One More Baking Day 'Til Christmas

Like most folks, we’ve had a busy day today.  We started off our day at Wal-mart getting prescriptions refilled, groceries bought, and selecting the last few items on the gift list.  We thought going early would be less crowded, but not so.  We were there so long, the mad rush of the early morning was gone by the time we were ready to check out.  Probably would have been better to have waited until mid-morning.

After a quick lunch, it was hair cutting time.  Gene was way overdue for a trimming.  He gets to the way overdue stage because hair cutting is not my favorite thing to do and I can find all kinds of excuses to put it off.  No putting off today; Christmas is just around the corner.

Chocolate Peppermint cookies, almond bark, and
chocolate covered peanut clusters

Then it was on to the cookie baking.  For years, my mother and I have had a cookie baking day.  Last year I realized those days would have to slip into the category of great Christmas memories.  It’s just too much effort and exhausts her too much now.  Neither can she follow a recipe too well anymore.  Tomorrow, she and I will make a couple of sweet treats together, but it will be nothing like those huge holiday baking extravaganzas we used to do.

Later this afternoon, we went over to see Jack, Ansley, and Kayley.  It was good to see them.  Kayley is all excited about getting presents and she was anxious to show us the things she got at daycare.  She’s not quite old enough to understand the whole Christmas thing yet and doesn’t get that the presents, the Christmas tree, and Santa are all connected.

We want to welcome our newest followers, Michael and Dee at Gone RVing!  They, like us, full-time in a Class C.  We’re glad to have Michael and Dee tagging along.

Now, it’s time to make those bon bons.  Oh, by the way, the holly jollies are back and we hope you have a holly jolly Christmas Eve.  Thanks for tagging along.

The Smells of Christmas

This is the last cooking day before Christmas and it sure smells good in our house.  Baking creates the best smells, I think.  We started the morning out with biscuits.

Since biscuits have a pretty high death by heart attack factor, we don’t have them often.  But Christmas is special.  As a child I spent a whole lot of time at my grandparents.  That was before the days when they discovered biscuits caused heart attacks.  We had homemade biscuits every morning without fail.  The best part about biscuits is the molasses and butter.  I watched my grandfather plop a pile of butter on his plate, pour on a thick layer of Bob White molasses, mix it together with his fork and smear it on a hot biscuit.  I never forgot how to do that and he would have been proud to see me replicate his very motions this morning.

Just as the last biscuit smells were vanishing, the cake smells took their place.  I’m not especially fond of coconut cake myself, but it may be my mother’s favorite cake and thus a Christmas tradition in our household.  We usually spread the joy of making it around.  This year was my turn.  We have come down from our lofty heights in making this cake.  There was a time when we went all out.  The most complicated recipe we tried was one found in a Southern Living cookbook maybe 20 years ago.  It was the standard white layer cake, but with a lemon filling between layers.  I made this stately cake first since I found the recipe.  The next year I was more than happy to pass it off to mother to make and in turn the next year she was more than happy to pass it off to her sister-in-law to make.  The cake had 3 nine inch layers.  My aunt only had 8 inch pans.  Not a year goes by that we don’t laugh about her “stately coconut cake” that was taller than it was wide.  That was the last year we made that cake.  We have digressed so much from those days that today I made a Duncan Hines box cake in a 13 x 9 pan.  I will put a 7 minute icing on it, but I’m not grating fresh coconut.

Several years ago my mother started having a small family get togethers on Christmas Eve.  There were usually about 10 or 12 of us, but you would have thought it was the party of the year.  She went all out making heavy hors d’oeuvres served on her best silver and Christmas china.  Everybody got dressed up in their finest cocktail attire.  It was fun, but boy was it a lot of work.  As we got older, we looked for ways to make this event easier.  First came the store-bought hors d’oeuvres and serving plates that could go in the dishwasher.  Tonight we are having soup and hard rolls from the deli and sitting around the table in our blue jeans.  I think we have finally figured out what’s easy.  Besides, it’s the opportunity to be with extended family that counts, not how good the table looks.

Tomorrow, Gene and I will enjoy Christmas morning together before going over to help Kayley celebrate her first Christmas.  Next year will be more fun for her.  Mid-afternoon we will head back over to my parent’s for Christmas dinner.  All along the way, we will be counting our blessings.

To all of our readers, whatever your traditions, we wish a very merry, fun, and safe Christmas.

Cookies and Winter Camping

Well, mother and I got our cookies baked yesterday.  We have done this for a few years now and it is becoming one of those special traditions that we look forward to.  We got an early start and continued through the day with a short break for lunch.  We ended up with seven different cookies and a batch of chocolate dipped pretzels.  We threw in the pretzels because we had dipping chocolate left over from the cherry dipped cookies. Of course, with that many different cookies, we had to keep washing the mixing bowls and cookie sheets.  I think we had as many dishes to wash as we did cookies to make.

