candy for Christmas

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law and I had our annual candy-making extravaganza last weekend. This time we ended up with eleven different kinds, five of which were new to us:

almond brittle
toffee
caramels
peanut butter bark
haystacks
peanuts covered in white bark
raspberry jellies
Earl Grey truffles (the cream infused with tea)
Carribean truffles rolled in coconut (the cream infused with coconut-passionfruit tea I brought back from St. Martin)
peppermint bark:

and pretzel wreaths:

I have never been much of a candy maker--anything that involves a thermometer and boiling sugar makes me nervous--but I'm getting good at melting white bark and pouring it over things like chow mein noodles and pretzels! And really, all truffles are is melted chocolate that gets gussied up.

So are you a holiday cookie baker, a holiday candy maker, or neither? What are your sweet holiday traditions?

on a sugar high

So we're having this holiday cookie swap at work tomorrow, and for some reason we're each supposed to bring six to eight dozen cookies. That's right, six to eight DOZEN. I think maybe the idea is that this way, everyone goes home with several assorted cookie plates they can then give to people. I dunno. I also don't know quite how I'm going to get all this stuff to and from work tomorrow, because I walk to work. All I know is that it means I've gone through a truly astounding amount of butter in this weekend's baking.

My contributions: maple-date bars, lavender-vanilla bean shortbread, lemon curd thumbprints, and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate-mint ganache and mint buttercream frosting (from the fabulous Cupcake Bakeshop blog). The cupcakes, which you see above (sorry for the less-than-optimal photo) were my first cupcake effort, inspired by my purchase of a nifty decorating set - instead of a pastry bag, it's a small plastic accordion-pleated squeeze bottle that's a lot easier to control for a beginner. I'm a decorating klutz, but it worked out well.

Happy holidays, everyone!

a yurt christmas

Usually I spend Christmas pretty much the same way: hanging out at my parents' house, eating food, opening presents. Now that adventure boy is in my life, it seems things are going to be a bit different. Will's parents planned to visit us during Christmas so the two of us (well, mostly him) came up with the idea to spend Christmas in a yurt at 9400 feet. The trip required a 5 1/2 mile cross-country ski with full packs (never mind that my entire cross-country skiing experience consisted of an afternoon out at the nordic park three days before departure). We intended to spend two nights at the yurt with Will's entire family, but travel problems prevented both of his siblings from arriving and delayed our journey one day. But one night was probably just right for me.

The Uintas are a high mountain range with shallow valleys. The first part of our journey was a fairly gentle glide on partially groomed trails through pines and aspens, leading to a final steep slog up to our yurt which is appropriately called the Ridge. The yurt was nestled into a slight depression in the ridge.

As far as winter camping goes, a yurt is pretty luxorious. There is a wood stove, so you can keep yourself pretty warm (if you don't choke on the smoke from the faulty drafting). You get to sleep off the floor on wooden bunks. There is an outhouse. There is a propane stove and lantern and a large stack of chopped wood. Still, seeing as I detest winter and being cold, I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing. But thanks to a new down, zero degree sleeping bag and some good food, I survived (and am even looking forward to making another yurt trip in two weeks).

But the food. Trying to plan Christmas dinner that can be cooked entirely on a propane stove is a tricky thing (especially when you have to consider the weight of your food). With a little brainstorming and Will's willingness to be a workhorse and tow in a sled full of food, we ended up with a very satisfactory Christmas feast.

For lunch on our arrival, we nibbled on bread, spanish olives, manchego, salami, and Will's mom's fruitcake and nutmeg cookies. And tea of course--lots of tea while waiting for the stove's warmth to kick in. We also got to work melting snow on top of the wood stove (a continual process during our stay).

The obvious plan for Christmas eve dinner was pan-fried ham. We added mashed potatoes (mashed entirely--and quite handily, I might add--with a dinner fork) and asparagus (totally out of season, but. . . ) to round things out. And for dessert, rice pudding--which not only happens to be one of few stove-top desserts but also happens to be a Christmas tradition for Will's family. Will's dad is apparently the family's rice pudding master, but he was kind enough to step out of my way and let me craft the pudding (even though it was my first effort); it felt like a bit of an honor that I was trusted with the family tradition. Part of the tradition includes hiding an almond in the pudding which provides its discoverer with some luck. Rice pudding is a good choice for deesert when all you have is a stove-top, but at 9400 feet liquids boil very quickly making it tricky to properly cook rice leaving the pudding a little, well, chewy. We topped off the evening's meal with hot chocolate (chopped Scharffenberger with milk, to be exact) and peppermint schnapps.

For Christmas morning (after clearing our lungs from soot-filled sleep), we ate french toast from some chocolate chunk challah bread I'd baked at home, bacon, and reheated (and surprisingly tasty) mashed potatoes.

This is the kind of winter camping I can support: slighty warm conditions, good food (and lots of it)

Too many aphrodisiacs?

Mr. Tart and I recently had another themed potluck dinner with Cynde, Todd, Katie, and Aaron (and their urchins, Atley and Noah). In honor of Valentine's Day, this month's theme ingredient was "aphrodisiacs." Here's what we came up with:

Cynde's appetizer: Dried figs stuffed with bleu cheese, some wrapped in prosciutto. (Todd called them, inelegantly, "crammed figs," but seeing the speed with which they were crammed into people's mouths, perhaps he ended up more descriptive than he anticipated!)

Salads: "Love apples" with red onion and homemade croutons (from Cynde, recipe courtesy of her brother, a chef in Hawaii and also a member of Mr. Tart's Boy Scout troop in high school) and "The World's Sexiest Salad" with mozzarella, basil, tomatoes, cantaloupe, and prosciutto (Katie).



Katie's main course: Grilled chicken marinated in white wine and fruit nectar (apricot?), served on top of baby spinach with grilled figs caramelized with demarra sugar and a reduced nectar-wine sauce. And yes, it was as good as it looks. (Well, it's Valentine's Day! Of course you're going to get food porn on this blog!)

My dessert: Peach and raspberry crepes with lavender in orange syrup (you've read about this disastrous recipe already). That's Noah helping me garnish. Katie and Aaron provided Godiva white chocolate liqueur to sip with it.

So do these reputed aphrodisiacs live up to their notoriety, or is it just a bunch of hooey? Well, I'm not one to kiss and tell! Too many aphrodisiacs at one meal? Never!