Merry Xmas!!!

Merry Xmas!!!  That’s right!  I said it!  Whatcha gonna do ‘bout it??

Before your panties get all tied up in a package . . . Xmas is not an unChristian modern politically-correct conspiracy to drop Christ from Christmas . . . Xmas is actually ancient in origin.  The first letter of the word Christ in Greek is chi, which is identical to our X.  Xmas is most accurately derived from the Greek word ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ, transliterated as Christos, which is Greek for Christ. Greek is the language in which the whole New Testament was written.

So now you know . . . no one is trying to "X" out Christ.    

______________________

There's an "X" in chestnuts, too.  At least there should be if you're roasting them  . . . 

'tis the season and all that happy joy joy stuff is finally here!  Xmas cards and Xmas cookies, Xmas presents and Xmas this and Xmas that . . .

Besides the scent of a fresh cut evergreen tree nothing smells like Xmas more than the aroma of roasting chestnuts.  A tradition of fresh roasted chestnuts is a wonderful way to bring friends and family together.  Your home and holidays will be filled with memories of warmth and comfort.

I remember the first time I ever had roasted chestnuts.  I had only recently met the love of my life and future husband (both one and the same).  We were enjoying a Xmas light display when we happened on a vender selling roasted chestnuts.  My hunny loves them so we bought a bag.  Sweet, warm and nutty . . . and the roasty toasty chestnuts were pretty good, too!  I now associate their smell and yumminess with my first holiday with my sweetie.  So, they’re kind of special to me.

You can purchase chestnuts at your local grocery store in the months leading up to the winter holiday season.

When you are selecting fresh chestnuts for roasting, make sure you choose the ones that are firm and heavy for their size, with smooth, glossy shells. And, try to pick chestnuts that are all about the same size . . . so they all roast evenly.

The easiest way to roast chestnuts at home is to roast them in an oven.  Ever the rebel, I always look for different or alternate ways to do things.    I decided to try roasting them on the stovetop. 

·        1 1/2 To 2 Pounds Whole Chestnuts In Shell

·        1/4 Cup Water

Rinse the chestnuts. After rinsing, lay them on a towel and pat dry.

Use a strong, sharp paring knife to cut an "X" in the flat side of the chestnut shells. This prevents them from bursting, allows the steam to escape and makes peeling easier.

Next, put the chestnuts into the pan and sprinkle them with water. Cover the chestnuts and put the pan over a medium heat.

Then, shake your pan frequently while roasting until you see that the skins have blackened and have pulled back from the chestnut meat (you'll notice this where you made the cut previously). Roasting them should take about 5 to 10 minutes. If the chestnuts appear too charred, then that means you didn't shake the pan enough.

You'll know when they are roasted to perfection by the fact that you can easily open the shell and find beautiful golden colored chestnut meat inside. 

Another way to roast your chestnuts is to place them, with the cut sides up, on a baking sheet or cookie sheet. Roast them in a hot oven (about 400 degrees F) until the chestnuts appear tender. This will take about 20 minutes. To test to see if they have been roasted enough, stick a fork through the cut in shell and test for tenderness.

Finally, wrap the hot chestnuts in an old towel (no matter which way you chose to roast them) and squeeze them hard. Squeezing the chestnuts will break and crush the skins which will make peeling them much easier to do. Let the crushed chestnuts rest inside the towel for about 5 mintues before unwrapping them.

Open up the towel and feast and enjoy!

You can serve them plain, with salt, butter to dip them in or even a light sprinkle of cinnamon.

Love and joy come to you and to you a Merry Xmas, too!

Firewater Friday - Christmas cheer . . . sometimes you get it, sometimes it gets you

Christmas customs are steeped in pagan ritual and symbolism . . . from the tree, to the mistletoe, to the Yule log, to singing carols . . . and, yes, even Santa Claus . . . that holly jolly fellow all get up in red crushed velvet, white fur and black leather . . . go get ‘im PETA!  Yeppers, it’s all pagan tradition. 

Did you know that Santa has an alter ego?  Oh yes . . . Santa has a wicked twin and his name is Krampus  . . . he’s like the anti-Claus.  While Santa busies himself making his list and checking it twice . . . Krampus punishes the little waifs who haven’t been nice.

