Chitter Chatter: Winter Edition (2020)

[Ryrin]

                                               

 

 

Tell us your favorite things about the holidays!

[Ryrin]

Tonight is the 1st night of Chanukah.

 

 

[Ryrin]

Yum!

 

 

[LadyWordsmith]

My favorite thing about the holidays is the overwhelming spirit of love and togetherness my family exudes (no matter which group of family or friends, or which holiday is being celebrated, since that group includes a wide variety of faiths and belief systems ? ).  I also love decorations and baking delicious foods that have special history in our family. 

This year, since we are doing our holidays at distance (to protect the many at-risk people we love), I am planning to do cookie door step drop-offs to many of our friends in the area. While we just moved here, we have friends here we have known for years, and some of them have never had my baking. So since I don't know how to make 'just a few' holiday cookies, I'm going to make lots of them and share! 

Happy Chanukah, Ryrin! 

[LilyElizabeth]

I think my favorite thing about the holidays is all the preparations that I do with my daughter. I love spending time with her. This year, I'm really looking forward to the baking. We are wrapping presents later today. That's fun to do together. Christmas day the family will probably play some board games. I just love hanging out with my family. Christmas time is more special, somehow. 

[Ryrin]

Thank you, Lady!

 

I love baking like you guys do. On Tuesday I’m going over to my friend’s house and we are baking. We give to friends too. She is the one friend that I see. 

 

Do any of you make haystacks?

 

There are two women at my gym who swim in the outdoor heated pool with me. Ivy brings me banana bread. It’s so moist. Yummy.

[LadyWordsmith]

I am familiar with haystacks, but I've never made them. They are tasty though. Have a great time baking with your friend! ?

This year I made spiced molasses cookies (so, gingerbread but it doesn't break your face and is chewy and the recipe I use is very old so it's got a nice kick with the spices: and I did roll it out and I used my Game of Thrones cookie cutters on it because all of my friends are also geeky fantasy nuts and I knew they'd appreciate fantasy heraldry cookies). Then I made peanut butter cookies (classic recipe from my grandmother - full of shortening and peanut butter and goodness), and peppermint snowballs (it's a shortbread dough, with a peppermint cream cheese filling, and rolled in powdered sugar and crushed peppermint). My son had a great time smashing candy-canes for me with a kitchen mallet. ?

Oh! And I ended up making a double-batch of chocolate peanut butter fudge topped with crushed pecans at the last minute because I remembered that one of the families I wanted to take treats do the entire family is gluten free out of medical necessity, and fudge was much less complicated than trying gluten free versions of my cookies with no time to practice. 

Today was delivery for five of the eight families I'm sharing cookies with this year. It was so nice to see people, and talk to people in person (safely distanced, sitting outside, in the sunshine, with masks), and share a little sweet baked love. The other three are getting their cookies tomorrow. (I might need to make more peanut butter cookies tonight, I don't think I have enough left). 

In happy news, my box of gluten arrived in the mail three days early! (Not a single grocery store in this part of the city had 'gluten' in their baking department.) Which means this week I'm making BIALYS! 
 

 

[Ryrin]

Oh, I want to be at your house! Chocolate peanut butter fudge! Yum. Crisco in peanut butter cookies, the best! I’ve never had peppermint snowballs but they sound delicious.

 

I’ll post pics from my baking endeavors.

[LadyWordsmith]

They're a shortbread dough with a filling made from cream cheese, powdered sugar, and crushed peppermint. Then rolled in more of the peppermint/powdered sugar. 

I ended up with MUCH More filling than it took to fill them too. So now I need to figure out what else I want to make with a cup of peppermint sugar cream cheese! 

I look forward to seeing your photos! I need to make sure to get some of mine up to share. 

[Ryrin]

I’d love to see yours. We’re baking tomorrow.

[LadyWordsmith]

Dug photos off my phone! Gingerbread (well, Spiced Molasses Cookies with extra flour, Very similar, but softer)... in Game of Thrones (discovered the cutters require much deeper dough than normal ones so some turned out, others it was a little shallow). Followed by classic Peanut Butter, and the Peppermint Snowballs. ?

