Category Archives: Recipes

Chilly Today, Hot Tamale

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So, I’ve become obsessed with tamales.

There used to be a place near where I worked in lower downtown Denver that made delicious tamales. The old-fashioned kind that were wrapped in corn husks and sold for something like a buck-and-a-half each. I would occasionally walk over and get a dozen for my coworkers and me on a Friday morning. Sometimes I would buy a half dozen or so for a Sunday morning.

For the past few years that we have been coming here in the winter, I have looked for tamales such as these. Many of the Mexican restaurants offer tamales on their menu, but they weren’t quite what I was looking for. I wanted the tamales that were inexpensive, wrapped in those corn husks, smelling delightfully of masa, pork and chili. Restaurants offer tamales sitting on a plate covered in green chili. Probably good, but not what I wanted.

My sister-in-law made tamales for the Mexican feast she hosted on Sunday, and they were very good, filled with Monterey Jack cheese, spinach, and a green chili. I haven’t been able to get my mind off of them since that feast. So yesterday I went on a full-out internet search for someplace in the East Valley that sells tamales.

Eureka. I found Old El Paso Tamales, a little storefront shop near the heavily Hispanic occupied section of Mesa. The reviews were good, and I got my hopes up. I asked Bill if he was willing to take a field trip yesterday after we worked out (for the first time in a month – we deserved a reward). Not surprisingly, he was game.

About s 20-minute ride from our house, the shop was located in an area fairly unfamiliar to us. We found it easily enough, however. As we walked up to the door, I told Bill I probably would have been smart to call ahead and make sure they were open on Mondays. Sure enough, the sign said “Closed Mondays.” Still, it looked like there were customers inside, and indeed, the door was open. The nicest young man helped me as I ordered four tamales – two chicken and chili and two pork. We ate our chicken first, and they were delicious. Very spicy. When I bit into what I thought was the pork, I was surprised to bite into very sweet yumminess. “It tastes exactly like I’m eating an ear of really delicious sweet corn,” I told Bill. I figured out that while I asked for pork, what the proprietor heard was corn. I have never eaten a corn tamale, and it was surprisingly delicious. Sweet as candy.

Needless to say, we took some home to freeze.

Since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped at a large Mexican market called Pro’s Ranch Market. It seriously is like entering another country. The first sign that we weren’t in Kansas anymore was the chickens with intact heads in the meat case. That, and the cow hooves, tongue, and tripe. It was, however, a fun experience. I picked up some instant masa for a tamale-making experience I’m going to have with a friend in a couple of weeks.

Actually, the first sign that I was out of my neighborhood was when I got out of our car that was parked right next to a truck. Inside the truck, which had the windows rolled down, was a woman talking on a cell phone. As I walked by the truck, I heard her say, “Well, now that they have my fingerprints, they will find out about my drug charge.” There you have it. Why I never give my fingerprints…..

The Old El Paso Tamale shop proprietor gave Bill and me a sample of his green chili. I was surprised and happy to see that his green chili was made using ground beef. Ground beef is, of course, not typical in green chili, but it was typical of green chili in Leadville, where I first became familiar with Mexican food. My sister Jen makes excellent green chili with ground beef. Here is her recipe.

Jen’s Green Chili

Ingredients
1 lb. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
5-6 fresh, roasted green chilis
1-16 oz. can whole tomatoes
1 T. flour
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper

Process
Brown the ground beef with the chopped onion and salt and pepper. Drain grease. Place fresh chilis in the bottom of a blender. Add tomatoes to blender, along with a half a can of water. Blend for a few seconds. Add flour to ground beef and incorporate. Stir in tomato mixture, garlic, and pinch of salt and pepper. Simmer until flavors have blended, about an hour.

Nana’s Notes: I had never tasted green chili until moving to Leadville in 1973. Ground beef in the chili is the way my family learned to make it. It’s very unusual to run into it in a restaurant. The proprietor was very pleased that I commented on it favorably. The spiciness in the green chili is entirely dependent upon the chilis. Some are hotter than others. My family mostly likes it pretty darn hot. She always gets her chilis in the fall when they are roasting Hatch’s green chilis. Surprisingly, you can’t get New Mexico green chilis in Arizona. Or at least I haven’t found them.

Hey, Cuz!

Posted in Main Course, Meat Dishes, Recipes by

I have countless cousins. Well, that, of course, is not literally true. If I took the time, I could count them, thereby making them not countless. But my mother had 12 brothers and sisters that lived to adulthood, and she came from a good, Catholic family. So the 13 children resulted in many, many cousins for my siblings and me.

Most of my cousins lived in or around the area of Nebraska where we grew up. One of my mother’s brothers ended up in Minnesota, along with his large family, but the rest, as I recall, lived near us, at least as children. We rarely, however, gathered together as one group. We might gather one family at a time, but it was very uncommon for the entire family to gather, as it was quite formidable.

The one exception was our (almost) annual family picnic. We would get together, usually at a public park. Each aunt brought delicious picnic food; each uncle brought a more-than-sufficient amount of beer. Let the festivities commence! The adults would laugh and reminisce and gossip and drink and eat, getting livelier as the beer diminished. The kids would group together and run and play all sorts of games. The picnics were great fun. Even as adults, my sibs and I will occasionally talk about those picnics.

