cheese and olive appys

It probably isn't a well kept secret that one of my favorite food groups is cheese. And olives aren't too far behind on my favorites list. So, as usual, when cooking a big meal, I started to worry about people being hungry prior to sitting down at the table for the main event feast on Christmas Day. I mean, it had been a whole couple of hours since breakfast. So in between prepping and cooking, I got out some puff pastry and made cream cheese and black olive pinwheels. I rolled out one square of puff pastry and cut it half so the pinwheels would be petite sized. I spread the pastry with a layer of cream cheese and then tossed some black olives, a teaspoon of capers and a dash of lemon juice and whizzed into a rough tapenade with a splash of olive oil. I spread the olive paste on top of the cream cheese and then rolled up the pastry into logs and sliced them into pinwheels and baked at 400 deg for 10 minutes. These were pronounced delicious.

Yesterday, feeling a bit more inclined to venture back in the kitchen I found another block of puff pastry and whipped up another version of pinwheels with cheese and olives - this one was inspired by an old canape recipe called "cheese olives". Basically it is baked cheese wrapped olives. I couldn't face rolling olives in a cheese mixture so I did these pinwheels instead with the same cheese that has been sitting in my fridge waiting to become cheese olives - McLaren's Imperial Cheese. I added a tsp of cream cheese and a few tablespoons of imperial cheese to a bowl and softened it in the microwave to blend it. This I spread on my puff pastry rectangle. Then I whizzed green olives in the processor until they were roughly chopped and spread those over the cheese. Rolled up into a log, sliced and baked at 400 deg F for 13 minutes til golden and melty. These smelled like cheese olives when baking, and tasted a bit like them. They were good. D pretty much inhaled the plateful.

traditional family turkey dinner

I cooked dinner for 7 yesterday. Only 6 of us ate, T ran around and played with his new trucks. I think I finally have this down. Of course, when I think about it, I've been doing it (turkey dinner plus fixings) for a good many years now. I did manage to do it on my own a couple of times (small turkey, 1 type of stuffing, 1 veg, etc) for roommates and siblings prior to the first time I stood in for my mum. The first time she ceded the reins for preparing the turkey dinner (thanksgiving), she reclined in noble splendour, as only she could, on her lawn chair in the living room, keeping a close eye on my work in the kitchen. (At this point, she was undergoing treatment for cancer so she didn't have the energy to cook dinner.) So I made turkey and her 2 dressings, bread sauce, lumpy gravy, mashed potatoes (I think), brussel sprouts and mashed turnips, all the way she wanted it to be done. Since she died, I've kept the recipes I liked - sausage stuffing, bread sauce and tweaked all the others to the way I like them. Being the cook gives you much more say in how things get presented. This year's Christmas dinner didn't stray too far from my roots - I still had a roast turkey with 2 dressings (sausage and vegetable), gravy, bread sauce, cranberry sauce (for D's family), braised brussel sprouts, roasted turnip and carrot, creamy potatoes plus a sweet potato and carrot dish my sister-in-law brought. I got cranberry sauce from both my sisters-in-law!

 Sausage and Sage Stuffing

3 500g tubes sausage meat

1 large onion, diced

2 tbsp sage

breadcrumbs

pepper

In a large saucepan, brown the sausage meat. Drain off the fat once the meat is no longer pink in colour. Keep cooking the meat, breaking it up into fine chunks. Add the onion and sage and cook until the onion is cooked. Taste and add pepper and more sage to taste. Add enough breadcrumbs to bind the mixture together. Refrigerate and stuff into the cavity of a turkey or bake for 1 hour at 350 deg F.

Vegetable Stuffing
(this is vastly different from my mother's stuffing)

~ 1 lb bread cubes (I used white sandwich loaf)

1 can condensed mushroom soup
1 can creamed corn
1 c sliced mushrooms
1/2 c dried cranberries
1/4 c diced dried apricots
1/4 c diced apple
1 tsp dried oregano
pepper

Mix all the ingredients together and pour into a greased baking dish. Bake for 1 hour at 350 deg F.

