Heidi Kaisand 0:02 Good morning and welcome to create with Heidi. I'm Heidi Kaisand, owner of hen and chick studio in Conrad, Iowa, and lover of all things creative. Each week here on create with Heidi, we like to cover topics that educate and inspire you about how people are being creative. Whether it's cool Dean scrapbooking food will or just hanging out with others who seem to have their creative Mojo groovin in all the right directions. We are excited to share these things with you. Each week, I love to start the show with a quote. And today's quote is, and I think this is appropriate for the holidays that are coming up. One of the secrets and pleasures of cooking is to learn to correct something if it goes awry. And one of the lessons is to grin and bear it if it cannot be fixed. And oh goodness, I think we've all had those moments in our kitchen during the holidays when Oh, I can remember a couple years ago, my stove quit working and I couldn't figure out why it was taking so long to cook some things. But there's so much that can happen good and bad in the kitchen prior to the holidays or as the holidays approach. And today my guest is a wonderful foodie. It is an MC mela Macmillan. Good morning, and how are you today?
Anne McMillan 1:27 I'm good Heidi?
Heidi Kaisand 1:28 And it? Can you think of over the years, some of those lessons we've learned in the kitchen when things have gone awry? Because I think there's probably been many in our lives.
Anne McMillan 1:40 Absolutely, there is.
Heidi Kaisand 1:42 It is. So it is so much fun to be cooking in the holidays. And that is one reason why I wanted to have you join us today you are a Pampered Chef consultant, and do a lot of cooking. And I know you have fun with all of it. And I thought it would be so fun as we talk about the holidays that are approaching all of the fun kinds of festive things that we be could be cooking, because I bet you've already been doing some holiday cooking, haven't you?
Anne McMillan 2:13 I have Heidi Yep. I've been doing some baking of things that freeze really well. And I've actually been doing some planning maybe more than cooking things that I'm going to do here in the next couple of weeks.
Heidi Kaisand 2:24 Oh, yes. Like so tell me like what kind of planning? Are you planning? Your you know, your shopping list? Are you planning how it's gonna work out at an event? What kinds of things are you planning?
Anne McMillan 2:35 So I'm actually planning what food for which events? So like when we have just our small personal family together? What are we going to have this year? What's that going to look like? And I've kind of come up with, and it's an appetizer tradition. So I've kind of come up with my list of what the recipes are that I'm going to actually do for that. I haven't got near as detailed yet for making my shopping list or, or when I will do any of that. But I just wanted to start kind of in the morning doing some planning to be a little bit more organized this year?
Heidi Kaisand 3:05 Well, and it certainly helps. So that it I always think what you know, there's some code out there about you know, if you plan a little bit ahead, you're not gonna feel so rushed, you're not gonna feel so you know, panicked, or, you know, like, Hey, you don't have it all, you know, together, the more you have done in advance, even if it is that thought process of what recipes, because that can take time, you're but you're gonna feel more. You know, I'll say more relaxed, and it can enjoy the event.
Anne McMillan 3:35 Oh, absolutely. And just a tip for people, if they're listening and thinking about that, when I do decide what recipe or what recipes, which foods I am going to make, then I pull the recipes immediately at the same time when I put that on a list. Because sometimes that's half the battle for people is finding where their recipe is whether it's in our cookbook, Heidi, or it's something they pin to Pinterest or their grandma's and they need to dig it out of the recipe box. It helps if you pull all those when you're doing your planning.
Heidi Kaisand 4:04 Oh, yes. Because I have to say I've fallen into that trap, like on Pinterest, where I see a recipe and I think oh, I'll find that again. Even if I've pinned it on my board or whatever. And for whatever reason, that's not an easy, it's not easy to go back to them. And can you hear me?
Anne McMillan 4:24 Yep, I'm hearing you. But all of a sudden you went really dim and I have a lot of static.
Heidi Kaisand 4:28 Oh, well, very good. Well, we can hear you again. So we're just going to keep going and hopefully the static will go away. Well, absolutely. I would agree with you that pulling the recipes at the time of that you're looking for him is a good idea because going back and find them is hard unless they're in that you know favorite cookbook and you mentioned that we have our second harvest cookbook which is a family cookbook that the two of us plus are another Chari have created in so it is nice to have recipes all gathered together in one spot. But as as good foodies we are. It we always have more recipes. There's always more than what's even in the cookbook. We love to love to find new and different things all the time.
