Holidays – Little House on the Fairy Hill

Counting our Blessings

This time of year I feel like we’re never still for more than a moment. Their are presents to buy and make, gifts to wrap, cookies to bake, food to deliver, packages to mail, and all of that on top of just our general busyness – work, school and life.

We finally start to still on Christmas in the late afternoon – all the work is done, gifts are gifted, Christmas dinner is eaten, and there’s nothing left but to sit back and breathe. It’s that moment around 5 pm Christmas day when there’s nothing left to be done that I finally sit and relax. And for us, the day after Christmas is a continuation of the nothing – leftovers, a fire in the wood stove, everyone gets to enjoy their presents and relax.

But as I sit and write, we’re still a couple of days from that. The Christmas turkey is thawing, I’ve got batches of cookies to bake tonight, and gifts to wrap, and the refrigerator is filled with delicious things, so full it’s hard to squeak it all in.

Still, for all the craziness, it’s been joyful as well. I managed to sneak away for a weekend in Montreal with the oldest, just the two of us, and it was a delight. Cold, but marvelous 1-1 time visiting the Christmas Markets, Biodome, A Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit, and a dress-up dinner, plus exploration of bakeries, the underground city, and Chinatown. 13 is honestly a delight – interested in food and experiences, willing to try new things, funny and opinionated. While we did that Eli took my son into Boston for a night for pool time and holiday shopping.

January is our pantry challenge month, and so far I have meals planned to the end of the first week. We have a lot of things to use up right now, so our meals are being built around what we have in most cases. But first we had to have all the things for our Christmas meal, so our final grocery delivery came today. We also have a few things we don’t usually cook from our last winter CSA, like celeriac and rutabaga, so I need to get creative to use those up.

I have some days off after the holiday, and some of that time will be spent prepping freezer items, such as homemade pizza dough, so we can just grab it and thaw it. 2022 was full of travel and adventure. The coming year will be much more centered around home, and that’s just fine. Adoption, the garden, and some home maintenance in advance of full renovation – taking trees down, the end of the driveway needs repaving, and just generally getting ready. In order to be fully ready, and because interest rates and construction costs are so high, we postponed a year, but we’re reaching the point where we can’t wait.

So it’s time. But first, it’s time to gather and celebrate, and be profoundly grateful for our life, just as it is.

Meal plan for Christmastime:

Friday December 23rd: Taco Pizza, guacamole, salsa and chips
Saturday December 24th: Dinner with Family – their house
Sunday December 25th: Cheese board, turkey, stuffing with sausage, sage and onion, 4 cheese mashed potatoes, roasted Brussels sprouts and onions, and cranberry-raspberry sauce. Eli will make pizzelles, and our guests will bring green bean casserole and pie.
Monday December 26: Leftovers. Mom definitely doesn’t cook
Tuesday December 27th: Turkey pot pie, broccoli cheese soup
Wednesday December 28th: Play-it-by-ear day, maybe leftovers, maybe something else, definitely the day to turn the turkey into soup stock. I do have to cook for some friends who have a child fighting cancer, so we may end up having the same thing they are
Thursday December 29th: Time to detox from Christmas food so Salmon with horseradish and mustard crust and a squash salad
Friday December 30th: Date night – some nice person at an Italian restaurant is cooking
Saturday December 31st: Homemade and ordered Chinese food
Sunday January 1st: Montreal Steaks with Green Goddess salad
Monday January 2nd: Chicken Parmesan, popovers, pasta and broccoli

From my home to yours, Happy Holidays. May they be filled with warmth, light and food.

It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving and I’ve Already Bought Christmas Dinner

There’s no turkey shortage this year, but still, reasons.

I hope your Thanksgiving day was warm and cozy and merry however you celebrated, and that might be ‘uh, not at all, Rachael, we live in East Somewhere that doesn’t do the whole Pilgrim-y myth thing, we do what any sane person does in November and that’s stay inside and eat soup‘. This is all good, although I’m going to unequivocally state that turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and whatever sides you prefer is the meal of the year. Which is why we frequently hit the repeat button for Christmas.

