Friday Fragments - November 30, 2012

Okay, truth be told, I'm writing this Saturday night.  What can I say, I've been busy.

Today was the Cans Film Festival put on by a local theater chain collecting for our food pantries.  For 5 cans we can see a movie for free.  If we bring another 10 cans we get a pass for a movie in the future.  So we each brought in 15 cans and after we watched the first movie we ran to the grocery store for another round of cans.  We now have four passes to be used in the next couple of months.  The only catch to it is that it's only valid Mon-Thurs.  That sucks but we'll cope.

We watched Red Dawn and Argo.  And liked both.  I was a fan of the old Red Dawn so I was a little leery of seeing the remake.  Gotta say the new one is awesome.  Korea is the occupying force instead of the Soviet Union, the kids are in Spokane instead of small town Colorado, and most of the fighting this time is in the city instead of in the woods.  The story lines are the same and if you like action movies, this is a must.  Argo was the true story about 6 escapees from the American embassy in Tehran 1980 and how the CIA fakes a Canadian movie production team to get them out.  It was VERY suspenseful and I really was on the edge of my seat through most of it, although I think I was startled more times in Red Dawn.  I'm quite sure it will get an Oscar nomination this year.

My family's Thanksgiving gathering was last Saturday and quite simply, it was exhausting.  And not in a good way.  As I was recapping with a friend on Monday, I wondered why getting together with this group is not as easy and laid back as getting together with my friends.  And the crazy thing is, all but one person in this assembly is pretty much as laid back as anybody you'll ever meet.   I guess that points in the direction of the one not-so-laid-back person.  I always chalked up my holiday stress because I was pulled in multiple directions, having to keep an eye on my children, or a multitude of other excuses.  Clearly I need to rethink my attitude for future gatherings and prepare for the mayhem differently.  You would think after twenty years of this crap I would have realized this sooner. 

Guess what came out of the oven an hour ago?  FRUITCAKE!!!  I'm telling you, homemade is absolutely nothing like the neon-green crap from the store.  The smell alone can put you in the holiday mood.

Baking

Don't get all excited, these items weren't done all in one day.  I've been sitting on the pictures for a while.

First up, one of the prettiest pies I have ever made.  I tweeked the recipe a little... a lot.  On the upside, it was beautiful and tasted wonderful.  Downside?  When I sliced into it, it was basically apple soup.  It was a great way to use some of the oodles of apples out of our CSA box.  I also added a dash (or a bit more) of apple cider also out of the CSA box.  Next time I'll have to cut back the liquid a bit. 

Next up - COOKIES!  I was excited to use my new Pampered Chef baking stone.  We were very pleased with the results despite not having room for more cooking implements of torture.

Because I'm not a fan of peanut butter cookies, I make two different batches - peanut butter for him and chocolate chip for me (no nuts).  For the peanut butter I used some of the peanut paste from our CSA box (they called it peanut butter but it's a little too organic for my tastes, but great for cookies!) along with Jif and a cup of roasted peanuts.

I have to show off my cooling racks.  I bought these ages ago, probably from Pampered Chef, and use them allllll of the time.

Finally, the beginning stages of fruitcake.  If you've been following my blog for any time you know that I do a homemade fruitcake that has received lots of favorable feedback from friends and family.  In previous years I buy dried fruit and spend approximately forever chopping it up.  While picking up our CSA box one weekend we decided to load up on the dried fruits.  We turned a corner and found these pre-chopped trail mix bags.  Total time saver!  AND they cost less!

I added some of the leftover dried fruits I still had from last year along with more raisins and cranberries.  Then I added the spices, rum and wine.   Everyday I shake the tub to mix them up as the fruits soak up the liquor.  It really takes only a couple of days but I won't make my cakes until next week so more shaking.

Friday Fragments - December 17, 2010

The year is quickly coming to a close.  I have to say I'm ready for the fresh start that comes with the new year.  That's not to say this year has been bad, but it's over so let's celebrate and move on.  The one cool thing about Friday Fragments is that it is like an weekly journal and I can go back to review the year's events - twisted ankle, removed gall bladder, my son announcing that I'm going to be a grandma!!!!

But the year is not over yet so let's make a few more entries in that journal...

*Last Friday was our office party, hosted at a coworker's house.  We stayed much too long, drank way too much, and laughed and laughed and laughed.  Somehow "hummus" has become an inside joke.

*Several years ago I compiled a list of Oscar nominees with some sort of desire to see how many I had watched.  Now that I have Tivo and Netflix I'm managing to click off many more movies from that list.  Last week I committed to scrolling through the programming lists, hunting down these movies.  My husband has taken up my cause, helping me search out the old gems.  I've already knocked out three this week.

*After running errands in my old neighborhood on Saturday, we stopped by our favorite donut shop to pick up a dozen.  The bearclaws/apple fritters are the hugest things you've ever seen.  They easily fill a dinner plate - like funnel cakes on crack.  Of course we got some of our other favorites like long johns and jelly filled.

