Christmas at Celebrating Appalachia - 2021

we love sausage balls but the only time of the year i ever make them is at christmas i don't know why but that's the only time i make them we like to make up this little sauce to go with them so this is an apple jelly just apple jelly that i can so that's about a half of a cup and then you just mix mustard to your taste so i just start out with a squirt or two and then see what it tastes like and it makes a really good dip for your sausage balls as if they weren't good enough already on their own so good one of the easiest desserts i make around christmas is to take two rich crackers put peanut butter between them like you're making a little peanut butter cracker i've melded almond bark and now i'm going to coat it in the almond bark you can also use melted chocolate using a fork works really well and once you get it out you can kind of tap it on the side of the bowl to get the excess off then you can set it to the side on a rack or on a plate whatever you have i'm using a rack until it hardens and then it's ready to store just like in an airtight container and ready to serve i've been making christmas candy today right now i'm getting ready to put out my hot pralines so good one of our favorite things to make at christmas one of my favorite things to make i have a video that tells how to make them so you can check that out if you're interested it wouldn't be christmas without pralines would it corey i could smell them through the house before when the girls were little then it would get christmas time and i'd start baking and cooking sweet stuff so they'd say mama when are you gonna make the brown things the brown things that's what they call them next up on my candy list is coconut bonbons several years ago corey well two reasons i started making them for one thing corey was trying to not eat sugar so these bon bons have coconut but they have natural sweetener they have honey or you could use maple syrup and i'm either one of course they do have the chocolate too but trying to cut back on sugar so one of the reasons was for corey another reason was i've always loved them and years ago when the girls were in elementary school there was a lady that worked in their elementary lunchroom and one year she gave me some coconut bon bons and they were the best i'd ever eat in my life and ever since then i was on the hunt to find the best recipe and i tried several but this is the one that i like the best and i've been making ever since and if you look in the description below you can go see the recipe the entire recipe but they are really good very coconutty if you like coconut and of course who couldn't like who don't like chocolate although there are some people that don't i know but but if you want to and it's fairly easy and quick candy to make too so if you want to try coconut bonbon you can check out the recipe so we've come over to corey and austin's to have christmas with them tonight and see their pretty tree my god's just beautiful which one that one it's like a little uh little tree and then they go it's pretty let's see i was with her when she got this that's a ceramic like a little bird that's pretty and then one of our uh friends sent us this and um that was a ornament that her family made long time ago isn't that sweet it's very sweet and that one has austin's name on it from when he was born my dad's mom merry christmas so today is christmas eve tomorrow and for christmas we'll go to granny's to eat with everybody so we're kind of trying to get ready today so that we don't have to do it all tomorrow so cory's making our dressing um matt made it for years it's just the best dress and it's his grandfather's recipe and you can we'll put a link down below so if you're interested in seeing it it's just a cornbread dressing but it's really good but somewhere along the way cory took over the job and she's been making it for the past several years and it is really good and what else have we got going on for you we got egg you hear the stove if you can hear the bowl and we've got eggs boiling because eggs go in the dressing so kroy is boiling our eggs got more cornbread in the oven here got my onions that are starting to make my eyes work yeah and it's starting to make her cry i'm in the middle of making some chocolate pies because matt requested chocolate pies this year for christmas so we're gonna have those uh what else we got going on we're gonna do is try to do the sweet potatoes today and before he's going to make a dessert for her raspberry burgers raspberry bars gluten free for her and katie and whoever else wants some yeah so we've got a busy day but it's a fun day to be together and katie's here she's working on some last-minute gifts for the family in the basement matt's gone hunting today so tonight we'll uh for christmas eve ms cindy always comes over matt's mother so we'll have her over we'll have some oyster stew and maybe he cut one of these pies i'm making so yeah fun times every time we film we try to close the cabinets behind us but it never fails that at least one of them will be open who leaves them open me well i do it too now mostly me i leave cabinet doors open all the time i do it too so don't feel bad you can even make special sunglasses i've heard that before that if you wear sunglasses but i think i tried it and it don't work well i would also be afraid if i wear sunglasses that i would miss and cut my hand you know i'd rather have a little bit of burnt eyes and a big old gash in my finger so matt's making our annual christmas eve dinner which is oyster stew his grandpa made it and then his daddy made it and then now lord for years since me and matt's been married he makes it it's really simple stew it's just basically milk and butter and pepper to your taste and the oysters kind of heat it all slow until the oysters are um cooked and then it's that's it it's done the girls don't really like it at all i don't even know if they've ever tasted it to be honest but they don't they say they don't like it me and matt love it pap loved it when he was still alive matt would carry carry him some down the hill so that he could enjoy it every christmas eve too and he loved it as much as we do when matt first started making it of course i loved the history of his family making it but i thought well it's just his family it's just something kind of unique in the presley family but after that i found out no it's a really common tradition lots of people have oyster stew on christmas eve which is really interesting so there's a longer history there and someone i just have the best subscribers and commenters on all my videos someone uh yesterday or the day before i can't remember but left a comment about oyster stew and they said that it was common like in the old days you would say that oysters were only good in the months that started i mean the months that ended with the letter r like december or november or october and they said the reason why was because that was the only time of the year that they could travel by train without you know refrigeration and all that and still be good when they got to where they were going isn't that interesting so matt's added the oysters he