Anne McMillan 5:18 That is for sure. But yet I still grab our cookbook a lot Heidi. And just one fun thing to share with readers today. There's so many recipes you can adapt to making foods fun. And one of the really popular recipes in our second harvest cookbook, which we have for sale at Heidi store. And on our website is a cherry cheese coffee cake that you can very easily adapt to this time of year and make it in the shape of a candy canes. And it's absolutely beautiful. And it's such a simple, fast recipe that you can have kind of a wow factor when you want to add some fun. Oh, that
Heidi Kaisand 5:54 is awesome. I've got a question about that. But we're gonna take a quick commercial break, and we'll be back right after this. This is Heidi Kaisand from hen and chick studio in Conrad. Here's Paige with her story of quilting at hen and chick studio.
Heidi Kaisand 6:47 Welcome back, this is Heidi Kaisand from hen and chicks studio in Conrad. And my guest today is Anne Macmillan. And just prior to the break, we were talking about having fun with food and and you mentioned that we have a cheesecake recipe that you could make in the shape of candy canes. Now, immediately my mind starts thinking all sorts of different things. How are you putting making them in the shape of a candy cane?
Anne McMillan 7:31 So the crust of the fairy cheese coffee cake is shown in our cookbook to make it in a circle or like a wreath. So you would just literally make the shape of the crust, the base layer in the shape of a candy cane instead. So you would just go up your rectangle states and then make a curve. And then when you do the topping pieces of your crust, you would put them in the stripe at the angle to make it look like a candy cane.
Heidi Kaisand 7:59 Oh, you're so smart. That is so cute. And there's there's so many things like that, that we can take just the fun, you know things that we're already going to be eating and just add a little bit of creativity to it and to make it different. Do you have any other great ideas for having fun with some of the food that we're serving?
Anne McMillan 8:20 Absolutely a couple of really easy ones if you're making a relish tray, which is such a popular thing to add to a meal. When you're doing that assemble, use the greens of the relish tray, the broccoli, the celery and make a Christmas tree. And then you can use things like tomatoes and strips of peppers to make the ornaments and Garland's so that's a really fast addition for a rally stray. Another really fun one is if you have children or grandchildren, and you're going to make pancakes, it is super easy to make some Rudolph pancakes by making your round face for the batter, but then using maybe some chocolate chip and for eyes and a piece a strawberry for the nose. So food can be really fun. And it doesn't take much time. And sometimes it adds conversation other times it just brings a smile to somebody's face for that day.
Heidi Kaisand 9:15 Yes. Now, when you were talking about pulling menus, you said that for your immediate family, you like to do appetizers and is that kind of I think a lot of us have I know I know we do in our family and and for those of you who haven't heard and on the show before with me we are cousins, more like sisters I would say but the you know we have we do have food traditions. And so appetizers has been comped become something of a tradition for your immediate family for gathering Wouldn't you say?
Anne McMillan 9:52 We we have done the appetizer tradition for probably at least the last dozen years. It kind of started When the kids were younger, they didn't want to sit down to a big heavy meal. They wanted to graze over our tradition of when we celebrated our personal family. And we've, we've also sometimes added fondue, which is again, small bite. But I actually get every person in the family gets to request one favorite appetizer. And then I fill in with the rest, and I and I balanced it out. So it's things that can be made or served or enjoyed over, you know, four to six hours, well, maybe we're opening gifts, or maybe we're delivering goodies to neighbors and, and just make it a fun part of activity and it makes it a little bit more fluid.
Heidi Kaisand 10:39 Oh, absolutely. That sounds like so much fun. You and I both grew up with some certain food traditions. In our family and Christmas Eve was always a, an evening that we spent at our grandma Moore's house, and excuse me, like a chicken gravy over biscuits is what we always served. And there's such memories that are associated with those foods. And you know, I always think that's, it's interesting that when I when even even if somebody else makes their own version, I go back my mind immediately goes back to, you know, to what we grew up with. And it's fun how those traditions and those foods can trigger really good memories.
Anne McMillan 11:25 Absolutely, yes. Yeah. A food should be a happy spot in your in your memory bank.
Heidi Kaisand 11:32 And I think it is for most of us. Absolutely. And do your kids have? Do they choose the same favorite appetizers every year?
