Christmas Carrot Pudding and Hard Sauce | Steamed Pudding

Steamed Carrot Pudding Recipe

Carrot pudding was a traditional Christmas dessert at my house growing up in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. My grandmother Elsie Mackay, used to get me to help her make this, it was a big project and the whole family looked forward to it each year. After my grandmother passed on, the recipe was lost as she never wrote it down, after a few years of searching and multiple test recipes, I found it!

Carrot Pudding Ingredients

1 egg
1 cup grated raw carrot
1 cup grated raw potato
1/2 cup beef suet minced
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp salt
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup minced very small dates

Directions
1. Mix all wet ingredients, then add, sugar, flour, spices, & fruit.

2. Put in a double boiler or a pudding mold and steam for 3 hours. Carrot pudding is done when you press lightly on the top and it springs back.

3. Store in plastic and tinfoil in the fridge if you plan on eating within a week or in the freezer if you plan on eating it later on.

Hard Sauce Recipe

1/2 cup (1 stick) real butter MUST BE SOFT NOT MELTED IMPORTANT!!!!! I sit it near where I am steaming my pudding.
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup heavy (whipping) cream Room temperature
Brandy

Cream the butter , gradually add powdered sugar a bit at a time. Slowly dribble in the heavy cream. Don’t beat too much or it will curdle and separate. Sprinkle a teaspoon of brandy over the sauce and let sit in fridge, keep cold.

How to Prepare for Eating

Bake pudding in oven on 350 till heated through and crispy on the outside.
Make sure the hard sauce remains COLD, just before serving, remove from the fridge and

November 9, 2014April 14, 2014

Elf on the Shelf Ideas for Elf fun

Elf on the Shelf is such a sweet idea! I first learned about this while working my day job and building websites. This was years ago when it was not really popular. I design and build websites for a living. I wish I could remember the lady to mention her site I just remember she was from New York I think!

The concept of Elf on the Shelf is simple. He watches the kids to make sure they are behaving before Christmas. He comes alive each night and usually gets into something. Our elf Buddy is on vacation it seems most nights. He does fun things and makes messes, but then he sometimes cleans things!

Buddy sometimes likes to hide and scare the crap out of me. This morning he was hiding in the cupboard.

Found Buddy and Barbie on a date this morning..he was wearing a dress too and the animals were eating teddy grahams.

On this morning buddy and the animals made a shoe shoe train lol. Oh the imaginations of Buddy.

Good thing I didn’t have plans for cookies, Buddy was craving chocolate apparently.

Monopoly time!

This morning Buddy was reading the bible, the Christmas story.

Buddy the elf looking up Barbie pictures, he’s crushing hard!

Buddy napping with Zippy the chipmunk.

Over all I loved Buddy visiting. He made me laugh and made Christmas just that much more special.

September 15, 2014April 15, 2014

Flour Tortilla Recipe and Quesidillas

This is not the healthiest food, however, there us a few things you can do to make it better. I make the tortillas from scratch. Here is the recipe and method.

Sift flour, salt and baking powder. Cut in shortening. Mix and knead in hot water. Might not need it all so use water slowly.

After dough is made, wrap in plastic and let rest for 10-30min. Divide into balls and cover. Roll them out to paper thin.

After rolling one out, fry it immediately in a med high heat pan with no oil. These should cook quick and some will blow up.

I fold and let cool for a while then fry up pieces of fresh chicken breast, other cuts will not work, fake chicken will not work, day old roasted chicken will not work. It changes the taste drastically.

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Serve with salsa and sour cream. I make my own salsa, the recipe I use I can every fall. Its much better then store bought and so so much cheaper. I found this recipe the closest too the tostitos salsa.

Originally I used this recipe http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/175547/rockin-salsa but it was way too much sugar.

Salsa Recipe
6 lbs tomato
3 green peppers
Continue reading “Flour Tortilla Recipe and Quesidillas”

August 14, 2014June 20, 2014

Mickey Hill Pocket Wilderness Trail

The Mickey Hill Pocket Wilderness Trail was a new trail for us to explore. This is a map of the trail. One of Mikes friends visited this place and he suggested we should go. I had not even heard of the place. We took the kids up for a day trip and to find the geocache located there. It was a beauftiful spot for photography hiking and picnics.

This is right beside the picnic area, next time I would bring peanuts for the squirrels/chimpunks, they seemed tame.

The brook/river is so pretty there, I would have loved to have tried fishing there.

Mike took this photo of this tree mushroom? Waiting on a reply after some research to see if I can identify it, I thought it was pretty with the rain on it.

The geocache! This one was hard to find..this picture will not help you lol.

We were pretty sure we had a coyote following us..or a dog maybe… However we did find fresh poop and it had rabbit fur in it so..yuck and a tad scary!

Location is in Annapolis, Nova Scotia.
Map shows up close view of the actual trail, zoom out to get direction to the actual trail.

August 12, 2014April 12, 2014

Sunflowers and Corn Maze at Noggins Farm in NS

A few summers ago me and Mike headed to the valley to go to Noggins Farm and corn maze. I had heard about it for a while but never went. What they do is take a huge corn field and cut a large maze in it.

This is an areal view of the maze from http://nogginsfarm.ca

As you can see the maze is HUGE!!

This was a view from the flower and herb garden at Noggins. You are able to pick your own apples at certain times, herbs and some flowers.

These sunflower were so pretty, fluffy almost.

Bees were in abundance at the farm.

Once in the maze it was hot and hard! Once we got about halfway through and we had to pee lol so we didn’t get too far. Overall I would love to go again with the kids and work our way through the maze. I love the valley in general, driving by the huge garden and corn fields and apple orchards.