traditional foods for the holiday season

[HiDelight]

well mine is Baccalao! omg I love this soup and have had it since childhood on Christmas eve ...with my friend's family before she took me to midnight mass ... ..I have eaten and made the Portuguese style ..the Italian style ..the Puerto Rican ...other island style ..anywhere salt cod and tomatoes have met in this world a form of baccalo or baccala' or baccalao has been made

I am bringing back tradtion this year we have put it off for too long and traditions are important part of passing on culture

so if you have a traditional food for the holiday season that you really take that extra time with and actually honors the garden ....if you dont and want to start one with some coaching from us mama's who do have them

please lets chat about something wonderful healthy and soulful you can make for the holidays every year for your family and friends


Step 1 to good baccala'

find the right salt cod ..the kind in the box is fine if that is all you can come up with ..but check out some ethnic markets and fish mongers I find it locally every year at a fish market ..it is their own and cut very thick in fillets

today I do part of my non traditional recipe for this stew
I make a big pot of seafood stock

usually folks use just the cod to flavor the stew but mine comes out more like a ciopino with a marinara seafood stock base then chunks of the salt cod floating in it ..I also use capers (but more about that later I promised my kids I would write it down as I do it this year ..some of them actually HAVE to have recipes )

the second thing I am doing today is taking the last bag of my roasted san marzano tomatoes ..roasted diced peppers, onions ...and going to make a nice Dutch oven sofrito ...(see somehow the Spanish or Latin American technique comes up in this too!) cook it way down then add red wine and tomato water ...cook way down to a paste again and then set the stock and sofrito in the freezer ...they will be fine until Christmas even this way


tonight I will make a ciopino for our dinner out of the stock and sofrito ..it must be tested after all to make sure it is right!

I have some tuna in the freezer so that will work!

each layer gets its own meal!

the best foods to me are the ones you take the time to prepare
this dish for me is lots of layers ..lots of time ..and several meals

I will stop blabbing here and just leave this open for what I hope a fruitful holiday garden to table related discussion

what kind of person would wake up thinking about compost tea and baccala

 

[PunkinPeep]

 

[HiDelight]

ok the soup stock is done and in the freezer

really nice marinara to mix in later

we going to enjoy this stew/sopu by the fire for the solstice

might as well eat in the garden no matter what the weather!


my black cakes are ready as well they are so boozy people will stay warm that is for sure!!!


a little wassailing of the trees will be fun!

I think the season is starting to rub off on me

 

[cwhit590]

I think the season is starting to rub off on me

Now that it's December and the snow and cold have arrived here, I'm feeling the Holiday spirit too.

As far as 'honoring the garden'....my family puts up a lot of applesauce this time of year! My mom loves making it...she makes big batches and freezes them. Our favorite apples for applesauce are Cortlands and Mutsu's.

And I guess we will be 'honoring the coop' too..........we will be making homemade egg nog!!! Last year was my first year with chickens, so homemade egg nog is a fairly new tradition...

 

[PunkinPeep]

I think the season is starting to rub off on me

Now that it's December and the snow and cold have arrived here, I'm feeling the Holiday spirit too.

As far as 'honoring the garden'....my family puts up a lot of applesauce this time of year! My mom loves making it...she makes big batches and freezes them. Our favorite apples for applesauce are Cortlands and Mutsu's.

And I guess we will be 'honoring the coop' too..........we will be making homemade egg nog!!! Last year was my first year with chickens, so homemade egg nog is a fairly new tradition...

How do you make it? The eggnog, i mean.

 

[cwhit590]

I think the season is starting to rub off on me

Now that it's December and the snow and cold have arrived here, I'm feeling the Holiday spirit too.

As far as 'honoring the garden'....my family puts up a lot of applesauce this time of year! My mom loves making it...she makes big batches and freezes them. Our favorite apples for applesauce are Cortlands and Mutsu's.

And I guess we will be 'honoring the coop' too..........we will be making homemade egg nog!!! Last year was my first year with chickens, so homemade egg nog is a fairly new tradition...

How do you make it? The eggnog, i mean.

Oh man...we just googled it and found a recipe online....it uses up a dozen eggs!

It's not hard to make...with the recipe we use, we cook the eggs just to be on the safe side...that's the hardest part cuz you have to stir them for 20 mins or so....but it's REALLY good in the end....just like store-bought! but better of course.

I'll try to find a link to the recipe.....

 

[cwhit590]

Ok, here's the link:

Homemade Eggnog Recipe

After cooking the eggs, we strain it thru a sieve to get any little bits that may have gotten cooked. Also, we like to use vanilla and rum extract for more flavor.

and looking back over it, it is a pretty time-consuming recipe ...but it serves a lot and it tastes great! and it uses up a dozen eggs which is awesome if your fridge is full of them...

There are a ton of eggnog recipes out there. This is just the one we use.....

 

[HiDelight]

I so would love to make that!

with a bit of rum

rum or brandy for those who imbibe?

 

[HiDelight]

ok this stew I am making

yesterday the stock made cioppino for dinner

tonight it was putanesca over grilled tuna

tomorrow it will be more of a coconut lemongrass soup

I got three distinct meals out of one big pot of stock and a big pot o marinara ..that will eventually meet each other !!!
there is still plenty of both already frozen that I will make the bacala from ..but want to bet this sauce ends up on a home made pizza first? it came out really good!

does anyone cook like this I wonder ?...no one I know personally really does ..most are great cooks but most make one meal at a time and just eat the leftovers ..I eat the precursers

I will have a goal of a special dish a week or two in advance ...and then freeze half and make a bunch of dishes with the fresh base the main event happens ..then wind down with leftovers if any of the main dish with variations

I know the Italian grandmas I grew up around cooked like this maybe more of them that rubbed off on me than I ever imagine ....see it was good for me to go to mass even as a little heathen child

I was lead home to feasts afterwards and got my start at wanting to cook! Even if I was shoo'd out of a kitchen I ran right back in! my grandson does this too

I like Christmas even if it is not my own holiday ..I when you take away all the stress and gifts and stress and no money ..and stress .. it is a very beauitful holiday so many religious and pagan traditions came together to make a brilliant beautiful gathering event ...and have wonderful memories of chiildhood Christmas times spent with neighbor families who did it up BIG with HUGE people sized nativities in the yards


it is nice to see that eggnog tradtion thanks so much for sharing

anyone else ..cookies come on you guys must make the dough and do some awesome cookies...tamales? ..anything?

 

[PunkinPeep]

Well, i didn't mention cookies because your subject says 'honor the garden,' and i'm not sure my cookies honor the garden.

My special Christmas tradition is Pepparkakor - Swedish spice cookies. My mother and her family are from Sweden, and these cookies are wonderful - and difficult to make. Since i've moved far away from my mom, it has become our tradition that she sends me a box around the beginning of advent - and it always includes Pepparkakor.

I have the recipe my mom gave me, and i'm learning to make it. This year's attempt was the closest i've made yet to my mom's.

The dough is very fragile and has to be refrigerated overnight or longer. The cookies are very thin and delicate - and when made just right, addictive. My grandmother taught me to eat them with coffee. There's nothing in the world like good pepparkakor and a hot cup of coffee. You can dip them in the coffee for a wonderful combination of flavor, but you have to be careful not to lose your cookie in the coffee.

The great thing is that even if you mess up the baking part, the dough by itself is amazing, so you still get some of the experience by tasting along the way.