Looking back

At the beginning of the year, which feels like yesterday but is actually about 352 days ago, I had publicly declared that I'd complete 6 sewing projects and 6 knitting projects this year. Was I too ambitious? I may never know because true to form, I stopped keeping track half way through the year and don't remember what I completed. Why is it that I can never keep good records? For some reason, people think I'm organized. I don't know why because I certainly never try to give that impression of me.

Of the things I do remember, here's a run-down of the sewing projects. I started off with the fleece jacket with the Darth Vader pattern fabric. Turns out it's a tad too small for either of my boys and they've not worn it even once. So, I'll be giving that away. I sewed 2 gift bags for my sister to use with her soaps, started sewing a laundry bag that I never finished, and hemmed several pairs of pants for hubby and my FIL.

For knitting, I made a pair of socks for me, a pair of baby socks for hubby's cousin's baby, am almost finished with another pair of socks for me, and am almost done with the third panel of a rug that I'm knitting with yarn I won from Robin's Rurification blog. Here are 2 of the panels, done (each panel measures about 1' x 3.5').

So, not exactly 12 projects total completed for the year (unless I completed other things that I can't remember...which is very possible), and I know I could do better, but why beat myself up for not doing it all?

Besides, what's more important is that I baked a lot too. Lots of loaves of bread

and cookies and kuchens

 and stollen

and more!

Also important was that I home-schooled the rugrats. Here is Son2 in his science group (I've blurred the faces of the other people in the photo for privacy reasons). I'm very grateful to my friend THS (to the left) who lead this co-op. I merely had to clean up our house before and after. :)

The chemistry lab I have to run by myself (materials courtesy of Meg who kept everything so well organized!). Son2 is doing it with Son1 so I won't have to repeat it again in a couple of years. I already have to redo the biology and physics labs with Son2 when the time comes. Sooo looking forward to that. ;P

In between the above listed things, I did some writing too, mostly thanks to the whip-cracking efforts of my critique group gang leader, Russell James (who has a terrific novel out that you can win on Goodreads.com).

Did you have resolutions this year? Did you keep up with them?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

C is for Cookie; that's good enough for me!

The boys needed cookies for an exchange at their teen holiday party, so I baked oatmeal chocolate chippers (bottom of photo) and, one of my favorites, Chocolate Almond Bites (top):

I know you are lusting after those cookies, even with my lousy photo, so here's the recipe:

Chocolate-Almond Bites

2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature (2 sticks = 1 C = 1/2 lb)
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 t vanilla extract
1/4 t salt
1 C toasted almonds, finely chopped

1) Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease a baking sheet.  On to a sheet of wax paper, sift flour with cocoa.  In a large bowl, with electric mixer on high beat butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt until pale and creamy.  Beat in flour mixture, then almonds.

2) Shape heaping teaspoonfuls of dough into balls and arrange on baking sheet.  Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until firm.  Cool briefly on the sheet before transferring to a rack.  Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

One thing I like about this recipe is that it's not very sweet; I don't have to half the sugar like I normally do for recipes.  I think this freezes reasonably well in case you want to make it a couple of weeks before you need them. 

Good as that cookie is, some of you are actually waiting for the following: stollen!

I'm following in my friends' footsteps and making stollen every year now. If you missed it previously, here's my tutorial from last year.

Hope you'll try making the cookie or stollen. :)

I am going to be taking a blogging break for a bit.  I've signed up for a writing class again this January/February, and that will eat up any spare minutes I have left in the day.  See you back here sometime mid to late February...unless I have some fabulous news I want to share.  LOL!

Wishing all my dear blogging friends a wonderful holiday season with your loved ones!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Trees and Stollens

Or maybe stolen trees, but puns are the topic of another post. =)

Hope you have had a safe, happy, and enjoyable New Year's celebration with your loved ones!

Overall, our holidays were lovely. We had a nice, quiet Christmas Day lunch with my FIL at his assisted living home, and invited a friend/dh's colleague over for dinner the Saturday after Christmas, and that was about it.

