Oooh, holiday treats that are traditions in your family? I love that theme! I don't have anything TOO unusual. We always do a big turkey (at least 20 pounds) with stuffing(usually sausage and dried fruits), smashed potatoes (well, that's what I call 'em), and the rest of the usual suspects. But my mother started making stuffed pears for us when I was little, and I have to have them every year, without fail. My DIL now loves them, too, and just before Thanksgiving, my daughter Erin called me from California to ask how to make them for her first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

They are nothing difficult or even gourmet, but they taste so good. Just plain ol' canned pears (though I guess you could use poached fresh pears if you wanted to). But the "stuffing" is a sweetened cream cheese & pecan mixture that is so yummy. Sometimes I stuff celery with it, too, but the pears are a MUST have at our house.

I make my own cranberry sauce and a butternut squash soup seasoned with Caribbean jerk seasoning and topped with a dollop of sour cream. And a dish of sauteed fresh pears and parsnips, braised in butter and sweetened with brown sugar.

I don't bake, except for pumpkin pie, so no special Christmas cookies.

I'm dying to see what others make special for the holidays so I can get some new ideas to add to the mix!

Ms. Marion, I've always wondered what home made marshmallows would taste like. I've never had them. They always sound so good.

Marcia

YIPPEE!!! Finally something FUN to talk about! thanks Marion, and I owe YOU, Kat, BarbC, Jan and others phone calls...been a bit busy when ya all called...

OK Holiday Treats. I found a recipe for a cookie my mother used to make for my best friend LONG BEFORE she would make MY fav cookies. Got to call her tonight and tell her I FINALLY found the recipe 10 years since my Mom was last here making them for her. They are called "Melting Moments" a simple flour cookie with orange zest in the dough and orange juice in the the frosting that is just powdered sugar and orange juice! One of my dads favs was stuffed dates. Split dates stuffed with cream cheese. Mom and I would use food coloring to make the cream cheese green and red and then punch the stuffed dates into a bowl of chopped walnuts or pecan meats...YUM what a sweet treat to pop in your mouth.

Marcia, the pears sound YUMMY! We had Dennis's sisters cranberry relish at Thanksgiving made with orange Marmelade. I gotta get that recipe for sure. Dan (dennis's son) is home this yeear for the first Christmas 11 yrs Den and I been together! So I am sure we will have lots more treats than just the usual!
Merry Christmas eating!

Everything sounds YUMMY. I do a Christmas Cookie Exchange every year. It's a lot of fun and a great way to get lots of different cookies without the work. Although I do love to bake. If any would like to come-- the more the merrier. Dec. 21st 2pm at my house in Royal Palm Beach.

I also make cinnamon rock candy. My husband hates when I do it because one year I burned the phone-- don't ask.

Other than that we open the house on Christmas Eve to the neighbors and anyone that wants to stop by. We eat, visit, eat, drink, eat and be merry. Did I mention we eat?

Have a Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah everyone.

Beverly

Cindee, do you just use plain cream cheese in the dates? I'm looking for an EASY treat like that to add to my nibble list. Plain cream cheese and then moosh it down in some chopped nuts so they stick to it? Sounds REALLY good!

Oh, those Melting Moments cookies sound lovely, Beverly. Are they hard to make? I like recipes where I can dump everything into the bowl, stir, spoon out and bake, preferably. Hehehe.

Marcia

Marcia:

The Melting Moments cookies are Cindeea's. They sound awesome.

Cindeea- any chance of you posting the recipe?

Beverly

Snickerdoodles!!!!!
For me, special Holiday treats are all about baking. Everything else I make throughout the year, but Christmas is the time for snickerdoodles (a German soft sugar cookie rolled in sugar and cinnamon before it's baked), molassas crinkles (a dark cookie with a sugary, crinkley top) and ginger creams (yes, another cookie! this one is like gingerbread, with a cream cheese frosting).

For our neighborhood Christmas party each year I make Wisconsin Beer Cheese Soup. It's cheese and it's beer... how could that be bad?!? And Jim always makes a savory Asian Pork Meatball, with lots of sweet&sour sauce, ginger, 5 Spice and pineapple. It's oh so yummy but he only makes them once a year.

Great idea for a topic, Ms Marion! Thanks!

Kate

Kate, I made snickerdoodles for the first time today...YUMM-A-LICIOUS!! I am going o have to make another batch they are so buttery and cinnamon-y! The guys and I really went for them.

Marcia, dates...easy peasy and so yummy for a party take-a-long. People just LOVE THEM!
Buy pitted dates, cut them in 1/2. Take plain cream cheese, softened. Mix in a dab of red food coloring to 1/2 the cheese and green to the other 1/2. Fill the pit cavity with cream cheese, dip in chopped nuts. I let them chill before serving. EASY!!

Melting Moments-I was wrong, all the orange goes in the frosting. However, today I made up my dough and refrigerated it and I squeezed about a tablespoon of fresh juice in the dough mixture from the orange I zested.