This year food prices are absolutely shocking. I mean like the tub of cream cheese that was $3.69 last year at this time is now $7.69. Even though we are doing ok, we have to be thoughtful. I’ve considered making a price book again, just to track the changes.

Last year prices weren’t so bad, but there was shortages of everything. While the supply chain has smoothed out, the increase in prices is reason enough to spread out the costs. So here’s what we did.

November is our big food stockpile month anyway, so this year we have most of the goods from that – squashes galore, sweet potatoes and a 25 lb bag of keeping onions my sister brought from the farm by her that we love. So with the exception of potatoes and cheese and crackers, most of the sides are set. We have 5 pie pumpkins alone, so I see a lot of pumpkin recipes in our future. So most of our sides will come from this bounty.
Stuffing bread and mixes are cheapest around Thanksgiving, and for the most part, they keep. Same with turkey brine mixes if that’s your thing. So those are bought and tucked away in the pantry for a few weeks.
Our meat share offers turkeys at Thanksgiving, but not at Christmas, so we ordered a lovely bird and popped it in the freezer. Same with salami/cured sausage, so we got that too.
We ordered 5 lbs of cranberries – I love cranberries – this fall and used some for Thanksgiving #2, but still have plenty for more Cranberry-raspberry sauce, cranberry bread, and so on.
Flour and sugar for Christmas baking are also the cheapest right around now, so we just buy a lot. We also have a lot of butter from our last (and likely last) Azure Standard order. We make baked goods for gifts, and of course, for ourselves.
Our Winter CSA runs through December and so we’ll choose our greens and some sides from that. We have a pickup every other week, and the list of what’s available is published the Monday of pickup week. So we’ll eat well, but won’t be able to plan that part out.

So what that means is when I start doing Christmas dinner prep sometime on the 23rd – because much prep can be done in advance – I’ll probably only need a few things. December’s grocery budget is much, much lower than November’s, but we’ll still need to shop for our traditional homemade Chinese feast (the last couple years we have supplemented with ordered food, not sure how we’ll do it this year). We’ll take the kids with us to the Asian market to get our supplies the week before Christmas.

January’s budget is lower still, since that’s the month of our pantry challenge. We’ll buy milk, fruit and veggies and that’s all. It’s pleasant to start cleaning out the freezers and cabinets as we head into a new year. It makes meal planning super important, because we can’t just run out to get something, but it also means being creative, which is a fun way to challenge oneself.

And all that’s great. But by doing it in advance I also saved myself time and mental energy, which is a holiday gift in and of itself.

Holiday Lights

“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” – Abraham Lincoln

Right after Thanksgiving, we went to cut down a Christmas tree. My husband lit up the house beautifully at my request to have all the lights, and we began to celebrate the season despite the underpinning of grief, and the news that my uncle was hitting new lows in his cancer battle.

And I found myself unable to write or really, make clear decisions about almost anything.

It was a little like the final guitar wire snapped, 2 months after the bomb that was the loss of my brother-in-law detonated in our family, as we tried to navigate our grief and a way to live with it. I found myself tired constantly, forgetful, and disorganized. The kids were just…off. No one could concentrate. I would buy groceries and forget to use them, couldn’t for the life of me remember what to make for dinner, and wander into rooms and just stare. The Omicron variant blew up some of our plans. “Why do we even make plans?” I wondered not infrequently.

Grief, they say, is disorienting, but I found it to be more along the lines of dislocating. Something is not where it belongs, and the ripples of that strange ‘gap in the system’ mean that nothing quite makes sense, which in turn made my brain feel like it was wearing a sweater most of the time.

But we are blessed, and the greatest way we are is in that our people just keep showing up. My best friend, tired of hearing me cry from 1500 miles away, hopped a plane and joined us for a weekend in the mountains, surprising my children and creating a sense of normalcy and fun, then extended her stay a few days when my daughter wasn’t ready for her to go. My next door neighbor showed up with a bag of dog food for Teddy (also, he keeps eating their dog’s food, so this was partially an investment in brokering peace on earth and goodwill between dogs) and checked in frequently. My husband took over much of the cooking and mostly adapted to a weary, forgetful wife, perhaps preparing for what it might be like 30 years from now.

