Christmas stollen

My most beautiful cookbook (shut up, it is beautiful) Home Baking has a lot of seasonal breads in it, and I've been meaning to make the stollen for a few years now, despite the fact it never was anything I had in my childhood or a family tradition or anything. Although the Germans do seem to do Christmas best; my mother does make lebkuchen cookies with oblaten wafers every year. These are heavy on the almonds, so I never eat them unless she refrains from decorating some. Anyway, some helpful links:
.wav file for pronunciation
stollen is praised by gawker, so it must be good

My version involves the previously mentioned candied peel, and dried cranberries. No one likes raisins, son. It's quark stollen, but quark is somewhat lacking in the bodegas and markets of Brooklyn, so I substituted Greek yogurt. Germans and Greeks get along, right? My recipe had no almonds, but many do. Or, worse, marzipan. (It's harder to see and pick out marzipan than it is almond slivers.) Seriously, people, stop it with the almonds. It's kind of trying too hard, really. The fruit is all soaked overnight in a mixture of orange juice, rum and black tea. Mmm.
I halved the recipe, which was a blessing, as the loaves made are humongous. Here they are, wrapped up in swaddling clothes. Uh, saran wrap. This isn't blasphemous, as stollen are supposed to look swaddled. Or mine entrances. It's all a bit confusing, really. See the first link above. I froze one, ate half of one over the course of a week and took the rest home.

too many christmas cookies
christmas candy, including some from papabubble
pralines
fruitcake without the fruit
stollen

goose
wild rice
mashed potatoes
biscuits
broccoli
gravy
pecan pie

Candied Peel

You know what everyone's favorite part of the orange is? The pith! Followed closely by the peel. But how to best extract the pith from the icky juicy fruit part? By being hideously artsy, apparently.

All this is to say, I don't especially like candied fruit. It, usually comes packaged with some sort of dark green peel and maraschino cherries, which I have reason to believe I'm allergic to. (That link also indicates that the dark green stuff is peppermint-flavored cherries. This is one of the nastiest things I've ever heard of. What is wrong with you people?) But, I wanted to make stollen, because it is Christmas! Therefore, I had (HAD!) to make my own candied peel. Obviously. Also, I was procrastinating from studying for my finals, which are, thankfully, over by now. Here are the before,
after, and results pictures of the peeling process.
The lemons were thin-skinned and very hard to peel. Next time, (ha! this batch had better last me for years) I will pick out the thick-skinned lemons. Then insult them. This recipe (and the upcoming stollen recipe) comes from Home Baking. This is barely a recipe though, you boil the peels for an hour, then change the water and boil them again for 20 minutes, then boil in a 2:1 sugar:water mixture for another hour, and let dry for a few days and coat in sugar. Now, it also says if you want smaller pieces (as I did) you should cut the peel in between water boilings. I forgot completely until they were already in boiling sugar syrup. As someone who got a blister between their thumb and index finger from boiling sugar during badminton week in gym, I was not about to slice up those peels. I did hack at them with kitchen shears for a while though to at least get them smaller. As it turned out, it wasn't hard to cut them after they dried, and the big ones were easier to flip over during the drying process, so not too much lost, I guess.

Icebox Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've been meaning to post on this since the 10th, and I've managed to eat them all in 3 or 4 batches since then. They originally started as baked-in-the-car cookies, but given that it's December and I don't have a car, I used the slice-and-bake recipe. Which is, admittedly, very convenient. The first time I baked some, they had a very chemically, plastic-y taste. The next time I made them, after they had been in the freezer for a few days and I let them thaw before I baked them, came out much better. I'm assuming it's just the extra time left in the freezer, or maybe I hadn't gotten *all* the wax paper off the first time, but they were fine ever since. They are better right out of the oven as they harden considerably the next day. Which is maybe the point, you can just make fresh cookies whenever you want. But those Pillsbury cookies in the tube are, um, probably better. Tube cookies are better than a lot of cookies, actually. Nevertheless, we forge on.

Here the roll of cookie lies, letting cold air out of the freezer.

Again, in forced perspective.

An unbaked, perfectly circular cookie. They don't spread out much like drop cookies, as one can see by comparison with the first picture.

I am on holiday, and am not posting. At least not daily. As I've been back in Seattle though, I've eaten a lot of cookies and jook (rice porridge and ham).
But, I'll probably get around to putting some recipes and photos up. Cookies! Candied fruit! Stollen!

tea and leftover muffin
coffee, pain au chocolat, oatmeal from le pain quotidien
slice of pepperoni pizza
(in my defense, I was studying for my final:) orange juice, cheeze-its, reese's pieces, doritos, sour patch kids, peanut butter cup, chocolate chip cookies
hummus and bread

tea
pita and hummus
more tea, excellent ginger-molasses cookie from housing works
chicken, tomato, basil, mozzarella sandwich from cosi
orange san pelligrino and muffin from city bakery
chocolate chip cookie
orangeade

apple cider
stollen
scrambled egg and toast
tea
latte
orange vitaminwater
hot dog
pita and hummus
chicken with carrots and beans, lean cuisine
chocolate chip cookies, milk

tea
stollen
yogurt with honey
curly fries
an assortment of food from cipriani, courtesy of my roommate and her work, highlights of which included tiramisu, some kind of other cake, a mini lemon meringue, and the perennial favorite of pigs in a blanket.

