Holidayish things
Nov. 11th, 2009 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
healingmirthI finally signed up for Yuletide. My letter is over here if anyone's curious, though I may poke at it, or my requests, a bit more before they close.
I have a weakness for all things seasonally flavored. When I went to stock up on sickness-food Monday night, I thought I'd buy a Clif bar or two, and I discovered that they make Iced Gingerbread, Spiced Pumpkin Pie and Cranberry Orange Nut Bread. I haven't tried any of them yet because I've been well enough to make actual food, so far, but I'm excited.
Speaking of nuts - the local Whole Foods has cranberry sauce with pecans in their prepared foods case. I have never heard of anyone putting nuts of any sort in cranberry sauce, so this sort of confuses me.
I am a cranberry sauce purist. I grew up with the jellied Ocean Spray sauce from the can (which we used to slice and lay out on a plate. so classy.) but as long as I've been cooking Thanksgiving dinner, I've been buying cranberries and making my own sauce. I'm not sure what's going to happen for Thanksgiving this year. Last year, my mother, father and I were each in different states, and my mom and I each cooked our own mini-Thanksgiving dinner. Not sure what my dad did. This year, Dad's going to be out of town, but Mom and I will be together for, I think, the first time since I left for college.
I've been staying away from the Pumpkin Spice latte from Starbucks so far this year, since I'm 10 miles from the nearest Starbucks and have also fallen in love with my french press, but I doubt I'll be strong enough when confronted with the eggnog or gingerbread options.
To make up for that, sort of, I'm bigtime into pumpkin ravioli this year. I'm excited to make my own pasta once I'm reunited with my pasta machine. The first pumpkin ravioli was mostly pumpkin, with a hint of pumpkin pie spices but not too dessert-like. The ravioli I had tonight had a sweet pumpkin and ricotta filling that was so rich I almost couldn't finish the serving that I cooked, but it was so, so, so tasty.
When my family makes pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving (no whipped cream, thanks) we usually make two, even though there are only three of us, and then we have pumpkin pie for breakfast for the next few days. I've been known to mix up pie filling and just bake that by itself in a shallow baking dish if I don't feel like making the pastry.
Also, gingerbread cake, though I don't do that as often, because at some point when we moved, our new oven didn't bake the same as the previous one, and it never turns out evenly-baked. I'm too lazy to figure out what I need to adjust the temperature to, but I really should, because it's awesome.
Mmm, food.
I think I'm going to ask for a netbook of some sort for Christmas. My laptop is almost 4 years old, and while it works well enough, it's big, because I bought it to have a machine that I could play WoW on when I traveled. Now, I use my computer 90% for email and web browsing. The other option is asking for a new fancy phone, as my Treo is something like 3 years old, and I really ought to have a local number. I'm sure the iPhone is lovely, but I really want something with a physical keypad. Starting fresh with a new plan and a new phone all at once is sort of daunting, though, so I keep putting it off.
I think my (early) new year's resolution this year might be to leave feedback more consistently. I think I left comments on almost everything that I read for Yuletide last year, and then it dropped off pretty quickly after that.
I have a weakness for all things seasonally flavored. When I went to stock up on sickness-food Monday night, I thought I'd buy a Clif bar or two, and I discovered that they make Iced Gingerbread, Spiced Pumpkin Pie and Cranberry Orange Nut Bread. I haven't tried any of them yet because I've been well enough to make actual food, so far, but I'm excited.
Speaking of nuts - the local Whole Foods has cranberry sauce with pecans in their prepared foods case. I have never heard of anyone putting nuts of any sort in cranberry sauce, so this sort of confuses me.
I am a cranberry sauce purist. I grew up with the jellied Ocean Spray sauce from the can (which we used to slice and lay out on a plate. so classy.) but as long as I've been cooking Thanksgiving dinner, I've been buying cranberries and making my own sauce. I'm not sure what's going to happen for Thanksgiving this year. Last year, my mother, father and I were each in different states, and my mom and I each cooked our own mini-Thanksgiving dinner. Not sure what my dad did. This year, Dad's going to be out of town, but Mom and I will be together for, I think, the first time since I left for college.
I've been staying away from the Pumpkin Spice latte from Starbucks so far this year, since I'm 10 miles from the nearest Starbucks and have also fallen in love with my french press, but I doubt I'll be strong enough when confronted with the eggnog or gingerbread options.
To make up for that, sort of, I'm bigtime into pumpkin ravioli this year. I'm excited to make my own pasta once I'm reunited with my pasta machine. The first pumpkin ravioli was mostly pumpkin, with a hint of pumpkin pie spices but not too dessert-like. The ravioli I had tonight had a sweet pumpkin and ricotta filling that was so rich I almost couldn't finish the serving that I cooked, but it was so, so, so tasty.
When my family makes pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving (no whipped cream, thanks) we usually make two, even though there are only three of us, and then we have pumpkin pie for breakfast for the next few days. I've been known to mix up pie filling and just bake that by itself in a shallow baking dish if I don't feel like making the pastry.
Also, gingerbread cake, though I don't do that as often, because at some point when we moved, our new oven didn't bake the same as the previous one, and it never turns out evenly-baked. I'm too lazy to figure out what I need to adjust the temperature to, but I really should, because it's awesome.
Mmm, food.
I think I'm going to ask for a netbook of some sort for Christmas. My laptop is almost 4 years old, and while it works well enough, it's big, because I bought it to have a machine that I could play WoW on when I traveled. Now, I use my computer 90% for email and web browsing. The other option is asking for a new fancy phone, as my Treo is something like 3 years old, and I really ought to have a local number. I'm sure the iPhone is lovely, but I really want something with a physical keypad. Starting fresh with a new plan and a new phone all at once is sort of daunting, though, so I keep putting it off.
I think my (early) new year's resolution this year might be to leave feedback more consistently. I think I left comments on almost everything that I read for Yuletide last year, and then it dropped off pretty quickly after that.