Bread Sauce

(this is a traditional English side for roast turkey - at least from where my mum's family is from - this is the way she taught me to make it and I still love it with turkey and in turkey sandwiches)
1 onion
handful of whole cloves
2 c bread crumbs or bread cubes
2 c milk (or more)
grating of nutmeg
pepper

Peel the onion and cut off the root end. Leave whole and push the whole cloves all around the onion. Put the onion into a saucepan and cover with breadcrumbs. Cover the breadcrumbs with milk and put on very low heat for at least an hour. Stir. Add the pepper and nutmeg. Add milk if the mixture looks dry (it should resemble wet porridge). Serve hot with roast turkey.

My gravy still isn't stellar and I have a little secret about it. I used canned turkey gravy as a base and add wine, dijon mustard, pepper and turkey drippings to it. Cheater gravy but it make me stress way less and I figure it's better for my sanity.

Yesterday for dessert I took a departure from tradition. Mum used to make the traditional English Christmas pudding. She had three pudding bowls so once every three years she would make three and at Christmas one would be steamed, set alight with brandy and holly and eaten with hard sauce (brandy butter). I never was overly fond of it - it was a wonderful excuse to eat brandy butter. So yesterday I served this peach pie. There weren't any leftovers.

And to make dinner preparations easier, I made both stuffings and the peach pie the day before. And I used Nigella Lawson's Christmas timetable to keep me on track (sort of) during the cooking. And thanks to K for providing the delicious free range turkey for me to roast.

handmade Christmas

This year, apart from T and D, almost everyone else on my list got handmade presents. Most were made by my hands and some came from craft fairs (soap, candles) or specialty shops (tea, chocolate). Kata Golda's Felt book was a huge inspiration to me. A couple of people got a set of pot holders,

some got mug cozies and those who wear reading glasses got glasses cases.

T's teachers and others got boxes or bags of cookies, fudge, and peppermint bark. And yesterday I gave away 2 loaves of Dana's holiday bread. Once was apricot almond and the other was cranberry pistachio. They looked gorgeous and smelt delicious when baking, D swore I had picked them up at a bakery despite having seen me mixing and rolling the dough both nights and the whole house smelling of baking bread!

I made a mistake with the first loaf by not reading the instructions properly and skipped over the part about adding hot water. So after 90 minutes of rising time, the dough hadn't really budged. I parked it next to the heating vent and waited another 30 minutes. Then I reread the recipe and realized my error. So I punched down the dough (it wasn't very risen) and shaped it and put it into a warm oven and prayed. It rose enough for me to bake it and still look like bread. (I added cranberries as per the recipe but subbed pistachios for the walnuts). The following evening I made a second loaf, following the instructions this time and the dough rose. I subbed apricots for the cranberries and almonds for the walnuts. I hope they are as delicious tasting as they looked.

rolling out the bottom of the loaf

finished loaf



Christmas lights and brown Windsor vegetable soup

My in-laws have been promising the arrival of something Christmassy tacky for our yard for a few weeks now. To explain, D is a bit of a grinch about Christmas. He says it’s because of all his years working in retail, that years of working around the holidays is enough to take the joy out of the season. But deep down, I think the boy who loved Christmas is still inside and I’ve worked hard in the 8 years we’ve been together to bring that out. I’m succeeding bit by bit albeit slowly. I catch him listening to Christmas music at home, and at work and he loves getting presents for our boy. But as for decorations – not so much. Especially Christmas lights. We had a running joke for years about me putting up my “allowed” 7 Christmas lights. Truth being I’ve never been a big Christmas lights person either – the tree, some holly or cedar branches, cards, various ornaments around plus advent calendars are enough for me. But, even as a very tiny boy, T has loved Christmas lights. Before he was 2, I used to take the long way home from daycare through December and he would sit in his car seat and yell “yights” at each house that had them. (I got to know the competitive streets in the neighbourhood!) So for the past month or so, in addition to asking “when are we getting a dog (bunny)?” he’s also been asking about “when can we put up our lights?” He’s been somewhat better since we decorated the tree and hung all the lights in the house but in his little boy heart he really wants outside yights. And for some reason, totally against whatever feminism leanings I still harbour in my soul, I think the man of the house is responsible for lights. So our poor boy is without his “yights”. Until yesterday. Yesterday evening, after D had left for work, his sister, brother and sister-in-law arrived to assemble the item they thought would bring T the most joy while irritating D the most. A lit up snowboarding reindeer. It took quite a bit of maneuvering and some plier use to get it to stay together but we trekked outside in the torrential downpour and affixed the reindeer in one of the raised beds. Where it lights up the backyard. And where it sways in the wind, looking like it is actually boarding. T spent a good while gazing at it out of the window. Kerry also hung other lights around the patio so the entire backyard is looking very festive, except for the lack of snow.