Anne McMillan 11:41 I would say our son and my husband Yes. They I can almost guess what they're going to say they want their traditional Hot Hamburger dip that's in our cookbook it and then the little smokey wrapped up in crescent rolls. Yeah. But my daughter is an absolute wildcard. She is very much a foodie. And so you never know what her request will be. Bacon Wrapped chestnuts has come up before. Now she's venturing out a little bit to date. You know, stuff dates wrapped in bacon. She likes bacon, though. I guess I could say, oh, and bacon is so versatile. To make for a really fast appetizer to
Heidi Kaisand 12:23 Oh, absolutely. Well, I've got to switch gears just a little bit because we could we could of course talk about food and memories and all that but in your job as a Pampered Chef, consultant, you you're you're just I'll say surrounded by food and the tools and all those kinds of things. I'm so curious if there is a trending kitchen tool for this holiday season.
Anne McMillan 12:50 So a trending kitchen tool.
Heidi Kaisand 12:54 Or what's the what are people wanting?
Anne McMillan 12:56 Yeah, flying off the shelves. Heidi for people, whether it's a household of one or a family of many, the deluxe airfryer continues to literally change the cooking world because you don't have to heat up big ovens for lots of things. So I would say if people haven't invested in a great select their fryer, that's what I would pursue as a trending thing. But then a seasonal trend is the baking items always come to the forefront our famous brownie pan which is the individual squared brownies and a bite pan now the cookie scoops of all different sizes. This season is is that that pastry Matt We're cutting out cookies on. Those are the things that really trend but if you wonder about the trending appliance, hands down it would be a deluxe airfryer something that does more than just their
Heidi Kaisand 13:47 fries. Yes. And and I can tell people that we have that Deluxe airfryer and it is I would I bought it for a couple of different reasons. One it dehydrated. And Henry with some of his deer meat was making you know a lot of deer jerky and I I did not want to see the wires. They were hanging it in the oven and I mean it was just a mess. And I thought I saw that you could do that and the recipe looks so simple. And it was they loved doing the jerky in the deluxe airfryer but it's also great for other things and there is something so simple and easy about it. That that is simpler than the having the big oven going anyway but we we love it at our house we use it almost daily almost daily. We probably could use it daily if we were actually home and cooking.
Anne McMillan 14:43 Absolutely yes. And I and I have a lot of people that are of the you know a generation or two older than us that are downsizing that that has become so vital for them because it fits a small knife casserole dish it you know they can cook cook he bakes cookies in it as at the time and then of course, use the airfryer setting too. So it really would be the trending product for sure.
Heidi Kaisand 15:07 Oh, yes. Well, I'm sure there will be lots of kitchen elves out there asking for asking for that. But we're gonna take a quick commercial break, and we'll be back right after this. This is Heidi Kaisand from hen and chick studio in Conrad.
Heidi Kaisand 16:09 it hen and chick studio at 101 North Main Street and Conrad schedule retreat today and come make some memories with us online at hen and chick studio.com. Bear with us one minute, is that better? There we go. Sounds a little better. On my end. There's you know, technology is one of those things that we love. Because it allows us to do so many things. But sometimes there are little issues. So bear with us. And thank you for any weird noises this morning as we're working that out. We're having fun talking with Ann McMillan. She is a Pampered Chef consultant. I will put the link of her website in our follow up to all of this and on our website so that you can if you're interested in anything that we've talked about this morning with consider concerning Pampered Chef that you have access to that. And and I have to ask because what are we two weeks out just a little over two weeks out from Christmas? Is it still possible for people to order an item and have it delivered by Christmas?
Anne McMillan 17:22 Yes, absolutely. Heidi, in fact, you have an entire another week. Our holiday deadline is going to be the 15th at midnight this year for regular delivery. And we're doing really great on that. It's it's coming out as planned. Now yesterday, the country wide outage kind of disrupted things for a while. But our website's back up and running fine. And you have a whole week to stop. Yep. Well, that
Heidi Kaisand 17:47 is good news. Because Kyle and I were talking about this before we went on air that, you know, goodness, that the time is fleeting to get to Christmas, and where are we going to go shopping and all of that. And I think there's there's so much how do I say? Not? We can't depend that if we go to a store? In some cases we can. But I mean, in some, some stores, some items are not always there. And so before I run around looking for something, I probably will look in some cases for for those items online, to make sure that I can actually get them.
