I mean, cookie season’s not quite over; there’re still quite a few cookies in the house, buckets with kinds we like for us to eat, clamshells that people will be picking up for the leftover cookie grab, and I think the cookie fairy will go her rounds Tuesday.
But still, it’s time to reflect on this year’s cookie season, so that’s the plan for this post.
First of all, when I got out my coat Monday morning to head down to campus to drop off a cookie tray at iSchool and volunteer at the UW Libraries book sale, I realized I had not really been out of the house since Friday morning when I shipped the cookies boxes. I’d been down the driveway to put the compost out to get picked up and gone out the front door to get the paper, but not really gone anywhere. Instead I was inside party prepping Friday and setting up Saturday and packing leftover cookies and washing buckets and platters all day Sunday.
Party leftovers brekkie on Monday, after my trip to campus – deviled egg filling on toast, hummus on pita, and baby ruggelach
And speaking of the party, I always think I’ll take pictures of the cookie platters to make up for not taking enough pictures as I bake the cookies, and pictures of the other food, but I never do. Sometimes somebody else does, one of our students usually or Rach if she’s here, but I never do.
Boxed cookies for people to pick up and make a donation. I give the $$ to the Goodman Food Pantry
Inside one of the boxes
Buckets of cookies in the new screen porch. Monday the weather got blustery – I could hear the wind whistling while I took the picture
Getting more random and in no particular order:
I should’ve made the vegan mincemeat tarts with one of the other vegan butters than Earth Balance that taste better, like Miyoko’s or even the country crock I bought at Woodman’s; can’t remember if it was last year or the year before. The tarts look good but I could taste the Earth Balance, and not in a good way. I might make another batch with butter, non-vegan, but *note to self, somehow I overbought a bit on butter and still have 12+ pounds of unsalted so seems silly to buy more vegan butter when there’s so much of the real thing in the house.
Vegan mincemeat tarts and lite brite tree, about 9:30 Friday night
Also note to self on purchases – I did pretty well on cookie ingredients. There’s that leftover butter and a few jars of molasses and honey. I still have sugar and flour but no problem using that up over the year. I might’ve bought a bit too much jam. And oh yea, the spoon cookies are filled with a mix of strawberry and strained cherry preserves, and I used Bon Maman cherry, and it’s too runny. I need to hold out for the Smuckers cherry, that works best, or maybe use another flavor.
My approach to party food was whatever it is, one tray. Half sheet pan that is, so somewheres between 30 and 40 pieces. And I didn’t really overbuy on party food except for maybe the 2 packs of mini pretzel buns that I bought at the last minute and I never needed to put out – there was homemade focaccia and biscuits and purchased pita and baguettes and crackers to go with the appetizers that needed breads and it was enough.
Not-dogs (vegetarian hot dogs) in a blanket, Chicago-style. I couldn’t find little link not-dogs, so I cut regular size ones in half. The sport peppers are inside the dough, then they got egg wash and a sprinkle of Old Bay – in lieu of seasoned salt – and poppy seed. Served with a sauce of mayo, relish, and Dijon mustard. Definitely a keeper. I think I’ll make them again for NYE. I have kosher hot dogs and more dough in the freezer. And even though it seems like I did something funny with the dough, a yeasted tart crust from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone that I always use, it still worked ok. I think maybe I doubled the milk and tripled everything else.
The other hot appetizers were meat pigs in blankets, and spanakopita. For Thanksgiving I thawed two cartons of kale I cut at Tipi’s gleaning day in October (also the day we brought the kittens home), and blanched. I was going to make a butternut squash and greens casserole, something like this, but when Thanksgiving got canceled due to Covid, I stuck it back in the freezer. Anyways, I got both cartons out for the spanakopita, but only needed one. Don’t want to refreeze it, hope it lasts until New Years to go with our black-eyed peas.
A few leftover spanakopita Monday. They were good on Saturday night – and I think they’ll still be good reheated.
Squash hummus does not freeze well – it gets watery. I had a combo platter of hummus’es, regular made with some garbanzos I cooked and let get too squishy and froze thinking them hummus-ready, and the watery squash hummus. Of course the regular hummus went, and the squash did not, and even sadder, at one point I found an apricot jam star drowned in the squash hummus. I discreetly removed it to the compost.
I made BBQ tempeh and BBQ turkey and put them out with focaccia and oil & vinegar coleslaw. I had some of the tempeh during the party, on a hunk of focaccia, no slaw, and it was good – but the last dab of the turkey that I ate for lunch on Sunday with slaw was even better.
And I did do this thing I’d always wanted to do – I got a ham and cooked & sliced it then I put it out with sliced Jarlsberg cheese & biscuits. I rolled out the biscuits in the morning then stuck them in the freezer & baked them right before serving them during party. The biscuits disappeared the quickest of anything. Second quickest was the log of goat cheese in pepperonata.
I was afraid it was going to be the party when no one came. One thing we have learned from pandemic is stay home if we’re sick and I got a few regrets for “oh we have terrible colds” or just feel crummy. And things like my partner was exposed to Covid at work and we’re both still testing negative but don’t want to take chances. We had a good crowd though, and one thing that was fun was there were a few people who used to come to the party but hadn’t made it for a few years and they came back.
Next year – or maybe New Year’s – I’m going to try making the deviled eggs by grating the yolks. I had a runny mess in the food processor this year, plus it’s harder to clean than the bowl I’d grate the yolks in. The mix seemed too dry, so I added some sour cream. Then it was too wet so I put in toasted almonds. A version I learned way back when at Ovens of Brittany – toasted almonds and a little bit of curry powder in the deviled egg filling. Which tastes good, but plugs up the pastry bag and you need to scoop the filling. Despite my dissatisfaction with the filling, all the deviled eggs got eaten in a flash. I replaced the empty spots in my deviled egg plates with half a dozen beet pickled eggs and those went fast, too. People are charmed by beet pickled eggs. Must be that bright purple.
My knee’s been hurting and I am attributing it to too much standing.
I’ve been saying I shoulda thrown the spritz cookies to the wolves (that is, put the buckets of them out for people’s box packing) because I had a lot left, but as I’ve been giving cookies away the last few days having all those spritz was a fine thing.
I shoulda made more springerle. They’re usually my treat into January – there’s a bucket of leftovers in the basement fridge that I can dip into. But they’re all gone already. Guess I need to buy some anise extract and make more. And maybe a batch of Mark’s Mom’s Gingerbread for decorating.
OK I’m trying to finish this Tuesday night and almost falling asleep with my laptop and the cats in my lap, so I think this is it for now. The cookie fairy did go out today – have to tell you about that another day.
So nigh night, and more later. ♥