On the Twelfth Working Day of Christmas...

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me....12 drummers drumming!

Yes- we are the blueman group! SURPRISE!! Not really...sorry for the holiday let down. Hope you dont have another one of those this year.
Drums make me think of a couple of things. First would be my sister-in-laws nephew who has been drumming since he could move his hands. In fact, this year for his birthday he got a whole drum set. I am calling it now...future rock star!
I also think of Phil Collins rocking it out on the drums, Katie could attest to the love for Ringo Starr of the Beatles, and I totally remember my middle school band director (don’t judge me) just putting us all into a trance whenever he played. He was really good.
Drums also make me think of heartbeats. It is that constant beat within us that keeps us moving throughout the day, accomplishing our goals and living our lives to the fullest. This holiday season may be crazy and hectic, but I am glad that I get to live my life to the fullest and share it with my family and friends.
So for all of you, I hope you survived the 12 working days of Christmas, because we know we almost didn’t, and were able to learn a bit more about the meanings behind each story to us.

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On the Third Working Day of Christmas…

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me…Three French Hens!

I’ll be perfectly honest with you…I have nothing very clever to write about in regards to three French Hens so I decided to post a recipe on how to prepare Cornish Game Hens with a Sweet Onion Compote.  I hope you all enjoy!

Ingredients

• 9 tablespoons butter
• 3 large onions, chopped (about 6 cups)
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 3 Cornish game hens, quartered, backbones removed

• 1/4 cup Sherry wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock or canned low-salt chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

• Chopped fresh parsley

Preparation

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and 3 tablespoons sugar. Cook until onions are golden, stirring often, about 15 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add wine and cook until onions are very tender and mixture is reduced to thick jamlike consistency, stirring frequently, about 40 minutes. Set compote aside.

Preheat oven to 450°F. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add hen quarters and brown well on all sides, about 8 minutes. Place hen quarters on rimmed baking sheet (do not clean skillet). Sprinkle hens with salt and pepper. Bake hen quarters until cooked through, about 20 minutes.

Transfer hen quarters to bowl; cover to keep warm. Add drippings from baking sheet, vinegar and remaining 3 tablespoons sugar to skillet used to brown hens. Bring to boil, scraping up any browned bits. Add stock and bring to boil. Mix remaining 4 tablespoons butter and flour in small bowl, forming paste. Whisk paste into stock mixture. Boil until thickened to sauce consistency, about 3 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Rewarm onion compote; spoon onto center of each plate. Arrange 2 hen quarters around compote. Spoon sauce over. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve.

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On the Second Working Day of Christmas...

On the Second Working Day of Christmas my True Love Gave to Me... Two Turtle Doves!

This theme is rather significant to me – the turtle part anyway. For as long as long as I can remember, I always had a turtle as a pet growing up. Tom Turtle was my first. My dad picked him up off the road for me when we were moving in to our new house – about 22 years ago now. Tom lived in an aquarium in my bedroom for a number of years. He was a great first pet! Easy to take care of, quiet, low maintenance. Tom was even friendly with my other animals – Michi, my rabbit, and Buttons, my dog.

Tom was a box turtle and was pretty old when we found him (apparently you can count the rings on their shells, much like a tree’s rings). Tom was adventurous – he managed to make his way off my deck (a 15ft drop) and survive… He made it all the way to the front yard where we found him making friends with a small child who was on a walk with his mom. Tom came to school with me on various occasions for show and tell. He would spend most of the day in a shoebox, but I felt so cool none the less.

Unfortunately, Tom made his way to greener fields one Christmas morning when I was in third grade. Not-so-Merry Christmas to me…

After Tom, I had other turtles… Tom II, Tammy… but none of them were the same as my original Tom, and I would end up releasing them back to the wild.

I took a hiatus as a turtle owner for a while, but when I headed to college, I decided to invest in a baby Red-eared Slider. Ferrari was about the size of a silver dollar when I got her. She lived in a little aquarium in my room and swam happily around! Two years later, on a whim I purchased another aquatic turtle, a Map Turtle, named Porsche. He was about the size of Ferrari at this point, and they lived happily together for the next year or so. Until… Ferrari quadrupled in size. Porsche; however, remained the same. They had to be separated.

Recently, Porsche passed on, joining his older brother in greener fields. He was a little trickster, that turtle. Always looking for the great escape. He must have “jumped” (for lack of a better word) out of his aquarium at least five times. He was lost in my parents’ basement for almost two days. He escaped during feeding time on a number of occasions, and twice Nick and I came home to an empty aquarium, only to find him in the bathroom and in the back spare bedroom.

I have a feeling Ferrari is going to live forever. She is the size of a dinner plate now, and continues to grow out of every aquarium we put her in. I make fun of my friends, saying that they will be crazy cat ladies when they are older, while I… I might be the crazy turtle lady.

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On the First Working Day...

"On the first working day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree."

I am not an expert on the Partridge family, partridges or pears, but I do love dessert. So in honor of the holiday season of baking, here is a recipe that includes pears, as well as gingerbread and a little bit of booze. Although I usually don't care for fruit desserts, this might be worth trying!

Enjoy!

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The 12 Working Days of Christmas

So we've made it to the holiday season...my favorite time of the year! Sense the sarcasim people- I am a summer girl. I love the fourth of July the most, but regardless, Christmas is nice, when we don't have snow in Pittsburgh!

To celebrate the holiday, the WWB girls will be giving you a taste of our own 12 Working Days of Christmas. Think of the song...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8. Do you really know the true meaning behind the 12 Days of Christmas? We didn't either, but here is what we found out.

A long, long time ago in England (like serious, 1558), Catholics were prohibted from any practice of their faith by law, in the privacy of their own home or in public. Basically, it was a crime to be Catholic. If caught, they could be imprisioned, hanged, shortened by the head (which would make me like 4 foot 5...midget status), or even suffocated to death.

So as a way to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith, they created the 12 Days of Christmas song as a memory aid. The songs gifts have hidden meanings to teach the faith. The true love mentioned throughout the song is God, the partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ, and me is every person who is baptized.

The other symbols mean:

2 Turtle Doves: The old and new testments

3 French Hens: Faith, hope and charity, the theological virtures

4 Calling Birds: The four gospels and/or the four evangelists

5 Golden Rings: The first five books of the old testments, the "pentateuch" which gives the history of man's fall from grace.

6 Geese A-laying: The six days of creation

7 Swans A-swimming: The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments

8 Maids A-milking: The eight beatitudes

9 Ladies Dancing: The nine fruits of the Holy Spirit

10 Lords A-leaping: The ten commandments

11 Pipers Piping: The eleven faithful apostles

12 Drummers Drumming: The twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle's Creed

Did you have any idea there was so much meaning to a song that we grew up singing? I honestly can't ever remember singing it in church or Sunday school. Can you? See if others know the meaning, or what the song means to them.

Follow us for the next 12 Working Days of Christmas for what each means to us. We will have great group photos to share that I am sure will make your day. Please let us know what each day means to you when we post. We always enjoy feedback.

Happy Holidays!

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