I had hoped to take a photo of our tree in daylight, but that never happened. Here it is at night:And, more prettily, with the tree-lights on (and regular lights off):
But enough about me and my tree obsession.

Here's the thing you've all come here to check out: the Stollen recipe. I thought I had lost the Stollen recipe that I used last year, when in fact, it was merely tucked under a cushion of the space-time continuum. Many thanks to my dear friends J&G who tried to answer my distress calls, and who introduced me to the joys of candying my own citrus peels.

Just so that I won't ever lose the recipe again...unless Blogger shuts down suddenly and leaves me in a lurch before I get to my Blog2Print order (thanks, Sherrie, for telling us about the service!)...I've taken a photo of it and put it in here.Because I love to make things difficult for myself, I make my own almond paste (using organic almonds). And to top it off, I had to blanch the almonds first. Note to self to never do that in the winter because rubbing off the skins totally turns my fingertips into sandpaper when my skin is already prone to resembling the Gobi. Here are the almonds, blanched and in the processor, ready to be pulverized.
You can find tons of instructions on how to blanch almonds, as well as how to make almond paste, online, and most of them are fairly identical, but if you're curious, here are the ones I used:
Oh food processor, how I love thee! You turn tedious tasks into such a breeze.
The recipe above says to soak the currants in brandy, so I soaked my raisins in rum. I love following recipes to a T. snort.
The citrus peels being candied:
I used grapefruit and orange peels, but will try lemons and limes next year too. I enjoyed making candied peels so much that I made a second batch just to keep on hand, because one never knows when one might run into a candied peel emergency.

Here are the fruits and peels being tossed with flour.
Because I have sensory issues, I prefer not to knead dough by hand. This is why I love my KitchenAid mixer even more than I love my KitchenAid food processor. The dough hook is like a sister to me.
After dividing the dough into four sections (I didn't want 2 humongous loaves), I flattened each piece out and rolled a "tube" of almond paste to put in the flattened dough:
The almond paste should be slightly offset. Those of you who roll your own sushi will recognize a similar technique:
A proper stollen must be folded offset too, apparently. Maybe it stems from a tradition of bakers being drunk on the rum/brandy that they soak their currants/raisins in?
After the loaves have risen for an hour:
And hot out of the oven:
Stollens are usually served with icing/confectioners sugar sprinkled on top, but we don't like it that way. Instead, we prefer to slather it with way too much butter.

And if you think I'm going to do this again this month...you are absolutely right! I have exactly half the almond paste left and lots of candied peels, and we loooove stollen!

Have you ever baked Stollen? If you try it, please let me know!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

My first German Christmas Stollen

Normally, I'm too lazy to bother with breads that require a lot of work, but because 1) our dear friends, JGTH, moved to the West Coast and can't (or won't...ahem...LOL!) make one for us, and 2) they left us with all their homemade candied fruits and brandied raisins, I had no choice but to attempt the stollen.

Here's the batter - yeast, scalded milk, etc. - being stirred: Then, after various iterations, here's the dough before it was rolled out: After the dough is rolled out into a slab, you put the almond paste in the middle before folding it up. I'm proud to say that I made my own almond paste. ;) It's actually not very hard to make unless you have to blanch your own almonds and the skins don't come off properly, as happened to me. Regardless, the paste tasted authentic and delicious. I would recommend making your own almond paste if you like to get organic foods because it's nearly impossible to find organic almond paste.

Here is the final product - two large stollens, fresh out of the oven:They were really, really tasty. We just finished the last of it today. Next year, I might attempt Panettone. Giada de Laurentis, a professional chef on Food Network no less, said that they were hard to make and best left up to the professionals. I find it hard to believe and, besides which, her words sounded like a challenge to me ("I double-dog dare ya!"). I'll take her up on it.

"He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home." ~ Johann von Goethe