I thought about those picnics yesterday afternoon-into-evening as we were all together at yet-another celebration, this one a joint hullaballoo for my brother (with his year-end December birthday) and three of his children, with birthdays throughout January. My sister-in-law offered an amazing assortments of more unusual Mexican dishes – posole, menudo, and tamales made with Monterey Jack cheese, spinach, and green chili.

One thing about my Arizona family – if you give a party, they will come. And bring their kids. So much fun. So, the children – at least the ones joining us yesterday – ranged in ages from 8 to just over one month. Let’s see if I can get this right: one girl at 8, one girl at 7, two boys at 6, one girl at 4, two boys and one girl at 3, one girl at 1, and one baby girl just over a month. I think I’m close in those ages. You can sort of figure out how they paired up, though I did have occasion to see the 3-year-old boys playing with the 6-year-old boys. Or rather, the 6-year-olds were teasing the 3-year-olds mercilessly by keeping the ball away from them. Boys!

The weather was perfect – high 60s, so the kids played mostly outside, making up games as they went along. Later in the evening, one of my nephews lit up some logs in the firepit, and the inevitable cry, “Do you have any marshmallows”? rang out, to no avail, I’m afraid. Still, there was plenty of birthday cake to go around. For my part, I simply held my breath and prayed that none of the children would fall into the fire as they worked at finding a place to sit. Bill suggested he would dial 9-1 on his phone to be ready for the seemingly inevitable accident, which never transpired to my surprise. I missed my grandchildren immensely. They would have had fun with their cousins.

The whole scene made me think back on my days as a child with my cousins, as well as the days when all of my nieces and nephews gathered at my mom and dad’s house in Dillon, Colorado, every summer. The activities then were very similar. Cousins rock. They are like built-in best friends.

Until last night, I had never eaten posole. Posole is a soup made with pork and hominy (basically dried corn). The photo is stock, and is not of her soup. Most posole recipes use slowly-cooked pork shoulder as in the photo, but she used ground pork, which I thought was delicious.

New Mexican Style Posole from New Mexico Cookbook by Lynn Nusom

Ingredients
2 T. olive oil
1 medium-sized yellow onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, run through a garlic press
1 lb. lean, ground pork
1 t. salt
1 t. dried oregano
2 T ground cumin
1 c. chopped green chile
1 can (#10)white hominy, with the juice

Process
Heat oil in a frying pan, saute onion and garlic until soft. Stir in ground pork, add salt, oregano, cumin and green chile, and cook until pork is brown.Pour hominy (with liquid) into a large pot, stir in pork mixture and cook, covered, over low heat for at least one hour. Serve in soup bowls with Red Chile Sauce on the side.

Nana’s Notes: You may have noticed I said very little about the menudo. My sister-in-law didn’t make the menudo; she got it from a friend. I love all things Mexican, but I couldn’t make myself even try the menudo. The smell, donchaknow. Oh, and the pig’s hoof that was floating in it — a treat for my brother who enjoyed it with great relish. Well, it was his birthday celebration after all. As for the posole, Sami didn’t serve it with Red Chile Sauce on the side; instead, she used a seasoning mix she found in the Mexican section of the grocery store — a mixture of chili pepper and oregano and probably other spices. She thinks it was called menudo seasoning.

New Year, New Challenges

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When we arrive in Arizona right after Christmas, we surely do hit the ground running. We generally have a bit of a second Christmas with nieces and sisters, my brother’s birthday is Dec. 28, one great-niece has a January 1 birthday, a niece has a January 2, and then, of course, one of us hosts the family for a New Year’s Day bash. All fun. All involve a plethora of delicious food. Time to hit the gym. Big time.

But, as I already know, when you own a house, you also own all of the problems that come with home ownership. Yesterday we discovered that we have termites. Apparently, with all structures in Arizona, it’s not a matter of if you get termites, but when. We will have someone come out and look today, but, in the meantime, euwwww. I am thoroughly convinced last night as I lay in bed that I could hear them crunching! At least I could picture them, and that’s even worse. Oh well. Before I know it the problem will be solved and we will be onto the next house problem. At least it isn’t scorpions. Yet.

I have given a lot of thought about 2014 resolutions. I have read that the key to actually keeping the resolution is to be very specific. In other words, don’t say I am going to save more money in 2014; say I will put $25 every week into my savings account. So my general “I will be more generous, I will cook and eat healthier, I will be more prayerful” just don’t cut it.

My niece Kate (who will kill me if I don’t point out that she actually goes by Jojo, but will always be Kate to me) does an interesting thing when it comes to resolutions. Instead of drawing up her list each January 1, she does what she calls monthly challenges, and she makes them pretty difficult. After all, it’s only for a month, right? Yesterday it occurred to me that monthly challenges make more sense than meaningless yearly goals. So I guess you could say my new year’s resolution is to have monthly resolutions. Hmmmm.

Anyway, she assured me no challenge is too silly, so my first challenge will be to drink eight glasses of water every day this month. I drink virtually no water, and very little of anything else. I have three or four cups of coffee every morning and my glass of wine in the evening, and perhaps a sip or two of a diet cola if we go out to lunch. That’s pretty much it Folks. My son has said to me, “Mom, I don’t know how you even continue to live drinking so little fluid in a day!” But I have. For 60 years.

