Deb's Lunch … and dinner and breakfast too

Panorama of my desk – folders of library school apps I need to read, textbook I need to select readings from, partially eaten lunch, coffee travel mug that was home for cleaning over Christmas, now back in the office

The public schools already long-seeming Christmas break because of the way the holidays fell got extended by two days due to extreme cold. Today, Wednesday, was the kids’ first day back. At work, everyone was saying, “oh I just want to get back to normal”. Somebody on facebook said today was her first alarm clock morning in 20.

I got in by 9:00, and thought I’d have time to work on the syllabus for the new course, but instead it was kind of endless student registration and other problems. I had to host a webinar at 11:00, and that went fine – I was just the MC, not the talent.

I guess I got enough done on the syllabus. Didn’t leave till after dark, anyways.

I was going to make US Senate Navy bean soup for dinner – I left the beans soaking in the morning – but I thought it would probably take too long. So we had leftovers – squash and leek tart with goat cheese from Monday, a few slices of leftover pizza that Mark had, and veggies & dip. Wedge-shaped things and stick-shaped things. I started the soup, and as I got the veggies out to cut up to go with the the dip, I also go out all the ends I’d been saving for veggie broth – Mark gave me some dried out garlic, and there were parsley stems and the dark parts of leeks and thyme and a half-frozen parsnip. And all the vegetable trimmings I made for the soup and the dip veggies – like onion ends, and more celery and the carrot peels and stem ends – all went into the broth, too. Looks and smells like a good batch.

So the fridge is getting back to normal, too. We’ll eat the soup tomorrow.

The holidays are winding down, and real life is intruding –

Over the weekend, I sold the old Toyota that John’s been driving, that belonged to Mark’s Dad. It’s probably worth at least $4000, but needs work that would cost someone  like me, who has to hire a mechanic to do it, at least $2000. So I put it on Craigslist on Saturday morning for $2500, and it sold in 6 hours. I’m giving John my grey Subaru wagon, and leasing a new Impreza for me. I must’ve gotten 30 calls, assorted texts, and dozens of emails about the Camry while I was at the dealership doing the deal for the Impreza.

Old Camry in the driveway – the shot that sold it

Grey Subaru at the dealer’s waiting to get its plates put on my new one

Sunday morning I got up and cleaned out the Toyota, so the buyer could come and take it away at 11:00. I’m afraid the 4 long skinny aluminum rods that I’m banging my shins on now in the basement when I go down to feed the cats & clean their litter are actually part of the Toyota’s (partially broken) trunk-opening-apparatus – but they also could be part of some kind of photographic lighting rig that John wants. Why I saved them.

We had duck fat fried potatoes for Sunday breakfast and finally ate the trifle with TV on Sunday night. It was good, but maybe a little too traditional for our American tastes – a little too much sherry. It’s from an article spread in the now defunct Waitrose Food Magazine, on designer Terence Conran’s Christmas lunch and the following tea, that includes this trifle and a game pie, among other dishes.

On Monday morning, I had to spend about an hour on the phone with the insurance guy and the car dealer. Then I used Mar’s car, on loan from Ethan, to go shop for New year’s day brunch. Then Mark & I took a cold walk over to the Credit Union, to pay off the grey Subaru.

We are supposed to be picking up the Impreza on New year’s eve day – maybe I can get it to pose then.

I made the very last cookie kind, the Lora Brody rugelach, on New year’s eve morning. Note to all you Epicurious commenters – I make this pretty much as written, following Rose Levy Berenbaum’s meticulous instructions – but removing the cookies from the parchment to cool on a rack is a bad idea. They’ll stick to the rack. Just let them cool on the cookie sheets, on the parchment.

I think I’ll be working January 2, 3, 4 & 5 – Thursday thru Sunday – to write a syllabus for a new class I’m teaching spring semester. But maybe I can mostly work at home.

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We’re doing Christmas by flexible scheduling this year, time-shifting.

John and Megan and Al and Emma all got here on Monday, sequentially. I was at work finishing grading, and John texted to say they were in town and going to the mall for last minute shopping, and did I want to get picked up because it was like -4º outside. The mall is pretty far from my office, so I thought it’d be easier to take the bus, but UW-Madison seems to have turned off its mobile website – with the best bus times. I had to download the app, and it kept crashing. So in the end I waited for them to get me.  I had thawed out a pan of beef enchiladas, thinking it’d be plenty for everyone for dinner. After Megan, John, Mark, Toni and I ate, there was only one left for Al who arrived for 2nd shift dinner.

I took Megan & John to a friends and did a little grocery shopping.

