Every year since 2010 I’ve done a series of December diaries focusing on a variety of seasonal topics ranging from music to food to ugly sweaters. (Full disclosure: I did ONE Seasonal diary in 2008, and 2009 was the first December K2 was with us so I was a little distracted :-)). It’s time to do it again! Don’t worry if Christmas isn’t your thing- while my personal December perspective is primarily secular but culturally Christian-based with a vibrant dose of earth-centered Winter Solstice mixed in because Unitarian Universalism, these diaries are NOT meant to be siege locations in the War On Christmas. In other words, if there’s a holiday in December that makes you happy, that you mark differently than all the other days, or that involves negotiating about who brings what food… or even if there isn’t... this is a place for you!
Grab your favorite beverage as you hop over the story break and check out the message from our sponsor... maybe some eggnog? As commercial eggnog apparently is ::sob:: off limits to me forever (thanks, diabetes!) and until I try making the low-carb version I’ll mention down below the story break and a word from our sponsor, I’m having wine. It would be more festive if I nuke it for 30 seconds and sprinkle nutmeg on top, but I’m happy with my nice room temperature Zin :)
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I’ve written 24 “Seasonal Series” diaries; 6 have focused on food. NONE of those six were written after my diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes in January 2016 and subsequent evolution from a carbohydrate-based diet to a ketogenic, low-carb high-fat way of eating. It’s time to fix that! So for tonight, let’s talk recipe sources. Where do all those delicious treats or holiday favorites come from? Are they written on index cards from long ago, pixels on the interwebs, or from a physical cookbook in your kitchen? Tonight, let me share both some of my old and new favorites, as well as two of my favorite keto sweets!
When I moved to Boston for graduate school, that first year I wasn’t home enough to cook much of anything. My second year, however, I roomed with one of the lab techs from my department and we cooked together a lot. For Christmas, she gave me one of my first actual cookbooks, the Toll House Treasury:
This cookbook taught me how to make tasty sweet things really easily. It’s where I learned to make one of my favorite treats of all time, which I wrote about back in 2011: Chocolate Marzipan Squares. I still use it to make things for others, and as K2 despises chocolate while K1 adores it, this will probably go with her to her first apartment.
Fast forward two years, and my Mom gifted me with what I have to assume a majority of kitchens owned then and possibly now, the Betty Crocker Cookbook.
Mr. Brillig and I actually own several of these, the 1990 ring-bound version my Mom gave me, and a hardbound one several decades earlier. It’s interesting to see how the recipes adapted over time, but one that escaped change are the classic Sugar Cookies (available in handy Internet form, too!). Mr. Brillig’s family makes these cookies every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and this year I mailed a batch to K1 at college with powdered sugar, food coloring, and sorority-colored sprinkles so she could make frosting and decorate them with her friends. For those wondering, she promised she could obtain butter at school! Another favorite, Russian Tea Cakes, comes from this cookbook.
I’ve written about other favorite holiday sweets: a totally decadent Cranberry White Chocolate Mousse showpiece, Christmas Crack, and others. But 2016 brought all of those to a screeching halt, or so I thought. When I abandoned the American Diabetes Association way of eating because it quite literally was going to kill me and adopted keto eating, it took a year to figure out that while exactly how and with what I cooked might differ from traditional recipes, I could in fact have just about everything I wanted if I was willing to be flexible. And with that realization, I found options beyond what I’d ever dreamed. As I explored the interwebs, I found a site whose recipes universally WORKED… something of a rarity in the grand chemistry experiment that is keto cooking. Thanks to All Day I Dream About Food, I discovered I could have delicious food. Including Pecan Pie:
That eggnog recipe I still need to try, but which gets amazing reviews by everyone who’s made it? From this very same website, right here. ADIDAF’s author, Carolyn Ketchum, has a number of cookbooks as well as her website, and so far I have two:
I’ve had really good experiences with the recipes in her book, and want to leave you with a photo of the Raspberry Ricotta Breakfast Cake that was so good it’s become a dessert all on its own! I can’t link you to a recipe because it’s from the book, but if sharing it might entice you to buy the book, I could be convinced to send it to you if you kosmail me.
So enough about my sources… where do you get YOUR inspiration for cooking around whatever holiday is your Winter tradition? Please share with us in the comments! After you peruse the Trio of Top Treats we offer up nightly, of course!
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From belinda ridgewood:
Fonsia posted a diary with video of a brilliant ad in which Andy Serkis portrays Theresa May with her "precioussss" Brexit deal. (If you have not seen this, do not fail to watch!) The tax returns are in Kenya had a hilarious response.
From yours truly, brillig:
From Dartagnan’s Trump, in meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, unwittingly gives America a lesson in sexism comes a lesson-thread on how even the most well-intentioned of our side mansplain. Featuring thoughtful responses by thejeff, and WI Lurker, among many.
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