Gene, on the other hand, was ending up his winter camping trip to the Smokies.  I picked him up at the designated rendezvous site about 5:30.  He and the guys had a great time, even if it was bitter cold.  Just how cold was it?  I heard stories about frost on the inside of the tents when they woke up in the mornings, sleeping with fuel canisters in the sleeping bag to keep them warm enough to burn, sitting a cup of coffee down and coming back to find it starting to freeze, and ice on the trails.  They didn’t have a thermometer, but guessed the temps were in the high teens and low 20s at night.  In camp, Gene said he wore everything he took for the three-day trip.  They were lucky.  They camped low at Cade’s Cove campground.  They ran into some hikers who had camped high on the mountain at Russell Field.  Those guys were really cold at 15 degrees.  Burrrrrrr.

He’s made lots of progress getting his gear cleaned and put away, but the tent is still spread out in the living room.  It has to be completely dry to avoid mildew. I had forgotten what a mess it makes in the house trying to dry out wet gear.

Mother's violets are blooming.  Sort of a touch of spring.

We had planned to go for a short hike this morning.  I haven’t had a leg stretcher all week.  However, we woke up to rain.  Instead we’re gonna deliver those cookies this morning and try for a hike this afternoon.

Sweet Treats for the Holidays

During our time in Nashville each winter, we are usually invited to a number of social things and dinners or lunch with friends.  We also like to take a small gift to those hosting parties, the TTA newsletter party, and a few family members.  Tell me, is there anything better than chocolate for these small tokens of appreciation?

Today, was candy making day around here.  Over the course of about 30 years of candy making, I have settled on three items that have become my favorites--almond bark, peanut clusters, and truffles.  Besides being good, they are all very easy to make.

For the almond bark, I toast slivered almonds in a low oven until they are slightly golden.  After they are cool, I stir them into melted white chocolate.  I usually use the chocolate wafers that I get at Hobby Lobby.  White chocolate morsels available at the grocery are also fine.  Spread the warm mixture out on parchment paper in a layer about 1/4 inch thick.  When completely cooled, break apart into bite-sized pieces.

The peanut clusters are even easier.  Stir a can of salted peanuts into a pound of melted milk or dark chocolate.  Drop by spoonfuls onto parchment paper.  Allow to cool completely.  I put the chocolate in the microwave to melt.

The truffles are a little more involved, but still not complicated.  I found this recipe in the 2006 Taste of Home Best Holiday Recipes magazine.  In a microwave safe bowl mix 1 can sweetened condensed milk with 3 cups semi-sweet chocolate morsels.  Heat on 50% power until melted.  Stir in 1 tablespoon vanilla extract.  Chill this mixture in the refrigerator until it is cool enough to handle.  Shape into 1-inch balls.  Roll the balls in baking cocoa, flaked coconut, finely chopped nuts, and/or candy sprinkles.  How easy is that for something that looks so complicated.  This recipe makes 4 dozen.

Cookies are also a great gift.  I’ll get into the cookie making next week.

Now my focus is keeping Gene from eating all the goodies before they can be delivered.

Cookies Galore

I was just too tired last night to tell the story of our cookie baking day.  We got ‘er mostly done.  All together we ended up with 8 different kinds of cookies.  There are chocolates, and peanut butters, and sugars of many different varieties.  There was one we had to scrape.  Mother over heated the butterscotch chips in the microwave.  Since we didn’t have any more butterscotch chips, we had to abandon that cookie.

Emeril's Lemon raspberry thumbprint cookies

Another disappointment was the chocolate peppermint pinwheel cookies—a recipe I had seen Alton Brown make on his show on Food Network.  The cookies spread out all over the pan during baking.  The first pan full got too crispy because they were so thin.  I reduced the cooking time on the next pan full, but they were too limp and would fall apart when picked up.  That happened to be the bag Gene sat on when I got home, so they are now broken into much smaller cookies.  They taste very good and I like the recipe although they are a little more difficult to make.  The cookie dough is rolled into a log and sliced.  I think my problem was that I didn’t make my slices thick enough.

Forever Ambers waiting for their second
dusting of powdered sugar.