And so D couldn’t miss it when he came home, I left the kitchen blinds open and the lights out downstairs so the full spectacle would be on view as he walked into the kitchen! By the time I came downstairs to meet him, he’d run outside and turned everything off. He’ll tell you it is in the interests of power conservation.

Now, D was working so that means usually for me, a supper of French fries or nachos or boiled eggs and toast. I made T his favorite supper of peanut butter toast fingers and carrots and then I had a quandary. What to feed these lovely people who were making my boy so happy. He loves them so much and they love him and its supper time ergo I must feed them. So I made soup. I’d been meaning to make soup from the bits of broccoli stalks I had in the veg drawer so that is where I started. There was less broccoli than I remembered so I grabbed some other stuff as well to make a brown Windsor vegetable soup (brown Windsor being the name of my mum’s leftover soup). The peeled, diced broccoli stalks, the remains of a bag of baby carrots, some apple left from T’s lunch which I diced, a handful of frozen corn and a handful of frozen hash browns. I sautéed all the vegetables in a biggish knob of butter until slightly soft, then added 3 cups of vegetable stock and simmered it while we assembled the reindeer. Once the veggies were cooked, I added 1 c of milk and whizzed the whole mixture with the immersion blender until smooth. I seasoned the mixture with pepper, ¼ tsp dry mustard, 2 tsp Dijon mustard and then in desperation, 2 tsp basil pesto and a handful of parmesan cheese. I added another 1 c of vegetable stock as the soup was getting a bit thick and threw in a handful of frozen corn kernels for texture. It served 4 along with some toast and crackers, liver pate and boursin cheese. With Christmas cookies for dessert. Mission accomplished. Light sculpture in place and co-conspirators fed.

In case you think I'm being mean to D, it should be noted that for the past 3 weeks I've been driving around in a car decorated with jingle bell reindeer antlers and a red reindeer nose, curtesy of my sister-in-law. She gave the kit to T, so of course I had to have it on my car!

Parties and concerts

A few weeks ago, T and I went to a children’s party. My work children’s party. T got to decorate a few gingerbread people with icing and candies. He ate one at the party and brought one home for his daddy. He loved the bouncy castles this year – the bouncy obstacle course was his favorite and he spent a lot of time in there. He is still not quite tall enough to make it over the wall so fortunately a couple of older kids were throwing the little ones up (or pushing them up). He loved the balloon animal elf – she made him a helicopter balloon. And he had a Christmas tree with sparkles painted on his face. But of course, the star of the show was Santa. When it was announced that the kids could line up to visit Santa, T was at the front of the line. I had to hold him back from bouncing up on the stage when other kids were visiting with Santa and when we got there, he sat right up on Santa’s lap. But Santa threw him for a loop – “Hi T” he said. “Hi Santa, mumbled T. Then Santa asked if he was a good boy. Did he eat his dinner? Did he eat his carrot soup the night before? Poor T was so taken aback – he sat there on Santa’s knee and didn’t quite know what to do. Santa asked T what he wanted for Christmas and T was too shy to answer. He had his picture taken and then high-fived Santa and the elf and ran off to get his present. He got an alien fishing game (Toy Story 3) which he was very excited about.