So there you have it. I will fill up a 64-oz. jug with water every day and by evening it will be gone. At least for a month. Kate promises when you do something for a month, it becomes a habit.

Here are some pictures of our feast yesterday:

One of the standing rib roasts on the grill (the other was roasted in the oven)…

My niece Brooke (left), my niece Jessie (with her head cocked), and their respective friends Alex and Jennie….

Bill carves the roast beasts, and he is a master carver!….

My two nieces Maggie and Kate. Maggie’s baby is due any minute now….

Our buffet…..

I’m going to have a glass of water. Then go to the bathroom. See ya.

Herbed Rib Roast from Epicurious.com

Ingredients
1 7-8 lb. prime rib roast (3-4 ribs)
1 T. whole black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 T. kosher salt
3 garlic cloves
1 t. chopped fresh thyme
1 t. chopped fresh rosemary
1 T. olive oil

Process
Grind peppercorns and salt to a powder in an electric coffee/spice grinder, then transfer to a mortar. Add garlic, thyme, and rosemary, pound to a smooth paste with pestle. Stir in oil. Rub paste over roast. Transfer roast to a rack set in a small flameproof roasting pan. Marinate, covered and chilled, at least 8 hours.

To cook:
Let roast stand at room temperature 1 hour. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Roast beef in middle of oven 20 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees and roast beef until a thermometer inserted into center of meat registers 110, 1-1/2 hours to 1-3/4 hours more. Transfer beef to a large platter and let stand, uncovered, 25 minutes. Meat will continue to cook, reaching about 130 for medium rare.

Nana’s Notes: Because when we all get together, we are a huge group, my sister (who hosted) had an enormous roast that she cut in two (three bones each). She marinated each the same way, but prepared one as above in the oven, and one on the grill. To grill, prepare your grill for indirect heat. Place an aluminum pan in the unheated area, put your rack over the pan, and place your roast on that area of the rack. Bring your grill to 375 degrees, and cook for about the same length of time. Don’t open your grill! Both were delicious.

Looking Back, Part II

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As I said yesterday, though I didn’t win the Nobel Prize for bringing about world peace, I think overall 2013 was a successful year for me. I had a couple of firsts and we experienced an amazing medical triumph.

This past year was the first time that Bill and I spent the entire winter in Arizona. Prior to 2013, we would come and go, perhaps staying for a couple of weeks at a shot (well, except for the time my body decided it needed to spend an entire month in the hospital, but it all turned out okay and that’s a blog post for another time). This past year we decided that since we both hate cold and snow, and since we have half ownership in a house in Arizona, why not bypass the bulk of the cold weather and enjoy the desert! I missed my family in Colorado, but overall it was one of the best decisions we ever made. We enjoyed lovely weather (mostly) and, since when God closes a door He opens a window, I was able to enjoy my brother and sister, nieces and nephews, and many, many great nieces and nephews. That’s why we’re doing it again this year!

March and April are probably the nicest months in the Valley of the Sun (though I have been enjoying the 70 degree days we have been having since we arrived a few days ago). My sister Bec and I did a fair amount of hiking in March 2013. In early April, my sister Jen arrived for a visit, and the three of us went for a walk one nice day. We were wearing flip flops since the decision to walk was last minute, and we were only going to walk a short distance on an asphalt path. At some point, we decided to leave the safe asphalt sidewalk and walk on a little dirt path down into the desert a bit. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. What could possibly go awry? We did indeed enjoy our little deviation as it was very scenic, up until the time that we heard the sound of a rattlesnake that had tired of his winter nap and was out and about earlier than most. Now, the rattlesnake made his characteristic noise in order to warn us of his presence. Upon hearing the warning, one is supposed to quietly back away and leave it far behind you. Unfortunately, there was no quiet backing away as far as I was concerned. I let out a loud yelp and made a swift and noisy exit directly into a bed of cacti. Remember the flip flops? I had cactus needles everywhere in my foot and on my flip flops. Oy vey. Bec, who has gotten me out of series of mishaps over the years, spent the next 15 minutes carefully pulling needles out of my feet as the rattler slithered off. My first rattlesnake sighting.

Undoubtedly the best thing that happened to us in 2013 was Bill’s reaction to a new medication he began taking in November. As of his last appointment two weeks ago, he is showing zero, zip, zilch symptoms of Parkinson’s. The doctor told him she has rarely seen such a quick and thorough reaction to that medication. He isn’t cured, and will need to increase his dose as time goes on, but as of now, we are enjoying his symptom-free life! God is good.

And speaking of good (it’s a terrible segue, I know), my spa experience yesterday was amazing, and another first. I have never been to an all-day spa. The Aji Spa in Chandler is beautiful, and I left feeling relaxed and happy. We checked in, were given our soft and cuddly robes, and enjoyed a 75 minute massage (including a full 20 minutes focusing only on my feet – heaven). We ate a healthy and unbelieveably delicious lunch (who knew it could be both?) along with our “tranquility cocktail.”

We spent the remainder of the day floating in the pool, enjoying the Jacuzzi, and relaxing in the sun enjoying each other’s company. Awesome.