On Christmas eve day, I got up to make peanut butter brownies and pizza dough, so we could have our traditional home made pizza and silly movie. Specifically, Love Actually the last few years. I’ve decided that the best way to make pizza is to pre-bake the crust – recipe posted real soon now. We all ate bagels and bacon and egg and bacon bagel sandwiches for breakfast and Megan drove off for Iowa. I was wracking my brain trying to remember why I never got out for a walk yesterday – and it’s because Mark and Toni and I went to see movie 2 of the Hunger Games trilogy – Catching Fire at 1:00. It’s a 2 1/2 hour movie, and I wanted to get a few things at Sentry, after. So we weren’t back until after 4:00.

I made 4 pizza varieties: potato-sausage; pepperoni; goat cheese, roasted red pepper and olive; and pesto and oven-dried tomato. I made six crusts, thinking I’d freeze two, but I had enough cheese and sauce and meat for two pepperoni pies. Al & Emma came back and watched and ate pizza too – no pictures, every slice was eaten. Al told us about this blog that pretty much destroys Love Actually, so we were all looking at it on our phones and watching the movie at the same time.

On Christmas day, we opened presents, again sort of tag team. Mark, me, John, Al, Emma & Toni were all here. Al & Emma were heading over to her parents for round 2 of opening presents there – and they’d done a few on the Eve. Ethan was coming later to open presents with Mark. Those of us left here ate brunch after presents. I made a ton of food, waffles, bacon and sausage, fried apples, and coffee cake (again, no pics). The plan was duck a l’orange and roasted vegetables for dinner, but while I was cooking brunch, I started to have wayward thoughts – do we really want to have another big meal in 4 hours? So we decided to move the duck dinner to tomorrow. Christmas dinner on boxing day. Why not? And we should have more eaters – I think Megan will be back, and Ethan and Abby will come.

Tonight we’ll see if we can use the Amazon prime membership that Mark gave me for Christmas to watch another movie – and eat cookies. I made the last cookie tray of the season for our movie snacks.

Our movie ended up Fargo, and I made flan to go with the cookies. It didn’t unmold very well, kind of slid sideways, but we ate it anyhow.

And I did get out for a Christmas day walk. Short but snowy and pretty. There was a spot where I could see a red stop sign and a green street sign at the opposite ends of the same block – I think that was the Christmas colors for me.

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Cookie season isn’t over yet, but it’s winding down. The party was Friday. It was a particularly nice one, somehow. Here’s what there was to eat:

• Buffalo chicken dip from the Frank’s hot sauce website, with celery sticks – coulda made a double batch.
• 5 pounds of hamburger made into cocktail meatballs – there were actually a few left. I’ll thaw them when Al gets home.
• Spicey peanut dip with carrots, broccoli, beauty heart radishes, and cucumber. I bought a small head of cauliflower and forgot to cut it up, but the dip got all eaten so there must’ve been enough vegetables to eat it on, even without the cauliflower.
• Caramelized onion dip – I sort of use Heidi’s, but when I am cooking the onions, I add a bit of brown sugar and some soy sauce. I don’t use any dehydrated onion flakes or powders. And I use more creamy stuff per onions; Heidi says 1 1/2 lbs. onion to 3/4 cup each sour cream & Greek yogurt – I use about 3/4 cup each  sour cream, Greek yogurt and mayonaise
• Cheeses: Stilton, Morbier, Mobay, and two kinds of Marieke seedy Gouda, one the feugreek that I’ve always liked, the other a mixture of mustard seeds. With crackers. All pretty much snarfed but the Stilton
• Sausage & cheese platter with Christopher Columbus salami and Tillamook cheddar from Costco (the 2# logs of Tillamook are my favorite thing to buy at Costco) – and Terese sliced both up for me. Used the last of the salami to make scrambled eggs with salami and cheese on Sunday morning
• 4 loaves of French bread – Got Rach to slice that
• Hummus and a roasted carrot dip from Everyday Food, with pita and Greek yogurt. I ran out of tahini and used a little peanut butter in the hummus – man, it was good. The roasted carrot dip was really good, too, but the recipe illustrated the difference between Martha recipes and say, a Gourmet recipe. The Martha recipe just said to make the dip and serve it with pita and Greek yogurt. A good recipe would have said something like “the dip can be made one day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Bring dip to room temperature before serving.”
• Pesto and sun dried tomato torta – this was devoured as well.
• Roasted red peppers, that I roasted in the summer and froze, with a squish of lime juice and garlic and olive oil
• Nuts and olives
• About 100 little weinies in wrapped in homemade yeasted pastry – all eaten
• 3 dozen hard boiled eggs made into deviled eggs – again, not a one left
• 4 pounds of shrimp, served hot – baked in butter and black pepper. As Rachael said, disappeared in about 22 seconds
• Goat cheese in homemade ratatouille that had been frozen from summer time. This I forgot to put out – it was supposed to be a vegetarian hot dip to follow the Buffalo chicken, but it was up in Mark’s fridge and I forgot.
• Feta-walnut-filo cigars
• Bacon wrapped dates – stuffed with pecans
• Squash quesadillas

The last three things did not get eaten up as fast – people must’ve been getting full. I’ve got a tray of dates and one of the filo cigars  in the freezer for some future party.