Krampus is an ancient devil creature with horns like a goat and the face of a demon . . . he has scraggly black hair, dresses in rags and carries a whip.  He hitches a ride with Santa on his sleigh during the annual toy drop.  His purpose is to scare naughty children straight.  He’s kind of like the Grinch gone schitzo with a bit of ogre thrown in for good measure . . .  he punishes the bad little kiddies, steals their presents and  . . . if they are REALLY REALLY wicked  . . . whisks them off to Hell.  No coal for you but the fires of Hell! If that’s not inspiration to be good, I don’t know what is . . .

 

Anyhoo, he’s one scary dude! The eve of St. Nicholas Day, December 5^th, is Krampus Night.  It is celebrated in Austria and other parts of Europe.   Traditionally, people dress up as the demon Krampus and roam the streets looking for someone to beat with a stick.  Wowzers!  What fun! 

 

Imagine an old world winter time version of spring break, without the sun, sand and ‘Girls Gone Wild’ cameramen all over the place.  Once a festival of penitence and sobriety, Krampus night has turned into a carnival of drunken debauchery . . . and getting smacked around with a stick.  Oh my . . . you are such a bad, bad girl . . .  mmm, yeah baby . . . hurt me, hurt me.  (Oops! Did I just type that out loud?)

So, here it is.  Christmas Eve . . . have you been naughty or nice?  Mix up a cocktail in honor of Krampus while you think about it.

Red Devil Cocktail (or Red Death)

•           One half ounce of Rose's Lime Juice

•           One half ounce of Triple Sec

•           One half ounce of Vodka

•           One half ounce of Amaretto

•           One half ounce of Southern Comfort

•           One half ounce of Sloe Gin

•           Orange Juice

First fill a tall glass with ice. The drink will be built up in the glass.

Next add one half ounce of Rose's Lime Juice to the glass. It is important to add the lime juice first due to the weight of the juice so that it will be at the bottom of the drink instead of mixed in it. Plus it makes the drink look better.

Now add one half ounce of Triple Sec to the drink.

             

Follow that up by adding one half ounce of Vodka

             

Then add one half ounce of Amaretto to the drink.

Now add one half ounce of Southern Comfort.

             

Next add one half ounce of Sloe Gin.

             

Finally, now that all of the liquors have been added, top the drink off with fresh Orange Juice. 

This is a great drink but it is very strong to say the least.  It’ll kick your ass just like the Krampus will, bottoms up!!

Hee hee . . . Bottoms up  :D

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

I remember when I was child raising my face up to a wintry sky and catching snowflakes on my tongue.  Of course, I did it couple of weeks ago, too.  So, not much has changed.  It’s cool (literally and figuratively) when the snowflake hits your tongue and you can feel it melt so quickly you wonder if was ever really there at all.

I used to make snow forts in the enormous drifts of snow . . . well; they were huge from the perspective of a little kid.    I’d make and collect snowballs and stash them then hide in wait for unsuspecting quarry to come along . . . i.e. my evil older sister.  To this day, I sometimes forget that there are consequences to fun inspired stupidity, just ask my husband.  :-)~

We lived on a mountain and at the edge of our back yard was a defunct ski hill that had used an old pickup truck motor to run the T-bar ski lift.   Needless to say, this was the most awesomest sledding hill . . . EVER!  Getting back to the top wasn’t so awesome but that’s the price you pay for awesomeness.  I would sled all day long on my little disc sled; flying down the hill, catching air on the bumps and slamming into unsuspecting trees.  Totally awesome.

And I remember making snow angels; whole armies of them.  You can never have enough angels.     Maybe that’s why they called me “ding-a-ling” . . . you know the line “Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings”.   Get it?  Ding-a-ling . . . bell . . . oh, never mind!

Anyhoo . . . snow is very cool . . . literally and figuratively.  :)

When combined, windblown snow and black dirt make what is called snirt.

