Garden of Thought

Our women's group at church had their Christmas wing-ding and as it had an international theme I figured this was a good excuse to make a big batch of pfeffernusse, one of those wonderfully fragrant things that I adore and other people sometimes won't even eat.  Found a faboo recipe at allrecipes, liked the anise extract to tone down the anise slightly, had to crush whole cardamom with my pestle because I didn't have any ground (that took a while) and increased the black pepper to 1 1/2 t., added some buckwheat honey with the clover in the molasses and wow - these about make my eyes roll up in my head, mmmmmm.  They're heaven just sniffing them. Thanks to the strange aversion on the part of others, I even had a goodly lot left over to nibble/snarf at home too.

Life is uber-crazy, rather weird, both very good in some ways and quite stressful in others, very mixed right now - I'm grateful for the holidays and cookies and sparkly decorations, they are a welcome distraction and lift the spirits. 

Now - all of you go bake something super-tasty, but be sure the people around you don't want it so there's plenty left for you. ;-)

With especial thanks to piplover for the site that led to the bbq brownies and to everloyal and starbells for their help in making them - here are the results of our dessert auction contributions -  I wanted to do a third item that either looked more creative or was sugar-free but kind of went into a funk on Saturday and didn't get it done. Oh well - maybe next year!

( Earl Grey Tea Cookies )
and then the less photogenic ( Barbeque Brownies )
Thank you for all the ideas, ((((flist))))- now to go nibble at what we came home with instead, a cream-cheese bread, a cherry cheesecake and a mini banana bread loaf. Yum yum. We have way too many good cooks there.

This must be the week for food entries. I completely blame lothithil, who put up her intriguing recipe with it's sekkrit ingredient right over here - now I have a pan of these cooling on the countertop and would love to see what other variations folks might come up with.

( My variation that's healthy from scratch stuff )

This past autumn I was feeling so buried in apples that when the little greengage plums came in I ended up just whacking them in half to pull out the pits and stuffing them into ziplocs in the freezer. Finally got around to doing them up today, canning takes sooo long but it's always so nice to see the end result.



They look so home-like and cozy, still warm from the canner. This is a greengage jam made with the apple juice I steamed out from my apples plus a little fructose, a shake of allspice and a bit of lemon peel. Came out almost like a 'butter' instead of a jam mostly because being frozen and thawed changed the texture of the fruit. I'm experimenting with no-sugar jam attempts... Tastes tangy and lovely. I feel so productive, in a delayed sort of way. Wish I could share it with you all.

Thank you to 'anonymous' - I've never had a virtual gift before and had vaguely wondered what they were, now I know! The little snowflake cookies are adorable, make me want to go mix up some sugar-cookie dough and play around with the real thing.

My son - my teenaged son, you know...the kind who slumps about in the exact same set of clothing day after day and would continue on until it fell from his body in rotting rags unless he were forced to change, the kind that, given a chance to speak to his grandmother on the phone abruptly regresses to caveman-like grunting...

He Cooked Dinner!! Cheerfully! By Himself!

True, it was 'only french toast' but There is Hope. Someday when my possible grandkids are all going "Daaaaad, we're huuuuuungry!" he can whip out a spatula and cry "Never fear! All is NOT lost just because mom isn't here, I can make FRENCH TOAST!"

*confetti*