 

[Ryrin]

Those look soooo good! Did you have fun making them?

 

I’m sitting in my car charging my phone. Why? Because my power went out. The electrical guys are here. It’s the service line. Two trucks came out and a 3rd will come out to finish the work in about 1.5 hours. It’s cold and dark. 9:15pm

[LilyElizabeth]

I hope they got your power taken care of. 

 

I baked pumpkin bread yesterday, and it's nearly gone already. Today I plan to make chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, and maybe some apple zucchini bread, if I can stand that long. 

[LadyWordsmith]

Yes, they were lots of fun to make, and to deliver! 

I hope they got your power fixed quickly, Ryrin. 

That all sounds delicious, Lily! I've not had 'apple' zucchini bread before. That sounds amazing. 

[Ryrin]

There were guys in my backyard till 1:15am. It’s fixed.

Washer died. 
 

Baking now.

 

[LilyElizabeth]

You're having really bad luck, Ryrin. I hope that's the end of it. 

 

The apple zucchini bread didn't work. It burned and the middle of the loaves fell. I won't try that recipe again. 

[Ryrin]

New (used) washer is coming tomorrow. Baking pics soon.

[Ryrin]

I got the washer today!

 

Baking pics

 

Haystacks

 

 

Gift plate for friends

 

 

My plate

 

[LadyWordsmith]

That looks delicious, Ryrin! 

We are 'almost' done with the insanity that is making holiday food. In the past four days I've made bialys, apple streusel pie, pecan pie, sweet potato casserole (NO marshmallows involved), torta rustica (spinach-and-cheese pie), oreo cheesecake rolls (this morning's breakfast, new recipe I was trying), goat cheese scrambled eggs, bacon (normal bacon).... and then Christmas Eve Dinner (which is always finger foods that don't require complex 'anything', so cheese board, summer sausage, fresh berries and chopped veggies, and cocktail shrimp. ? ). There are only three more dishes to make (possibly this 'year' lol). Mashed Potatoes, 'Pink Stuff' (literally cool whip, cream cheese, and jellied cranberry sauce whipped to a mousse and chilled), and the Goose is roasting in the oven. 

We should not have to make food for several days. 

[Ryrin]

I want to come over!  I was baking with my friend. Her family has a tradition of making clam chowder for Christmas Eve plus all of the baking!

[Ryrin]

[LadyWordsmith]

Mmmm, I love clam chowder! 

I don't think I could physically 'do' all of the baking in one evening. Not given all the baking we did. ?

Also the sheer number of loads of dishes involved just take a little time between batches. But I do love a good baking binge! 

Between now and New Years I'm making a wedding cake for my best friend, so there will be more baking on Monday! 

[Ryrin]

We did ours over two days and that really wasn’t long enough.

[Ryrin]

How is everyone doing? It was freezing here last night. I’ve been reading a lot plus cleaning and trying to get organized. We are supposed to get lots of rain starting tomorrow which is a good thing.

[LadyWordsmith]

Surviving! It's been a very up-and-down kind of month. My friend's wedding that I helped with was wonderful. In the middle of all that though I had an infection in my face that abscessed (doesn't appear to be tooth related, just random and unpleasant), so I spent two weeks on antibiotics about a month ago. My face finally 'feels' mostly normal again. Though the abnormally high (and low) shifts in barometric pressure we've been getting the past few weeks have not helped with that (since my sinuses and teeth are both sensitive to barometric pressure changes, especially dramatic ones). 

And we suddenly lost my little 5-year-old calico last week to an aortic thromboembolism (which I had never heard of before the emergency vet told us as we stood there at 2am....). I love all of my cats, but she and I had a very close bond, and I miss her terribly. 

The semester is going well at work, thankfully, and we've got one full set of custom shelves built in the house and are working on the second. So the library/living room is coming together.