heated the milk and until the butter melted and maybe a little bit after that a few more minutes you have to be careful not let it boil you just want to heat it gently and now he's got the oysters in some people will put a thermometer in it i don't even know what the correct degrees is i'll just use my finger so hold on oh way i guess but if it's i stick my finger in it till i almost can't stand it and that's when i put them in and then i leave them in there until it comes back up to that temperature and you put the cold oysters in there it'll suck the heat out of it and when it comes back up to i can barely put my finger in it without it burning me that's when i know they're probably done and if you don't want to use your finger you can certainly use a get some out in a bowl and do that or use your finger that way or use a thermometer i'm sure if you google you could probably find what temperature it needs to be at and the reason we're cooking it outside here normally we wouldn't do that but cory's cooking still cooking for christmas dinner inside for tomorrow she's finishing up some last minute things and so we just said well it'll just be easier if i get out of the way and go to the porch it's pretty it's gonna be good okay [Music] i'm [Music] all the presents are wrapped all the stuff is made when you're making something no okay now you've done seniors anyway [Music] that's my food guys i'm so lucky you know not only would my business never have been what it would have been had i not worked hard but it never would have been what it is without all the support i've had and all the different ways i've had it [Music] no you hear when i got here you i'm wrapping just one or two more presents before i go to granny's and i got her this for christmas this is pap and the reason i would have never thought to get it myself but several months ago probably way back even in the summer i was helping granny clean out and we found a picture of her about the same age and in the same black and white and she said you know what i want you to do i want you to take this and have it put on one of those canvas things for me and i said okay well i took it and it was months before i remembered to actually do it and but i did and then i took it to her and she was so excited and she hung it on the wall and then the next time i went to see her she said now that you've made that one of me i started thinking about it i've got on a homemade dress well there's that picture of your daddy where he's got on a homemade shirt that big grandma made i did not know that big grandma made that shirt till she told me that i guess pap had told her that or perhaps mother maybe years ago anyway she said i want you to do the one for pap and then we could hang them together since we both got homemade clothes on and we're about the same age i said okay so i got it right away far for christmas and then about two weeks ago or something i was down there one day and she said you know you never did get me that picture of your daddy i said well maybe you just ain't waited long enough and she didn't say anything so i know she'll be pleased with it so we're about to put our christmas turkey in over the years we've done it lots of different ways our favorite way to do it is to deep fry it matte with deep fry turkey but that takes a lot of planning oil is very expensive all those kind of things so a few years ago when i was making it probably i don't know five years or something i found a recipe online from someone who had worked at a camp or something like that where they had to make turkey for so many weeks every week they served that was the meal they served thanksgiving so over the years they had perfected this what they thought was the best and it was really simple so i thought well i'll try it so i did and we liked it and i've been doing it like that ever since so basically you the night before that you're going to cook the turkey you get it out and you dry it off and do all those kind of things and you sprinkle it all over with salt and then you put it uncovered in your refrigerator overnight and that salt kind of draws out or seeps down into it kind of like a brine would i guess anyway so the next morning when you're going to cook it you get it out and you let it come to room temperature before you ever put it in the oven i know that may sound scary to some people but that's the way we've been doing it and we've been okay with it then when you're about to put it in the oven you smear it all over with butter and that's it you can add other seasonings inside the cavity if you want to do whatever i'll i'll link to that article below to that recipe so you can see it but it turns out really well we cook it for the first uh depends on how big your turkey is of course how long you would cook it but for the first 20 minutes cook it at 400 and then we lower it to 350 for the rest of the cooking then once it's out we let it rest for a good 20 to 30 minutes before we actually eat it and it turns out really well doesn't it everybody seems to love it so that's just the way we've been doing it ever since i found that recipe so now we just need to put the butter on and get it in the oven after it sit overnight sometimes some additional liquid drains out so we just kind of wipe it wipe it out before we start the butter process two three happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear jesus happy birthday to you merry christmas and we hope that you guys all have a wonderful wonderful christmas merry christmas i hope everyone had a wonderful christmas and that everyone has a happy new year i hope everybody had a merry christmas merry christmas i hope you enjoyed seeing a peek into our christmas we've had a wonderful christmas we are beyond blessed i'm so thankful for all the blessings god has bestowed upon us i hope that your christmas was good as well if you can see behind me all these lovely cards they were sent by mostly by subscribers from celebrating appalachia thank you so much to each person that's in a card when i was growing up granny would always keep all of her cards and she would either hang them on a like a crochet rope that she made around the window or she would tape them around the door jamb and i've never since i've been married there's never been a time that i got enough cards to actually do that i get a few cards every year and i usually just stand them on the buffet here among all my christmas decorations but this is the first year that i had enough to go all the way around my window and i was so pleased and so thankful and so tickled every card brightened our day and made our christmas so much even more special we really appreciate it and we appreciate each of you and we hope that each of you had a very merry christmas

Channel: Celebrating Appalachia

Views: 90,641

Keywords: Appalachia, Appalachian Mountains, Christmas in the mountains, Christmas in Appalachia, The Real Appalachia, Tipper, The Pressley Girls, Granny's Christmas, Favorite treats, favorite sweet treats for Christmas, Oyster Stew, Coconut bonbons, pralines, sausage balls, are Appalachians poor

Id: Gu5nVFffUs8

Length: 21min 3sec (1263 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 26 2021