Melting Moments(courtesy Ladies' Home Journal, Dec. 1980)
1 cup softened butter
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups cornstarch
3 tablespoons orange juice
grated orange peel(optional)

In large mixing bowl with mixer at medium speed beat butter and 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in flour and cornstarch until well mixed. Wrap and refrigerate dough for at least 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 325F. Roll dough into 1 inchballs. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 - 10 minutes until firm but golden. Cool cookie sheet slightly and then remove cookies to wire rack to cool completely.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl mix remaining confectioners' sugar (1 1/2 cups) with orange juice. When cookies are cooled place wax paper under wire racks to catch drips. Spoon on glaze. If desired, add grated orange peel to glazed tops. Let dry on racks. Makes about 3 1/2 doz about 85 calories each.

I hope they store ok. There is no storage info. My Mom used to make them ahead of my friends arrival for Christmas and just store them in tins, so I guess that works! I am baking mine tomorrow along with Spritz cookies. I just read tonight that butter spritz cookies can be frozen! YAY one storage problem solved.

Who else has some yummy recipes?

Cindeea-
Thanks for posting the receipe. I think I'll make it for my cookie exchange.

Beverly

Note on the Melting Moments-i ended up baking mine 14-15 minutes. Add some of the zest to the icing as well as sprinkling on top...it can be a pain. the cookies are quite fragile and break easily so only make them bitesized, otherwise if someone takes a bite, they will have crumbs left in their hands. They did turn out delicious and melt-in-your-mouth. Oh yeah, forget about the mess of drizzling the frosting, i just dunked mine in head first, about 6-8 at a time then sprinkled the zest. Otherwise the glaze will harden and the zest won't stick if you do all at once. HAVE FUN Bev, let me know how they turn out!

NOW I need a good Spritz recipe. The one s I find aren't like my Mom's browned crispy treats. My Mom's were always buttery and crispy...she used to let me decorate them!!
Also, does anyone have a good cookie-cutter cookie recipe?

Yay!!!! Cindeea and Marcia both back, hip, hip hurray! (((Hugs))) from SE Fla!

And MsMarion, I owe you a big debt of gratitude! I read your post last night. Hauled out the recipe box and started reading from back to front. (My "box" being filed in chronological vs. any rational filing method.)

It was a trip down memory lane. There were recipes from people I've totally forgotten, (college friends, coworkers over the years), some of my mom's recipes that I'd obviously copied in a hurry, with the additional notation in a different color, triple underlined with an exclamation point...probably when I made something that failed, called Mom, and and she told me what was missing.

There were notes from canning: "Takes ALL DAY!" My favorite was "Yielded 24 quarts, but 7 were JUST JUICE!!!!!"

I found the one and only recipe from my paternal Grandmother for Shrimp Salad. I'm calling Aunt Pearl tomorrow to see if she has Grandma's recipe box.

And the surprise ending came at the end of my travels through the chronological recipe box.

A girlfriend I've known for many years invited me to a Christmas Party on Saturday. She specially requested that I make my Chocolate Bourban Cake again, because everyone loved it. Her last party was three years ago. I responded back that I would look for the recipe, but only remembered that I made it because someone had left a pint of Jack Daniels at our annual Thanksgiving doo, but I'd be happy to bring another dessert.

Aiming to please Judy, I looked through my most likely cookbooks, googled the recipe and nothing looked like the cake I remembered making.

The last recipe in the box was (drumroll) The Chocolate Bourban Cake Recipe!!! And by gosh it looks like there is still 1/2 cup of that original pint of Jack Daniels in my little liquour cabinet. I'm tickled positively pink.

Here's Grandma's Shrimp Salad, verbatim from the recipe card...

1 pkg spiral spagetti
celery, chopped - green olives, sliced
shrimp 6 eggs

Dressing - 1 cup mayo, 1 cup catsup (Brooks Tangy best)

It sounds horrible, doesn't it? If memory serves, (pretty sure it does) that salad was wonderful. Ya'all know to hardboil and chop those eggs, right? Grandma used canned shrimp. Isn't it grand that we don't have to use canned shrimp?

Cindee, I'm gonna make those cookies, thanks so much for sharing! If anyone's interested in the Chocolate Bourban Cake recipe, I'm happy to share. Ingredients list isn't long but the method is.

My only sad moment was seeing Mom's recipe for Rhubarb Custard Pie. Yum! We had a patch of Rhubarb...

Thank you, thank you msmarion. Are you going to make it easy on us, or do we have to google the marshmello recipe?

Great recipes and stories everyone. LOL I just knew that talking about food would make us all feel better! Those that are using WW I hope there are some great treats for you. I should be joining you...my jeans are getting a little snug these days.

Shellfreak thanks for the invitation. May I have a rain check for next year? Cookie exchanges are as much fun as a plant swap!!LOL We had a huge one in NH with 35 attendees. Yikees! that's alot of cookies, but lots of fun.
Cindee I can't wait to try your recipe. They sound delish!

Marsha, my great aunt made a different kind of stuffed date. Just slit the date in put in some chopped walnuts and roll the date in granulated sugar. I'm going to try them this year with raw sugar.

