Christmas Cookie Prep – Done!
There was a time when I worked AND I was a mother, and I was a wife (still am) and I had other roles, all of which seemed to require at least a plate of cookies at every occasion, and often some kind of hors d’oeuvres as well. There was only one answer – be prepared! Like a good girl scout, I developed a strategy – do one or two cookies every day for about a week, then store them in storage containers and dig them out when you need them. The good thing is, you can buy these containers and pull them out once a year for a month for many, many years.
One of my earliest memories of Christmas cookies are of my mother and her best friend from university getting together once a year and making rosettes. I made my first rosettes when I graduated from college, sitting over pan on a stove burner, turning it up and then down, trying to get it to hold the perfect temperature, which it never did. Sometime around the 80’s there was a great fad for Fry Babies and Fry Daddies, and the Fry Daddy is just the perfect size for making rosettes, holding the perfect temperature.
This year, I did a hands-on seminar for a family group who wanted to learn how to make these. I am not sure it was a huge success. Everyone succeeded, but one said “I have learned how to appreciate YOU making them in the years to come.” A couple parodied my teaching technique (I am not such a great teacher) and I just figured it means they no longer have to be polite to me; I really am family, that’s what sisters do.
So I made them this week for my friend who hosts a big party every year for the ballet performers. I think of them as ballerina cookies, light as air, mostly made of air – wrapped in fat and sugar:
Rosettes – DONE.
Meringues, too, have that light-as-air feeling, and I am hoping the weather will stay crisp enough that they will not get chewy:
Still light, and melt-in-your-mouth, are the Russian Teacakes, snowy in powdered sugar:
Last, but necessary for color, are the stalwart sugar cookies, time-consuming and fiddly, but so good and so colorful:
Cookie prep – DONE!
Comfort Food: Corn Bread and Chili
While I was cleaning the kitchen and waiting for the last batch of cookies to bake, I whipped up a batch of corn bread for AdventureMan – no use in wasting a hot oven! It is a perfect, cold day in Pensacola. Perfect I say, because it really really is NOT fun baking Christmas cookies – or anything else – in a hot, humid kitchen. How did our grandmother’s and great great’s do it, especially in those voluminous dresses and no air conditioning??
The secret to truly great cornbread is to cook it in a cast iron skillet. You put the skillet in the oven until it is very hot, you take it out (using a pot holder, of course), melt a little butter in the pan, then pour the batter in. It will sizzle, and form a delicious crust. Pop the skillet back into the oven and in 22 minutes (at 425°F) your cornbread will be finished, with a toasty crust. If you want to guild the lily, you can swirl a pat of butter over the top, too.
AdventureMan dunks his corn bread in a glass of milk, which I find totally disgusting, but reminds him of when he was a little boy. It’s just a custom, I know, but I can’t look.
We have a pot of chili brewing, with the last of our home grown tomatoes:
The Qatari Cat is following AdventureMan around, telling him to lie down so they can take a snooze together . . . I think it worked. I can hear them both sleeping . . .
Tant de Brouillard – Foggy Morn in Pensacola
I learned a new word today, le brouillard, from a blogger who liked my Pensacola parade post. I always take a look to see, and this time, it was like taking a brief vacation to a place I love – the villages of France, and the morning market, or marche. His blog is My French Heaven, and he writes in French and English, good exercise for those of us who need to polish up our language skills. Warning: the photos on his blog are EXPLICIT. You will want to eat those oysters, vegetables and sweets right off the page.
He was waiting, this morning, for ‘le brouillard se dissipe’ and I smiled because on my way home from the early service this morning, I had to stop and take some photos of foggy Pensacola and the foggy bayou:
If, in the midst of this crazy time of the year, you can give yourself a small gift and a short virtual vacation, take a moment to have a cup of green tea and visit my friend Stephane at My French Heaven.
Favorite Things Restaurant Opens on Cervantes
“Have you eaten at Favorite Things yet?” our friend asked us.
“They have a restaurant?” I asked. I knew they had a little coffee shop and gifts, but I hadn’t heard they had a restaurant.
“Just opened,” he replied. “I took folks there for breakfast after church last Sunday. It was GOOD!”
So the next day we had to go, missing entirely the police shooting two burglars in our neighborhood.
I had driven by this place a million times, but I had never been in. It was cute, lots of unique gifts and good ideas, an old fashioned candy store and – a newly opened restaurant. Actually, they had just opened the previous Friday, this was still their soft opening while they work the kinks out of their system.
The dining room is cute, all different tables and chairs, all a country theme.
The menu offers a lot of options, breakfast options, sandwiches, entrees, local specialities. I overheard a manager talking it over with a long time friend; Favorite Things is associated with Jerry’s, next door, but “Jerry’s does all the fried food and we do all the rest!”
We ordered, then roamed through the store, looking at the gift offerings:
Oops! Food arrived while we were ooohing and aaahing over all the goodies.