All and all, it was a good day to top off a wonderful year.

Tranquility Cocktail
Ingredients
1 oz. Citron vodka
1 oz. pomegranate liqueur
Cranberry juice
Ginger beer

Process
Pour the vodka and liqueur into a highball glass over ice. Fill to about an inch from the rim, then top off with a splash of ginger beer. Serve with a lime, lemon, or orange slice.

Nana’s Note: The cocktail server told me the ingredients, but not the amounts. Those are a guess. I would guess you could use ginger ale instead of ginger beer. It was so refreshing and delicious!

Looking Back, Part I

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Whew. We are looking at the final couple of days of 2013, and as always, it seems to have gone by quickly.

Bill and I left Denver on Christmas Day after spending the final few days before we left with three-fourths of our children (the other living in Vermont). We had a lovely Christmas Eve dinner with the oldest, Allen, at McCormick and Schmicks, and felt like real grown-ups as we didn’t eat until 7:30.

Christmas morning we got into our already-packed car and headed south. Bill’s engineering mind kicks into full gear when he packs a car. He utilizes every square inch of the trunk and the back seat, leaving just enough room for our goodie bag.

The roads Christmas Day were very quiet. We listened to Christmas music as we headed towards our first stop – Albuquerque. We checked into the hotel early evening where I’m pretty darn sure we were the only guests. (Thankfully I didn’t see Norman Bates.) We have this down to a science. We always pack one little bag for just those things that we need for overnight – pajamas, meds, toothbrush, and toothpaste. This time we also had a bag with our Christmas dinner.

I knew there would be no restaurants open Christmas night, so, at Bill’s suggestion, I packed a picnic reminiscent of those we had when we traveled through Europe a few years ago. I had salami and prosciutto, several cheeses, some vegetables, and of course, a bottle of wine. It made for a nice little dinner.

I’m always nostalgic at saying goodbye to one year and looking forward to the next. First of all, it means we are getting older and so are our kids and grandkids. That’s the cycle of life, of course. But I also always wonder if I accomplished anything important during the past year, or was I just a slug, using God’s resources and breathing God’s air and not contributing a single thing.

As I thought about 2013, I finally concluded that I didn’t accomplish anything in the finding-a-cure-for-cancer type of way, but I certainly feel like it was a good year, full of joy and family (which are really one in the same for me).

Here are a couple of things that were important to me in 2013:

Largely because of my job, I was able to travel around the United States a great deal. There really aren’t many major cities that I haven’t been able to visit. But my job (or my life in general) had never allowed me the opportunity to visit Savannah, Georgia, and that was definitely on my bucket list. This year Bill and I spent a week with my two sisters on Hilton Head Island, and we visited Savannah. What a beautiful city and what a lot of fun we had! We even had the chance to dine at Lady and Sons Restaurant, which was definitely a bucket list item (my bucket list is pretty simple, my friends).

I started this blog. I have always loved to write, but while my job involved a lot of writing, it was all business writing, and largely boring. Approximately 22,000 new widgets will be produced this year as a result of a stronger commitment to the environment, it was announced today by CEO Joe Schmoe at a press conference announcing new widget production. And so forth. I wanted to enjoy writing, and this blog provides that enjoyment. I hope to continue to grow and reach more people, and welcome any and all feedback.

This year at Thanksgiving, my whole family was together – a somewhat rare occurrence. Our daughter and family spent the week in Denver, and the visit was culminated by a joyous Thanksgiving dinner. I showed the family photo the other day to one of my nieces. She looked at it, shook her head in amazement and said, “Aunt Kris, I can’t believe you have that family when you just had one kid.” True, true, true. I am so blessed.

Today I am spending the day with my two sisters at a fancy, dancy spa (where I will likely have to unveil my bare, oh-so-white legs). This is a continuance of my birthday celebration, as it is a gift from my sister Bec. Fodder for my blog, no doubt.

I will reminisce about 2013 more tomorrow.

Last night we watched the Call the Midwife holiday special, and in its honor, I fixed Shepherd’s Pie – a British specialty. Here is the recipe from Simply Recipes.

Easy Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients
1-1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1-2 c. vegetables (carrots, corn, peas)
1-1/2 – 2 lbs. potatoes (3 big ones)
8 T. butter
½ c. beef broth
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
Salt, pepper, seasonings of choice

Process
Peel and quarter potatoes, boil in salted water until tender (about 20 minutes). While potatoes are cooking, melt 4 T. butter in large frying pan. Sauté onions in butter until tender over medium heat, about 10 minutes. If you are adding vegetables, add them according to cooking time. Put any carrots in with the onions. Add corn or peas either at the end of the cooking of the onions, or after the meat has initially cooked.

Add ground beef and sauté until no longer pink. Add salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and half a cup of beef broth. Cook uncovered over low heat for 10 minutes.

Mash the potatoes in bowl with remainder of butter; season to taste.

Place beef and vegetable mix into a baking dish. Spread mashed potatoes over the top. Bake in 400 degree oven until bubbling and brown (about 30 minutes). Broil for last few minute if necessary to brown.

Nana’s Notes: I did not make mashed potatoes; instead, I bought the already packaged kind. Very easy. I used fresh carrots that I diced and frozen corn. The Call the Midwife special was awesome!

