Friday Food: Christmas Food Traditions

Friday 

Short version: Lamb chops, leftover rice, carrot sticks with ranch dip

Long version: Four of the six family members had the lamb chops, which were just fried. The recent birthday boy finished the leftover shrimp, and I had a salad with some hardboiled eggs and feta in it.

Saturday

Short version: Green chili hamburger stew, crackers, molasses cookies

Long version: I spent a very long time in the kitchen this day making Grandma Bishop's molasses cookies. 

Batch seven or so starts to get a little wonky.

I double that recipe when I bake them at Christmas, so it takes a few hours. For this reason, I knew I would have no energy left to get back in the kitchen to make dinner later. That's why, while the cookie dough was chilling, I made green chili hamburger stew to have for later.

Good call. Good cookies, too.

Sunday

Short version: Posadas potluck

Long version: This was the night we went to our parish Christmas celebration. The potluck featured several stews with a ton of chili in them. I tried one piece of meat from a red chili from one of the boys' plates and almost burst into flames from the spice, so I stuck to the posole. This was made very mild, with a red chili sauce to be added as needed. I didn't need it. The bland posole was just fine for me, thanks.

I brought these cheesecake bars.

Yum.

For once, I actually followed the recipe. Except for the fact that topped them with drizzled salted caramel sauce instead of berries. I don't regret it, either.

Monday

Short version: Tuna melt sandwiches, potato chips, cucumbers

Long version: One child was sick. One child had been in a city with A., where they ate a very late lunch and weren't hungry when they got home. For the two children eating, I made some tuna salad that I used to make them tuna melts. They were very pleased with this. 

My mother had left the potato chips for us, which were also appreciated.

Tuesday

Short version: Linguine with bull bolognese, green salad with vinaigrette, eggnog and molasses cookies

Long version: I unearthed a frozen container of the second half of the double recipe of bolognese I made for the insane lasagna lo these many months ago. The night before a big holiday is always a good time to make something easy for dinner. This seemed like it would be easy and celebratory.

It was.

I use this recipe for eggnog, because it neatly takes care of the egg yolks I have after separating eggs to make our Christmas chocolate roulade. And eggnog with molasses cookies is the perfect combination. The recipe actually calls for six egg yolks. I have seven left after making the roulade. The extra egg yolk doesn't make much difference, except that I always have to thin the eggnog a little with milk after it's chilled.

Wednesday

Short version: Christmas ham, scalloped potatoes, carrots with maple syrup and butter, green peas, sauteed mushrooms, chocolate roulade

A relatively easy meal. The ham was a fully-cooked spiral sliced ham that just needed to be re-heated. I coated it in mustard and maple syrup, which was good.

I don't even use a recipe for scalloped potatoes. I just layer thinly sliced peeled potatoes with salt, pepper, garlic powder, cream, and milk in a buttered Pyrex until it's full, and then bake it uncovered until most of the liquid is gone. It always takes longer than I think, though, so the potatoes were in the oven for like an hour after everything else was done. No matter. I just stuck everything else on top of the woodstove to keep warm and we ate at 6 p.m. instead of 5 p.m.

The roulade is probably the most labor-intensive part of this meal. I forgot to butter the parchment paper before pouring the batter on it, and I was sure it was never going to come off, leaving me with a mess of chocolate sponge chunks. With some very careful unrolling and coaxing with a spatula, however, I did manage to get it all off. So that was nice. And it was, as always, delicious. A welcome light dessert after a heavy meal.

I didn't get a photo of the buffet. Oh well. It looked pretty much like last year, anyway.

Oh! And I did find enough parsley in the garden for the mushrooms. This is always very satisfying.

Thursday

Short version: Ham and rice skillet

Long version: I used leftover rice, diced ham, peas, carrots, onions, and cheese to make a skillet meal. Very tasty. Anything with ham is.

Refrigerator check:

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Merry Christmas

Tidings of comfort and joy to all of you.

Posadas, With Random Photos

Happy Christmas Eve! This year, we got to experience a very New Mexican Christmas tradition for the first time. It's called Posadas.

The word "posadas" means something like "journeys." It's a kind of traveling pageant recreating the journey of Mary and Joseph trying to find lodgings in Bethlehem. It's a very old Mexican tradition. It used to be common in every little village in New Mexico, including ours, although it hasn't been done regularly here in about twenty years.

Pause for this Christmas card sent to us from the MiL's sister. Is the sheep knitting her own wool? Is that kind of funny or kind of disturbing?

In the posadas, one little girl is costumed as Mary, one little boy as Joseph. Often they would have an actual donkey or pony for Mary to ride. And then there might be other people dressed as angels or saints, but there was always a crowd that walks with them. These are the pilgrims. This little procession would go to different houses, knock on the door, and sing a song that requests lodging. There would be people in the house that would respond with a song saying nope, be on your way, until the last house, at which they would be invited in.

I guess originally this would happen for the nine nights preceding Christmas, and then on the last night they would be granted entrance to the house. In our village, I'm told the posadas were just for a few nights, but they would visit three houses each night, and at the third house they would be invited inside. Inside the homes, there would be lots of food and drinks and more singing.

Inside our home, I found some more random decorative things in the tree ornament bag, which were duly added to the dried weeds on the big bookcase.

Our priest decided to have a parish Christmas celebration on Sunday that included posadas. Poppy was tapped to be Mary. One of her brothers was Joseph. They got to knock on the doors and lead the procession. In one of the villages of our parish, the church, the rectory, and the parish hall are all clustered together, so we used these as the "houses."

We started at the church. One of the older parishioners who used to lead the posadas in his village led the singing of the pilgrims. Our priest, who has a very nice singing voice and also plays the guitar, led the response singing for the residents of the house. (Which actually just ended up being him and me, because I was holding his lyric sheet for him so he could play the guitar.)

So at each place, Mary and Joseph would knock on the door, the crowd would sing the song requesting entrance, we would respond, and then the crowd would move on to the next "house."

The tree in our real house. I keep the lights on all day, because an unlit Christmas tree just looks sad to me.

At the last stop, which was the parish hall, the response song invited Mary and Joseph and their followers inside. And then we sang some Christmas carols before sitting down to a very New Mexican potluck featuring a lot of very chili-heavy stews that were delicious but WOAH SO SPICY. At least, for me.

It was a lot of fun. As you might imagine, the children were particularly enthused about it. I hope we do it every year, because I think it would get much easier once everyone knows what to expect.

And now I will leave you with a decidedly non-Spanish Christmas song that is still my favorite for Christmas Eve.

Snapshots: Pre-Christmas

First, an old photo from a couple of weeks ago when I took a kid to the dentist. It's a hundred-mile drive, and most of it was like this on the way there in the morning.

Wintery.

And some more-recent photos . . .

It makes me very happy that all of my children like to read.

One child really, really wanted a four-foot stuffed bass he saw in a Bass Pro catalog. He put it on his list for the gift exchange at school, and someone actually got it for him. So now I have this thing appearing all over the house. It's something else.

And last, two of the children collaborated on this, which I found randomly on the floor of the kitchen. It sure feels like this at this time of year.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.