We’ve all heard that there are no two snowflakes alike.  That’s not necessarily true.  There is the possibility, however unlikely, that given the correct environmental conditions . . . humidity, temperature, etc . . . that twin snowflakes could occur.  Although, it is more likely that two snowflakes could become virtually identical. 

Snowflakes start out as a simple hexagonal prism before they sprout branches to form a more complex shape. Matching snow crystals were discovered in Wisconsin in 1988. The crystals were not flakes in the usual sense but rather hollow hexagonal prisms.

All snowflakes have six sides.  The hexagonal symmetry of snowflakes is fascinating.  A snowflake starts out as a flat ice surface that grows in the air.  Small bumps form on the flat surface.  Ice crystals in the air attach to the bump before they can reach the original surface.  As more molecules reach the bump the bump grows and develops branches and then side-branches.  The conditions surrounding the snow crystal are nearly identical, which is why the branches grow at approximately the same rate and why they tend to look alike. 

It takes over 1000 water molecules to make up a single snowflake.

From prisms to needles, there are many different types of snowflakes

• Stellar Plates: Thin, plate-like crystals with six broad arms that form a star-like shape.

• Stellar Dendrites: Plate-like snow crystals that have tree-like branches and side-branches. This type of snowflake is often used as the shape for holiday decorations.

• Needles: Slender, columnar ice crystals that grow when the temperature is around 23 degrees F. They appear like tiny white hairs when they land on your clothing.

• Rimed Crystals: Frozen water droplets in clouds, called rime, sometimes collect on snowflakes. When the coverage is heavy, the snowflakes can take on the appearance of a tiny snowball.  These are also know as a graupel.

• Fern-Like Stellar Dendrites: Similar to stellar dendrites, but with so many branches that they take on a fern-like appearance. These snowflakes are the largest ones out there, with diameters of 5 mm or more.

The largest snowflake ever recorded, according to the Guinness World Records, was 15 inches wide and 8 inches thick. A man named Matt Coleman observed the snowflake in 1887 at Fort Keogh, Montana, and said the snowflake was "larger than milk pans."

Now that you are somewhat more informed about my childhood  . . . and snowflakes . . . let’s take another trek down memory lane and make some snowflakes of our own.    All you need is some paper and a pair of scissors.  It’s fun and interesting to see the different shapes you can get out of little square of paper.


I used the ones I made as decorations for wrapped packages and as the tree topper for my Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

First and most importantly you must start out with a square.

There are two methods that I know . . . the first one is to start by folding the square into a rectangle.






Then fold the rectangle in half and open it back up so that you have a crease in the center.

 Fold the left half of the bottom edge up at a 60-degree angle.









Then fold the right half of the bottom edge up diagonally at a 60-degree angle 












The two folded sections will overlap overlap at the center of the piece. 









 Cut the base at an angle . . . this where the creativity kicks in.

Cut designs along the left and right folds to create the design of your snowflake. You can even reshape the top edge of the folded piece to give the ends of your snowflake's arms a different style. Don't cut all the way across the top of the piece from one side to the other; cut only along the top curved edge or you will remove a chunk from your snowflake.

Unfold the paper to reveal your snowflake.














The second method is to fold your square into a triangle.

Then fold the triangle in half and open it back up so that you have a crease in the center.

Then fold the right half of the bottom edge up diagonally

 


The two folded sections will overlap overlap at the center of the piece. 

Cut the base at an angle or arc or whatever

Cut designs along the left and right folds to create the design of your snowflake. You can even reshape the top edge of the folded piece to give the ends of your snowflake's arms a different style. Don't cut all the way across the top of the piece from one side to the other; cut only along the top curved edge or you will remove a chunk from your snowflake.

Unfold the paper to reveal your snowflake.

The lost the art of sharing and caring.

Everyone knows that no one cooks as well as “Mom”.  Before I met my husband I thought I knew how to make oatmeal raisin cookies, but it’s apparent that I could not have been more wrong.  When I bake cookies,  the peanut gallery ⁽¹⁾ (also known as my husband) asks “Are you going to make the oatmeal cookies like my mom does?”  I sigh and restrain myself from chucking something at him; all the while knowing that it will be an exercise in futility to attempt to meet his lofty Mom-inspired expectations.  Believe me, I've tried . . . and tried . . . and tried . . .

