The Groaning Board
We moved four pounds of butter and five pounds of sugar through our kitchen last week in the form of 8 kinds of cookies, 6 loaves of stollen, and a pint of chicken liver pate. Why you might ask were we baking so much? No, we have not opened our own catering business, though we felt like that's what had hit us as we baked batch after batch, day after day. Well yes, its Christmas time, and we decided to host a winter open house for 40 friends. Hence the baking commenced. In addition to the cookies and the bread, we also made a batch of peanut brittle and candied fresh ginger, orange rind and lemon rind, then dipped it in dark chocolate. The candied fruit was the top hit of the day, especially since the ginger was grown one county over by my brother and sister-in-law, super fresh, super delish.
We had a mighty fine time as we gorged on cookies, drank a gallon of hot cider, two gallons of eggnog and several bottles of wine. Nothing says winter holidays like eggnog and our local Maple View Dairy makes a very fine version, rich and thick with a nice level of nutmeg. In a review of the liquor cabinet which we don't frequent that often, I discovered we possessed 7 bottles of different kinds of rum! Barbados, Costa Rican, Guatemalan, Virgin Islands, Jamaican...so that was what I was pushing to spike the eggnog to those who were partaking. The house was packed with folks and it was great to have so many friends around us enjoying good food and friendship.
Stollen with homemade orange-flavored butter, the next most popular item on the table.
We did have a good time getting everything ready, and our house is now super clean. The only problem is all the leftover cookies, I might as well be spreading that butter directly on my hips. David was worried we wouldn't have enough so got up and baked two more batches Sunday morning, needless to say, we had plenty.
No comments:
Post a Comment