Oh! I got a new phone! Totally rots. I had a good-ole-fashioned Blackberry that I became way too comfortable with, and then the unthinkable: text messages started to come through blank and I could not send or receive picture messages due to formatting my phone no longer supported. Noooooooo!!!!!!!!! The time had come, I had no choice: a new phone. Now I can text and no one can read it because I am completely inept at using a virtual keyboard. Great.
So what compelled my return? A) I always want to be blogging and time frankly doesn't permit since I crochet and drive around and yada yada, and I wordsmith like a madman and that causes entries to take forever to be published (currently have about 4 in draft form because of this issue), b) I enjoyed cooking and then blogging about it, c) sometimes I really want to write about personal struggles that maybe other people could benefit from knowing the ins and outs of for however they connect. BUT really - I very much enjoyed taking the recipes that pop up all over Facebook, trying them, and then telling you about them. I love to cook and it was fun and a good way to try something new. Now the big things are these cooking videos like those from "Tasty" and "Buzzfeed", making delicious food look achievable in 30 seconds or less. So, I thought I'd give it a go - try a video recipe and see if it works! What fun!
But now back to the main topic, the reason for the title - the holiday cooking blitz that I subject myself to yearly. There is no need to do this, I completely choose to and then when it's the 11th hour and I'm still cooking, I thoroughly hate myself. Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful - I did not have time to do anything due to work, so I opted for some quick and dirty pies: 1) blueberry, which I will confess used canned filling - why? Because it was supposed to be a terrible but much beloved (by me) cherry pie and I didn't have any cherry pie filling, but it did have a really pretty lattice top, if I do say so myself, 2) pumpkin, and 3) chocolate cream which was not from scratch and I did it wrong and whatever, it was still chocolaty and creamy and in a crust, what else can you ask for? But Christmas...
I planned. I read recipes over and over. I worked out the timing in my head. I was going to bring some cookies to work even. That didn't happen. Going to the grocery when needed - didn't happen. My dishwasher broke. And all of this wrapped around the horror of horrors: every single gift I had ordered for the girls for Christmas (and Abby's birthday on top of it) was on back-order. I'm not kidding; as of the week before Christmas there would be nothing under the tree for them to open, and eta's for everything were somewhere in the vicinity of 12/28 - 1/7. NOT GOOD. Many panic attacks and sleepless nights ensued, and all cooking considerations by the wayside. And then a miracle - one of the packages showed up on Monday, then another Tuesday, and by Christmas Eve, it was all here. I could NOT believe it. This is why I believe in Santa, frankly. He's real, I tell you, real!
Back to cooking...
I always have my staples: Italian Crescent cookies, Chocolate Espresso Snowcaps, chocolate gingerbread bars, and then I like to throw in something new. I set my sights on Raspberry Palmiers (made with a sour-cream dough similar to rugelach, instead of puff pastry, but whatever), and then I thought I'd throw in some Linzer cookies too. And there was the chocolate mint roll. Oh and 1979-ish Jello poke cake. And then on Christmas Eve I decided I needed some lemon bars. AND because my sister graciously hosts Christmas at her house, I like to try to help as much as I can, and I promised butternut squash stuffed shells, and balsamic glazed green beans. Timing actually went surprisingly well. No major glitches (except for some late-night baking, and absolutely no green beans to be found anywhere, but that's alright). Now what you've all been waiting for, drum roll please: the results:
So naturally when needing something new, I turn to Martha - hence the palmiers. Sounded like a great idea because it made a ton (9 dozen) and could be done in stages since the dough needed a fair bit of chilling here and there. Everything was really ok except for one thing: I hated them. Execution was fine, and I'm sorry Martha, you know I love you, but palmiers made with anything but puff pastry is not good. You can see the attraction - this is Martha's pic and mine looked semi-close (not as browned):
I've made Linzer cookies before, I made the dough, and then...did not have the energy. I wrapped it up for the freezer also, and I'll use it another day. The lemon bars were meh - not lemony enough for me. I used this recipe by Joy The Baker because I didn't want to make a ton and it seemed about right. I should have used Ina Garten's or of course, Martha's - she's got about 5 lemon bar recipes but the classic would have been fine, despite both recipes making about twice as much as I wanted. (Side note - apparently lemon bars freeze very well - will test that later.)
My real fancy dessert that I was NOT going to skip was the Mint Chip Cake Roll by Crazy for Crust. A thing of beauty combining chocolate and mint - how can you go wrong? Guess what? You can't! I've made cake rolls before and this went very well - easy peasy, honest! Now mine did not look like this:
Anyway, this is really long. Everything turned out exhausting but awesome. I am happy to say that despite kicking myself, it was probably the easiest cooking under pressure I've done and why? Because I said no - when something didn't go like I wanted, or I didn't have time, I didn't push it - I put it aside. When I had to frost the cake quickly - it didn't matter - nobody cared, it was fine. The Jello poke-cake by the way, ended up as part of Abby's birthday. And when green beans were nowhere to be found, that's when I threw in the lemon squares. Super doable, and yeah not a vegetable, but at least a shot of Vitamin C, right? No Christmas scurvy for anyone! Ho ho ho!
So thanks for reading...if anyone wants any of the recipes or needs them copied from their respective sites or if you need a link for something that's not already linked here, just ask. Requests? Maybe I'll oblige. My next installment will be of the dinner entree variety. Now for some black mint tea... this was entirely too much.
