Merry and Bright

Our family celebrated our Savior's birth and all the festivities that surround it.  We purposefully try to keep things low key and simple.  We had a nice worship service on Christmas Eve, entitled Jesus, the Light of the World.  At the end of the service, everyone comes up and lights a candle on the tree to signify Matthew 5:16.  It is an old tradition at our church and is always a moving service.

Way out in the country in Hathaway, Louisiana, there is a family that puts up lots of Christmas lights - 4 acres of lights to be exact.  We walked around and looked at all of the beautiful lights.

It is amazing that people will put in the time and effort and expense to put up lights for the community to enjoy.  Truly a sight to see!  My photos just don't do it justice.

We had already made tamales, but had some baking to do.  First we made pumpkin empanadas and almond crescents.  Then we made Gingerbread men.  We always get a kick out of decorating them.

Here is a special one I made for Benjamin.  It is a Benjamin Gingerbread man CT scan, showing the titanium rods in his spine and legs.  

Then we made baklava.  This is a favorite dish of ours.  It is tedious with 10 individual layers of phyllo dough followed by a mixture of pecans, coconut, sugars and spices, followed by 10 more layers of phyllo and another layer of the pecan mixture and 10 more layers of phyllo dough.  We slice it and bake it.  Then we pour a diluted honey solution over it and let it soak in overnight.

The resulting confection is a sticky-sweet delicious dessert.  Look at the flaky layers.

We enjoyed spending time with family and being thankful for the many blessings in our lives, first and foremost, the birth of the Messiah, Jesus!

What to do With a Bunch of Sweet Potatoes

We have a lot of sweet potatoes from this year's harvest in the garden.  We've been baking a lot of them and making Thai curry sweet potato lentil soup and a Sweet Potato, kale and coconut milk soup.  During the holidays, we like to do something else with them I'll show you today.  My wife is Mexican-American and grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas.  

A tradition she brought to us was making sweet potato empanadas.  She uses a recipe from her mother that's been passed down.  For this dish, we wanted to use up some of our largest sweet potatoes.  I peeled and cut them up.

Tricia cooked them and then mashed them with a potato masher until it had a smooth consistency.  She added allspice and molasses to the sweet potatoes.

She made her normal dough for making flour tortillas, but then added some cinnamon to the dough, rolled them out and then we started loading the sweet potato filling onto the dough.

Then you fold the dough over and crimp the edges.  We also come back with a fork to "seal" the edges a little later.

The holiday baking is a true family affair.  We had an assembly line going in the kitchen with Tricia rolling out the dough and filling with sweet potato filling, Russ folding over and sealing the empanadas and arranging on the baking tray.  Benjamin rested up for his job.

Benjamin, well rested and exuberant was now ready for his job.  He brushed an egg wash onto the empanadas.

It is hard to estimate to get the amount of dough needed for the amount of sweet potato filling, but that's okay.  Leftover tortilla dough is not wasted!  We sprinkle cinnamon and sugar and bake just the dough.

We couldn't wait for the buzzer on the oven to go off, announcing the empanadas were done!  We pulled the golden brown pastries out of the oven and placed on a cooling rack.

And this is where my job comes into play.  I'm the official "taster" of the warm batch of empanadas.  I broke one in half and enjoyed the nice fragrance.  Then I took a bite!

Yeah, this one is delicious.  The entire batch of empanadas didn't last but a couple of days.  That's too bad.  However, empanadas aren't really just limited to a Christmas baking thing.  We have a bunch more sweet potatoes.  We'll have to make another batch of these again soon.

Delicious Sourdough Bread

“Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” James Beard, the cook book author

We've been making sourdough bread for a long time.  It is the main bread that we eat and we average about a loaf a week.  Tricia had been watching videos showing the technique and recipe for making "Artisan Sourdough Bread."  We enjoy the tried and true, but it's always nice to try something new.  I peeked in on her as she added her sourdough starter and began folding the dough.  You fold the dough, let it sit for 30 minutes.  Then you must stretch and fold every 30 minutes for two hours.  Let it rise for 4-6 hours.  Stretch and fold again and make your loaf and let it rise for 2-3 more hours.  It was cool in the house, so she covered it and let it rise.

This bread doesn't go in a loaf pan like we normally do.  It is baked in a round.  Tricia flipped the dough over onto some parchment paper and used a razor blade to score the dough.

Meanwhile she's had a cast iron dutch oven in an oven heated to 500 degrees for 30 minutes.  Yep, that's hot!  Then she pulled the pot out of the oven.

We dropped the dough into the hot cast iron pot with the parchment paper on the bottom.  I was kind of afraid that the paper was going to catch on fire, but it didn't.

Into the oven it went.  You bake it with lid on for 20 minutes at 450 degrees.  Then you take the lid off for 15 minutes or until it is a good color.

This is the color we were looking for!

At this point you cure the bread.  Turn the oven off, crack the door open and leave for 20 minutes.

At this point we took it out of the pot and set it on the counter.

You are supposed to wait to cut into it.  We tried, we really did.  I confess that we ended up cutting into it.  You can see the steam rising from the warm bread.  Just a beautiful loaf of bread.

A little butter on top and we were ready to sample it.

I give this a five star rating!  Our normal sourdough bread is good, but this is at a whole other level.  The taste, the texture was superb.  Crusty on the outside and perfect on the inside.  I'm embarrassed to tell you that we sat there in the kitchen and cut slice after slice of bread.  Before we knew it, almost half the loaf was gone!