But my children, most of all, grounded me. Because my son still fiercely and fully believes in all the magic of Christmas. Elves on shelves, magical appearing candy and surprises in Advent Calendars, and Santa in all his magic. He made lists and planned surprises for all. No matter what, all the enchantments that are the holiday season needed to appear, and so they did.

Every morning, finding Elphidelphia, our Elf on the Shelf, and checking the advent calendar for treats or treasures, but most of all, as my husband strung the house with lights, he decided to make me a lighted North Pole for the yard with my husband as a gift. My daughter made us all homemade Ramen for dinner.

Our Christmas was filled with love, and then a multi-day playdate/sleepover with the kids down the street capped it all off. I took some days off and started to catch up on sleep. I cooked all day on Christmas, the kids loved their gifts, and suddenly joy crept back in, like vines that flower through cracks in the pavement.

Tempered of course, with sadness and worry about those whose loss is greater than ours, but joy and hope nonetheless. I wish the same to you and yours.

RV Economics Part 1

The last several weeks have been cool – it’s still quite chilly in the mornings and evenings, and there’s been a lot of rain. I like the rain, and I love that everything is green around me, but I would love just a bit more sunshine. Fortunately it’s coming, as is summer.

And that means we’ll take the cover off of the RV and begin to use it. We bought it last year, but it’s a purchase that we’ve both thought about for years both individually before we were together and afterwards, jointly. Once we decided to do it, we moved fairly quickly, but only after significant research. As RV sales are booming and it’s a way cheaper investment than a second home (bonus: you can take it anywhere there’s a road) I wanted to talk about how we decided on ours, what the cost were, and how we’re thinking about it one year in. If you’ve been thinking about diving in to the RV world, I hope this is helpful.

First, what we bought. We own a Prime Time Tracer 24DBS travel trailer that can sleep 8. After looking around for a used Airstream – new not really being in the budget – and day-tripping to Vermont to drool over a 1960 model with stained glass windows that would need a completely new interior, we realized that with our current and growing family, plus our time limits, the time to refurbish an Airstream wasn’t now. Once we made that decision, our options shrank. We have a Nissan Pathfinder that can tow a maximum of 6000 pounds, and we knew we needed the ability to sleep a lot of us comfortably. And I wanted a u-shaped dining area so we could all sit and eat together. At the end of the day, only one make and model fit exactly the kind of layout we needed, the 24DBS.

Then we set out to find it. Last year the RV market went crazy in the pandemic, and finding this one model was a challenge. There just wasn’t any within 500 miles on the used market, and the ones that were out there weren’t much – if at all – cheaper than new. but we did find a new one about 90 minutes away from us. One. We went to look at it, and noting the folks lining up to look at it after we went in, we bought it on the spot. While new vehicles aren’t normally what we want, I’m totally comfortable with our decision for a few reasons:

We bought from a nationwide dealer, RV Camping World. This means that there’s likely to be a service shop within a reasonable distance from wherever we go, and as newbies, that’s nice to know
Because we were new to this, the hours Eli spent with their folks going through the details of how to hook it up to the Pathfinder and all the features stem to stern were invaluable.
They installed our tow hookup as well, so we only had to go to a single place

This decision isn’t for everyone, but for us, with limited time and zero knowledge, it was absolutely the right decision. We have no regrets, and expect to enjoy our RV for many years. While new isn’t necessarily right for everyone, spending months looking and long road trips during a pandemic weren’t the right things at the time.

After doing a bunch of research, we decided if we were all in, there were some things that would make our lives easier that were worth the upfront costs.

