I love making gifts. Buying a gift is fun, especially if you get to see the recipient open it, but making gifts is hugely entertaining. For me, it’s an excuse to try ridiculous and absurd and totally unnecessary edibles. Like this.
I’ve been wanting to make homemade hot chocolate as a gift now for some time, but felt somewhat neutral on the idea of mixing together cocoa and sugar in a jar to create a mix. Finally, I found what I was looking for: a cube of chocolate ON A STICK melted into hot milk, for a creamy, interactive hot chocolate experience. After making a double batch for my friends and family, I most certainly now want to make a batch for myself, and I thought you might, too.
The concept is simple enough: take a really, really good chocolate, melt it, add cocoa and powdered sugar, pipe into mold, add a stick, and call yourself Willy Wonka.
We have a winner! Using my highly scientific slips-of-paper-with-names-in-a-mixing-bowl technique, the toffee goes to Ben E! I hope you enjoy it as much as your peppermint bark.
Thank you so, so much to everyone for sharing your holiday treat favorites. It’s fascinating not only to hear about new treats I may want to try (I’m super intrigued by the ice box cake and the Dutch Apple Pie…), but to hear the stories and memories you have off those treats that make them even sweeter. I wouldn’t be blogging if I didn’t love sharing my tales, but I really love reading yours.
As for me, my holiday posts have only just begun. Stay tuned for more!
Since the day I decided to start this blog, I’ve wanted to share this recipe. But it turns out I only make it at Christmas, and making it at other times o year would feel like, I don’t know, cheating? I’ve been patient, but halfway through December, it’s FINALLY time.
In fact, I want to share it soooo much that I’m giving away one pound of this, my favorite holiday treat, to one of you! Yay contest!
We’ll get there. Promise. But first, some background.
My Grandma Emma has been making toffee now for decades. She taught my mom early in my parents’ marriage, and now mom has been making it ever since. I watched in awe, all through my childhood as my mom cooked batch after batch of toffee, broke it up into pieces, and carefully placed it in tins to give to our friends and family. And many a neighbor has been to our house so she could teach them to make this decadent candy.
I’ve been making a lot of soup lately. I crave it when it gets cold, when it gets cloudy, or when I just want to eat the embodiment of warmth and comfort.
Do you know the story of Stone Soup? An old folk tale that varies from culture to culture, the story centers around a traveler who arrives in a small village seeking food. At every door he is turned away as the villagers attempt to protect their meager pantries. The traveler then asks, quite simply for a stone and a kettle so that he might prepare a delicious soup.
Curious, the villagers slowly emerge from their homes and begin to offer small ingredients that will improve the soup: a bunch of carrots, an ear of corn, some grains of pepper. In no time at all, a hearty, filling soup feeds not only the traveler but the entire village, and the modest contribution of each villager yields an excellent meal for everyone.
I wanted to talk about food. About cookies and candies and holiday goodies and warm soups and apple sauce and wedding cakes and all manner of deliciousness.
But something sudden, shocking, and deeply sad has happened that has shaken me, my family, my friends, and my community. I’ve debated at great length whether or not I should talk about it here, on a blog about food. But it seems somewhat odd, especially when so many of you are a part of my community, to simply avoid it, when I am finding it impossible to write about, or even think about, much else.
On Saturday, a friend of mine from high school perished, along with three others, in a plane crash near my hometown. I’m from a fairly small town, and I doubt there are many residents unaffected by the loss of one of these people.
I was not in Tyler’s inner circle of friends, but he is a part of almost every glorious memory I have of my high school years. An integral member of our close-knit Troupe 1096, an essential, deep voice in our choirs, a constant source of hysterics in all situations, and a giver of unconditional love and friendship to everyone around him. Gauky, lanky, and grinning, he was a beam of sunshine everywhere he went.
In the last few days, memories and messages from friends now spread across the country have found their way to Tyler’s Facebook page. His wall has become a place for friends and family to grieve, to laugh, to share, and to support to one another as we mourn the loss of this incredible person.
Having lost an uncle, my grandpa, and two other peers from high school in the last year, this holiday season is different from so many in the past. My over-played Christmas CDs now play somber undertones I don’t remember from before, the glittering twinkle lights don’t shine quite as bright, and the starry-eyed joy I had as a child at this time of year is no longer as serene. I find myself not only reliving my memories of Tyler, but of the friends that I’ve grown apart from, the phone calls I’ve put off to another day, and the regret that I feel for doing so.
Yet I am also discovering strength. Strength to reach out, to reforge those friendships, and to set aside the reasons they faded in the first place. To remind my precious friends and family of how deeply I love them and how much they mean to me. Strength to endure the longing, yes, for things that will never be the same, but to get excited, too, for what is yet to come. My sister and I will still leave cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. Weddings are being planned as we speak. Babies are about to be born.
To Tyler’s family, and his closest friends: my heart aches for you. I cannot even imagine the unfathomable emotions you must be feeling. I’m thinking of you and hoping for your peace.