This was a hit.  I told Tricia that this needs to be in the rotation.  We learned that it freezes well.  I just noticed that Tricia is getting another batch of starter out to begin making the next loaf.  Can't wait!!

Holiday Baking and Family Time

With each year that passes, I become more and more appreciative of times when the whole family is able to get together.  I've consciously reminded myself to not take for granted the moments when everyone is under one roof.  Two kids in college means that those times are rare and fleeting.  I've tried to maximize the enjoyment of those times and realize that the dividends those family times pay in terms of memories and joy are unparalleled with any material thing.

We have very simple family times in which we'll play games and just enjoy each other's company. Nothing extravagant and certainly not expensive.  With stiff competition from electronics, phones, Internet and TV for our family's attention (that many times we lose), I treasure one on one family engagements.

One of those things is holiday baking.  We gathered in the kitchen and decided to bake some family favorites like pecan crescents (growing up we called them cocoons because we rolled them into little cocoon-shaped objects), gingerbread men, baklava, empanadas, and a few others.  Here are some pecan crescents straight from the oven that we'll let cool.

Fresh from the oven

We allowed them to cool fully and then rolled them around in some powdered sugar.

Adding a little sweetness

Then we loaded them into a container and put them in the 'snack drawer.'  Other goodies will be placed in those familiar metal tins that we've saved over the years that fruit cakes come in.  Countless times since then I've heard the familiar rumble of the snack drawer opening and the lids to the circular metal tins being popped off so that family members may enjoy some of the holiday treats. The Tupperware container that the pecan crescents are packed in lends itself quite nicely to what I call "stealth snacking."

Pecan crescents - yum!

Then we got started on gingerbread men.  We got the ingredients all mixed in a bowl.  The easiest way to mix this stiff dough is to just roll up your sleeves and work it with your hands.  Messy? You bet! Now that I think of it, that's a good analogy to family time.  Family gatherings and interactions can be quite messy at times if we're going to be honest, but if we keep working together, our labor of love will produce results we're proud of and things we enjoy and value greatly.   

Getting a little messy

We roll out the dough flat and use the gingerbread cookie cutters to fashion beautiful little people.

Gingerbread men are born

Then we peel the dough away from the gingerbread family.  Once you peel away all the clutter, you're left with five people fashioned from what was once a mess and then was smashed flat!  Do you ever feel like you're smashed flat?  There's five - just like our family.

From a messy bowl to 

Then we arrange them on a cookie sheet and get ready to put them in a hot oven.

Everyone working together (Tricia is taking the photo)

We continue rolling out the dough and making new gingerbread people until there's hardly any dough left.  Heck, when there's not enough dough to make another person, we'll often make goofy things, like our Jersey cow below:

If you use your imagination, it looks like a cow

The kids used their creativity to make bow ties and buttons and eyes and smiley faces on them and then we put them in the oven.  Oh, the smell of gingerbread baking!!  Out they come...

Right out of the oven

Once they've fully cooled, we'll decorate them.  The kids use their originality to personalize them. Some have our names, some with all sorts of designs on them. Every one is different, but all are good and greatly valued.

Decorating the gingerbread men and women

I have fond memories of doing this exact thing as a kid and hopefully our kids will have the same remembrances to pass along to the next generation.  People spend lots of money purchasing material goods that will be in a landfill at this time next year.  Making memories that endure over time are more meaningful to me.

I should have taken this picture and allowed my beautiful wife to be in this one

I must report at the time I'm writing this, ALL of the pecan crescents are gone and there was only 1 tin left of the gingerbread men.  I'm hoping that there will be some remaining by the time I get home from work, but I'm thinking the chances of that happening is somewhere between slim and none. Even if the sweet goodies are long gone, good memories will remain to remind us of sweet family times.  Cherish your family today!

Time to Bake

The island in our kitchen is one of our favorite places to hang out.  Our college kids were home and we decided to do a little baking, so we all gathered round the island and pitched in.  Tricia is from South Texas and comes from a Mexican heritage.  One of the things that is traditionally baked around this time in the Hispanic culture is a special cookie called Pan de Polvo.

Tricia used a recipe that's been handed down in her family to make a batch or two of Pan de Polvo for us. These little cookies are delicious and melt in your mouth.  Polvo means "dust" or "powder" in Spanish and I'm guessing that they are named Bread of Powder or Dust because they melt in your mouth or maybe it is because of the dusting of sugary spices that get sprinkled on top.

Here's what you need to make it:

3 cups flour
1 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 dash salt
1/4 cup anise/cinnamon tea

Blend the softened butter, sugar, and tea until soft.  Gradually add flour & salt to the mixture.  Handle and mix with your hands, then pat down and roll out.

Rolling it out

Then using little cookie cutters, cut out little round cookies out.

Cutting out the cookies

Arrange on a tray and put them in an oven pre-heated to 350 degrees.  You want to leave them in until they are just lightly brown, or about 12 minutes.  

Pop them in the oven

When you take them out of the oven, allow them to cool for just a bit.  While they are still a little warm, you will want to coat them in a sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Piping hot out of the oven

And here they are in a tin, ready to be eaten.  They really do melt in your mouth.  This tin didn't last long at all!

Pan de Polvo!

We also made Gingerbread men & women.  I love the way molasses smells. 

We cut them out.

Put them in the oven and bake them and when they've cooled, Laura Lee started decorating the little guys and gals.

She got pretty creative with some of the decorating...

Now the only thing left to do is eat 'em up.