sealed from the wind
beneath a layer of ice
maple leaves hide
barely visible
yesterday’s secrets
talya
Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.
Musical Pairing:
Joni Mitchell, River
autumn secrets
Chocolate Covered Cherry Christmas Mice
I’ve been making these chocolate covered cherry Christmas mice several years now. They are fun to make and always a big hit at every holiday gathering.
Ingredients (makes 18-24)
8 oz Melting Chocolate (I used Ghirardelli semi-sweet)
1 medium jar Maraschino Cherries with stems
Mini Chocolate Chips
Hershey’s Kisses
Wax Paper
Red Gel Icing
Method
Melt chocolate in microwave or in double boiler.
Dip cherry in melted chocolate and press against the bottom of a Hershey’s kiss. The melted hot chocolate will stick to the kiss.
Place on wax paper. While still hot, add two mini chocolate chips on the seam between the kiss and cherry, pressing the chips into the melted chocolate. These are the mice ears.
Let dry on wax paper. (Yes, I used parchment paper coated in Pam because I was out of wax paper…)
Add a tiny dab of red gel icing to the tip of the kiss for the mouse nose.
You can trim the “tails”. Or not.
Store in an airtight container or in the refrigerator.
Aren’t they adorable?!
Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.
…”Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” – Twas the Night Before Christmas
Nana’s little table
In October, in honor of Old Farmers Day, I wrote about Nana and Papa Creecy and how they set up housekeeping in 1936 buying the following goods: (Click HERE to read the original story.)
Somewhere buried within this original invoice included a side table. Although the little table wasn’t individually listed, it has been part of our family since day one of Nana and Papa’s life together.
Momma remembers when the table originally had a shelf around the bottom. She broke the shelf climbing and playing on it when she was a little girl. I remember playing underneath the table too when it sat in the entryway across from the front door of our house.
Lots of hair brushing took place in front of the mirror that hung above the little table. It’s where Momma wrangled our hair each Sunday morning, pulling and tugging it into a tight ponytail or some style appropriate for church.
Before bedtime we brushed our hair at the table—one hundred strokes to make it silky…
One summer Momma stripped the wood and antiqued it greenish-white (pictured below in this first day of school picture).
 |
| Me, Lesa (cousin), Staci (sister) |
Fortunately at some point, she restored the table to its natural wood finish.
When John and I bought our 100-year-old house in Munger Place, Momma passed the table on to me. She said it fit our house better.
For years, we’ve wondered why the table wasn’t listed on the original invoice. Maybe it was lumped in with ‘living room suite’ of $10.00?talya
Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.
