The girls’ Winter Fair is this coming weekend and it’s an all-encompassing epic of tastes and sights and smells. Run almost entirely by the parents, it’s also a tonne of work, but oh-so rewarding!
Today we head back to my home town to help my mom with her holiday baking. The girls have the day off school while the parents descend and begin the transformation. My mom’s been largely successful battling breast cancer over the last month and a bit, and we want to help make the holidays less exhausting by lending several hands, especially the tiny kind. I wish we could get home more often, but our schedules have been mad, so I’m looking forward to this day.
We’re making these pecan tassies, which are a holiday favorite. We add a little garnish of drizzled chocolate and chopped red and green maraschino cherries to make them a bit more Yule-tidy. They are decadent, and we’re for sure bringing them to the Fair. Mama S and I also prepped a batch of sugar cookie dough last night for the girls to play with. It’s just not as much fun without cookie cutters or decorations, and I want this to be as much for them as it is for grandmere. Those cookies will be for our home, and for friends visiting home. We’ll also be tackling my aunt Jackie’s famous molasses crackle cookies, which I LOVE. I don’t have the recipe, it’s still in storage with all of my books, but I’ll add it this weekend after I get it from my mom. Dunked in hot coffee, they’re a little bit of heaven. Mama S is going to whip up a batch of her chocolate chip cookies, which are easily the best I’ve ever tried.
N will be making several loaves of bread. Everyone goes nuts for his bread, no matter what type he chooses to make. The man has a gift, I swear. If he lets me, I’ll post his recipes, or better yet, I’ll have him write a post complete with tips.
We’re also down for a huge batch of this lentil kale stew which we’ll have to make with collard greens because the grocery store was all out, and this AWESOME mac and cheese for the café, where everyone can buy lunch and breakfast. I’ve been adding a whole head of roasted garlic to the kale stew recipe for added flavour, and I’ve axed the chipotlé from the mac and cheese, and added some Parmesan to the bread crumb topping.
I love this time of year. I’ve been working on a list of potential hand made gift ideas, thanks to my friend Martha (Stewart, of course). I just wish I had more free time!