Beddys. These things are great, and in the tiny, cramped spaces around the beds, make everyone’s life easier. They have regular BoGo sales and are super cute and easy to maintain. After reading rave reviews by every RVer that has invested, we went all in. Plus the kids got to pick theirs.
A completely automated hook up with backup camera and secondary electronic brake in the car. This makes navigating so much easier for Eli, and was worth every dime.
The Camping World roadside service plan. While this is not a necessity, it gives me a ton of peace of mind, and it’s also good for the vehicle pulling our new vacation digs.
An inexpensive set of knives, bowls, flatware and plastic drinking glasses that live in the RV
A percolator coffee pot that doubles as as backup to our house coffee pot
A covered bamboo bowl set (well, my big sister bought me one of them, because she’s wonderful) for salads and serving

All in, the ‘extras, were about $3900 on top of the $28,985 purchase price, but I will say that after having made many ‘pennywise, pound foolish’ decisions over my life, these up front adds have been worth it.

For the rest, we repurpose extras pans and dishes from our kitchen to cook with. This year, I may buy a cheap stick vacuum for the interior, as well as a towel rack, and Eli bought a toilet paper holder (please note that this is not something built in, and to avoid soggy toilet paper in a super small RV bathroom, you’ll want to invest) eventually we’d love to move away from the heavily brown interior and do a bit of slipcovering and redecorating, but generally we’re set.

So let’s talk about using it. So far, we have not added solar or a composting toilet, which will allow us to move away from RV parks and into the backcountry, what RVers call ‘boondocking’. It’s in the plan, but by the time we bought it, had the hookups installed and got it home, it was September of 2020, so we used it a couple of times and then winterized it.

We used it twice for a total of 5 nights last year. The first was a weekend in New Hampshire in October to try it out. We stayed in an RV campground with a wonderful staff, and when we realized we also didn’t have a sewer hose, another thing that doesn’t come standard, they got us set right up. We learned from this trip how much gas the Pathfinder uses hauling it (a lot, we now carry a gas canister at all times) and how to use it. The kids really loved it, and so did we, a not-insignificant outcome for something we’d bought without ever so much as renting a camper in our lives.

Eli and I then took it to Maine in November and spent Thanksgiving weekend. We learned a lot that weekend as well – such how quickly the propane tanks empty when you need the heat on, which we learned by waking up and being able to see our breath, to be grateful I’d brought extra blankets, and a much-needed reminder that advance meal prep is a great way to ensure you don’t eat out when you are starving after a long hike.

RV sites with full hookups, i.e. water, sewer and electric range from about $46 a night to about $90, infinitely cheaper than your average hotel room. Given that we had been spending about $200/night on hotel rooms and house rentals on vacation, this is a substantive savings. But it will still take a long while to amortize those savings against the cost of the RV.

I can tell you though, it was worth every dime.

Next time: The cost of RV vacations and getting it to pay for itself

Holiday Lights

The last few weeks have rushed by. Work continued to be busy straight up until I closed my laptop on the 23rd, long after everyone else in the house had eaten dinner.

Other than a single day next week scheduled to play catch up, I’m on vacation until the new year, and so is my family. Christmas Eve, which would normally be centered around visits to family and friends, dinner with my parents, and food preparation for a big Christmas dinner, is even quieter than we thought it would be, while we wait for someone who has potentially exposed us to Covid-19 to get test results back. We’re all fine, just waiting.

My son has started talking about the things he doesn’t want to end after the pandemic does. Mostly he wishes I could be home like I am now. I do too, and I’m working to limit my travel after this ends. We know we have months ahead of us yet, but everyone seems to instinctively also know that this, too, shall pass.

Today is for baking – my friend Claire’s gingerbread cookie recipe is a requirement for Christmas for more than 20 years now, maybe a few more sugar cookies too. And Eli will try his hand at Pierogies, a warm reminder for both of us of our childhoods. That, combined with homemade apple sauce, kielbasa from a polish shop nearby and a few other items will be a fun meal and homage to our shared Polish ancestry. Even in our quarantine, we will celebrate.

I hope all of you have a warm and merry holiday filled with love. From our home to yours, happy holidays.