Anne McMillan 18:25 Yes, that's a really common trend. And I I'm really happy to say I was just at your store last week, and that's really well stocked, so you're not running out? No, we have our cookbooks for sale. And we have exactly one product right now from Pampered Chef entire line that we can't get. So there's a lot of a lot of problems out there, I'm sure.
Heidi Kaisand 18:48 Oh, yeah. So it's always it's always interesting. I know we have a lot of people wanting are the new Alessio irons, and those are back ordered. And we're trying to you know, just take a list of people who are wanting them, but it'll probably be after Christmas before they arrive. But yes, we do have lots of gift ideas. And in fact, we we've even got a whole webpage that's hen and chicks studio.com/gift idea of things so that people are wanting to know what they can give for the last minute in the last minute or a certain dollar amount. They can go to that page and look for those ideas. And again, one of those items is our second harvest cookbook. And this has just been a wonderful project from our heart, our mothers, our mothers or sisters. And there's there's three of them, and three girls, three sisters. And in 1996, they created a cookbook, two peas in a pod three, three peas in a pod excuse me that you say that wrong? And so then what has it already been two years ago? And I think it is, yeah, two years ago, two years ago. So each of Those three sisters has a daughter, and myself and our cousin Chari. And so the three of us the next generation decided to update, freshen add to put our own twist on that cookbook, it is called Second Harvest. And it is available for $14.95 Plus tax and shipping depending on where you're at. But you can buy it at home sweet home in St. Ansgar, Iowa, obviously hidden chick studio in Conrad and and sells it locally, where she's at in an independence Iowa, so you can get it in on on our website, as well. So lots of different things that different ways that you can get the cookbook and it is a great stocking stuffer or gift for somebody who's wanting some inspiration for the holidays.
Anne McMillan 20:56 Absolutely, yes. And
Heidi Kaisand 20:57 I know there's a couple recipes that are always favorites. And when you talk about appetizers, one of the recipes, the mid Midwest corn dip, the first recipe in the appetizer chapter is always a highlight for my girls, we got hooked on that one and goodness gracious, we can hardly have an event without that, because it's so good. It's so good. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And so as you start thinking about the holiday cooking ahead of you, and are you thinking that you do you do try to do a certain amount of cooking in advance and freeze it or, or refrigerated? or do any of those kinds of things? Or do you try to do everything the day of or the day before the event.
Anne McMillan 21:45 So two different categories of that, Heidi, the baked goods, I you know, have learned over the years and people have given the other tips of which baked goods freeze really well. So I tried to do those things that have the time because you just run out of time and you don't want to be stressed, you want this to be a fun festive time of year. So if you're a baker and you want some holiday cookies and candies and things, you know, get started now and put those in your freezer, then when it comes to our, our our meals are things like our appetizer night, or if we're going to find you or if we're making the cream chicken and biscuits, like we grew up with, that the the chicken part could easily already have been cooked in off the bone and in the freezer. And then you could just make it that day. I'm a big proponent of doing things ahead that you can do that doesn't alter the quality of the results. Because it saves you time and stress. But I also think there's less weight. When you are organized, there's less waste, because you're making exactly what you know you need to do.
Heidi Kaisand 22:50 I would agree with that. Absolutely. And I think that was something over the years that we watched our grandmother, she literally was cooking the chickens, the you know, and everything the day of you know, Christmas Eve, and it was a lot of work. And as she aged, and you know, and our family, you know, grew and changed and all those kinds of things. It became we'd start talking about and you know, getting that done earlier. So that that wasn't a stressful event, the day of of the actual meal that we were serving. So being being organized that way can be great.
Anne McMillan 23:31 Absolutely, yes. And that's I've thought for years, I've never done prime rib for Christmas. But I often think that's why a lot of families do because it's one of those things that you can put in and kind of forget it. You don't have to worry about it. Yeah. Doesn't take last minute.
Heidi Kaisand 23:44 Yes. Well, goodness, we could be I'm sure talk about food all day. I'm so glad that you hung in there with us today during our little technical issues. And everybody have a Merry Christmas. And shoot. Be sure to stop by hen and chicks studio in Conrad. And until next week. Be creative