Moving Boxing Day

26 December is the British holiday Boxing Day, which is kind of the leftovers holiday – wealthy families would give the servants the day off to go home and see their families, and give them Christmas boxes, with bonuses and leftover food to take with. There’s also the Boxing Day sandwich, turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce on bread – which may be more Canadian than British, but I love it, although usually eaten the day after Thanksgiving rather than Christmas, because we rarely have turkey on Christmas. This year we had pot roast, more on that in a minute.

Somehow in our family traditions this has turned into Boxing Day being the day to sort and box and recycle old stuff and papers from the year.

Which I obviously need to do, but I’m going to move my Boxing Day to the 27th.

Instead, on Boxing Day morning, I walked downtown, via the Colectivo on Monroe St., where I saw the mom of one of John’s friends from middle school, and heard about where her two sons are, and told her about mine, and then did my volunteer shift at the book sale. I was determined to get in a walk, since on Christmas I almost literally did not go outside – I retrieved the newspapers and took out recycling, so I did go out the door, but only a few feet. The via Colectivo route to downtown worked – 11,000+ steps for 12/26.

When I got home, instead of sorting, I made my new years cards. It’s supposed to be sort of a highlights of 2019.

The weather’s still completely UN-Christmas-y – it was 45 on Christmas Day and even warmer on Boxing Day, in the 50s. And no snow in the forecast – supposed to be rainy tomorrow and the next day, and warm. The blog banner is now tree branches covered with snow while they still had leaves, from October when we had more snow and cold than we do now.

I got cookbooks for Christmas; I wanted the 2019 Joy of Cooking, and yes the baking powder in the springerle is 1/4 tsp. per 4 eggs, the amount I’m going to try, to see if I can avoid the blowing up. I had the same problem this year as last; the springerle look good  but then when they go in the oven they puff up too much and you can ‘t see the imprinted designs. They taste OK, but are a bit too chewy, although they regain their intended hard crunchiness with a bit of age. It’s 1/2 tsp. in my 1983 one, and reduced to 1/4 in the 75th anniversary. The other books Mark chose in a librarian-like way, because he is one – selecting them from recommended cookbook lists from book review sources and chefs.

And I guess I didn’t tell you about Christmas dinner, or Boxing Day dinner, or other cooking adventures over the holiday – so here goes.

For Christmas dinner, Al & Emma came over. We exchanged gift certificates – they gave us one for Tory Miller’s restaurant group, and with it and the more modest one I got, as a pleasant surprise, in my Christmas card from my garage contractor, we’ll actually be able to afford a meal at one of his places.

We ate pot roast – a chuck roast from Conscious Carnivore, with parsnips & carrots & onions from my CSA. It was a bit greasy – chuck roast – but really tasty. And braised cabbage with bacon – also cabbage from CSA. And trifle, that had apple cider cake and gingerbread layered in it, and the gingerbread’s a bit too strong for my taste. Also crumpled up pumpkin spice meringues, custard, and cranberry sauce, and pie cherries and sweetened whipped cream to spoon over the top. And we had some nice pan rolls I made with the excess cottage cheese I had because I made fewer baby ruggelach. We’re going to have a nice vegetable beef soup with the pot roast leftovers

Boxing Day dinner was good, too, pasta with sausage and peppers, made with pepperonata and Italian sausage from the co-op that I used half of for the Christmas Eve pizzas. And coleslaw with the other half of the gig CSA cabbage that I braised for Christmas dinner. Ethan was here for dinner and John and Megan, who had come to Madison for an overnight to see one of their friends who’s in from California, finished the pasta when they came home from the bar.

And I finally made Mark’s mom’s gingerbread into Baby Yoda’s and other characters – polar bears and reindeer.

And I’m afraid this may be the last days of my white kitty – she’s kinda of stopped eating and seems pretty weak.