Thanks Giving

I woke up yesterday morning to rain, that turned to snow and wind later in the day. I was up early, as I always am, but this time with purpose – yesterday was our little family’s belated Thanksgiving dinner. Combined with tree and house decorating for Christmas, the first Saturday in December is a big deal here.

December 5th was Thanksgiving here because the adults in the family banded together several weeks ago to isolate, get all of us tested and exercise extreme caution so that the kids and their Dad could spend the weekend with his parents, both of whom are at risk due to age and medical conditions. We all figured since it was both Thanksgiving and Grandma’s birthday, better that than not at all.

That meant that Eli and I were alone, and deciding that an empty house wasn’t our thing, took the RV up to Maine for 3 days. We prepped and cooked all our meals in advance and were pretty isolated other than passing hikers at a distance as we climbed to the top of Old Speck Mountain, a piece of the Appalachian Trail about 270 miles south of it’s end point at Mount Katahdin. It was snowing at the summit, and wet and slippery both up and down, but an experience we both loved. Time alone without chores to talk, sleep and be outdoors is rare f or us, and we relished every moment, despite the chilly weather and missing the kids.

Thursday I went to BJs and stocked the house with everything I could, from candy canes and Christmas candy to groceries and bows. Other than occasional trips for milk and fresh fruit and veggies, we need nothing, and won’t for quite some time. Friday I stopped working a bit early and we took off to find a Christmas tree at the tree farm that long ago was my next door neighbor. It was a gorgeous, sunny and warm day, and the fresh air and the tradition of cutting our own tree was good for all of us.

And now, other than the new school the kids will start to attend on Tuesday, we’ve battened down the hatches. Covid-19 is spreading out of control here and almost everywhere in the US. From now until Memorial Day, we’re tucked in tight.

Which brings me back to that Thanksgiving dinner, and our celebration at home. To get through a winter of relative isolation, a level of coziness combined with periodic celebration is required. Settling in for a family dinner of Turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings while the wind blows and the rain comes down is important for any number of reasons, but most of all that traditions are comforting, and they ground us. Our traditions adapt and change over the years – this year just us 4 together, but our table expands and contracts as our family changes. But enough components stay the same – the cheese-filled mashed potatoes, the cranberry raspberry sauce, the deliciously brined turkey, the us – that they are touchstones in our lives, the things that make home.

In a cold Covid winter, when hospitals are overwhelmed and the best thing we can do is stay home, making home the place we want to be is important.

Christmas In August

As it rolls into late summer, and we begin to harvest more and more from the garden (translation: the zucchini is becoming unmanageable and we start to consider leaving bags on our neighbor’s doorknobs, and running away before they can catch us doing it and try to give it all back), our thoughts turn to the winter holidays. No, it’s not that we don’t have enough to do – there is always way too much to do – but because this is exactly the time to get the winter holidays under control, or at least something resembling under control.

And this means I’ve been dicing a LOT of oversized zucchini. I mean, a lot. Because I do’t have a food processor. Yet. It’s on my list but it will show up in my life when it does, and I’m in no hurry to shell out $200 for a good one, so instead I mince. This is a fair bit of work but kind of mindless and I don’t really mind it.

More concerning is that the zucchini plants keep producing and if I take my eyes away for even 5 minutes they grow to the size of my leg. If I left them there they would probably grow to the size of Godzilla, develop Artificial Intelligence and take over the world.

I pick them to save all of us from that fate. You are welcome.

But back to Christmas and getting that sorted. The monster zucchini and endless chopping is a key component.

‘Sorted’ has multiple parts. The first is budgetary – we’ve done varying degrees of spending on holidays, but we’ve really been working to ratchet it down, both for our immediate family and those around us. Which means a lot of what we do is homemade. This year, Eli will be making some gifts with his woodworking skills, and we as a family always do food gifts. Baked goods, for sure, along with our ubiquitous Peppermint Bark, but there is always food in jars to accompany, along with a handmade tag by my husband. Last year we made infinity jars of Salsa Verde, this year it’s masses of Zucchini Relish.

