The Childfree Life

So what's everyone nomming for Christmas?

I'm almost done my Christmas baking (to eat and gift). So far I've done vanilla kipferln (traditional Austrian vanilla crescent cookies), iced gingerbread stars, chocolate snow-bombs (aka chocolate crinkles), and my new favourite - Yotam Ottolenghi's almond and orange florentines with dark chocolate. Tomorrow a batch of brandy snaps, and I'm done baking.

Everyone here seems to think mince pies and fruitcake are edible, but I am not convinced. Same for stollen or lebkuchen.

I haven't done anything this year, but most of mine was usually tracklements and booze e.g. spiced pickled pears and homemade sloe gin. I'm not much of a baker, I don't particularly enjoy it, as usual I like the kind of cooking that just gets chucked in a pan and stirred a bit....hence a lot of chutney!

I used get the fruit by foraging, but where I've moved to there seems to be bugger all fruit bushes and trees, plenty of hazel and the the usual abundance of hawthorn, even elderberries are thin on the ground and they grow anywhere! Probably because it's all sheep pasture and moors, rather than the arable fields and woodlands I used to have around me

_________________
Too bright to breed

I've been eating so much crap, it's ridiculous, but it a good way. I love junky Christmas food, like white fudge covered Twinkies and all that, plus nuts and cheese, and stollen and gingerbread and peppermint ice cream and Christmas tea and booze bacon-wrapped weenies, etc.

We have schnecken, doughnuts, almond crescents, white fudge Oreos, spice cookies and I don't know what else waiting to be consumed. God, the chocolate. So much chocolate.

Christmas Day will be pastries for breakfast, then standing rib roast, roasted potatoes, Yorkshire puds, some other stuff, Christmas pudding, and buttermilk-coconut pie.

_________________
"There is no bad weather, only bad clothes." - Unknown

I got together with my mom and bro a month ago to do some Christmas baking. We made shortbread and rum balls. The rum balls are already gone; the shortbread is still around but shortbread always tastes better when it’s slightly stale anyways.

I was hoping to make mince tarts (I even got a jar of mincemeat) but haven’t had a chance to yet. My parents, bro, and sister-in-law are all coming over tomorrow and I still don’t know what I’m making for dessert.

@Herbaceous

My mum couldn't be bothered with the faff of making the little mince pies, so she used to just make one big one and then serve it as a slice. If you've got some mincemeat why not just do that for dessert, served with some cream or ice cream.

_________________
Too bright to breed

A neighbor always brings my parents homemade Danish butter cookies (like the ones that come in the tins that everyone uses for odd & ends storage after the cookies are gone), and gingerbread. Every year my mother gives me half of the massive amount of cookies the neighbor brings over. I got said cookies on Friday, and I would say they're half consumed about now. My husband has eaten possibly 10% of the number eaten, and the parrots haven't had any.

I always thought that "schnecken" was a funny name for pastry, because it means snails in German. But then Americans commonly call sfogliatelle "lobster tails" and no one gets confused.

^^^ Schnecken has a little curl to it that could be interpreted as snail-like, I suppose.

Christmas Day:

Standing rib roast
Honey-maple glazed carrots
Roasted potatoes
Yorkshire puds
Gravy
Port-filled Christmas pudding (store-bought)
Buttermilk-coconut pie


Ding! Ding! Ding! - internet says schnecken is called schnecken because it's curly like a snail. I shall reward myself with an extra bit of schnecken on Christmas morning.

_________________
"There is no bad weather, only bad clothes." - Unknown

My parents, bro, and SIL were all over yesterday.

They arrived mid-afternoon after we’d all been to the movies together. I didn’t want to bother with cooking a full lunch, so I just put out some nibbles - 2 types of mixed nuts, a cheese board (cheddar, Brie, 2 varieties of goat cheese) with some fancy crackers and baguette slices, pate, and some fancy mixed olives. It worked really well, everyone just helped themselves and ate as much as they wanted.

For dinner, I used CarryOn’s recipe for prime rib roast with red wine jus (except I used a short rib roast instead), husband’s family’s traditional potato salad, mashed rutabaga, and sauerkraut. Ever since I married a Polish man, I require sauerkraut with my roast beef. For dessert I made another of husband’s mom’s Christmas specialties - lemon cranberry coconut squares. I never got the recipe off her before the estrangement, so I just googled it and they turned out pretty close.

I liked LaTormenta’s idea of making a mince pie instead of individual tarts, but I didn’t read it until after I bought ingredients. I might try that later this week, though.