Grinch

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Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant
Around the whole room, and he took every present!
Pop guns! And bicycles! Roller skates! Drums!
Checkerboards! Tricycles! Popcorn! And plums!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then the Grinch, very nimbly,
Stuffed all the bags, one by one, up the chimney!
Then he slunk to the icebox. He took the Whos’ feast!
He took the Who-pudding! He took the roast beast!
He cleaned out that icebox as quick as a flash.
Why, that Grinch even took their last can of Who-hash!
Then he stuffed all the food up the chimney with glee.
“And NOW!” grinned the Grinch, “I will stuff up the tree!” – From How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

Well, today is Christmas Eve Day, and I feel like the Grinch. I’m going to spend much of the day taking down Christmas.

I am undecorating the house, of course, because we are leaving very early tomorrow for our drive to Arizona for the winter. I will start the day by cleaning out the refrigerator, throwing out every last thing that won’t last until we get back. Just like the Grinch. Then I will remove the ornaments and stuff the tree up into the attic (again, similar to the actions of the Grinch).

The winter of 2013 was the first in which we spent the entire first four months of the year in Arizona. Up until then, we had spent a few weeks here and there. Last year we committed. So taking down decorations Christmas Eve, packing up the car, and leaving Christmas Day is our new tradition. As long as the weather cooperates. This year it will.

As I approached Christmas Eve this year, I recalled a funny Christmas Eve tradition we had when I was a child. For some years, Santa came Christmas Eve night while we slept, just as tradition dictates. But at some point my mom and dad, for reasons unclear, decided Santa should come Christmas Eve before we went to bed. So, around 5 o’clock, we would pile into our car to drive around town and look at the Christmas light displays. Every year, Dad would have a reason to go back into our house, where he would spend a bit of time taking all of the presents that he and Mom had hidden in their bedroom and putting them under the Christmas tree. He would come out looking very innocent, and we equally innocently never suspected a thing. We would spend about an hour looking at lights, and would return to find that Santa had come to our house when we were gone!

I asked Bill yesterday if he remembers the feeling of coming into the living room and seeing that Santa had come. Despite his 71 years of life, he admitted that he remembers that feeling as if it were yesterday. What magic. He also shared that he remembers being 30-something and putting together bikes or game tables or scooters in his pajamas at 2 o’clock in the morning. “And there were always screws missing,” he recalled. No magic there.

Last night I made my own version of a Who Feast and our son and his family came for dinner and gift-opening. And a feast it was. Racks of lamb, shredded brussel sprouts with pine nuts and bacon, mashed potatoes, cream puffs for dessert. Yum. Sent the Who Feast leftovers home with the kids.

And gifts – dolls and pjs and sock monkeys and ornaments – lots of happy faces. Then goodbye to more grandchildren until we see them again.

Bill and I will be busy packing up our things today for our time in Arizona. Sad to say goodbye to this home, but happy to say hello to our other home.

Hope Santa finds his way to your house, and here is my recipe for the delicious brussel sprouts. Try them even if you think you don’t like brussel sprouts. They’re delicious.

Shredded Brussel Sprouts (from allrecipes)

Ingredients
½ lb. sliced bacon
¼ c. butter
2/3 c. pine nuts
2 lbs. Brussels sprouts, cored and shredded
3 green onions, minced
1/2 t. seasoning salt
Pepper to taste

Process
Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until crisp. Drain, reserving 3 t. grease, crumble and set aside.

In the same skillet, melt butter in with reserved bacon grease over medium heat. Add pine nuts and cook, stirring, until browned. Add Brussels sprouts and green onions to the pan, and season with seasoning salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat until sprouts are wilted and tender, 10 – 15 min. Stir in crumbled bacon just before serving.

Bake me a Christmas memory

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I have mentioned on very many occasions that my father (and my grandfather before him) was a baker. He owned a bakery for many years – 20-some years in Nebraska and then five more years in Leadville, Colorado. Because of all the holiday baking I have been doing, I have been thinking about the bakery and what we had to offer in the way of holiday treats at Gloor’s Bakery.

As I thought about it, what I came to realize is that in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, at least in Columbus, Nebraska, it wasn’t “Everything-Christmas” in the same way that it is nowadays in the retail world. My dad definitely had a few things that he only offered at Christmastime – almond bark and peppermint bark come immediately to my mind – but he didn’t even sprinkle red and green sugar on top of a cake donut for heaven’s sake. And apparently no one expected him to.

I do recall that he made a butter cookie – were they spritz cookies? He put the dough in a pastry bag with a flower tip and squirted them out onto the pan, where they were sprinkled with sugar. I’m pretty sure that was it as far as Christmas cookies went.

But having blabbered on and on about all of this, I have to say that there was one thing that he made that was totally associated with Christmas – to his family and to his customers. It was a braided loaf of bread that we called Butter Braid. For years I have been obsessed with trying to find the recipe for this bread. However, if I Googled “Butter Braid”, what always came up is the sweet pastry similar to a coffee cake. Delicious, but not what we called Butter Braid. What we called Butter Braid wasn’t particularly sweet.

Finally, the other day, I was playing around again trying to find a recipe and stumbled across something called Swiss Braided Bread. Hey! My grandparents came from Switzerland. They made a braided loaf of bread. Eureka!