Here we come full circle to the dicing effort.

By my estimates, we need 16 jars of the stuff and some to keep, but maybe more. I can make 3-4 jars at a time, and each batch takes about 24 hours, because the onions and zucchini bits need to brine in salt overnight. So for right now, each day I make a batch of relish, and then chop the onion and zucchini for the next batch.

Once the 16 – or 20 – or something jars are canned and ready next week, they will be stored for the holidays, which is when everyone wants sweet pickle relish, right? I mean, what’s December without that. But seriously though, this stuff is really amazing, and a complete labor of love.

And then, we will set aside the jars in a cool dark place (translation: box in closet) until it is time to line them up, apply tags and add them to boxes of cookies to share. But the effort will have been expended in August, also the planning. There’s no need to think of what to get the people we love, because it’s there, complete and ready.

Zucchini Relish to Eat and Share
Makes 3 pints

8 cups zucchini, finely chopped or shredded
4 cups finely chopped or shredded onions (yellow or red)
1 tablespoon of salt

Combine zucchini, onions and salt in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.

Rinse and the zucchini and onion mixture, then add to a large stock pot.

Add:
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups vinegar
2 1/2 tsp ground tumeric
3/4 tsp ground pepper
1 tablespoon of mustard seeds (any color)
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 red pepper, finely diced
1 jalepeno pepper finely diced

Bring the zucchini mixture to a boil for 5 minutes, and then turn off heat and let sit for about 15 minutes, which will allow the relish to thicken. If you have hand-chopped the ingredients, use an immersion blender to process the mixture, leaving a fair amount of chunks. Return relish to a boil and prepare your jars.

Here’s how I do the jars: I fill our water bath canner (this is an old enamel pot, but calling it my water bath canner is both accurate and sounds nicer than ‘old soup pot’) with water, and put it on to heat, immersing pint jars and rings. Wash the rubber lids separately, and don’t boil those.

Bring everything to a boil, and then when you are ready to can, pull out the jars onto a waiting towel. Use a towel you don’t mind getting stained or dirty for this.

Fill the jars most of the way, leaving about 1/2 inch at the top. Wipe off the rims with a wet towel and place the lids and rings on. Be careful, because the jars will be pretty hot between the boiling and the relish. Using a jar lifter or pair of tongs, place the lidded pints in the boiling water bath, making sure there’s enough water to cover them completely.

Boil for 10 minutes, remove the jars and set them aside to cool. Once they are cool, remove the rings and lightly test the lids to make sure they have sealed by pulling on them just a little tiny bit.

Store in a cool place without the rings over the lids.

Holiday Traditions

The bitter cold that had followed repeated snowfall and settled over New England for a week or so finally broke here yesterday, just in time for Christmas.

At nearly 40 degrees yesterday, it felt positively balmy as I was out shopping with my Mom, getting us stocked on groceries for the holiday and after.

With just a couple days left, it’s finally feeling like I might be ready for this holiday. My shopping is done, the packages and (most of) the cards are mailed, and while I’m still wrapping gifts, it’s getting there. I have one more day of work and then I’m on vacation through New Year’s, which I’m so ready for.

Christmas dinner is at my house this year. My former husband and I divide the day – someone gets morning, the kids waking up, and a leisurely breakfast, and someone gets the afternoon, Christmas dinner and a lazy December 26th. I like both, and I miss the kids for whatever part I don’t have, but I’m also at peace, knowing that they get a great day without either parent missing out on everything. Technically it was my year to have the morning, but seeing as my ex-husband just settled into his new house and is building traditions there, it seemed like the best thing. Traditions are great, everyone should have some, and none should be so set in stone that you can’t flex for changing situations.

