Skip to main content

Holiday Recipes Master List



We're wrapping up the Holiday Recipes Blog Hop today. We hope you've had fun and found a few new recipes to try. If you're just joining us, here's a handy list so you can find them all.


Holiday Appetizers – Tracy Ruckman

Holiday Beverages – Rachel Hartsfield

International Holiday Foods – Peggy Cunningham

Holiday Breakfasts & Brunches – Betty Thomason Owens

Holiday Main Courses – Sheryl Holmes


Holiday Sweets – Rachel Hartsfield

Holiday Recipes Master List – Tracy Ruckman

I want to thank all my precious friends for participating during this busy time of  year. I loved reading your stories and I'm looking forward to trying all your food!

A huge thank you to all our readers, clients, and customers - we do what we do for YOU. We appreciate your support, your encouragement, your purchases of our books, products, and services. All of us are "small business" and we depend on readers and clients like you to continue doing our work.

We love reading your reviews and testimonials, and we love chatting with you when given the opportunity. We are also incredibly grateful for and honored by your prayers for us all.

I'd like to add one additional recipe to our week's event. I shared the recipe and story a few years ago, but now there's an addition.

My paternal grandmother, Nanny, made the best divinity in the world. When I became an adult, I tried to make it every year. Some years I was successful, other years I was not. Just before Nanny went to Heaven, she told me the secret - it all had to do with the humidity. (I guess you see the importance of family recipes here, can't you?) If the humidity was too high, the divinity wouldn't set properly; if it was too low, the candy would be dry.

For several years, I followed this guideline - 57% humidity seemed to be perfect for candy-making. (In the South, those percentages don't get that low very often, so we watched the weather gauges carefully once Thanksgiving came.)

Then my husband Tim entered the picture with his mother's divinity recipe. The ingredients were almost identical, but the cooking methods were different - and Edie's recipe did not rely on the weather. Since Edie's recipe is top secret, I’ve combine recipes and tips to ensure success every time! It helps to have two or more people making this together, and having a stand mixer is especially helpful. It’s a great recipe to make with generations in the kitchen at the same time.

Nanny's & Edie's Divinity

5 cups white, granulated sugar
1 cup Karo Light corn syrup
1 cup water
4 egg whites
2 tablespoons vanilla
2 cups chopped pecans, optional
Maraschino cherries, optional

Mix sugar, water, syrup together in large saucepan. Bring to boil, then boil until the liquid "spins a thread," stirring constantly. While the mixture is boiling, separate eggs and put the whites in a large mixing bowl. When the sugar mixture spins a thread, pour half of boiling liquid into the egg whites, beating with mixer as you pour. The mixture will begin to expand. Put the remaining liquid back on the stove and bring it back to a rolling boil. Then pour all of it into the expanding egg white mixture while continuing to beat.

Beat until the mixture a minute more, then use a large spoon to stir the mixture several times, until it gets a dull finish. Then, add nuts or chopped cherries if you wish, then very quickly, drop by rounded teaspoons on large sheets of waxed paper. Immediately top with cherry halves or pecan halves, as you wish. Let cool. Store on waxed paper layers in air tight containers.

Divinity makes great gifts, and it's easy enough to mix and match different kinds. Some batches we leave out all nuts and cherries, topping only with one or the other. Some batches are deluxe, and have a little of all of it. The fun part is that each kind tastes very different. Even though you make a large batch, it will disappear very quickly - at least it does in our family.

The same year I took the photo above, I took several others of the divinity in different containers. One of my favorites was with this ceramic bowl.


When I started tinkering with all the artwork and designs, I took this image and turned it into some fun pop art that's now on dozens of different products.



I think Nanny and Edie would get tickled over these!

You'll find these in my Christmas Collection on Zazzle.


May God fill your hearts and homes with His love and peace this holiday season. May the birth of Jesus always be a significant event in our lives, and may we never take His sacrifice for granted.

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you!