And of course, platters and platters of cookies.

I feel like it was a good party food year, and not a very good cookie year. I can tell you what was wrong with at least 8 or 9 varieties – but I’ll take Julia’s advice and never apologize.

Saturday I should’ve been packing  cookie boxes, but it was just not to be. Rach and I went for a longish walk – stopped for coffee and went to the bank to deposit my take from the cookie ingredients donation bucket. Which was sizeable – thanks! to all who tossed in. We got back from that, and I posted pictures. Then I made the fig bars – Cuccidati – because the fig swirls I made from the 2005 December Gourmet were just not a good replacement. Pastry too dry, and they fell apart a lot – although all the ones I put out got eaten.

We had tickets to go see a Messiah, performed by the Wisconsin Cahmber Orchestra with a couple of choirs and soloists. I made the squash quesadilla filling into soup, and heated up the ratatouille goat cheese for spreading on crostini. Picked up a zipcar and went to the Stoughton Opera House.

Sunday I got up early and started bagging cookies. Both Toni and Rachael helped – which was great. I can’t tell you how many times I have thought I was going to spend the entire rest of my life shoving cookies into ziploc bags. We even had time to go out to Chris Quandt’s tree sale and get a tree.

Yay – Dad’s car makes it to Black Earth & back to pick up the Xmas tree

All the boxes – 24 – were packed and labelled by by 11:30. Amy’s John, who’s a mail man, told me to arrange for carrier pick up when I printed the labels. I settled in to watch a Mad Men, with a little bourbon and both cats. I watched one episode, then decided to watch a second. I remember about 10 minutes of that second one, and the next thing I knew it was 1:30 and a third episode was starting – if you don’t stop it Netflix automatically plays the next episode of a TV series.

Monday I shipped four boxes UPS, hand delivered two, and went back home to wait for the postal carrier to pick up the other twenty. Which he did at about 10 to one.

So, I may make a few more kinds of cookies. Peppermint bark for sure. I have a number of local cookie fairy cookie deliveries to make, trays to work and all like that. And I have to figure out Christmas dinner – or brunch? and New Year’s brunch. But for now, I’m gonna go collapse on the couch and watch that Mad Men I fell asleep to last night. Maybe tonight I’ll watch two.

Last of the cookies stashed in my closet – wore those green sandals at the party

What a day. Got up and made the Boomerangs, a.k.a Rose’s Crescents. That went well, although I think they’re a touch on the large side. Pictures are in the prior post.

But things kind of went downhill from there. I was going to walk downtown and get my work laptop. I thought I’d need it the morning so I could go meet with a tax preparer, and proceed on to a 10:30 meeting, at which I thought I’d need the laptop. But I’m still not adjusted to being a one car family – Mark needed the car to take fluff cat to the vet for her checkup, and since it’s easier to reschedule the tax guy than the cat. I did.

John was trying to write a paper, and generally freaking out about grad school.  I was trying to help him; provide enough moral support via text & email to convince him that dropping out of school when he only had like 5 pages to write and two classes to go to, was not the best choice.

And it started snowing pretty hard.

Toni needed to be driven out to the Alliant Center for an AFS event, and we were supposed to pick up another student too, who lives farther west. OK, fine but we have the beater Toyota with bad tires and bad brakes.

Mark came to the rescue and did all the driving. I kept on baking – made the almond-jam-caramel bars – those are fine. But then I tried to make linzer thumbprints. I made them last year using a Dorie Greenspan recipe for hazelnut sables that I thought was too nutty. Hazelnuts can be bitter. So this year I tried the Rose Levy Berenbaum’s linzer crust recipe. They went totally flat. I baked two trays then patted the rest of the dough into an 8×8 pan and made linzer bars. Next year I will have to unearth my own linzer crust recipe – it’s less short, less butter to flour – and see if it works.

I made two kinds of biscotti – the almond hazelnut I’ve been making since like 1989, when I was in library school, and an anise variety. Both of the biscotti loaves kind of went plifift in the oven, too, like the linzer ones. So I ended up with long skinny biscotti.

Toni helped me frost the ginger creams, so that went fast. And come to think of it, their picture (naked, how risque) is in the last post, too.

I thought I might bake Mark’s mom’s ginger cookies, too, but I didn’t have the strength. And oh yea, somewhere in there we shovled snow, and ate dessert – reject cookies, ice cream, and some of the last pumpkin mousse from Thanksgiving – only a week ago.

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