AdventureMan ordered the soup and sandwich special with their gumbo and a turkey sandwich:
I ordered the Reuben sandwich on whole grain with a cup of the gumbo:
When I put the top on the Reuben, I saw something I really liked – look at all the grains on the top of the roll, and look at the whole grains in the chips:
We went back and tried breakfast, taking little-boy-Q with us, who was good as gold and ate everything with a fork except for the grapes. AdventureMan had a traditional egg special, little-boy-Q had parts of our meal and a fruit bowl, and I had the lachs and bagel breakfast, excellent, and I don’t even usually like bagels. Nice to know there is another good breakfast option near us.
Thanksgiving on the Bayou
The Thanksgiving venue changed this year. We all have families, families have struggles, and one of those struggles meant that the Thanksgiving celebration would shift to another home. Same cast of characters, same fabulous food, just a different location.
The organization is superb. Everyone has a part to play. Nieces and nephews arrive to assist in preparations, clearing the grounds, putting out tables and chairs, helping wherever they can. Cousins get to spend time together, catching up, as they work together. The aunts are all busy in the kitchens, cutting, chopping, baking, cooking, stewing, putting their best efforts into making the dishes everyone loves.
The guys do the turkeys. They may have help, but the turkeys seem to be the guys prerogatives. They also carry in the hams.
There are so many desserts that they won’t fit on one table. They won’t fit on two tables! When all the desserts are put on the tables, there are still back-up pies and cakes in the pie-safe behind the table!
Cousins fill glasses with ice; guest can choose lemonade, sweet tea or “un”
The tables groan with turkeys, hams and side dishes – beans and peas from the garden, corn bread, sweet potato casseroles, and more, much, much more:
There is fun for everyone – kayak rides, tractor rides, and ring toss:
There’s always a special room where babies can nap – this is a very child friendly celebration. This family loves babies and little ones, and encourages all the cousins to stay close. It’s always a full day, Thanksgiving, with much for which to give thanks. 🙂 When the great meal is over, people play, visit, walk, chat . . . and then sneak back for another taste of their favorite dish!
Celebrating Diwali in Pensacola
A friend shared a flyer with us and said “I thought you might be interested in this.” He was right – it was a celebration of Diwali, and it would take place in a nearby Presbyterian church.
First, though, we had to buy tickets, which meant finding the Indian grocery store. This was a really good thing, as AdventureMan wanted some good hot chutneys, and I was hoping I could find some of the dark chana dal that I used to buy so inexpensively in Doha and Kuwait, but found myself ordering from Amazon.com because I couldn’t fine them in Pensacola. I knew it! I just wasn’t looking in the right place!
My first Diwali was magical. It was held on Al Fardan Gardens, in Doha, and all the Indian families strung thousands of white lights and lined the sidewalks with votives, so it was like a fairy land. By this late in the year, it can cool down enough to make the thought of walking inviting. To walk among the lights and to stop here and there for some truly divine cooking was delightful.
Diwali in Pensacola? Whoda thunk it?
As it turns out, Pensacola has a substantial Indian population, tightly woven together and cooperating in times of celebration and times of sorrow. Last night was a little of both – the Diwali celebration had been planned and organized for several months, but a sudden death of one of the long time members on the day of the Diwali celebration saddened the day somewhat.
While all grieved, the show went on. Lots and lots of lively traditional dances, a few Bollywood numbers, and a wonderful sword dance that reminded us of similar sword dances we had seen in the Gulf, performed only by men, while these were performed by women.
After all that energetic dancing, we were ready to eat. Butter Chicken, chicken korma, dal, rice, all kinds of good things provided by one of the newer Indian restaurants in town, the India Palace.
I never dreamed when we came to Pensacola that there would be an opportunity to celebrate Diwali. 🙂
Fruitcakes and the Sun is Not Over the Yardarm
It is a nice, cool, wonderful day in late October, and today I am going to make the annual fruitcakes with my Mom’s old recipe. I always set a target date of 31 October, and try to make them somewhere in that week so they will have time to mellow in the refrigerator.
The recipe is my Mother’s, although she says she barely recognizes the result. I can remember as a little girl in Alaska sitting at the kitchen table and cutting dates with scissors, taking the seeds out and cutting the rest into pieces, and then the prunes. For a long time I was not fond of dates or prunes, LOL! They were STICKY!
Now, dates and prunes come in packets already pitted, and you can even buy date pieces (I don’t) so you don’t have to cut them up. The Cuisinart does a great job, makes all that cutting into small pieces a 10 second task. It takes longer to load and clean the Cuisinart than it takes to chop the dates and prunes.
I watch the stores for the candied cherries and citron, and use a lot. After all, it’s supposed to be a FRUITcake, isn’t it? The first one is ready by Thanksgiving. I make a few larger ones to use during the holidays, and several smaller ones to give as gifts, but only to people who really like fruitcake and won’t use it as a doorstop. They are dense, and heavy as bricks, LOL.
