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Christmas Gingerbread Bowl

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This Christmas Gingerbread Bowl is perfect for your Christmas cookie exchange or to give as a home made gift during the holidays! Simply fill with cookies, wrap in cellophane and finish with a big bow.

Christmas Gingerbread Bowl
Christmas Gingerbread Bowl

Christmas Bowl Inspiration

The story of this Christmas Gingerbread Bowl goes way back to the 1990’s and one of those office potlucks I’ve referenced several times in this blog.

One of my co-workers brought in this show stopping gingerbread bowl filled with cookies and it did indeed wow us all. I re-created the bowl while living in Vancouver, put the recipe away and forgot about it.

Living in Calgary I attempted to make the bowl again, several times with no luck. Living so far above sea level definitely was affecting this bowl. So I decided to try turning my Orange Gingerbread Cookie into a bowl. Low and behold it worked.

Christmas Gingerbread Bowl
Christmas Gingerbread Bowl

What you need to make this bowl

  • Patience
  • Aluminum Foil
  • Cooking oil or spray
  • Cutting board or platter to fit bowl (not too big, not too small)
  • Small cookie cutter
  • Baking sheet
  • 1 1/2 quart ovenproof glass bowl (I use a Pyrex Mixing Bowl with a lip)
Pyrex Bowl
Pyrex Mixing Bowl, Photo Credit Pyrex

 

PRO TIPS:

  • Give yourself a day to make this bowl.
  • Make the dough from the Orange Gingerbread Cookie recipe.
  • Refrigerate dough a couple of hours.
  • Remove dough from fridge, let warm up a bit and start to roll. If you start to notice cracks, you need to let it warm up a little longer but not too long!
Christmas Gingerbread Bowl
Christmas Gingerbread Bowl

Here’s How You Make the Bowl

With aluminum foil cover outside of 1 1/2 quart ovenproof glass bowl with a lipped edge. Ensure the foil comes over into the inside about 1/2 inch. Spray or oil the entire surface of the bowl including the lipped edge getting every crack and crevice. Do your best to make sure foil is smooth and has no rough aluminum foil creases.

On floured surface roll out one disc of dough into a circle about 1/4 inch thick. Lift rolled out dough and place evenly onto bowl. Carefully and lightly press dough onto bowl, moulding firmly to shape bowl without stretching. If you end up with a crack, a little bit of water rubbed onto crack will help seal it.

Trim dough around edge of bowl with sharp knife. Place on same size cutting board or plate and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Remove from refrigerator, and using your small cookie cutter start carefully cutting out cookies around the middle of the bowl about 1 1/2 – 2 inches apart. Do not go to close to the top or bottom.

Refrigerate for an additional 1 1/2 hours. Firming your dough will help stop slippage during baking.

Christmas Gingerbread Bowl
Christmas Gingerbread Bowl

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Place inverted bowl on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow gingerbread bowl to cool right on bowl on the sheet. When completely cool, carefully loosen foil and lift foil and gingerbread bowl off your glass bowl. Remove any additional foil.

Until ready to use, store it uncovered in a dry place. With the second gingerbread disk, make cookies for your bowl following the steps in the Orange Gingerbread Cookie recipe.

This recipe will make two bowls or one bowl and cookies.

Looking for more holiday cookie ideas?! Check out these popular recipes:

Italian Sausage, Zucchini and Bocconcini Pasta Salad

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Summer fresh grilled veggies with fresh basil and bocconcini is favourite dish around here when it gets to hot to cook. Leftover veggies are an easy addition the next day to any dish, like these Grilled Veggie, Pesto & Bocconcini Pizzas.

Today we jazzed up our grilled veggies with bacon, grilled Italian Sausage and lots of fresh garlic. It was a hot one so making something easy and cool for dinner was right up our alley. If you have a side burner on your grill you could also cook the bacon and pasta right there to avoid your oven all together.

In our family we have some who don’t like peppers, some zucchini and some bocconcini cheese (insert gasp). Since I don’t cater to anyone’s likes or dislikes when I make a meal, I always tell them to pick out what they don’t like and eat what they do.

This would be an easy dish to partially prepare in advance and take camping. Make your dressing and store in a sealed jar. Cook all veggies and store in the fridge in a sealed container. Cook the rest when you are there and assemble.

