Festive floof! A little early but WHATEVER! I wanna know...
6 years ago
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Festive Floof! Valentines plans.....
Comments (48)Well my dinner plans didn't pan out. SO requested that I make this mishmash dish with no name. It is essentially yellow rice, shredded cheese and "mexican" chicken with peppers and onions. So, since I couldn't really make that heart shaped, I improvised. Tiny heart shaped casserole to the rescue! This tiny little dish was big enough for his portion,and I was satisfied that it was heart shaped. Don't worry. I wasn't stingy with the cheese, there is more underneath the chicken....See MoreFestive floof! Celebrating then and now.
Comments (8)I liked Christmas as a child, but once I became an adult, it was more stressful than anything else, and my mother took it too seriously. She felt compelled to have everyone together for Christmas, and this became more difficult when the family got larger and had other places to go. I left home at 18, and so after that, I returned as a guest. I have no holiday traditions of my own, although I used to celebrate the summer solstice when I lived in Venice, as that was a good time to have a party there. When I did visit my parents for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving, I would do much of the cooking, partly because my mother did not like to do it and partly because I was better at it, and my nieces especially appreciated it. I found exchanging gifts to be more stressful than enjoyable, and so I did not like that as an adult. We sometimes played board games, and I did enjoy that. As a child, we alternated having Christmas at my parents' house and at my maternal grandparents' house. My mother was an only child, and so her parents were always with us at holidays. My father had two older brothers and an older sister, and we never celebrated any holidays with them. His sister had moved to New Mexico, and we almost never saw her at all. His two brothers had married two sisters, and so they were very close to each other but not to us. Since their children were double first cousins, they were much like one family (and closer to each other in ages). My father's family was not big on Christmas, partly because his sister had converted to Jehovah's Witness (because of her husband), and she had converted my grandmother. I believe that JWs do not celebrate Christmas, as I remember, but my grandmother was not the typical JW. In fact, being inventive (with a couple of patents under her belt), she had created her own version of the religion, probably from her imagination, which was far from conventional. No one knew where she got her ideas, but she did enjoy going out and witnessing. However, when the other JWs found out what she was telling others, they tried to get her to stop witnessing, but to no avail. I was told not to listen to my grandmother because she was "off her rocker," but I found her stories entertaining and imaginative. My grandmother owned the waterworks in town because my grandfather (who died before I was born) and his father had dug a bunch of artesian wells, and so the people in town pretty much had to put up with her, even though they thought she was a bit crazy. She never forced people to pay their water bills, and so my father had to do that for her. She thought water should be free. Anyway, my father's side of the family did not celebrate Christmas in a conventional way....See MoreFestive Food Floof! Do you dare?!?!?
Comments (30)While I've been baking bread and challah (brioche type dough) all my life, the only yeast pastries I've made often are hamentashen in a sweet version of my mother's challah recipe. Last week, I had this sudden thought, "Pumpkin babka!" This has been a great year for pumpkins. So instead of figuring it out myself, I searched for recipes on the 'net, and found a chocolate with pumpkin dough, and one more like what I'd had in mind, which was pumpkin-pecan filling in a rich, soft dough. I usually have great results with blog recipes, and I was sleep deprived, so even though I reviewed the ingredients before saving the recipe, I didn't actually read them through for quality. BIG mistake! I don't know if it's meant to be a sabotage (the comments were useless, only discussing the pretty pictures in the post). It sort of reads, to my bread self like it was partially scalled with oopsies. I've done that scaling a recipe for myself in my head, without writing it down when I was tired. I don't know, for sure, but looking back, it also doesn't match the instructions in the demonstration. It's, um, whack! There were plenty of places where I had warning signs and should have stopped and read it over and quit, but I didn't. I was tired beyond thought. When I started the first step, and it said 2 1/2 TBSP yeast to 3 -4 cups flour, I should have stopped. I just figured she meant teaspoons, and adjusted accordingly. Then I read the gigantic amound of sugar and salt. I always adjust those to taste anyway, so I kept going. When it said 8 eggs and half a pound of butter, I just figured she knew something I needed to learn. Um. No. The result, as you who bake know, was a glutinous cake batter. I added about a cup of flour and ran it with the dough hook and let it "rise" (not that any rising was happening). Good thing I've learned so much about high hydration baking. I poured it out onto the baking mat. There was enough gluten development at this point that it didn't spill away, just made a stable lake. Much as I would have liked to use my big steel bench scraper, one can't on silicone, but a big bunch of cast flour on it, scrape up some goop with the small plastic bench scraper and push it over, led to a more stable mound. Still too soft for even a stretch and fold, but holding its shape as a mound. I covered and let it rise. And it did! And when I heavily dusted with more flour, it was manageable and rolled. It was too soft to twist nicely, but enough so that the middle has a nice distribution. You can't see the layers, though. The dough was still too soft and smushed together. And it was so soft that the outside was almost burning before the inside was done, and the corners were dry because of that. The filing was good. That's a keeper. So is the butteriness of the dough. The end result was fine eating, though not exquisite. I think if I added a little extra butter to the hamentashen dough it would be more like what one needs, and I think more filling proportionate to the dough. I had been surprised that it didn't call for toasting the pecans, but they came out great from raw. Because of the restriction I put on the excess sugar, it's really good with cranberry sauce! While chatting, i mentioned it to the Thanksgiving cousin, and that I'd put the second loaf in the freezer. She asked me to bring it, but I don't know if anyone ate any. At least I don't have to find someone to feed it to! Which is why one tests recipes ahead. I also tried to make the handkerchielf rolls. I don't think there's any saving that one. I mean, they're rolls but they have a kind of gummy mouth feel, and that's after I overbaked them a little! Nasty. The recipe was designed to sell the baking dish. I'm thinking I could rescue them with custard. Pumpkin bread pudding is in the offing. Maybe with a cranberry hard sauce. The worst breads make the best bread puddings!...See MoreFestive Floof! Need suggestions!
Comments (7)Colonel Butterball O'Giblets on this end 😂 I really don't enjoy wrapping and that makes me not wonderful at it. I buy mylar gift bags in bulk, a few years worth at a time and lots of chiffon ribbon, call it good. A toy store I used to frequent in Seattle gave me the name of their supplier (they gift wrapped for free) but I think closed now and I'll need a new source... I'd do great with reindeer care, you could sign me up there... And I'm quite good at finding shopping bargains, never paying full price for anything at all so maybe something along those lines. I'll have to give more categories some thought for you, 6:30 AM not my most imaginative time of day but will work on it later when I'm more creative.......See More- 6 years ago
- 6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
- 6 years ago
- 6 years ago
- 6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
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