Then he ran around the room checking out the presents that the other kids got. After all the kids had visited with Santa, it was announced that if you wanted a picture with Santa you could go up. T was right back on Santa’s knee, showing him his helicopter balloon. He and Santa are best buddies now. But he still forgot to tell Santa his wish list for Christmas. So a few days later, we wrote to Santa. A huge list including:

A feller buncher, skidder and logging truck with trailer

A new low bed loader

4 case bobcats with buckets, rippers, drills, crane hooks, etc
Another track backhoe
A crane
A snowplow
A lego city fire truck, dump truck, front end loader, fire station, police car, etc

100 dumptrucks

Last week, T was in two preschool concerts as he is in both the morning and afternoon classes. The morning class concert was about 5 songs long (younger children) and T’s Uncle Mike came along which T was very excited about. The afternoon class concert was longer (4 year olds) and half of the songs were in French. T’s favorite song was I’m a little pine tree. He was very enthusiastic, especially when it came to the line – a great big merry Christmas tree – he nearly knocked over the little girl next to him! After the singing, there were slide shows of the preschool activities, so the kids would yell out “that’s me” whenever their picture popped up. All this was followed by a little party with goodies. Lots of fun.

And the excitement of little kids wearing reindeer antlers and singing Jingle Bells is wonderful to behold.

a boy gets mail

Yesterday was an exciting day for our boy. I opened the mailbox when we got home and discovered a letter from Santa for T. How very exciting! Santa had replied to T’s letter letting him know he read his letter to Rudolph and the other reindeer and all about the new elf at the workshop – Henry – who writes poems (and sings and laughs and is good at making toys). I don’t know if other countries do this but this service is courtesy of Canada Post – any child can mail a letter to Santa Claus, the North Pole, H0H 0H0 (cute, huh?) and they will get a letter back from Santa. So a big thank you to the volunteers at Canada Post that make this possible and making my boy’s day so special.

T also got his very own Christmas card from his Auntie. Just for him, so we put it up in his bedroom.

Every morning since last Friday T has said “Mummy (or Daddy) – there are none presents under my tree”. To which we reply – it’s not Christmas yet – there are 5 (4) days to go. We have a couple of advent calendars to help count down the days but T opened all the windows on the games one and on the quilted one, has not been keeping up with the counting down. He was excited at first and tried to hurry things along by putting up 10 ornaments at once…but since that didn’t change the calendar, he hasn’t been so interested in that one.

But he is a very excited boy. Every night it is a struggle to get him into bed – “I’m not sleeping until Christmas comes”. I have explained that Christmas will get here quicker if he sleeps every night but it’s hard to sleep when you are listening for reindeer on the roof.

Meanwhile, I’m counting down the days as well. My desk at work is covered in paper and my motivation level is a bit low. I try not to think of all the wrapping and baking I could be doing. But as I am completely stuffed up with a cold, which T shared with me, I doubt I would be as energetic as I might wish. Still. I’m counting my blessings and thankful I’m not waiting on a flight somewhere to or from Europe, grateful that we’ll be home for Christmas – albeit a green one, if the forecast holds.

white chocolate cranberry shortbread

I usually bake shortbread for Christmas. It is something I used to do for Christmas with mum. When I was younger we had a sheltie named Ariel who had a passion for shortbread – he used to get terribly excited when we put the pounds of butter on the counter to warm before making it at Christmas. (He also loved raisins and had to have a few before bedtime.) And I’ve been through other shortbread traditions as well. When I lived in Montreal, my friend Leslie and I would make huge numbers of shortbread cookies one day every December when we both lived there – bells, santas, holly, stars, angels and dinosaurs. This year I’ve done two versions – a cheater version which was I baked up a bunch I had in the freezer that I bought for a fund raising event (frozen cookies that you bake) – the other based on a friend of a friend’s recipe that I got a sample of at work. These are really cookie bars and easy to make. The first batch I made is almost gone so I will have to do another batch this week.


White chocolate cranberry shortbread
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 c corn starch
1/2 tsp salt
1 c butter
3/4 c icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c dried canberries, chopped
1/2 c white chocolate chips
icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Line a 9 x 13 baking pan with parchment paper so that the paper overhangs the ends.

In a large bowl, combine flour with corn starch and salt. In a separate bowl, beat the butter with the icing sugar and vanilla until very creamy. Stir in the flour mixture, cranberries and chocolate chips. Pat evenly into the baking pan, using floured fingers or a spoon. Prick the surface all over, using a fork (Note – I couldn’t do this with my batch – it was too flaky but the shortbread still worked)

Bake in at 300 deg F for 40 - 50 minutes or until golden around edges. Leave to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 30 minutes before lifting out of the pan. Slice into bars while still warm. Dust with icing sugar (optional).