Yesterday was bread baking day.
I wasn’t in the best of moods when I started. In fact, you could say I was downright grumpy (another story).
When I took the first baked loaf out of the pan, my ocd-ish personality wasn’t pleased, and now, even more grumpy.
I took the photo, sent it to our daughter, and told her about my mood.
Her reply was, “Oh Mom … bread knows, and it’s manifesting you!”
With that, I cracked up laughing and got on with my day.
By the way, the other two loaves came out perfect.
“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight…
[Breadmaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells… there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of
meditation in a music-throbbing chapel. that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.”~ MFK Fisher The Art of Eating
My Christmas gift to myself this year was a raclette grill.
A part of my heritage is Swiss and many years ago, I enjoyed a raclette evening at the home of a nurse friend and colleague who had, as a young teen, immigrated with her family to Canada from Switzerland.
The evening and the meal was so enjoyable that, over the years, it was never far from my mind whenever I was planning to entertain.
This year, I finally purchased the grill and planned the meal for Christmas Eve with hubs’ brother and his wife.
It was relaxing and enjoyable. Each person grilled whatever they wanted from the variety of foods available, and the raclette cheese was constantly melting in the little shovels that sit under the grill.
Missing in my feature photo are the cooked baby potatoes and cooked mini carrots. There was no room on the table for them. The little ramekins on each plate held individual carrot salads.
The melted raclette cheese was rich and smooth without the long strings like melted mozzarella would have, and was a perfect topping for the potatoes.
It was a brand new dining experience for everyone but me. It was a brand new food prep experience for me.
We’ll definitely do this again, and often!
Last week, I made my annual Christmas macarons.
I make these every year as a part of our Christmas gifts to our friends here.
I decided this year to paint them with edible glitter paint. This was all good and well, until I discovered that the food grade paint brushes I purchased, were too thick for the designs I wanted.
I persevered. The red ones have a vanilla bean ganache filling. The painted tops were “supposed” to be gold ribbons and bows. Instead, they came out looking like mahjong tiles.
The white ones have peppermint white chocolate ganache filling. They’re “supposed” to have holly wreaths painted on them. They’re close, but not what I had envisioned.
The green ones have a rum/dark chocolate ganache filling and the painted designs are “supposed” to be abstract Christmas trees. Oh well.
The good news is, they came off the mats beautifully, they matured to the perfect consistency, and all of the fillings are delicious.
As the old saying goes, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.
Hubs is Norwegian as far back as he can trace his roots on both of his parents’ sides.
One of their typical pre-Christmas activities is to make lefse, a Norwegian flatbread made with mashed potatoes and flour.
My mother-in-law made beautifully thin and soft lefse. In their family, good lefse is defined in comparison to their mom’s. She taught me how to make it, and I passed the skills on to our daughter, who will, in turn, teach both of our grandchildren.
I hadn’t made lefse since we started coming to Texas, but decided it was time, so purchased all of the equipment and yesterday, made a big batch (192 rounds), along with my sister in law, Lori. Hubs’ brother is also wintering in our park now and he loves lefse too. Lori had never made it before so wanted to learn and practice every step.
This was our Christmas gift to our guys.
It’s not an easy task and took us 8.5 hours of rolling and frying to make the amount we did. My feature photo is one stack of many we made yesterday. This amount used a 10 lb (4.5 kg) bag of potatoes.
One Christmas, many years ago, my mother in law famously made lefse from 100 lbs (40.5 kg) of potatoes!
The two- day process involves:
December 1st is traditionally when I start my Christmas cookie baking. It’s when my mom always started hers, so I guess the date is firmly ingrained in me from an early age.
I bake the cookies that both of my grandmas and my mom made over the years, plus I always add a few of hubs’ faves from his memories of his mom.
My feature photo is of sugar cookies – a must every Christmas.
Each year, we exchange gifts with friends here in our park, and my gifts always include a selection of my home made cookies.
Carrying on with my prepared salads reviews:
This one is by Marketside and is called Spinach Dijon.
Ingredients: spinach, eggs, shredded Monterey Jack-Colby Cheese, chow mein noodles, almonds, sweetened dried cranberries, and sweet onion dressing.
The dressing is just sweet enough to cover the earthy taste of the spinach.
This salad is one of my faves in the line. If you like raw spinach, you’ll love this one!
This salad, by Marketside (a WalMart brand), and very likely sourced from Taylor Farms has a fresh, and only slightly sweet flavour, despite the sweetened ingredients.
This one has: Spring mix (leaf lettuce and arugula), feta cheese, herb seasoned flatbread strips, sweetened, dried cranberries, candied walnuts, and raspberry vinaigrette dressing.
Although arugula isn’t among my fave greens, the sweet bits in this salad nicely mask it.
Yesterday, I finally found enough time to get back into my macaron groove again.
I especially enjoy making them when we’re in Texas because there are so many special occasions we’re here for, so I can make a great variety. Our friends here also enjoy them, so there are several birthdays to make them for as gifts.
I wanted to make these for Halloween but we’ve been extremely busy since we arrived, so, because I brought the candy corn with me from Canada, I decided to make them anyways. Hopefully they’ll be acceptable as my dessert contribution for our table at the big Thanksgiving pot luck here in our park.
Each winter, we eat far more salads than in the summer.
Why? It’s because prepared salads are abundant here in south Texas.
Taylor Farms makes a variety of single serving and double serving salads.
The part we enjoy the most, is that we can enjoy a variety of salads without having to buy all of the ingredients separately and then risk them going to waste if not used in a timely manner.
For the next few “foodie Friday” posts, I’ll feature and review different pre-made salads that we enjoy.
My feature photo is of the single serving Everything Chopped Salad from Taylor Farms.
Ingredients: Romaine lettuce, grilled white meat chicken, carrot, red cabbage, sharp white cheddar cheese, cheese and garlic seasoned crouton crumbles, everything bagel seasoning, and ranch dressing. *No synthetic colours or high fructose corn syrup*
These salads, available at WalMart, come in a disposable plastic bowl, but I prefer to plate them.
My review: I love that all of the ingredients are separated in the packaging, so nothing is soggy. This one had great flavour and crunch. Although they contain some cooked chicken, don’t expect more than a tablespoon or so of small cubes of meat in the single serving size. The cheese adds extra protein.
At under $3 USD, it’s good bang for your buck.
Radically Retired 