Flavor is not the issue with my oatmeal raison cookies . . . they taste damn good!  It’s a consistency thing . . . mine are generally kind of crunchy and he wants them chewy . . . just like Mom’s.

So, this year, I broke down and asked my mother-in-law for her recipe.  Her reply, “I don’t really have a recipe.  I just add this that and the other thing.  And then I do this thing and that thing.”   Her actual reply verbatim: 

Hi,

I have a list of ingredients but no actual recipe. Just cream butter and sugar then add eggs. Sift flour, baking soda and cinnamon together and alternate adding it with the milk. Then stir in oatmeal (I use 1 min. quick oats) and raisins. Drop by heaping teaspoon full on lightly greased trays and bake at 350 until just lightly brown around edges (maybe about 10 min. I forget). 

1 C sugar

1/2 C butter melted

2 eggs beaten

2 C flour

6 T milk

1/2 t baking soda

1 t cinnamon

1 C raisins

1 C oatmeal

Good luck,

Mom

My first reaction is – ‘HA! Vindication!’  My second reaction is – ‘Oy . . . this does not bode well for me.’

I love the “good luck” part.  Oy!

I know what you’re thinking . . . the evil mother-in-law is just jerking poor, sweet Cher around by not giving her the secret recipe.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  My MIL is an awesome lady and we get along quite well. 

<--- That's NOT her!  :)

There are some differences between her “recipe” and those I typically make.  One is the variety of oats – I use old fashioned oats and she uses quick cooking oats.   It’s possible that the quick oats make the difference.  Quick oats give a more uniform texture than old-fashioned oat.

Another difference is the addition of milk, just a little.  This will make the dough less stiff.  It also adds some extra fat to the dough and the cookies will be less hard and crunchy when they are done.⁽²⁾

Her choice of butter over vegetable shortening is interesting.  Butter tastes better of course! Vegetable shortening adds nothing to the flavor of a cookie. But butter also generally results in a firmer cookie, not as soft and bendy . . . i.e. chewy.  











The reason you might choose to use shortening in a cookie recipe is that it melts at a higher temperature.  Consequently, the dough holds its shape longer in the oven, allowing the flour and eggs to set before the cookie collapses and spreads. Using shortening, which has a melting point only a degree or two above butter, results in a flatter cookie  . . . thus crunchier.

Of course there is no rule that says you can’t use half shortening and half butter.

The following is the result of my effort and the reaction of my husband . . . 

The verdict:  "These are the best yet but they're not quite right".


Oy!  I guess I'll take that as a compliment.  Or maybe not.

Now that the oatmeal cookies have been made, tasted and judged . . . a conversation between my husband and his father  about the fact that  the cookies weren't quite right. . . "Did she use the Kitchenaid to mix them?"  Of course I did.  DUH! I use the Kitchenaid for everything.  "Well, your mother says that they never come out right when she uses her Kitchenaid to make her oatmeal cookies."  Fine time to give me that little tidbit of information.  Sabotage!  It's cookie sabotage, I say!!!!  Nice, I see how it is now.  :-)~





UPDATE: As my sweet husband lovingly, if not more than slightly sarcastically, pointed out . . . the recipe clearly states to "stir" and says nothing about using a Kitchenaid.  A mere technicality but of course it's all my fault . . . such is my life.  They always side with their mommies, don't they?  Hmph!

(1)  A peanut gallery is an audience that heckles the performer. The term originated in the days of vaudeville as a nickname for the cheapest (and ostensibly rowdiest) seats in the theater; the least expensive snack served at the theater would often be peanuts, which the patrons would sometimes throw at the performers on stage to show their disapproval. The phrases "no comments from the peanut gallery" or "quiet in the peanut gallery" are extensions of the name.

(2)  If you add milk to your recipe, make sure the dough is chilled as you drop it onto the cookie sheet.  Also make sure the cookie sheet is room temperature or cooler when you put the dough on it.  If the pan is hot, the dough melts around the edges before it starts to bake, sometimes the edges will burn or get too brown.