I’m back! It was a busy, rushed and crowded fall and is proving to be a more relaxed, if still busy winter. There was Disneyland, there was five trips to the Bay Area in 7 weeks, and there was a Intercostal muscle strain, a strain of the muscles that run from about my armpit to my waist on my right side. Yay, me. Somewhere in there I managed to plan out many gifts and plot the destruction use of baking implements
The problem with doing any sort of craft item for a present, is you can’t talk about it where the intended recipient can see it. Add in the distinct lack of planning that means there are no in progress shots of the items in question, and you, my darlings, are left to wait until after Paper Tearing Event Season for any pictures of the finished items.
Today, however, being the Sunday before Solstice, Hanukkah and Christmas, was the day to do a quick test bake for the Goodie Baskets of Doom ™. Yesterday, my lovely spouse and I spent running like the proverbial chicken around Costco, avoiding small older women on Missions From God, the bored, the kids who had been done with shopping well before they got to the warehouse store of the Gods, and a few insane and brave individuals like ourselves, all grimly determined to get what we needed and get out alive.
We escaped with our lives, only 50 bucks over budget, and a fresh vow to never, ever, go to Costco, on the weekend, in the last 3 hours of it being open, just before Christmas, again. Ever.
Yeah, we aren’t always the brightest crayons in the box. Yesterday, we were beige, today, much more like magenta, or forest green, or other much used cheerful holiday type colours.
Today was Test the New Bread Recipe day, cleaning off my KitchenAid, Rosie, finding the cookie molds and cutters, Washing-All-The-Things-Ever-OMG, and finding somewhere in the fridge for new stuff to go.
- Rosie and Friends, Ready to Bake
Isn’t Rosie pretty? She is a 5 quart red KitchenAid mixer, with added white vinyl decal on her back. I adore her. She makes this kind of process amazingly easy, despite weighing a ton, and being a pain to move. This is why I have a baking buddy. They move the mixer, I put stuff in her.
Julekake is a Norwegian holiday bread, with a soft yellow colour inside, and smells of cardamom. It is slightly sweet, with raisins in the dough and butter brushed over the top and cinnamon sugar sprinkled on that. These particular loaves looked a bit rough, but, I think, we are keeping this recipe for the GBOD (Goodie Baskets of Doom). Next time, however, we are remembering the salt, I think it would intensify the flavour a bit more, we are adding a tiny bit more flour to make it more sturdy, more raisins, and we are pulling it out of the warm oven, when rising is done, to heat the oven to baking temperature, *before* baking, rather than just leaving them in. My bad. 
- The Ugly, yet yummy Julekake
They look ugly, but mmm, tasty, soft, tender loaves with that slightly sweet cardamom flavour I *love* about winter breads.
- The slice of Julekake, soft and tender crumb
See? Not enough raisins. But very soft, very tender and slightly sweet with just enough cardamom to make it delicious.
In order to begin the clearing out the fridge part of this holiday’s pre-bakestravagnza, I made cranberry sauce while the Julekake was rising the first time. Yeah, homemade, by hand, cranberry sauce in a pan, with lemon juice from a sweet lemon (thank you neighbors!) and Penzey’s Apple Pie Spice.
As an aside, I do not usually like pre-mixed apple pie spice, it is usually too bland and oddly proportioned in the mixture for me. Penzey’s, however, is gorgeous. It is like the best proportions I have ever mixed myself, out of high quality spices. I think it is about to become a staple of the princess’ kitchen.
Cranberry sauce like this is incredibly easy, if a bit tedious. You rinse 1 bag of fresh berries (frozen works just as well, but you might want to add more lemon to the water), remove the berries that are already soft and set them aside.
In your nice, acid resistant pan (not aluminium!) you take the juice of a small sweet lemon (or one half of a large one), and add enough water to equal 1 cup and then add 1 cup of sugar. turn on the heat, until it boils, stirring a lot. Keep stirring as you add in the berries, and stir some more until the berries begin to pop open.
Did I mention you have to keep stirring until you *hate* stirring so much, only the thought of lovely, fresh, homemade cranberry sauce can keep you stirring?
Once the berries being to pop open, add the apple pie spice. I added a good four or five shakes to 2 bags worth of sauce, but use your best judgement here. If you like a bit of spice in your sauce, add more, if you just want a hint, add less.
Stir more.
No, really, it’s still boiling, you are still stirring. When all the berries, or most of them have popped, you’ll start to see it thickening and jelling, wait until you are *pretty sure* all the berries have popped and are well stirred in. Then pull it from the heat, pour into a nice, cold glass bowl, let it cool to non-lava temperatures. At that point, if you want smooth sauce, pour into a blender while still hot, but not lava-hot and whiz until you are happy with its texture. otherwise, just let it cool enough that it won’t heat up your fridge, and then stash it in the fridge for an hour or too, before eating. Longer is better, makes for firmer sauce, but it is pretty dang tasty at the just barely cool stage too.
- Homemade Cranberry Sauce, baby!
Isn’t it a beautiful colour? Something about homemade cranberry sauce also says winter celebrations to me. The actual colour is even more intensely red-violet, and slightly translucent. I love cranberry sauce.
After a failure to find the silicon mini loaf pans and the hunt for enough glass pans while I sat with my hands full of raw Julekake (doesn’t that just sound nasty?), we set the bread to second rise and we made leftovers soup.
Leftovers soup, of course, varies, but it tends to be some sort of box soup base, organic, of course. And by box soup, I mean, liquid soup, in a box. We particualrly like the red pepper tomato soup, just on its own, so adding it as the base makes any soup automatically start out good.
Whenever I cut up broccoli, I use the tops for whatever dish I’m currently making, and then slice the skin off the ends and thin slice the middles, shove them in a bog and save them for soup. Same thing with Bok Choy ends, Celery, the odd garlic clove, the last of the bag of mini carrots, etc. Then on soup days, I simmer the resulting bag contents in a little butter (less than a tablespoon, just enough for flavour, really), and once they are close to done, I add some sort of deglazer, sometimes wine, but this time, we had a half-jar of pickled vegetables left. So, used the brine from that, adding the bits of that veg that I could retrieve from my spouse, and then added the red pepper for the base and a few shakes of Italian herb blend. Let it simmer, stirring just enough to keep it from burning (by then I was so done with stirring, lemme tell ya) while the Julekake finished baking and my spouse made glorious, but simple leftover roast beef and Horseradish Cheddar sandwiches.
- Leftovers soup, broccoli, carrots, celery, Bok Choy stems, picked vegetables and their brine and red pepper- tomato soup base.
Not the most beautiful soup int he world, but incredibly tasty, By the way, I love latte mugs to serve and eat soup in. They seem to make it more cozy somehow and, at least for my clumsy rump, they spill less and I save my tops.
Tonight, the house smells of cardamom, and soup, bread and cranberry sauce, with hints of cinnamon. It smells like the best part of winter, like coming in from the cold to warmth.
If I don’t write to you all before the close of the winter celebrations, Have bright and happy days. Give us peace for the new year and love and light surround you all, always.