 

Italian Sausage, Zucchini and Bocconcini Pasta Salad
Italian Sausage, Zucchini and Bocconcini Pasta Salad

 

 

Aiden’s Gouda Fruit Salad

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My kids love to get into the kitchen and create things. More often then not they announce what they want to make without checking on ingredients first. This salad was the exception as we just so happened to have all the fruit available. Aiden’s Fruit Salad is made by my son Aiden and on this night accompanied quick sandwiches before a busy activity evening.

A fruit salad can include any fruit you want. We never add a dressing or drizzle of honey to our fruit salads as we let the sweetness of the fruit speak for itself.

Aiden's Gouda Fruit Salad
Aiden’s Gouda Fruit Salad

 

 

White Chocolate Lavender Brownies

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Every summer we visit Kelowna and the Okanagan Lavender & Herb Farm. We love to wander the gardens and stop in the cafe to enjoy a lavender infused treat before we leave. We also drop into the little store they have and I always pick up some cooking lavender (or food grade culinary lavender) to play with at home. This is how this recipe came to be. Rummaging through my baking box in the pantry for white chocolate, I discovered the lavender. Having never heard of lavender brownies before I thought dang this could be good. The flavour is very subtle, but 3 out of 4 of us can detect the lavender in the brownies however next time I might try adding a little more. If you can’t get your hands on lavender, just leave it out.

White Chocolate Lavender Brownies
White Chocolate Lavender Brownies

These brownies are simple to make and easy to eat.

 

White Chocolate Lavender Brownies
White Chocolate Lavender Brownies

Infused Water

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About four years ago I hosted one of our annual Mom’s Who Needs Wine Evenings. One of the ladies was pregnant so for her I filled a lovely jug with spring water and added cucumber and fresh mint. She loved it so much that when we went camping together that summer it was all she drank! We experimented more in summer with fruit and the kids loved it.

I try to encourage the kids to drink lots of water during the day. We don’t drink much juice here and rarely pop so infusing their water with good stuff encourages them to keep at it, and eat the good stuff!

There are so many combinations of infused waters the variations are endless. Put out a variety of ingredients and let the kids make up their own. It will encourage family bonding time and them to drink the water. We made three infused waters for these photos and re-used water bottles from a local juice store. Mason jars or any other easy to carry and pretty jar with a lid would also be ideal.

In these photos we made three variations. Here’s how we did it.

Infused-Water-v2

Infused Waters
Infused Waters

 

 

Spinach Artichoke Dip

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With so many variations of Spinach Artichoke Dip out there, how do you find just one to love?!

This recipe was inspired by Liz of OMA’s Gourmet Garlic. We started bantering back and forth on this thing called twitter, maybe you’ve heard of it, and I learned she sells garlic grown in her garden in Aldersyde, Alberta.

Growing garlic runs in the family Liz explains, her dad received some garlic from a Russian friend in the mid ’80’s and grew it for years in his backyard garden. Her mom carried on with the growing of the garlic after her father passed away. In 2003 Liz received some garlic from her mom and decided to plant some of the cloves in her own garden. They started to sprout and 9 cloves produced 9 bulbs of garlic. This is where Liz’s story begins.

 

OMA's Gourmet Garlic
OMA’s Gourmet Garlic

 

Garlic is planted in the Spring over 6-8 weeks as this offers the best harvest, Liz says. The garlic cures for four – six weeks before selling the fresh begins in October and November.

Today this naturally grown garlic is sold to several local Chefs, restaurants and stores in fresh or dehydrated forms. And if she’s not busy enough tending her garden and weeds, Liz writes a column affectionately called the ‘Tales of the Stinking Rose, in the Wild Rose Country’ in ‘The Garlic News’, a quarterly Canadian publication.

I recently met Liz for the first time when I picked up some garlic granules and dehydrated garlic. She had me taste just 1 or 2 itty bitty specks of the granules before I left. That’s all you need Liz said and by golly she was right. I was my own sweet stinking rose for the rest of the day from those two little itty bittys samples.

OMA’s Gourmet Garlic is available fresh and dehydrated (powder, granules or spice mill grade). You can find her on Facebook: OMA’s Gourmet Garlic.

I used a light sprinkling of the garlic granules in this Spinach Artichoke Dip. This is a small recipes and serves two nicely. Or one who doesn’t want to share.

