As we enter the very first day of this fine New Year, let me offer a glimpse back into my Christmas holiday kitchen activity, especially regarding various sweets and treats I made. It all kicked off in full gear when I set about making a full batch of homemade eggnog using a faithful recipe that I snagged from Deborah and Pembroke Pettit's recipe collection on one of my many trips to work in Louisa County, Virginia. I had this prepped and in a huge pitcher in the fridge by the start of Christmas week. It was thick, luscious, sweet, creamy, and irresistible...and possibly the best batch I'd ever managed to make.
At mid-day on Christmas Day, I got busy in the kitchen, this time to make a fresh batch of those amazing chewy sugar cookies. I wanted to be able to take some to the hard-working staff at a/perture cinema on Fourth Street, given that they were very much slammed with the opening of Little Women as well as Uncut Gems. It's rare to see the auditorium as full as it was that Wednesday afternoon, when I caught the former in an early afternoon screening.
The next day, I reached for my mother's recipe for date nut balls and put together a nice batch of them, putting some aside for home and letting the rest go into a container for sharing with the staff across the street at Quanto Basta. The recipe for date nut balls at the bottom of this blog post is very similar to Mother's, although I use dark brown sugar instead of light brown.
On the Friday between Christmas and New Year's, I moved on to the next holiday treat item: chocolate-butterscotch scotcheroos. This recipe (from a box of Rice Krispies, back in the 80s!) was always a holiday staple in the Jones household in Buies Creek. I can't claim to have made it as consistently here at the Roediger House but I do think of it as a Christmas regularity.
I had more treats up my sleeve the next day: chocolate crinkle cookies. I'd never made them before and they turned out pretty smashing, really. They were deeply chocolatey and, as is supposed to be the case with crinkle cookies, pretty cool to look at.
"Homemade Eggnog," by Beverly Sims. In Cuckoo Cooks from Gilboa Christian Church in Cuckoo, Virginia.
"Chewy Sugar Cookies," by Katie Leaird. In Cook's Country, December/January 2018, p. 24-25.
"Date Nut Balls," from Allison M. Jones (recipe provided by my sister Allison). Similar to "Mama Rosa's Date Nut Balls," from Debbie Spivey of TheMountainKitchen.com.
"Chocolate-Butterscotch Scotcheroos," from the Rice Krispies cereal box. I first noted and recorded this recipe in 1988.
"Chocolate Crinkle Cookies," from Jaclyn Bell of CookingClassy.com. [Published 04 December 2017]
No comments:
Post a Comment