This is the nowhere week between Christmas and New Year’s, that I usually like, probably based on when it was a school holiday when I was a kid, when we did fun stuff like sledding, and later when I was an older kid, in college, it was also fun, being back home and seeing who else was. When Mark was working in Chicago, we’d go down and do stuff in the big city (though this post is really about the week before Christmas). Even quiet times in Madison could be fun.
This year I just kind of feel at loose ends. Work, and try to get ahead of my two classes? I have not. Relax, since we’ve all been working 24 x 7 plugged into our computers, and every administrator on campus has been saying, “really, take time off, really”? I didn’t really fully achieve relaxation, either, although I have spent a good bit of time reading on the upstairs couch with the cat.
Today I don’t really have any big cooking projects to undertake. I made sourdough bread twice this week, and my sourdough starter has gotten huge – it’s about 6 cups and I had to put it in a half gallon jar (Guess I already told you about the size of my sourdough starter Saturday). I’ll have to figure out some things to make from it without feeding it, like maybe crackers; there’re already sourdough waffles in the freezer from the last time we had them.
Whole wheat sourdough toast for breakfast on Tuesday. This was the more successful of the two sourdoughs I made this week. I tried adding some brown sugar and olive oil to the second batch, and baked some it as focaccia, and the rest as a little round loaf. The focaccia came out a little leathery on top.
NYE dinner is going to be apps: deviled eggs, pepperoni roll, ham & cream cheese rollups or Lutheran sushi, I just learned that name, love it, shrimp, crackers and cheese, maybe dill dip, guacamole if the avocados I bought Monday get ripe enough. New Year’s Day will be Hoppin’ John, and I think I’ll make scones for breakfast – but it’s all for only two, so no big deals.
I made more pumpkin butter yesterday, so I’m continuing to use up my CSA produce.
Tipi Produce autumn frost squash – before
Pumpkin butter on toast – after
We still have enough cookies for a nice plate of the lasts for NYE, and probably the Day as well, but I’m in after-cookie season mode, where I’m in withdrawal from baking and still keep looking for cookie recipes to try. I think maybe I’ll have to make the brown butter rice krispie treats friends have been talking about, though I think a lot of the times when I make rice krispie treats I do brown the butter and marshmallows just slightly in the process of melting them. When I was shopping for Thanksgiving and cookie season, I impulse-bought two bags of mini marshmallows on sale at Woodman’s, I guess they were stocked up for the jello & marshmallow salads that their customers would be serving on Thanksgiving, or maybe Watergate salad.
All but three of the 24 cookie boxes I shipped on December 15th have gotten to their recipients – and Ethan & Megan’s box, going to Denver, actually shows a delivery time when I track it today. Sadly, Rach & Iain’s box to New York, and Suzanne & Eric’s box to Maryland, only have the vague “in-transit” status. I guess the Oak Creek postal processing facility, where everything mailed in Madison goes, is one of the hardest hit by the overall USPS woes that started in the fall.
We got snow on Sunday night, and more last night, and they made ice at Westmorland Park.
I guess I’ll go make those rice krispie treats now, maybe hardboil some eggs for tomorrow’s deviled’s, and listen to the BBC. Maybe go back and hang out with the cat some more, before dinner, that will be fried rice and leftover chopped salad, that we ate with soup and leftover pizza last night.