Kate have you ever made chocolate snickerdoodles? Yummy!

Marilyn I added a link for the marshmallow recipe. If you'd like to get together and make some let me know. I'd like your cake recipe.
I'm calling my aunt tomorrow for my grandmother's snowball recipe. I only remember rice krispies and coconut I think there are dates in them too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Check it out!

It's more YUM here than an Italian Bakery at Christmas...well almost!
Snicker Doodles in the tin and Melting Momemts cooling on the rack!
{{gwi:764147}}From Christmas 2008

Anyone make what my Mom called "Russian Tea Balls"? they were a round flaky cookie with nuts and little sugar in the dough. While still warm they were rolled in powdered sugar to sweeten them. They were another melt-in-your-mouth Moment!

Today I am making "Ivy's Almond Cookies" from a neighbor in our old townhouse before we moved to the new one. The last few days there was Christmas with no decorations or cookies, just boxes and furniture all waiting to be moved when we closed on New Years Eve. Neighbor felt sorry for us and knew we loved almonds, so she made a HUGE batch of her friends cookies and brought us a big tin and a bottle of rum Christmas eve. We sat on the floor eating cookies and drinking rum surrounded by boxes! I was tickled to find the simple recipe. These are light and falky and once you eat one you want MORE MORE MORE!!

Cream together 1 cup softened butter and 1 cup white gran sugar.
Add 1 egg yolk to the cream mixture(save the egg white)
Gradually add 2 cups sifted all purpose flower and blend thoroughly. Mix in 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.
Spread the mixture thin on a cooled cookie sheet. Baste with beaten egg white and top with thin sliced almonds.
Bake 300F for 25 minutes. I'll let ya know how they turn out.
What else is cooking?

Well since my husband is Portuguese, I have learned to make a traditional Christmas Eve dinner and have gotten to be quite the chef over the years!! Calde verde (green soup), bacalhau a gomes de sta(codfish casserole) and arroz doce (rice pudding) I enjoy cooking this every year. It's nice to be able to bring tradition and culture in to our home , especially for our children who love this meal and friends who have never had portuguese cuisine.

Calde Verde (I'm sorry I don't know the exact measurements)
Sautee a lot of garlic / 1 onion in EV olive oil
Add a bit of Chorizo sausage (gotta get the good stuff from Seabras supermarket(a Portuguese market in Pompano)
Add 2 boxes of chicken stock and 1 box water
Add potatoes (3-5lbs)and a bay leaf
Bring to a boil and put mixture food processor or I have a hand held thing that purees
Chop the rest of the chorizo in thin slices and add
Shred Collard greens and add.
salt and pepper to taste
sometimes I add a can of canellini beans & puree

Merry Christmas or shall I say Feliz Natal!

Ok, this is a silly request from this southern child, but anyone have a good cornbread recipe? My mother says she always uses the recipe on the back of the bag of corn meal, but I live in Miami, and my bag of cornmeal came with a recipe for arepas!

I love arepas, but it wasn't what I needed for the Thanksgiving dressing. I used a recipe in a book I have that is supposed to be very southern, and it tasted right (not sweet! sweet cornbread is not southern!) but it had the consistency of a combination of cardboard and concrete.

Mom didn't know what to tell me because she had an Italian thanksgiving at my brother's in-laws this year (grandchildren will do that to you), so she didn't buy her usual bag of cornmeal for thanksgiving. Sweetly, she offered to go find a grocery store near their house and read off the recipe on the back of their bag of cornmeal... but it was getting a little late for that. I had already forgotten to buy the bacon for the dressing (in southern cooking, everything requires bacon, never run out) and had to substitute sausage, which worked well but... the consistency was all wrong because the cornbread was wrong, so I ended up soaking the whole thing in milk before I put it in the oven.

It worked, came out tasty, but the rest of the cornbread, that we normally eat with the leftovers, was truly inedible.

Help this southern child find the right cornbread recipe before Christmas!

I'll trade my biscuit recipe, which is great, but I can't claim is no-fail because it took me years to get them right. Biscuit is an art, truly. I remember my grandmother making them lickity-split (as she would say) and they were always wonderful. And mine are sometimes good, sometimes all wrong, and occasionally great. It all depends on how I feel when I start. The bigger the existential crisis, the better the biscuit comes out, I've found. So I hate to offer anyone a recipe that requires a deep funk to make well.

I can offer a good celery soup recipe instead....

Susannah

Great photo Cindee! Martha Stewart will be calling for your recipes :-)

Susannah, here's the recipe that I have for corn bread:

1 c corn meal
1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 Tbl.sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 c. buttermilk

Mix dry ingrediants, mix with rest of liquid. Melt bacon fat in pan. 475 degree oven for 20 min.
This will fit in a 9X13 pan or in a 9 Inch skillet.
Enjoy!

Thanks Wanda. I'm saving it! I was so disappointed in the recipe I had. I double checked and triple checked and my measurements were right. It was just wrong. Tasted right, which was important for the dressing. But gosh it was like concrete! it didn't have baking soda or baking powder, which I suspect are crucial.

Susannah