Now that I had something to call it, I learned that in Switzerland it is called Zopf. I would be willing to bet that if my father was alive and I asked him about Zopf, he would say, “Oh, you mean the Butter Braid we always made at Christmas?” (Kids, ask your parents all your questions now because some day it will be too late or they will be too old and crotchety to answer your question.) Anyhoo, according to what I’ve read, in Switzerland, Zopf isn’t a traditional holiday bread; instead, it is something they bake and eat on Sunday mornings, perhaps toasted and smeared with homemade jam. In our bakery world, there wasn’t enough time to braid a hundred loaves of bread every day all year long. Thus, it was something special for Christmas.

We sold very many loaves of Butter Braid every Christmas season, more than I could begin to remember. I do remember, however, that my mother would wrap the bread in cellophane, using a hot iron to seal it. She would then wrap that crinkly ribbon around each loaf of bread and use a scissors to curl the ribbon. Later, when plastic bags became more common, I assume she used them for our Butter Braid and closed the bag using the ribbon.

In memory of my dad, here is a recipe for Butter Cookies (from Taste of Home) and Zopf (from Allrecipes).

Butter Cookies

Ingredients
1 c. butter, softened
1-1/4 c. confectioners’ sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
½ t. almond extract
2-1/2 c. all-purpose flour
½ t. salt
Colored sugar and decorating candies, optional

Process
In a large bowl, cream butter and confectioners’ sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Combine flour and salt. Gradually add to creamed mixture; mix well.

Using a cookie press fitted with the disk of your choice, press dough two inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Decorate as desired. Bake at 375 for 6-8 minutes or until set (do not brown). Remove to wire racks to cool. Yield 7-1/2 dozen.

Swiss Braided Bread (Zopf)
Ingredients
1 (.25 oz) package active dry yeast
1-1/3 c. warm milk
1 egg yolk
2 T. butter, softened
3-1/2 c. bread flour
1 egg white
1 T. water

Process
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm milk. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. Add the egg yolk, butter and 2 c. of bread flour; stir well to combine. Stir in the remaining flour, one-half cup at a time, beating well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 min.

Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces and roll each piece into a 14-in. long cylinder. Braid the pieces together and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a small bowl, beat together egg white and water. Brush risen loaf with egg wash and bake in preheated oven for 20-25 min, until golden.

Nana’s Notes: I didn’t bake the loaf of bread in the photo, I’m sorry to say. Are you kidding? I’m trying to get ready for a move to Arizona day after tomorrow? But I definitely will give it a try when I get there. Plus, My-Brother-the-Baker will be there to hold my hand. I struggle with bread.

Birthday Hangover

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So, it’s December 18. My birthday is over. My sister flew back to AZ yesterday. The house is very quiet with just Bill and me wordlessly falling back into our uneventful routines. This morning I put the three coffee cups that I hadn’t even gotten around to removing from our kitchen table after yesterday morning’s coffee into the dishwasher, thinking, well, today we only need two cups.

And then I told myself, “Get a grip. You’ll see her again in a week-and-a-half.”

I’m always sad to see visiting family leave. But the world is really small these days. I remind myself of the days when I would visit my sister when she lived in Washington D.C. and we didn’t have email, cell phones, or social media. I would know I probably wouldn’t see her for months and months. Now I talk to her almost every day, sometimes a couple of times. We can talk face-to-face via Facetime. I see pictures of her kids and grandkids on Facebook.

Having a December birthday always sort of split up the holiday season for me. Granted, as I have grown older, my birthday has been less of an event. This year, of course, was an exception. When I was younger, people often asked me if I hated having a December birthday. I would always tell them that I loved having a birthday in mid-December as a child because people would be out buying Christmas presents and would buy me a little something extra for my birthday. My brother David’s birthday is a bit different. His birthday is December 28, and his birthday was always a letdown. People were exhausted from Christmas shopping and celebrating and barely remembered his special day. Once Mom even forgot to make him a birthday cake and, in its place, brought home from the bakery a cake that someone hadn’t remembered to pick up. It said Happy Birthday Frank from Friends. Poor David.

As a random and meaningless side note, I distinctly remember my two favorite birthday gifts of all time. The first: My Aunt Cork, who was also my godmother, always got me a birthday present, and it was invariably something fun. When I was probably 6 or 7, she got me a set of three plastic wigs – blonde, brunette, and auburn. No artificial fiber; just a molded piece of plastic that you placed on your head. Oh. My. Goodness. Did I ever love those wigs! I was the happiest child alive. Now they are in some landfill somewhere, where they will never break down.

Second: After my divorce, I bought a small house in an old, established Denver neighborhood in which my son and I lived for four or five years. They were very happy years. We loved that house. Anyhoo, it sat on an alley, and had a garage right by the alleyway, unattached to the house. We would drive up to the door of the garage and my son would get out and manually open the door for me to drive in. One year, when Bill and I were dating, I was out of town on business sometime near my birthday. He picked me up at the airport and brought me home to my little house. As we pulled up to the garage, to my surprise, the door began to open. While I was gone, Bill had installed an automatic door opener. I was in seventh heaven, and so was my son.

