Holiday Food

Truly -- The food. It cannot be left out of the blogging. Max and I spent a good long while during the week after Christmas remembering and Oooo-ing and Ahhh-ing over the delicious treats we enjoyed during this holiday season.

Indulgence began with the "Night Tree" celebration at my Aunt Marty's house. It's a lovely celebration of solstice with friends. We gather at Marty's and enjoy soup and company while creating edible ornaments for the birds and animals. In years past we've hiked into the woods and decorated a shrub with the pieces. This year we just went around the corner and caroled to a little tree by the side of the road. Sabine LOVED that part and really got into singing "Jingle Bells" almost word for word. She also watch the clouds moving fast that night and seemed so sweet as she watched.

BUT I digress.... The food... Marty is a ridiculous cook. That night on the menu were two soups. The first is Hungarian Mushroom from the Original Moosewood cookbook. I had two servings and then passed up on the peanut soup which was apparently quite amazing as well.

For teacher and friend gifts this year I made low-fat granola from Cooking Light. It has craisins, pineapple juice, and apricots in it. I add cinnamon because it just needs a little something more. Sabine loved the apricots which she'd never had before. It's an extremely easy recipe and super tasty!

Of course, there were the treats: Mexican Wedding cakes by my mom, a red velvet cake by Gigi, peanut butter blossom cookies, the salty chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chocolate chunk cookies, forgotten cookies, more chocolate chip cookies, and other yummy goodness. SIGH!

On Christmas Eve we kept things simple with homemade pasta sauce that my mom can make like the back of her hand. Hearty and delicious!

Into that we added fresh homemade pasta. The pasta was hung through the kitchen with care. And we enjoyed a simple but delicious Christmas eve meal.

Christmas morning was brunch with the Baked Omlet from the mennonite cookbook from Katie's wedding. French puff muffins which are essentially white bread rolled in butter with cinnamon and sugar!

Christmas day had more and more treats in the country... with the famous mac and cheese!

Then at my parents' house Lasagna with mom's famous sauce. She skipped the French Silk Pie and we all decided 1. this is for the best and 2. we'll schedule a specific time to come into town for it.

With that we cut ourselves off from delightful dining! Now I think we all have the resolution to lose a few pounds. oy!