Continuing with our ‘adventures’ and dining experiences during 2020’s Covid-19 Christmas celebration… You will note that dietary limitations were violated, but that is a ‘normal’ holiday attribute, is it not? It is in our household!
So we did
get some goodies to eat from family and friends, plus Laurie put on her baker’s
toque and she whipped up a few dozen for our enjoyment as well. Family photos also flew across the Internet
to keep us all in touch…
In my previous post I’d noted the candied apples and cookies that friends Norm and Linda brought to us. This tin full of cookies and candy were sent to us from Laurie’s niece Judy and her husband John. Nothing went to waste, that’s for sure!
Laurie’s Scottish cousin Hazel also sent us photos of she and Scott’s kids posing in front of their tree. The first photo is of Moir, Della is in the second picture and Maura is in the last one. Cute kids all! Laurie and her sisters Bonnie and Karole are planning to visit the family in Scotland as soon as the Covid-19 pandemic allows…
My cousin Nathan and his wife Janice sent us a photo of their nicely decorated home near Fenton Michigan. Very festive indeed with lots of attention to detail!
Even Ben Campbell, our investment advisor with Edward Jones, got into the Christmas goodies act! His clients did a drive by at the office and we got this nice package containing honey baked ham, croissants and cookies, along with a photo of Ben’s family and his assistant Shelia. The ham and croissants provided us with a couple of satisfying meals that required no effort on our part.
As I mentioned at the beginning, Laurie got into a cookie baking mode. The first photo shows some of her cranberry-orange shortbread cookies. As usual they were excellent!
This year
Laurie also tried something new. I’d
copied a recipe for ginger-molasses cookies from Pam, a blogger that I follow
who lives just outside of Chicago. We
have had molasses on hand for a long time so what a great way to use up some of
it! As you can see, those little balls
of dough turned into some great looking cookies. Not only do they taste good, but they also
have great shelf/storage life. They stay
nice and chewy for a long time. Good
thing as the recipe made about 5 dozen!
For Pam’s
ginger-molasses cookie recipe, you can just go to https://pamsmidwestkitchenkorner.blogspot.com/2020/12/chewy-ginger-molasses-cookies-yum.html.
Then Laurie stepped way outside her comfort zone. She decided to make “Empire Biscuits”, a recipe that came from her Scottish grandfather’s sister, aka. Laurie’s great Aunt. It was a challenging task. Laurie had to translate metrics into US/imperial measurements. Then we had to figure out what some of ingredients were called here in the USA. Sugar icing…equaled powdered sugar (we think) and corn meal flour equaled self-rising corn meal (we think).
The
recipe calls for 2 biscuits (or cookies) for each completed Empire
biscuit. Strawberry jam was spread
between the 2 biscuits and then they were frosted and topped with a
cherry. They were very good if a bit
messy to eat. One thing for sure, the
recipe for the individual biscuits themselves yielded the best Scottish
shortbread we’ve enjoyed in a long time!
Then there is the story of our little ‘flat’ Christmas tree. By flat I mean it is wide across the front and very narrow from front to back. It fits perfectly into our Christmas closet which is chock full of all things Christmas. We’d acquired this little pre-lit tree from a local merchant where they were using it for display purposes.
But the tree (and 2020) wasn't done yet. A few days later the bottom lights went out too…leaving us with a single group of lights across the middle of the tree. As I wrote this post, those lights were still glowing but 4 more days still remained in this dismal excuse for a year… Still time to blink out!
Did I
mention that our main HVAC heating unit has decided to quit operating? We’re thankful that the secondary systems are
working and that we have a propane fireplace…2020 be gone!
Just
click on any of the photos to enlarge them…
Thanks
for stopping by for a visit!
Stay Safe
and Take Care, Big Daddy Dave
I enjoyed the PJ shot and looks like Laurie baked up a storm. Seems like it's impossible to get thru the season without tree light issues.
ReplyDeleteThese were some great photos of your distant family members, Dave. Glad to read that you and Laurie had a day of family contacts as we did as well. The coolies looked delicious. We also baked some of our own and have been enjoying a few each evening with some eggnog or hot chocolate.
ReplyDeleteGreat family photos, Dave! And all the goodies, perfect for the season! Trees and Christmas lights definitely do their own thing. Cute tree anyway.
ReplyDeleteI eat a lot of cookies.... homemade cookies.
ReplyDeleteYour cousin house decoration looks so wonderful...love snowmen.
Happy healthy holiday.
Those cookies certainly look yummy – wouldn’t mind eating one with a nice cup of tea. I have not baked as many cookies as usual as there was no one to share them with, I worked on the main meals instead. Now I need to make some hoppin’ john so I can be lucky all year (this is an old southern tradition.) I like it with greens and corn bread. Your Christmas tree looks lovely, even with its missing lights. This year I only had my tiny tree under a glass globe, maybe next year… plus I did not bring my tree decorations from GA yet. This has been a difficult year for everyone. I hope we’ll be able to finally get out in the spring. Have a great New Year.
ReplyDelete