tea
animal crackers
mocha, croque-madame, salad and apple crepe from le gamin
leftover thai noodles
apple cider

tea
coffee roll from yesterday
hummus and bread
hagelslag
spaghetti with meatballs and garlic, butter and cheese
curry puff, roti and spicy basil noodles from the new thai place

tea
the last of the beef stew
chickpeas with olive oil and lemon juice and parmesan
hummus and bread
apple cider
pho and pork-filled rice crepes from pho grand
coffee roll and a few bites of a cannoli (mistake) from egg custard king cafe
few bites of this ice cream

chocolate chip cookie
hummus and bread and crackers
beef stew. ah, monotony.
granola bites
fried bar food (mozzarella sticks, zucchini sticks, onion rings, potato skins, hot wings...but only one or so of each, really) and nachos at the coliseum to celebrate the last class of the semester

Stone Soup

My lower school was very big on musicals. We had two every year- one for the kindergarteners, and one for grades 1 thru 6. Stone Soup was the very first musical I was in as a kindergartener, so I have very fond memories of it. The traveller makes a soup for a whole village, using just a stone, but managing to get all the villagers to contribute whatever they happen to have lying around. Which is what I did, albeit without the stone: stone are dirty, y'all. Although I probably put in some things worse than a stone. Anyway, the recipe is cobbled between a recipe for beef stew in How to Cook and the recipe for Beef and Vegetable Soup in the Oct/Nov 2007 Cook's Illustrated.

Stone Soup sans Stone

2 lbs stew meat, cut into 1/2" cubes
2 onions
3 potatoes
some white wine
4 cups chicken broth
some spaghetti sauce
bay leaf
oregano
soy sauce
salt
pepper
water
some peas
arrowroot
-----------

Dice up the onions and cook in large pot over medium heat with melted butter. Let cook a long time until becomes brown and caramelized. Remove from pot.

While onions cooking, chop up stew meat into bite size pieces. Toss with some soy sauce and salt and pepper. After onions removed, cook in same pot until browned. Throw in some white wine leftover from Thanksgiving. (This is probably not all that good, but not the worse.) Throw in cooked onions. Throw in 4 cups of chicken broth, 2 cups of which are leftover from Thanksgiving and were sitting in the original metal can, which you are not supposed to do. (Bad thing #2) Add another 1-2 cups of water, make sure everything's covered. Throw in bay leaf and oregano, a little more soy sauce, and more salt and pepper. Boil, then turn to simmer and cover. Then decide to throw in a few spoonfuls of spaghetti sauce (Cook's Illustrated recommended you caramelize some tomato paste early on.) and only after you do, realize there's some mold. But it's TOTALLY LOCALIZED to the lid, and it looks like maybe it was on the lid touching the outside face of the jar, not inside of the jar with the main spaghetti sauce, which was not moldy AT ALL. Decide that 2 hours of cooking will probably kill mold. Not that there was any mold to begin with. Nope, nope, nope.
Ahem. Let cook for 2 hours until meat tender or near tender. Chop up 3 potatoes (russet) and throw into soup for 30 more minutes. After 30 minutes, take a little broth out, mix in some arrowroot and return to pot and stir. After 5 minutes or so, throw in peas for a few minutes and serve. Hope no one gets food poisoning.
Also, I just came across this link. I'm not sure if it makes me feel better or worse about what I put in the soup.

chocolate chip cookies
cranberry juice
beef stew x,like,3
hummus and bread
cake and melon
candy cane (chocolate mint!)

tea
hummus and bread
caramel macchiato
banana
iced tea
salad
granola bar
beef stew and bread
cranberry juice
chocolate chip cookies

tea
hummus and bread
beef stew and bread
cranberry juice
cheetoes
chocolate
more stew and bread

oops, i forgot i had these. some extra thanksgiving photos. you should all be able to figure out which picture is what dish by now.

tea
oatmeal with milk and brown sugar
leftover teriyaki and rice
cranberry juice
hummus and bread
chocolate chip cookies
eggnog. as in every year, i am unclear as to whether or not i actually like eggnog.


...and i realized we didn't even try to get the wishbone out of the thanksgiving turkey. i'm reasonably sure that it would have still been intact.

tea
leftover chocolate bread
egg in a frame
popcorn chickpeas
sushi, miso soup, chicken and shrimp teriyaki and rice from sushi tatsu
milk tea

tea
scrambled egg and toast
granola bites
strange chocolate cake/bread which i had thought was gingerbread
Classic burger and waffle fries, plus an oreo sundae and cupcake since my roommates are bad influences, from BLT Burger.

tea
hummus and toast
peas
cashews
macaroni (ok, penne) and cheese
twix bar
chicken taquitos
chocolate covered bits of ice cream

tea
peanut butter hagelslag, normal hagelslag
pesto pasta with meatballs
coffee
white cheddar popcorn
granola bites
pasta with meatballs

black tea
peanut butter hagelslag
coffee
sesame bagel with butter
salad with chicken, croutons and onions
hummus and crackers

black tea
toast with peanut butter
pizza, cake, orange soda <= leftover from a baby shower
leftover coconut soup
milk tea

scrambled eggs, toast, hash brown rectangle, leftover pancake and tea
cashews
leftover thai food

black tea
pancakes
delivery from fulton thai- tom kha gai soup (so-so), duck curry and chicken pad-se-euw, shrimp in wonton wrappers.
marshmallows and crackers