 

*Ian had a hockey game on Saturday (smeared the other team 15-3... AND HE GOT A GOAL!).  Amanda came to see him play and then stuck around while The Husband and I ran our errands.  The two of them pulled out all of the Christmas decorations, set up the tree, hung the lights and decorated the living room.  They didn't touch the tree ornaments so I spent chilly Sunday loading up my tree.

*Sunday morning we awoke to a very pretty winter scene with snow falling until noon.  It was much much too cold to go outside and play although I did walk around the yard with the camera.  Then I ran back inside and made a steaming cup of hot cocoa to eat with my giant bearclaw for breakfast.  Pure delight.

*You do know that all diets are suspended between Thanksgiving and New Years, right?  Hot cocoa and bigass donuts are allowed for breakfast.  It's how we insulate our bodies during these bitterly cold months.  Anybody in a warm climate is just showing their support for our cause.

*Squirrel Update:  I just noticed this week how big and fluffy the neighborhood squirrels are.  HUGE.  I missed the wooly caterpillars, but it's obvious the squirrels knew a cold winter was ahead.  I figured Wednesday's ice storm would have squirrels sliding down the driveways, but they're keeping their footing quite well.  Humans aren't managing the ice nearly so well.  The news yesterday was loaded with highway closings, crashes, bumps, falls, and one little puppy who fell through the ice in a pond.  He is evidently recovering well at a local shelter.

Fruitcake Update:  One slice still lingers from my first batch.  This weekend I plan to soak more fruit so we can have a cake on Christmas.  Even if you hate hate hate fruitcake, the SMELL of one baking is so perfect for the season.  Bake one and take it to work.  I insist.

Check out everyone else sharing their fragments:

Friday Fragments - December 10, 2010

Time to unwind the week's events and all of the little stuff that may not be enough to make a full post...

*Fruitcake was baked on Sunday.  OMG the house smelled divine!  The batch makes multiple cakes (the better to share, you know) so I poured one cake before I added the nuts.  That was for ME, the nut hater.  Then I packed the pecans into the rest of the batter.  The Husband was very happy with the results.  He's also not a fan of soaking the cake in more alcohol so it's perfect that we have separate cakes.  I decided that my cake would be even better if served with ice cream so last night I finally had ice cream in the house.  I was right.  It was perfect.

*The weather people have been talking for several days about some swirling mass that looks vaguely like a hurricane off the coast of Washington.  They've been using ominous tones when referring to the impending storm headed our way this weekend.  WEEEEEEELLLLLLLLL.... that just scares the dogshit out of St. Louisans.  Salt is flying off the shelves and grocery stores are packed as people stock up like they will be locked in for the next month.  Already the predictions are showing the storm missing us for the most part.  The ugly part is headed for Minnesota.  Yeah, Minnesota, the state where the residents have already prepared for big ugly blizzards and don't need to flock to the store en masse everytime a snowflake is predicted.

*I can usually produce a quilt in a matter of days.  It was not unrealistic to have my head filled with Post-Thanksgiving plans of finishing off three or four quilts by Christmas.  That is if my sewing machine wasn't hellbent on pissing me off!  I think Santa Claus is tired of hearing my endless stream of profanities and may take mercy on me.  It won't get the quilts finished by Christmas unfortunately... *&^#@!!!!

*My powers as WEBMISTRESS are getting stronger.  Oh my my, this is too much fun.  I never ever thought this would be something I would enjoy.  Not just enjoy, but I get it.  I'm fiddling with HTML code with barely a clue of what I'm doing and getting some very desirable results.  Now I'm not building from scratch and I don't know that I will ever be at that stage, but I'm tweaking current settings with giddy delight when it comes out exactly as I envisioned.

 

Fruitcake

I've never liked fruitcake. My memories of it are harsh tasting and chewy. For some reason I thought if I make one from scratch maybe it would be better?

After searching the internet for a fruitcake recipes, I found one that the writer SWORE was delicious and nothing like those other heavy store-bought monstrosities. Her directions weren't for the faint of heart, but certainly looked possible. And it used rum. I was specific that I wanted a cake using rum.

I bought dried fruit from the farmer's market, picking and choosing the individual fruits, not the prepackaged neon-green cherries. Then for two weeks I soaked them in a rum and spice mixture, stirring once a day.

Today I made the cake. What a total pain in the ass to assemble! I think I used four or five different bowls. It even required whipped egg whites. Despite asking for pureed oranges (I just used two cups of orange juice) - this cake actually came out damn near perfect.

AND IT TASTES GOOD!

Yes, I will be making this pain in the ass cake again. Soon, in fact. I bought enough dried fruit for two batches.

And because I know you'll ask for the recipe - here you go You've been forewarned, it's a pain to make. You totally have to read through the directions before making it (uh, yeah, I'm sort of guilty of not reading directions fully before using a new recipe). I added about three cups of chopped pecans and used two cups of orange juice instead of two pureed oranges.

Edit:  I've shared the link to this post plenty of times so I figured I should add a picture to PROVE I actually made this huge, pain-in-the-ass recipe.