Catching Up With Christmas, Pt. 4: New Stuff I Tried This Holiday Season (Some Food-Related, Some Not)

Just because the holidays are a time to renew our family traditions doesn't mean we can't try out anything new! This holiday season was a time of experimentation for me, both in the kitchen and elsewhere (NOTE: I say "holiday season" because some of the following stuff is from November. I've been busy and haven't had time to write a "grab-bag" blog for a while, so here it is!)

--Earlier in the fall, several women I knew decided to do a freezer-meal exchange. This was started by a friend of mine who was close to having a baby, and understandably wanted a few easy meals close by to feed her family when she was worn out post-delivery. However, several families all wanted in on the exchange, to the point that it had to be broken apart into several groups of four women each. I didn't have much experience making freezer meals before, so I ultimately decided to stick with something I knew would freeze well...

...like chicken pot pies!! I used a hybrid of this recipe and this recipe, with the yummy crust recipe I discovered here. I made like 10 of them in one day; our counter seemed to have a permanent flour residue on it for a week after that, from all the pie crusts I made! I heated one up for dinner that night, and it turned out pretty well...I just hope everyone else in my exchange group was satisfied.

The meals I received in exchange were: baked ziti casserole, with tomato sauce and sausage (pretty delicious); pork burrito filling (very delicious); and a crock-pot cilantro-lime chicken (sounds delicious, but haven't eaten it yet). Overall, a very satisfying experience...I would be happy to have another freezer-meal exchange later this year!

--Sometimes, all I need to make a cake is the flimsiest of excuses. This was one of those times. My flimsy excuse was that I had too many Asian pears left in my fridge, and no one was eating them (because my family doesn't like Asian pears, generally). What better way to eat pears than by cooking them into a moist, sweet, gooey cinnamon pear cake with brown sugar frosting? No, it was not to celebrate anyone's birthday (for my own birthday in October, I made lemon cake). Luckily, Nathan's gaming group came over that week and helped us finish it off. It was pretty yummy, but I'm not sure when I'll ever make it again.

--This next stuff I didn't "try" (because I know better). However, I did notice it, and felt the need to warn the world via my blog, since I doubt they are fit for human consumption.

As Christmas drew near, I spent more time than usual at the local grocery store. I spied a few new items this year that made me want to throw up in my mouth...

Yuck. Who on earth wants to eat peppermint-flavored potato "crisps"? The cinnamon seems slightly more palatable, but only just. Who thought this was a good idea?? And I say this as someone who likes Pringles most of the time.

I am not a drinker, but I still don't know what the audience for this beverage is. It looks like it was scooped out of a muddy ditch, and the flavor combination is mind-boggling. I mean, I've heard of eating chocolates with your wine...but in your wine? Does it taste like chocolate milk with Ny-Quil mixed in? Ugh...the mind boggles.

--On a non-culinary note, I did have one completely new experience this holiday season...I went with a friend up to Tucson to participate in a Messiah sing-along. Every year, I always hear of a few different such sing-alongs scattered throughout the Tucson area, and I've always been curious to attend. I'm not a terrific singer, but I can follow a tune with some success. It was mainly the experience I was going for...I thought it would be a huge rush to have everyone around me singing at the top of their lungs...especially music as transcendent as Handel's Messiah.

We showed up to the sing-along a little late, but we didn't miss much...the audience was just singing Christmas carols to warm up. The sing-along itself was free, but if you want the sheet music, you can buy it at the church for $12. I side-stepped this by downloading the entire Messiah onto our new tablet; I felt like quite the 21st-century gal. I noticed the featured bass at the sing-along was reading off a tablet too, so I felt vindicated!!

The sing-along itself was great; lots of fun and very powerful (I felt myself actually tear up once or twice, particularly during "For Unto Us A Child Is Born." I also got goosebumps all over during the "Hallelujah" chorus; it is truly magical to sing that in a crowd. The best part of the night, though was unplanned...I ran into an old friend from our Tucson ward, Lesley Howe, who as luck would have it was also going to her very first sing-along.

The Howes were our friends when we were brand-new in Tucson, with no kids, no real careers, and no family nearby. We were in the same ward for the first four and a half years in Tucson; we taught her oldest daughter when she was a Sunbeam in Primary; Lesley referred me to my current obstetrician when I became pregnant with Lorelai. We shared many friends and many happy memories. We haven't kept in close touch since moving down to Sahuarita, but it was still wonderful to see her, get caught up on each other's lives, and sing some beautiful music that reminds us of the Savior.