To Tyler: I wish you could see the flood of stories people are telling about you. And the photographs we’ve dug up to celebrate your finest moments. And the videos of you eating slugs just to prove you can. You are unforgettable.
And to our community: I’ve seen several of you quoting Tyler in the last few hours: “If you’re not smiling, you’re not trying.”
I hope that, though there will be many tears, we can all find something to smile about. For Tyler.
I haven’t really addressed the food-elephant in the room of this time of year.
Thanksgiving!
This year, the gathering around our Thanksgiving table was rather small, just little old Brad and me, in fact. But that didn’t stop us from preparing a full-scale Thanksgiving feast. There was cornbread stuffing (well, dressing), broccoli casserole, warm cream biscuits, mashed potatoes, a three-legged turkey with no wings, smooth brown gravy, mini pumpkin cream pies…
and cranberry sauce.
For me, cranberry sauce as a kid was one of two things: a can-shaped block of cranberry plopped on a small serving dish, or my grandma’s favorite cranberry salad. I was never a particularly big fan of either. But as usual, Deb over at Smitten Kitchen piqued my curiosity to try a homemade, incredibly simple cranberry sauce, and I doubt I’ll ever go back. It’s tart and lovely and full of little orange peel surprises all the way through.
Cranberry and orange are two of my favorite holiday flavors, and when combined, they only improve one another. So instead of making a teeny tiny batch for our teeny tiny guest list, I opted for the full batch so that I could play with the leftovers.
Sierra has been my best friend since we were eleven. Not just friends that catch up when we return to our home town at the holidays. She’s the kind of friend that still edits my resumes (and I hers). The kind of friend that calls me at seven in the morning just to tell me about how crappy the Phoenix traffic is, still references events from middle school, and who holds the other membership in our two-person book club. The kind of friend who helps me strategize and plan elaborate parties despite the fact that we live 2000 miles apart.
Once upon a time, in a time not so long ago, a boy and a girl dreamed of eating hot, homemade breakfast every day. They did not hate the yummy but mundane breakfasts they had grown accustomed to, but as the season grew colder, the yogurt and oatmeal of summer days excited them less and less.
One day, while replenishing their stores at ye olde supermarket, the boy decided to see what treasures were held in the depths of the frozen breakfast aisle.
“Alas!” said the boy, upon gazing at the scroll of ingredients, “Even the scribes don’t know these words!” Indeed, the script upon the package seemed to suggest the meal was more chemical than food.
Suddenly, the girl had an idea.
“What if, instead of wasting all this packaging and filling our bellies with low quality food, we make our own frozen breakfasts?”
The boy’s eyes lit up at the thought, and they escaped the chilly aisles before succumbing to the tempting packages within.
The first step, they knew, was to procure some containers that were just the right size. So they rode their chariot to the Pyrex outlet to round up a dozen 1-cup containers, each one made of glass and accompanied by an airtight lid. They were safe for the freezer, the microwave, and their incredible dish-washing machine. A perfect find!
Get ready. This pie is about to rock your face off.
It may not topple King Pumpkin Pie at your Thanksgiving dinner this year.
But it might.
It was certainly the most coveted item at my Halloween party a few weeks ago (I told you I’d post recipes!), and it’s taking over dessert at my Thanksgiving, too.
My guilty secret is that I’m not really a big fan of pumpkin pie (don’t tell, um, anyone) and my preference for an autumn dessert typically involves apples and crisp and vanilla ice cream. I want to like it, but I also don’t want to put a whole bunch of effort into something that, well, doesn’t really thrill. But then I found this recipe, which seemed both lighter and fluffier than the standard Thanksgiving fare.
Instead of making a full size pie, I opted for 24 extremely small ones, each complete with crust and fresh whipped cream topping. They walk a line right between too little pie and promises to never eat pie again. Which would be a foolish promise.
And they make gorgeous little crusts. To be sure, this is THE longest part of this process, so if you’re short on time, perhaps a full size pie or those little graham cracker crusts are the answer for you. The gingersnap crust, however, is well worth the effort.
And now, for something completely out of the blue, a fresh berry jam.
No, I’m not so far behind that I’m posting recipes I made this summer.
Seriously. I went to the farmers market last week, and nestled between the butternut squash and dark, leafy greens sat some of the most fabulous raspberries I have ever seen.
I talked a lot about strawberries when I started this blog, just as they were ripening here. One might assume from so much strawberry talk that they held the highest honor in my berry kingdom.
But oh.
Raspberries.
Be still, my heart.
Luscious, tart, and totally worth the seeds that will get stuck in your teeth.
There is little to complain about with the North Carolina growing season. It’s long, it allows for multiple plantings of cool weather plants, and an enormous variety of fruits and vegetables grow here quite happily. But I have been stymied ALL SUMMER, waiting for baskets of brilliant red raspberries that would never arrive.
Until November, apparently.
Grown under passive tunnels that gather warmth without requiring electricity (as greenhouses typically do), these gorgeous gems of fruit are coming into their own when most other berries have long since disappeared from the market stands.