Dinner this year is turkey, one of my more favorite winter dishes. I try to roast at least one a year. Making a big meal while trying to pull off Christmas magic can mean one person spends most of their day in the kitchen, so I’ve spent a lot of time over the years trying to hone what can be done in advance. And the answer is that a lot can be done. My four-cheese mashed potatoes will be made tomorrow and refridgerated overnight, to be baked just before eating. Sausage for the stuffing can be cooked tonight and left in the fridge to chill. Vegetables can be chopped and prepped the night before, as the turkey brines. Even stuffing bread can be cubed and bagged. And then there’s the benefit of keeping things simple – this year, just a very nice cheese board, with lots of little snacks such as marinated cippolini onions and mushrooms, olives, and feta spread, will precede dinner. Pretty, and easy to make, a cheese board is just the thing for a busy day.

But the simplest thing to prepare and serve, popular with even the kids, is my sister Sharon’s Cranberry-Raspberry sauce. This is our family variation of the traditional jellied stuff, and let me just say – it blows the doors off it. Not only is it beautiful, easy to make and delicious, the leftovers can be swirled into scones, muffins or quick breads, or used as a spread on toast instead of jam. I’ve never tried it as a cake filling between layers, but I’ve been mulling it over. In short, this is not a sauce that will sit and moulder in the back of the fridge, until it finally gets deposited in the trash (or in our case, the chicken coop) once it becomes a science experiment, complete with green fuzz.

You’ll want to eat this stuff, trust me.

And it couldn’t be easier.

You will need:

2 16-ounce bags of fresh cranberries
1 16 ounce package of fresh raspberries or the same amount frozen
2 ounces of water
Sprinkling of sugar
1/3 cup raspberry liqueur, such as Chambord

You put it in a pot. You boil it for a while on low heat until the raspberries break apart and the cranberries are soft.

Let it cool, give a whir with an immersion blender, and pop it in the fridge. You can skip the sugar if you want, but I don’t recommend skipping the liqueur – it’s what gives it the depth of flavor, and the alcohol will cook off. If it’s a little sweet, a dollop of lemon juice will help.

May you have a low stress and delicious holiday!

Holiday Mindfulness

It’s 5 days until Christmas, and between work, life and holiday preparations, it’s a little chaotic around here. With packages and holiday cards left to mail, and not yet even started on my wrapping, it’s easy to get lost in the list of to-dos. All that work on the Salsa Verde turned into gifts, with gorgeous tags made by my artist husband. My spiced nuts are packaged up into gift bags and being delivered along with the salsa and cookies.

Modern life is so busy. Not only are our houses supposed to be decorator-perfect but we’re always supposed to be doing something fun. Creative. Interesting. Instagram-worthy. It’s not enough to do enough – the pressure to do more and more is overpowering. Yesterday after Connor’s first-grade concert, then it was class party. We have Elves on our shelves, Advent calendars to fill, and even the kids at my daughter’s riding class were giving out gifts. “I was supposed to do that?” I wondered, not for the first time, as I rushed out after to buy a last-minute gift for my daughter’s teacher.

No wonder we’re all so tired.

Which means that this is the moment for some mindfulness.

We’ll do more baking this weekend, but it’s also going to be fun – Eli and Connor have an outing planned this weekend, while Kiera and I go into Boston with her close friend and the friend’s mom for a day of exploring. We have a very special house guest coming to visit too – our former intern resident from last summer, H, is returning to us for a night. We’ve missed her.

So it was time to remember that somehow, some way, the holidays always come together, and I know it will this time too. I don’t have to do everything perfectly, and if yet again I don’t get to making homemade truffles, it’s ok. There’s always next year. I have to remember that teaching my kids that holidays are a time of rushing and stress is not the message I want to send.

Instead, I want to send the message that yes, we put effort into things that make us proud to give, but what’s really important is what we give to one another. There will be busy nights between now and Christmas, but ultimately it’s more important that Connor gets to wrap the gifts we’re sending to Auntie Liz and Uncle Joe over general perfection. If dinner is ham and cheese and Cheerios occasionally, it’s hardly the end of the world. If the Christmas cards arrive at some houses on the 26th, we’re not exactly committing a cardinal sin.