 

 

Grain Salad with Edamame

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Several big family gatherings in July called for lots of great potluck, and easy to assemble type food. We had Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan represented in our house over the course of several days, leaving many mouths to feed. So I made big salads and big food. This super grain salad with quinoa was one of them. So delicious and serves 10-12 with the possibility of leftovers. It’s one of my new favourite salads loaded with goodness and easy to take camping or to a BBQ.

I first discovered the PC grain blends a couple years ago when they launched them. Always loved them but it seems they’ve changed the packaging and keep relocating them in their stores. This makes it a challenge every time we go to find the item on the shelves. I love the 5 grains that are in this mix [spelt, barley, rice, wheat berries & oats] which really is a powerhouse in itself, but being a confessed quinoa addict, um fan, I have to be different and add a handful of quinoa into the mix as well. Just because. It’s one of those salads you could change up entirely based on your likes. This one was a hit at our potluck, and a keeper.

 

Grain Salad with Edamame
Grain Salad with Edamame

 

Stuffed Mushroom Stuffed Potato

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This recipe was originally inspired by a recipe contest called the BC Fresh Warba-licious New Nugget Potato Recipe Challenge. Happily I won runner up for my Stuffed Mushroom Stuffed Potato recipe. I have since made the recipe a few times using whatever smaller market potatoes I can find, and it’s equally delicious.

With the recent State of Emergency here in Calgary due to flooding, I find peace of mind when I am able to cook and keep my mind off of the devastating events around us. Playing with and creating new Mushroom & Potato Recipes helped me to do just that.

I love potatoes. Growing up in a small town in Northern British Columbia, Canada, had its perks. My parents grew an overwhelming garden and surrounded us with berry bushes and fruit trees which eventually made their way into our bellies (and some home made wine but that’s another story). Part of the annual crop included potatoes. Not specifically nugget potatoes, but potatoes none-the-less, and it was then my love affair with the potato began.

Never one to shy away from a challenge I discovered BC Fresh and The Food Bloggers Of Canada were having a Warba-licious New Nugget Potato Recipe Challenge. Holy hot potato, this former BC Girl was excited and ready to jump in feet first and get my Warba on.

I told the family my intentions and almost immediately everyone jumped on the “think of a new potato recipe” bandwagon. I love my family for their support and desire to help. The 5 year old shouted “French Fries”, the 7 year old pulled out a cookbook for inspiration and the husband said one word “bacon” and then another “potatoes”. I think he meant “Bacon Potatoes” but it had already been done. And then my spider sense started tingling. Why couldn’t we put a stuffed mushroom inside a cooked stuffed potato. Had it been done before? I wasn’t sure and I wasn’t going to google to find out. This was my idea and I was going to run with it. I immediately pulled out our Blue Cheese Pecan Stuffed Mushrooms recipe and started making a shopping list.

When shopping for potatoes make sure you find small ones that match up with the mushrooms you are buying. IE the mushroom cap should be able to fit inside half the potato. The first time I made this appetizer I had to visually inspect each potato to find it’s mushroom mate and ensure a proper fit. It is here our story of the stuffed mushroom joining forces with the stuffed potato, begins.

Fitting the mushrooms
The mushrooms need to fit like a good ole pair of cowboy boots.
Stuffing the mushrooms
Mushrooms stuffed and happy inside of the Warba potatoes.

 

stuffed mushrooms inside a stuffed warba potato ready for cooking
The pink eyes are peeking at us. Everyone in formation and ready for the oven.

 

 

stuffed mushrooms inside a stuffed potato
Out of the oven and one quick drizzle of olive oil before returning to oven for a final few minutes of crisping.

 

Spooky Halloween Cookies

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Halloween is such a fun time for the year. Fun for kids and fun for grown ups! I fondly remember dressing up, filling up our pillow cases with all kinds of candies, coming home so mom could check our candy bags and enjoying sugar highs for days on end. We never baked a lot of Halloween treats while I was younger…but I loved to when I got older and moved away. Office potlucks, dinner parties…always a reason to create in the kitchen.

And then came a husband and kids. Funny how that happens. The kids started going to school and I wanted to send treats for Halloween. They have a Halloween evening dance every year since they don’t celebrate during the day and we are asked to provide treats for sale during the dance. Enter Spooky Halloween Cookies. We use coloured Royal Icing for these cookies and the kids do the decorating. Too much fun.

This recipe makes 3-4 dozen cookies, depending on the size of your cookie cutters. I need a minimum of 25 cookies for class or to bring to the dance, so I kept the recipe as is knowing some would go to work….some to school…some to friends….well you get it!