Please help me thank all the Holiday Recipes Blog Hop Participants:

Peggy Cunningham is an author of children's books and women's devotionals. She and her husband serve as missionaries in Bolivia. 




Really Rare Rabbits Series


  


Peggy's website: www.PeggyCunningham.com


Rachel Hartsfield is a small business owner, representing Senegence, a line of beauty and skin care products. Join her closed Facebook group for health & beauty tips, encouragement, and inspiration.


Rachel's website: Real Life with Rachel



Betty Thomason Owens is a speaker and author of several fiction series.



Betty's website: www.BettyThomasonOwens.com


Sheryl Holmes is an author, speaker, mental health & addiction advocate, and cancer survivor.


Sheryl's website: www.SherylHolmes.com


Fay Lamb is an author, editor, writing coach and teacher.



Find all of Fay's books on her Amazon Author Page.



Tracy Ruckman is an author, screenwriter, and artist. Her latest books include The Young Storyteller's Prompt and Draw Series and the Fishing Journal. Her latest artwork can be found at www.TMPixArt.com and in her Zazzle store.

  

  







Recent posts:



Recent Posts from TMP Books:


Thank you for supporting authors, small businesses, and artists during the busy holiday season! We are truly grateful for your business!





Come visit my TMPix Art Shop on Zazzle!
Original Photography Turned into Art
Some funky, some beautiful.
Some bold, some gentle.
Some playful, some romantic.






Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Photo Shoot for a Cause

Last month, Advent Health honored me by asking if I would be one of their "faces" during their "Pink Porch" campaign for Breast Awareness Month. They arranged for a photo shoot and an interview, and said I could invite anyone I wanted to be in the photos with me.  Without hesitation, I suggested Jess Bolton, my daughter-in-law, and Felicia Trawick, my nurse navigator-turned-friend. These two were with me every day of my cancer journey, either in person or by phone. God knew what I needed during that time because Jess and Felicia kept me laughing, and we're still at it, as you can tell from the photos below. The lovely and patient photographer, Emily Long, had us talk to each other, and to look at each other, and we just got silly. (Please note: these photos are the only time you'll see me NOT talking with my hands! Such a surprise to all of us!) It was a windy but fun day, and Zach, my son and Jess's husband, surprised and blessed me by coming, too.  Dur...

Our Home Health Care Experience

Blogging got away from me this summer. At the end of July, I got sick with what the doc eventually said was either the flu or covid, but it was too late to test by that time. Then Tim got sick and ended up in the hospital for a week with covid and double pneumonia. He’s home now and recovering well - I’m grateful and he’s happy to be home again. I decided to share our experience with home health care. Since all of this was new to us, I don’t know if our experience is the norm, but thought I’d share in case it’s all new to someone else. The hospital filled up while Tim was there, so once they got him on his feet without oxygen, they sent us home because they needed the bed. But they ordered Home Health Care, saying he needed physical therapy, and that’s what we expected. Tim left the hospital on the 19th. To simply things, I’ll list the dates and duties of Home Health below (we also had 3 doc appts scattered in the middle of all these dates, and perhaps only introverts and hermits like ...

Guest Post: No Time to Sit and Worry by V. Ronnie Laughlin

Earlier this year, TMP Books put out a call for submissions for two anthologies, requesting stories from cancer warriors/survivors, and from cancer caregivers. We received several submissions, but not enough to fill either book, so for now, the books are postponed. When I notified the writers who had submitted, one of them suggested running the stories on my blog, and I loved the idea. My goal was to share people’s stories, to give encouragement and hope to other cancer warriors and caregivers, so why wait? I’m sharing the stories each Tuesday, in the order they were submitted. Today, I welcome author V. Ronnie Laughlin who shares her atypical breast cancer journey from the Middle East, during the pandemic. No Time to Sit and Worry As I held the specimen cup in my hand with the breast biopsy sample glistening inside; I looked at it and it looked at me. It looked like a hydra, the long tentacled invertebrate with a gelatinous body. I do not know what possessed me to ask my Radiologist,...