So this morning, after making sure the bunnies had food and water and were making it through the cold, I tossed in some laundry, put on the coffee and just..sat. Looking at our tree. Collecting my thoughts.

Breathing.

It’s ok to put it down sometimes. No, it’s more than ok. It’s necessary. If your friends come over and there’s clutter in the corner, whatever. Did you feed them? Do they love you? Is their presence more important than whether you did everything perfectly?

Today, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go get my hair done, I’m going to work, I’m going to make something easy for dinner, and we’re going to sit and watch a movie. Maybe we’ll make some sugar cookies, maybe not.

We are here, warm and safe, surrounded by love. We have enough, and some left over to give to those less fortunate than us. Are the tree lights perfectly spaced? No. Am I going to get everything done? Nope.

Will I do the things that really count? Yes. Yes I will. So will Eli, as he always does. This year, our first year as a family, I don’t just want to celebrate what we’ve done, but also who we are. We’ve accomplished a lot, sure. But none of it matters if we’re harried and snapping at one another.

So sit. Breathe. Look at the lights.

Remember you do enough. You’ve bought enough, baked enough, cared enough.

You are enough.

Holiday Spiced Nuts

I finished the last of my work travel for the year, getting home late on Thursday evening, just as the kids were getting ready to head off to NYC with their dad and his parents, celebrating not just Christmas but his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. While the kids were having fun watching the Rockettes and checking out everything the Big Apple has to offer, Eli and I headed into Boston for a night, to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, then dinner in the North End and a little holiday shopping.

We got home this afternoon after a stop at the grocery store, and I got into serious nesting mode – we’re 10 days to Christmas, and we still have a lot to do. Other than a few bottles of wine to give away, we’re basically done with all but the baking of things and mailing of a few packages and well, all the Christmas cards. Just a little behind.

Since those packages have to be mailed out ASAP, and I always want to include some of my homemade treats, I set out to make my Spiced Nuts, which are a great addition to boxes of cookies and fairly addictive. I took the original recipe from a book called Food For Friends by Sally Pasley Vargas, which, if you like to give food gifts, is worth ever cent of the $4.35 that Amazon is currently selling it for and then some. I tweaked the recipe to combine it with a recipe my Great Aunt Sally used to make, and I think the edits I have made turned both very good recipes into even an even better one.

I’m a huge fan of giving cookies and homemade things as gifts, but I tend to like things that are savory more than sweet myself, so most gifts of sweets get eaten by the other people in my life. These nuts are a the best combination of salty, sweet and spicy, perfect for a cheese board, in a basket of goodies, or for a hostess served with a bottle of wine. Ideal for cold January nights in front of a fire too.

Most of all, while a little time intensive, they are absurdly easy, with 2 caveats: Don’t stray far from the kitchen when cooking – nuts go from browned and yummy to burned very quickly. These are great to make when you are already in the kitchen preparing dinner. And prepare the walnuts separately from the almonds and pecans – they burn easier.

You will need:

2 Cups Pecans
2 Cups Almonds
4 Cups Walnuts
3 Cups Sugar
1 1/2 Cup Water
4 tsp Vanilla Extract
3 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil (don’t substitute olive oil here)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
dash or two of cayenne (if you aren’t going to have small people eat them – if they might, skip this)
2 large foil-covered baking sheets

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Mix together the cinnamon, salt and pepper in a small container. Set aside.
Combine the sugar and the water and turn on low heat. Add the first 4 cups of nuts and bring to a low boil for 5 minutes.

Remove the nuts with a slotted spoon and spread out on the first baking sheet in a single layer.

Bake for approximately 25 minutes, watching to ensure that the nuts brown but do not burn
Repeat for the walnuts, using the same sugar water.
Remove the baked nuts from the oven and move into a heap on the foil.
Sprinkle each pile of nuts with 2 tsp vanilla, then oil, then half of the spice mixture, stirring to coat.

Spread the nuts back into a single layer and return to the oven for approximately 10 minutes, watching closely.

Remove from the oven and let cool. Combine the nuts into a container. Use within 10-14 days.