Now that the house is quiet and the birthday festivities are over, we can move towards Christmas celebrations. For us, they begin tonight as we will celebrate Christmas with our son and daughter-in-law and the grandkids who will be leaving Friday for Mexico where they will spend a week with her mother and sister. Christmas with palm trees. Now that doesn’t stink.

And now…..

Unbaked Peanut Butter Cookies, via Bec B., via her mother-in-law

Ingredients
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. corn syrup, light or dark
3/4 c creamy peanut butter
1 t. vanilla
2 c. Special K cereal

Process
Bring sugar and corn syrup to hard rolling boil. Then add peanut butter, vanilla, and cereal. Roll them into balls and let harden.

Bec’s notes: I used 2 c. Rice Crispies and added 1/2 C almonds. We think they taste like a salted nut roll. Make a double batch; they’ll go fast. On the back of the card it says: Remember it is a hard rolling boil, not a hard boil stage.

Birthday Festivities, Part II

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My sister and daughter-in-law gave considerable thought to just what my 60th birthday party should look like. Jen said she knew she wanted something interactive. They considered a pottery painting party. She said (and I think she was serious) they even spent a few minutes discussing ziplining. Thank you God for that being a short-lived consideration.

The driving force in their decision-making is that they knew that what would make me happiest is if the grandkids could be involved in a major way. My daughter-in-law’s sister told her she had used Mark and Susan and their cooking lessons for a team-building day for her staff to great success. Pasta-making was involved. Kids can make pasta. Voila!

I am sorry to say that I don’t know much about Mark and Susan (except that they are excellent chefs). My suspicion, however, is that they spend most of their time working with groups exactly as described above – in team-building exercises or holiday functions for adults. I would guess they don’t often work with children – much less six children between the ages of 3 and 10. They were amazing. I can’t emphasize that enough. They never got impatient. They stayed calm as flour was flying. They didn’t appear to get worried when a 5-year-old was seasoning the meat. And they got every single child involved in a way that was fun for everyone.

The first task they undertook was the meatballs. Susan brought over the ground meat, eggs, cheese, breadcrumbs and seasonings to the table.

She gave each of the smaller kids an egg, and allowed them to crack their egg into the meat mixture (after which she spent a bit of time removing eggshells!). Then each child put in a handful of cheese. Finally Susan passed around the pepper shaker, allowing each child to grind a bit of pepper into the mix. The meatballs were mostly made by the smaller kids, with Addie helping with supervision.

But the real fun came a bit later in the evening, after all of the sauces were almost finished. The kids were called to the table to make the pasta. There were two Kitchen Aid mixers with pasta-makers attached. If you have ever made fresh pasta, you know that you roll out the pasta, sprinkle it with flour, make the rolling mechanism one click thinner, and continue in this manner until your dough is nearly transparent. Then you cut the pasta in the shape you desire.

Addie’s job was to roll the pasta. She would lay a piece of rolled pasta onto the table. Dagny, Magnolia and Kaiya added flour. (Mylee was happily playing downstairs by herself where she apparently realized at long last she wouldn’t have to fight bigger kids for the toys she wanted. In her mind, her work was done with the meatballs!)

I can’t even begin to describe the amount of flour that was coursing through the air, onto the table, under the table, and into the pasta at the hands of a 7-year-old, and two 5-year-olds. There were literally mounds of flour on the table, of which they would take handfuls and begin rubbing it into the pasta (and onto their faces and clothes in the process). Mark assured us that you really couldn’t have too much flour, and that was a very good thing. Flour everywhere.

Once a piece of dough was thin enough, Addie would hand it to 8-year-old Alastair, who did the cutting. He was masterful at it. He really did figure out how to carefully hold the cut pasta and lay it carefully in a mound on the table sprinkled with flour (not that it needed a lot more flour).

It was quite an assembly line, and the pasta turned out delicious.

I have watched my grandkids in school performances. I have attended dance recitals and piano recitals. I’m always happy to be there and proud of them. But I don’t think I will ever enjoy watching them more than Saturday night as I watched them prepare the meatballs and the pasta for my birthday dinner.

And now…..

Last week I gave you my recipe for caramel corn. My daughter-in-law sent me this recipe for the caramel corn she makes every year. It is, my friends, infinitely better. It is from orangette.blogspot.com.

Caramel Corn, via Lauren H.

Ingredients
1 (3½-ounce) package plain (unbuttered natural flavor) microwave popcorn, or about 10 cups fresh popcorn popped by any method, lightly salted
1 cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup lightly salted peanuts, roughly chopped

Process
Preheat the oven to 250°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

If using microwave popcorn, pop the popcorn according to the package instructions. Coat a large mixing bowl with nonstick cooking spray, and dump the popcorn into the bowl, taking care to pick out and discard any unpopped kernels.

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, salt, and 2 tablespoons of water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Continue to simmer, whisking often, until the mixture reads 250°F on a candy thermometer, about 3 to 4 minutes. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, and whisk in the baking soda and vanilla. Quickly pour the hot caramel over the popcorn. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold the caramel into the popcorn, taking care to distribute it as evenly as you can. Stir in the peanuts, and transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, stirring and turning the popcorn with a spatula every 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, and place on a cooling rack for 20 minutes. Gently break up the popcorn, and serve.

Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days (or thereabouts).

Yield: about 10 cups

Nana’s Note: I didn’t use a candy thermometer because the boiling temperature at high altitude is different than at sea level and I didn’t have time to figure out the difference. So the candy thermometer would have been useless. So I just boiled the sugar mixture for 4 minutes as my other caramel corn recipe proscribes. Also, I didn’t happen to have peanuts on hand, but that would be a delicious addition — the salty and sweet would be yummy.

Birthday Festivities, Part I

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My birthday has come and gone, and my celebration is certainly one I will never forget.

The party planners (mostly my sister Jen and my daughter-in-law Jll, with suggestions, advice, and help from others) know me well. They know that they didn’t need to plan a party at a fancy restaurant. They know that I wasn’t looking for a cocktail party with friends I haven’t seen for ages bringing me gifts I don’t need. But mostly they know that if I’m going to celebrate anything, it had better be with my family and there better be a role for my grandkids. And there had better be food!

I knew something was up. The kids have been giggling and whispering for a couple of weeks now. I had no idea what to expect. And even if I had given it a lot of thought, I would not have predicted what actually transpired.

When I entered the kitchen I was introduced to Mark and Susan who were going to be my personal chefs and cooking teachers for the evening! And the cuisine was my very favorite – Italian. Over the next couple of days, I am going to tell you what my evening was like.

After I realized what was happening and had a glass of wine placed in my hand and a birthday tiara placed on my head, I saw that Susan had begun making the appetizers. She had already prepared an amazing chicken liver pate. Delicious. Susan didn’t give me the specific recipe, but she noted it – and lots of the things they would be cooking and teaching us to cook – would include cream and butter. Get used to it, she pretty much said. Oh, I could easily get used to it.

To go with the pate, Mark grilled French bread that had been brushed with olive oil, giving it a delicious smoky flavor. It was perfect. He brought in a tray of bread that I thought we would never eat, but of course we did.

At the same time, Susan was preparing skewers on which she placed a grape tomato, a fresh basil leaf, and a piece of fresh mozzarella, and then drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. The colors of the Italian flag, she pointed out. They were delicious, especially if you put all three pieces in your mouth at once and tasted the explosion of flavor. Mylee was a bit more selective, however. She probably ate seven or eight of them, but she would bite off the mozzarella cheese and hand the rest of the skewer to me. A symbiotic relationship.

Mark and Susan made three types of sauce for the pasta which would be made later. They made a fresh marinara sauce, which started with a gigantic bowl of a variety of fresh tomatoes. A mixture of tomatoes gives a more complex flavor, Mark explained to me. He cooked the tomatoes for probably an hour, along with onions that he had cooked slowly until they were as sweet as candy. As the tomatoes cooked, you could see them soften and condense. In the end, Susan used a hand blender to puree the soft tomatoes that he had cooked with the onions.

The second sauce was a meat sauce that consisted of a mixture of hot and mild Italian sausage, seasonings, and finished off with fresh red, green, and yellow peppers that had been cooked separately in olive oil to preserve some crispness.

Finally, they made an alfredo sauce with a very different twist. Instead of using butter, Mark used bacon. I was somewhat doubtful, being sort of an alfredo purist. Wow. It was amazing. And really, why should I have doubted? Parmagiano Reggiano cheese, cream, and bacon in one dish? What could go wrong with that?

All of these sauces were served over homemade pasta, which I will tell you about tomorrow. That memory will stay with me the rest of my life.

To conclude our meal, we had a wonderful desserts. Susan fixed the kids special ice cream sundaes, which included the long, thin, cookies filled with chocolate. Those cookies were a hit with the kids. At one point Dagny was just walking around eating the cookies right out of the box.

The adults were given an adult dessert of tiramisu, heavily flavored with coffee liquor. It was light and delicious. And beautiful, as you can see.

My sister had asked me some time ago to pick out a cake from Mixandmatchmama’s list of 100 bundt cakes. I picked hummingbird cake, which is a southern favorite that includes bananas, pineapple, and pecans, and is frosted in a cream cheese frosting. It was awesome, and looked terribly festive with my 6 and 0 candles.

You know, I have been complaining about turning 60, and that is silly. I am so blessed with my family and friends, and with good health. I have a wonderful husband I’m crazy about, three siblings who are my very best friends, daughters-in-law who are so kind and loving to me, and nine grandchildren (going on 10) who make me laugh every day.

Wait until you see the pictures and stories I will post tomorrow of the kids making the pasta. Don’t miss it.

And now…..

Peanut Butter Balls, via Jen S.

Ingredients
2 c. creamy peanut butter
1/2 c. butter
4 c. confectioners’ sugar
3 c. crisp rice cereal
2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

Process
Melt peanut butter and butter in saucepan, ovr low heat. In large bowl, mix crispy rice cereal and confectioners’ sugar well. Pour melted peanut butter and butter over cereal and sugar and blend together thoroughly.

Form into 1 inc. or smaller balls, spread on cookie sheets, chill until firm in refrigerator (overnight is okay).

Melt chocolate in double boiler and keep melted while working with balls. A teaspoon is best to use in dipping the balls in chocolate. Dip and place on cookie sheet. Keep chilled until firm.