards, picking one out every now and again.  I’d smile at the memories and I’d cry knowing we’d never have that time together again.

Nana taught me all I know about cooking.  I remember as though it were yesterday, dragging my little footstool up to the counter, cracking eggs into a saucer and watching her pick out the shell bits that inevitably joined the egg whites in the bowl before she pitched the contents into her Sunbeam mixer.

These are memories I shall always cherish.  Missing her like crazy, the day after her funeral I drug out her recipe box and I took out each card, one by one, and I typed them up on my computer.  It took me nearly a week, typing obsessively, but I wrote out each and every recipe into a cookbook.

That Christmas, I gave everyone in my family a copy of Cooking with Nana, some cried but all appreciated it.  No one wanted to lose those recipes we’d all grown up with.

What’s more, every time I came across a recipe that held a special memory, I wrote out that memory, sharing it with my family.  They, in turn, shared their memories with me and we spent Christmas with Nana, even if she wasn’t with us.

One such memory involved Nana’s favorite pound cake.  When I was a child, we always got to open one gift on Christmas Eve.  I was 2 and my mother gave me a set of dolls.  Papa, never a ceremonial man, just stood up, saying, “We’re giving out Christmas presents?  Alright.”  He then proceeded to go down into the basement where his office was.

A few minutes later, he returned with a large, unwrapped box still in its K-mart bag.

Before she even got it open, my two year old self looked up and said, “Oh Nana!  You got a mixer.  Let’s go bake a cake!”  My dolls forgotten on the floor, I toddled off into her kitchen.  And we did bake that impromptu pound cake.

I told my Aunt Reen, Nana’s older sister, this story at Nana’s funeral.  This made her laugh.  She said, “You know, its funny, Paula (Nana) always said that it’d be me having my kids cookin’ at 2.”  She then told me a story about my grandmother, I never knew.

Nana’s favorite desert is banana pudding.  Real, old fashioned banana pudding.  Not that box stuff.

Having been raised by her older sister, my Aunt Reen, she was very upset when Reen got married and moved away from the farm.  Whenever Reen would come to visit, Nana would have everything she needed for Aunt Reen to make Banana Pudding.

Well one day, Reen called to tell Nana she was coming to visit.  ”Good, I have all the stuff so you can make me banana pudding,” Nana had said.  I’m guessing she was about eight years old at this time.

Aunt Reen replied, “Paula, I’m not going to make you banana pudding today.  I’m going to teach you how to make it so you don’t always have to wait for my visitin’.”

“I can’t do that!” Nana exclaimed.  ”I can’t separate eggs!”  As though this was the most impossible task ever set before her in her life.

But Aunt Reen was true to her word.  When she got to the house, she sat at the kitchen table and talked Nana through the steps of making Banana Pudding.  It came out perfectly.

“Reen,” Nana said as she sat down to her plate of pudding.  ”You’re goin’ to have your kids cookin’ by the time they’re 2!”

Isn’t it amazing how one little thing like a recipe, a certain food, even the smell of a certain meal can bring up so many memories?  And these are just a couple of mine.

What about you?  What foods bring certain memories to mind?  I’d love you to share them.

Oh, and in honor of my grandmother, allow me to share with you, her Pound Cake and her Banana Pudding Recipe.  I hope you enjoy them.

Nana’s Pound Cake

3 cups sugar
1 cup Crisco
3 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour
6 large eggs
1/2 pint whipped cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Sift flour 3 times.  Mix sugar and Crisco together.  Mix eggs one at a time into mixture.  Alternate flour and whipped cream.  Add vanilla.  Cook at 300 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes in tube pan.  Do not preheat oven.

Nana’s Favorite Banana Pudding

3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
3 egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Vanilla Wafers
6 ripe bananas, sliced

Directions:

Mix together all ingredients but vanilla wafers.  Cook on stove top until pudding thickens.  About 5 minutes.  Take vanilla wafers and line the bottom and sides of baking dish.  Pour in pudding mixture.  Float more wafers in pudding if desired.  Top with meringue.

Preheat oven at 425 and bake about 5 minutes.

Meringue for Banana Pudding

3 egg whites
¼ cup sugar

Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.  Add ¼ cup sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  Bake at 425 degrees about 5 minutes.

For years I didn’t ‘get’ how so many people of my parents’ generation remembered exactly where they were when they heard the news of JFK’s death. I was but a small child, and vaguely remembered my dad and mom huddled around a radio with ashen faces and watery eyes, shushing anyone who dared speak. But I didn’t feel the significance of that moment in the same way that it was for them.

Then came 9-11-01. That morning, I sat in front of my television and felt the same kind of shock and horror that another generation felt, of having been attacked in a way that would forever change the feeling of invincibility I’d had for my country.

Senseless death. Devastating destruction. My generation had its can’t-forget moment.

There are other, more personal moments that crystallize in my memory. Tears and prayers late one night, my father rushed away by a wailing ambulance, dead from a massive heart attack. Another night, the sky filled with an unnatural light as we evacuated our home due to an exploding tank at a nearby natural gas refinery.

Thankfully, some of those defining moments are happy ones. Standing before a JP without witness one and feeling the rightness of marrying the man I continue to love decades later. Holding my newborn child for the first time. Surprising my mother on her 80th birthday with a big party, all my siblings and her friends present.

Good or bad, what moments have crystallized in your memory?