My Favorite Holiday Things

Isn't this a lovely table? My friend M has exquisite taste and she does such good Christmas baking. I beg her for her chocolate gingerbread recipe every year!!!! Her home is light and airy and full of her beautiful art.

She invited a group of us over for tea and treats and I parked myself in front of the goodies and chowed down.


M made her own yogurt from scratch which she served with her own apple sauce and maple syrup. I hadn't eaten breakfast because I was working on a grant again, so this was just what the doctor ordered.

These delicate cookies have ricotta in them, so they're really quite healthy, right? Ha! This was the best holiday breakfast club ever! Now that I'm over my migraines (fingers crossed), I am in a festive mood. One more shopping trip for me and then I'M DONE!!!!!

Beekeeping is Multi-Tasking

We've had some crap weather lately and it's made me worry about the bees. Any time the wind calms down and the rain stops they are foraging like crazy, but I don't want them to go hungry. This afternoon as I went to clip some chard in the back yard for dinner I saw the bees were flying about. Even though I was in the middle of preparing supper I quickly mixed up a batch of sugar water and defrosted a pollen patty from the freezer by putting it on top of the warm stove. There I was, stirring the pasta sauce in my beekeeping suit. Oh la la. As soon as the sugar dissolved and the patty was room temperature I opened the hive and fed the ladies in record time. I noticed that they are running out of room, which is a good sign. Tomorrow we'd better get out there and put on more frames.

Kinder is hopping around today. At least I don't have to carry him to the bathroom. He's getting too heavy for that. He was also in a much better mood today. Yesterday he was moaning and whining, declaring "I'll never be able to walk again in my life!" What a drama queen. We'll have to look into getting him some crutches for a couple of days.

I have an Easter hangover. Too much chocolate and wine and then there's the sugar withdrawal too. Sigh. So I made two pans of blondies with white chocolate chips. I made one pan with cashews and the other with hazelnuts. This would be a good recipe to make with young children as it's about as basic as baking gets. It also satisfies my chocolate chip cookie craving when I can't eat migraine-inducing chocolate. I think the chewy hazelnut version, made with the nuts crushed into halves is my favorite.

The Bunny with the Shiny Eyes

I hopped down to the Baker's Market on Saturday looking for Easter novelties. This little bunny is filled with chocolate caramel sauce. Pop it in the oven for a few minutes until it looks like it's about to cry and then you know filling is melted it's ready to be gobbled up.

There were Belgian waffles and vegan cupcakes, decadent blondies and cookies of all kinds. I filled up a bag and slipped in a few treats for myself before heading to Thomas Haas to get a few chocolate eggs. I have such great memories of waking up to find Easter treats that I had to do the same for kinder.

We headed to the in-laws for baked ham and deviled eggs. I think the eggs were a low-calorie version this year. They seemed to contain distinctly less mayonnaise. Hmmm. I think I'll have to make some this week to really get past that craving I was building up for them.

The trilliums are blooming, but the weather is still overcast, chilly and just plain gloomy. When we've been in Europe the shops pull out all the stops for Easter, but this year I found the displays here really sad and you were lucky if you found a broken moldy rabbit for 50 percent off tucked in some bargain table in a sad corner.

Who would think I'd complain about the lack of capitalistic excess? A few colored eggs is all I ask for! Enduring symbols of rebirth and income tax season being almost over.

We don't eat ham much, so once a year is enough for me. We were given some to take home with us so today I made a post-Easter soup with beet roots and greens, split peas and ham.

Today the kinder had to stay in bed because just as we were heading home last night he twisted his foot. Ach du lieber. One minute P's sister is creaming us at Scrabble and the next, Ules is screaming in pain.

I didn't want to leave him alone in the house today while I went to get groceries so we had the hearty soup and Thai take-out for dinner. A strange combination, but when you're a hungry bunny, it tastes good.

Chai Shortbread and Cherry Almond Truffles

Here I am, catching up on my Christmas baking posts. These are the chai shortbread cookies I like to make because the smell of the baking spice masala really makes me think of Christmas. This year I ground up the cardamon by hand so that you get hits of it in certain bites of the cookie. I also made a chocolate version, substituting melted dark chocolate for some of the butter in the recipe. One of my relatives is allergic to wheat, so I made one batch with spelt and rice flour.

For the chocolate truffles, I learned from a chef that you need to blanch the almonds to make almond paste so because moisture content is very important. Roasting the almonds makes the oils "split" from the meat. So here I just put about two cups of almonds in a pot of boiling water to cover.
After five minutes, you drain the water, pour cold water over top, and drain again. As you can see here, it's easy to pop the nut meat from its skin. In fact, f you're not careful the nut can fly across the room when it pops out of its skin. Ules helped out with this.


I didn't measure anything exactly, just put the blanched almonds in the food processor and added honey, dried cherries and kirsch to taste until the mixture was sticky and I could form marble-sized balls with it. I used about 1/3 cup kirsch, 2/3 cup dried cherries and 1/3 cup honey. I didn't cook the mixture because the chocolates aren't meant to have a long shelf life. (Keeping them refrigerated also helps them last longer.)

Once again, I didn't fuss withe tempering the 70 percent cocoa solids Baker's chocolate. I just nuked it until most of it was soft, then stirred it until the rest of the chunks dissolved. (I think I did actually manage to fluke out and achieve temper this time.) I didn't dip the chocolates the way you are supposed to--just rolled the almond paste balls in a shallow bowl of melted chocolate and placed on waxed paper. This just saves time and none of the chocolate is wasted, however in the end the shells were a bit too thin. Next, I popped the chocolates in the back porch (in lieu of a fridge) to firm them up. The flavors in the almond paste actually meld and tastes better after a few days, so making the paste ahead of time would be a good option for next year. You could use orange peel and Grand Marnier to flavor the almond paste, you could use walnuts or hazelnuts instead of the almonds--there are lots of possibilities. I'll confess I tasted so many kinds of marzipan chocolates this month before making these that I could barely eat them. Which in my case, is probably a good thing!

Peppermint Bark

I admit that I used to hate mint combined with chocolate, but now I like it, especially at Christmas. I find white chocolate marries particularly well with peppermint. We are giving away bags of goodies this year and so we decided to make a mixed white and dark chocolate bark. I happened to find a box of organic candy canes (hello?!) and organic peppermint flavoring. The chocolate was Baker's because we are on a budget, but for a treat the dark chocolate was 70 per cent cocoa solids. I'm sorry, I decided not to temper the chocolate. If I win the lottery I'll buy one of those chocomatic appliances that keeps the melted chocolate in perfect temper-- until then, if it melts in your hands, just lick it off!

We put the candy canes in a plastic bag and banged it up with a rolling pin.

I used a package of white chocolate and three squares of the dark chocolate, melted seperately in the microwave and sprinkled with a bit of the peppermint flavoring--a little goes a long way. All you do is pour the white chocolate in first, spread it evenly over the waxed paper and dollop the dark chocolate on top. I didn't make a pretty swirly pattern, but you could. Sprinkle the candy cane bits on top and put it in the refrigerator until it firms up.

Then you break it into pieces by hand and put it into cellophane bags. We kept some for ourselves and Ules and I have been fighting over it all morning.

Merry Christmas everyone!