Yesterday, AdventureMan brought home a couple of his friends from the garden club. Wouldn’t you know, I had just poured a bottle of brandy over the raisins and microwaved them to soak overnight, so the raisins in the fruit cake would be plump and tasty. As they all walked in, the house reeked of brandy. I could imagine them wondering if Adventureman’s wife was hitting the bottle that early in the day. Not only was the sun not over the yardarm, but wasn’t even near.
I hope to have them all baked and wrapped and stored by tonight.
UPDATE: Mission accomplished 🙂
Foods a la Louisiane: Jambalaya
Did I tell you I collect cookbooks? One of the guidelines I use is that the cookbook have the name of a person attached to each recipe; if your name is on a recipe going into a book, you know you are going to be very careful that this recipe is really, really good.
I don’t remember buying this cookbook, but it is a gem. On the other hand, there have been some surprises . . . there is a recipe for making boudin, that ubiquitous Cajun sausage, and it starts off with “1 large hoghead.” The directions state that you boil the hog’s head until tender, let it cool, remove meat from bones, then grind hoghead meat with heart, kidney, onions, parsley, etc. in a meat grinder.
Thank goodness boudin is not a favorite of mine. Andouille, a spicier sausage, IS a favorite of mine and if I see a recipe for andouille, I am NOT going to look at it.
I love making jambalaya – and here is a genuine Louisiana recipe:
JAMBALAYA
1/2 cup vegetable oil or drippings
2 medium onions, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 medium green pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup chopped green onion tops
Water
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Red Pepper to taste
Pepper to taste
Browning agent or 2 teaspoons Kitchen Bouquet
2 lbs peeled raw shrimp
4 cups long grain rice
Heat oil over low heat in a heavy 6 quart Dutch oven until warmed. Add vegetables; saute until lightly browned. Add enough water to cover vegetables; add seasoning and browning agent. Bring to a boil; add shrimp. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. Stir in rice; cook 10 minutes. Cover and cook until rice is tender, stirring occasionally. Yield 10 – 12 servings.
I do jambalaya all the time (DISCLAIMER: I am neither a Louisiana native nor of Cajun descent, so what I do cannot be taken as authentic, even if it is tasty 🙂 ) and I use more spices, chopped tomatoes and I don’t add the shrimp until the rice is cooked; I add it at the end and give it five minutes for the heat of the rice and cooked ingredients to cook the shrimp. We also use andouille sausage (or a turkey sausage if we are entertaining Moslem friends) and some cut artichoke hearts, maybe a small jar of pimentos, maybe some leftover peas. Sort of like a jambalaya/paella 🙂
“That’s Just Not Right”
We are talking about taking in the new “ferociously exciting” movie Argo today, and having a bite to eat afterwards at Mellow Mushroom. AdventureMan likes their pizzas (you can watch them toss the dough in the air for the crusts) and I like their Portobello Reuben sandwich or sometimes their spinach salad.
“Law and Order Man always has pineapple on his pizza” AdventureMan said, “and every time he does, he says ‘I know there are people who think pineapple doesn’t go on pizza, but I like it.'”
We laugh. We know who he is talking about. It’s us. We have our ideas of what pizza is supposed to be based on our pizza experiences in Germany and Italy and France. Not a lot of sauce, not a lot of cheese, and a sprinkling of toppings – our very favorite being a seafood pizza we ate in Dinard, France, where they threw and handful of tiny still-in-the-shell creatures on and put it in the big, hot wood-burning oven and minutes later we had this thin crust pizza saturated with briny tiny sea creatures, cooked exactly right.
Pineapple on pizza – it just doesn’t seem right to us. I’m glad our son has the gumption to stick to his guns and have pineapple on his pizza if that is what he likes, but . . . not me. Never!
So we were laughing about our preferences this morning and AdventureMan says “that would be like putting pineapple on a peanut-butter sandwich” at which point . . . I stopped agreeing with him.
“That sounds sort of good!” I said thoughtfully.
“No! That’s just not right!” he almost stomped his foot. He will mix peanut butter with jellies, but for some reason, the thought of pineapple in his peanut butter is unthinkable.
I’ve heard of a sandwich Elvis loved, something like peanut butter and banana and bacon, all grilled together between two slices of bread . . . that doesn’t sound good to me, but then again, I haven’t had the courage to try one. I guess it might be the calorie count that also holds me back – fat on fat on fat, LOL.
Do you have any irrational food preferences? Or combinations that, in your perspective, are just not right?
Gasp! Look What Happens to Your Blood!
I am reblogging this from my friend GreY’s blog. He is a Kuwait blogger; we both started blogging at about the same time. He is, sadly, now battling cancer of the bowel, and has gone totally vegetarian. He posted this YouTube video that is horrifying, and shocking, and is going to make a big difference in the future choices I make:
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