--Another project I undertook this December was learning to braid hair...Celeste's hair, to be exact, since Lorelai, Aurora and myself don't have enough hair to braid! During one trip to the library, Celeste chose a book called The Basics of Braiding Hair. She was very excited to get this book. She acted like she was doing me a favor: "SEE, Mama? Now you can make my hair look pretty!!" A guilt trip over my tomboy nature ensued. My little girly girl had apparently harbored desires of beautiful hair for a long time, and had finally worked up the courage to ask me for help. Reluctantly, I read the book, then made a few attempts:

I ended up being doubly surprised: my braiding jobs were not universally horrible (as I'd feared), and I actually enjoyed doing the braids more than I'd expected. Hmmm...perhaps I have a little "princess" inside of me after all! I can't promise to braid her hair on a regular basis, but I think it will be possible to keep her happy as I (slowly) start to add more complicated braids to my repertoire.

--Hanukkah came and went without much notice in the Barrett household. I felt bad to have missed it...not because I'm Jewish, but because I have recently developed a love of latkes. Undaunted, I went ahead and made latkes anyway in retroactive celebration...

...along with a terrifically yummy pot roast. The roast was served with a cranberry-flavored gravy, and it tasted very savory, tender, and festive all at once. It was a terrific dinner...maybe I can make it my official "Hanukkah dinner" in the years to come? (If not for Hanukkah, then I'll find an excuse to make it anyway. Even if this roast won't supplant ham as my Christmas dinner, it's a very Christmas-y meal!)

--Can't forget my "recovering from the Christmas candy binge" dinner. On Christmas Day, as you might expect, we ate mostly leftover ham, chocolate, soda, chocolate, candy, chips and dip, chocolate, cheese, sausage, and generally a wide array of very unhealthy foods. I desperately needed a "detox" meal...and while this meal was not perhaps the healthiest meal ever, it was still miles ahead of the holiday binging.

The mixed-greens salad contained candied pecans, gorgonzola cheese, and dried cranberries. Very yummy...especially with a raspberry viniagrette dressing. The side dish was a sweet potato/apple bake from my Pampered Chef cookbook. Unlike my sweet potato souffle, the potatoes aren't mashed and drowned in butter and sugar (not that that's a bad thing, mind); instead, they're lightly glazed with a little cinnamon, sugar, orange peel, and margarine. Plus, they're tossed together with Granny Smith apples, and the sweet/tender is balanced out very nicely by the crisp/sour. The recipe also suggests adding cranberries, which I neglected to do. It was very tasty nonetheless!

--And finally, the Christmas cookies. Boy howdy, the Christmas cookies. Those who know me know that every Christmas, I go into a manic baking binge and emerge from the kitchen days later with piles and piles of cookies, fudge, and other Christmas treats to deliver.. This year I went overboard...even for me!! I have to figure out a way to dial it back next year, because I had way too much stuff lying around (but the recipients of my largesse were blessed with extra-heaping plates, so there's that). Plus I was up crazy late every night making sure the fudge hardened just so, or making sure I had that last batch finished.

However, I definitely experimented more with my Christmas goodies this year, and I discovered a few winners (most of which, sadly, I neglected to photograph...sorry!) Among others, I made Snowy Lemon Balls (no-bake shortbread cookies with crushed Lemonheads candy inside!); Crispy Confections (basically caramel-drenched corn flakes & Rice Krispies, mixed with coconut and shaped into tiny balls...very yummy); and these little beauties...

They're called Alfajores...they are Argentine caramel sandwich cookies. The cookies themselves were pretty easy to make; they're basically butter cookies with some finely ground almonds mixed in. But check out the filling!

There are two layers to the filling; the first is dulce de leche (basically sweetened condensed milk); the second is melted semi-sweet chocolate!! You put one filling on each cookie, then gently press them together and sprinkle the cookie tops with a little powdered sugar to serve.

Sooo delicious!

--On a final note, the girls and I decided to make Grandma and Grandpa Nash a personalized gift for Christmas. So the last "new thing we tried" was putting all the girls' handprints onto a T-shirt for each grandparent:

The paint was fabric paint, which means that (hopefully!) the hand-prints will remain for a long time to come. Even if Grandma and Grandpa wear the shirts, the hand-prints will survive the washing machine (they also did some random doodles on the front of the shirts with fabric markers, which will also hopefully stand the test of time).

I think that covers all the random stuff...time to narrow my focus on Christmas again. In my next post.