Cookaholics Bulletin Board

What's the plan for everyone? I'd love to hear all of the wonderful things everyone plans on making.

I have no idea on what I'm doing, and could actually use some suggestions. My wrist is still very gimpy and gets very tired and sore very quickly. I'm still at the point where I can barely hold a knife, and have absolutely no strength. Yet, I'd like to do a special meal. I just have to make it fairly non-complicated, and don't want to fall back on doing a roast, although I may. (Never, ever badly break your dominant wrist. Yah, I know...kind of obvious.)

Amy

Still planning. I have a beef tenderloin and want to make rösti with it (we are combining Christmas and Hanukah this year, this is my riff on brisket and latkes). My mother-in-law is making a Baumkuchen, a German cake that involves broiling thin layers of dough so when it is cut you get a tree (Baum) like appearance. I am thinking red wine sauce with the meat and maybe I will make some dinner rolls. Not too exciting but it will keep the crowd happy.

Mary

Need to keep it really simple this year.

Ham with grainy mustard/orange marmalade glaze
Dynasty Corn Pudding (Google the recipe, it's delicious)
Potato Salad
Cloverleaf rolls (Edna Lewis)
Swedish rye bread
Ambrosia
Olive tray
Assorted Cheeses
Homemade crackers
Cheese cake
Italian Christmas cookies

fitzie

I'm lucky...all I have to do is the dessert. It's nice being the baker!

I feel for you, Amy. Years ago I had my right arm strapped to my body for a month (shoulder injury), and I could not believe how difficult it would be to do simple things with my left hand! I cut up a lot of things in the FP then, that I normally do by hand, and ate a lot of cold soups.

I hope the strength comes back soon.

Dessert is what flips me out,

Keeping it super-super simple this year.

For the Solstice we are having mixed pierogi, roasted squash, and a Shaker lemon pie.

For Xmas Eve we are having high-roast chicken and potatoes and a salad with roasted beets (Geekboy's favorite). Cookies and hot chocolate for dessert.

For Xmas Day breakfast I'm making orange doughnuts and sausages. If my in-laws feed us, great! If not, we'll have chicken sandwiches.

You've got a lot of people to help you on this! What are you thinking?


Thanks Dave. It does suck, doesn't it.

Amy

JB,

I like the idea of doing a roast chicken for Christmas Eve. I'm going to have to manage the entire meal without Andy's help (he's teaching that day...he teaches skiing for the Adaptive Sports Program), and that would be really nice, but also really easy.

Can you share your recipe for pierogi? I had a townhouse mate in college that made them once a week, and I've never had any quite as good since.

Amy

Amy, all:

Gods, I'm so happy to be ambidextrous. Although I'll admit I'm not much good with a knife with my left hand; just no practice, really. I burned my right hand badly a couple months ago and had to bring the left up to parity on whisking, and I already mainly use my left for stirring. And of course, scissors are a total loss in one's left hand unless you can find decent left-handed ones.

Amy, I would think perogi would be out of the question, since it takes two hands to roll out dough. Hmmmm ... what would a one-handed rolling pin look like?

Anyway, speaking of rolling out, Christmas Eve dinner is liable to be Georgian food. Not ham hocks and grits, but the other Georgia: kachapuri and lobia. Menu TBD.

Kachapuri: http://fuzzychef.smugmug.com/Travel/Rus ... 12_8sGwkQR
Lobia: http://fuzzychef.smugmug.com/Travel/Rus ... 04_CK7hQtr

You will be amused to know that baumkuchen is practically an institution (and year-round) in Japan. Here's the baumkucken bakery in one of the big department stores: http://fuzzychef.smugmug.com/Travel/Jap ... 6246_w3nvb Yes, that's a baumkuchen on that spit, build up one 2mm-thick layer at a time.