Mother has had a little difficulty with the chocolate chip cookies.  She decided a couple days ago that we had far too many cookies to make in one day.  To ease our workload for yesterday, she made a batch of chocolate chip cookies on Monday.  She related this story to me Monday evening, but I have now forgotten what caused the interruption which resulted in her putting twice the amount of sugar in the batter.  Of course, she didn’t realize it until the cookies were baked.  We added chocolate chip cookies back to our list and after lunch she mixed up another batch.  I was busy on the other side of the kitchen and not paying attention to what she was doing other than to make sure she wasn’t interrupted and to ask if she had included all the ingredients.  This batch of cookies also ran all over the pan during baking and crumbled all to pieces when she tried to remove them to a rack to cool.  Several hours later we discovered that she had used “light” margarine instead of the regular kind.  That probably caused that problem.  I talked to her on the phone this morning just as she was starting the third, and hopefully, final batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Wedding cookies, one of my favorites.

Besides the Alton Brown chocolate peppermint pinwheel cookies, I tried another new recipe.  This one I had seen Emeril Lagasse make on his show and they turned out wonderful.  It is basically a lightly lemon flavored sugar cookie with a filling of raspberry jam.  Very tasty and easy.

At the end of the day, we each had a nice variety of cookies to share with friends and neighbors.  Before I could even get the kitchen cleaned up she had taken a tray full to her neighbor.  We only dropped one cookie on the floor.  Of course, we were too busy to pick it up so it stayed there most of the day.  At one point I saw my mother crawling around picking up the big chunks.  She proclaimed as she pushed the smaller crumbs under the edge of the cabinet that “she would get the vacuum out directly”.  I left before that happened.  If she was as tired as I was, I suspect those crumbs are still there.

This morning, after a slow start for me, Gene and I went over to Opryland Hotel to the craft fair.  This is a month long event each December as part of their Country Christmas.  Since it is such a lengthy show, several of the crafters stay in the campgrounds here on Music Valley Drive.  Each winter we have several neighbors participating in the fair.  Our next door neighbor this year has a booth and she gave us tickets to attend.  We were thrilled, of course, especially since we had never been.  We enjoyed seeing everything and had a nice long chat with our neighbor while we were there.

The rest of the day has been filled with housekeeping chores.  We are planning an early dinner because we have been invited to our neighbor’s on the other side for conversation later in the evening.  Busy, Busy!

Let the Holiday Baking Begin

‘Tis the season to indulge in all those things we try to avoid for our good health during the rest of the year.  We (Gene especially) are quite fond of baked goods and at the top of the list might just be the chocolate chip cookie.  Today, I put a batch in the oven just as we sat down to our lunch sandwich.  By the time the sandwich was gone, the cookies were out of the oven.  There is nothing as good as a straight from the oven, melt in your mouth, chocolate chip cookie.

I enjoy cooking (and eating).  It must be my grandmother’s fault.  As my mother was growing up on the farm, she was assigned to house cleaning type duties, not kitchen duties.  Those jobs fell to her older sister.  As a result, when my mother married, she didn’t know how to cook.  It apparently was a handicapping condition in those days because she made sure I learned how to cook.  From the time I was big enough to stand in a chair without falling on the floor, I was doing tasks in the kitchen.  She was always a “working mom” and from the time I was in what would be called middle school now I was helping to prepare the evening meal.

My learning to cook went something like this—When I was about 12 years old, my mother would prepare a meal to be cooked in the oven (this was before the invention of the crock pot).  She would get it all together in a roasting pan and my job was to take it out of the refrigerator and put it in the oven to cook.  Easy.  As time when by,  I was given more of the prep responsibilities like adding already sliced and diced vegetables and a can of cream of chicken soup and give it a stir.  Then I could put it in the oven.  By the time I was out of high school, she could call from work and say we were having friends for dinner—“fix something”.

And I’m not the only one who learned to cook in the family.  My brother is an excellent cook—especially country cooking—barbeque, greens, and beans.  I have an uncle who is pretty handy with yeast breads and another whose talent lies in tenderloin—beef or pork.

There were always cookbooks around the house.  I am one to kind of skim a recipe and cook by the picture.  Sometimes that turns out okay, sometimes not, but I have really learned a lot about cooking using that method.  I still find a picture that looks good, decide I want to make it, shop for what I see in the picture, and am often totally surprised when I finally read the recipe.  Just this week, for example, I was shocked to learn that what I thought was squash in the picture was rutabaga in the recipe.  I don’t even know what rutabaga is.  I’m still gonna make it—with squash.

As far as I’m concerned, this is baking season.  It is the time to keep cookies in the house in case you see somebody who looks like they need a cookie.  It is the time to make banana bread and strawberry bread to give to the folks at the campground office or take to a friend.  And I always volunteer to make dessert for Thanksgiving dinner.  This year it will be buttermilk custard pie—a recipe that is always a hit that I got from my cousin, Carl.

From now until the end of the year, the sweet smell of fresh baked goods with accost our nostrils and perhaps those of our neighbors.  But after all—tis the season.