Pastelli ... The Perfect Marriage of Sesame Seeds and Honey

I made pastelli today to give to all of my family members for Christmas.

Every year Christmas has a theme in my house.  The food for our party, the gingerbread house, the wrapping paper and the little food gift for my family members.  This year the theme is Greece.  So for my food gift I picked a classic Greek candy made of sesame seeds and honey called pastelli.

The pastelli is quite simple to make and really tasty.

You need equal parts honey and a sesame seed/nut combo.  To fill a sheetpan I used a 680 gram bottle of honey and 600 grams of sesame seeds and 80 grams of chopped almonds.  

Line a sheetpan with parchment and spray with cooking spray.

Pour the honey into a large pan and heat into liquidy.

Add in you seeds/nuts dried fruit and stir to combine.

Cook the mixture over medium heat without stirring for about 10 minutes or until the honey has turned a deep amber color.

Pour your mixture into your sheetpan and smooth out.

Allow to cool and harden for about an hour at room temperature.

Remove the parchment from the pan and cut the candy in squares.

A few notes!

I think the classic version has pistachios but there was no way I was shelling all those nuts so I went with almonds!  I believe you could also add dried fruit but just remember that the total weight of your dry stuff has to equal the weight of your honey.

If your candy does not harden after it cools, it means you did not cook it long enough.  I did that with one sheetpan so I shoved it in the over at 350 fir about 10 minutes and then let it cool again.  It hardened up perfectly.

I believe you can keep these for quite a while as long as they are kept airtight.

Enjoy!

Snow Day ... Cocoa and Crafts and Christmas, Oh My!

Today is a snow day.

I rescheduled my work day and set up a day of relaxation and fun with the kids.

After breakfast we threw a batch of Snowflake Cocoa in the crockpot. 

We made cards to mail to our cousins in Italy.  Just some note cards and a few foam shapes hiding around in the  bottom of the sticker basket!

Then we packed up our Christmas presents to be mailed away.  Lots of pretty pottery made by a very talented friend.

We baked oatmeal cookies.  Without the raisins.

And made presents for our dance teachers.  Socks, foot scrub and ballerina cards.

I made skirt steak tacos with cabbage and avocado for dinner.

And the kids had maple snow for dessert.

And I had my first snowball fight ever!

Now it is time for warm pajamas, a viewing of Home Alone and a few of those leftover oatmeal cookies!

Visual Multiplication Flashcards ... My Fourth Grade Salvation

I have finally found a great tool to help my struggling fourth grader with her multiplication tables.

My daughter is an overall excellent student but each year math becomes more and more of a challenge for her.  This year the big challenge was needing to know her multiplication tables off the top of her head.  It became clear a few months ago that I needed to help her find a way to commit these facts to memory or she was going to fall far behind.  

Whatever they were doing in school to teach the memorization of multiplication tables was not working for her very visual style of learning.  So I searched the internet for something that would help her relate the facts to pictures.  I finally found these great flashcards by Joel Harrison.  Each fact has a picture associated with it that plays on the equation.  Like 8x8 =64 is a checkerboard because it is 8 across by 8 down to give you 64 squares.

I used a few of the flashcards with my daughter each night and I gradually noticed her being able to pull most of the facts right out of her head by remembering what the flashcard looked like.  It was amazing to hear her tell me "ohhh, it's the one with the clocks inside the four number 6's. that's, that's 24!" when I asked her what 4x6 equaled.  

I love when I can find a way to help someone with something they find so challenging!