Thought I'd post and wish you all a happy holiday. It's been busy around here. My older brother and his wife and two daughters are coming to stay for a few days starting tomorrow. I had furniture delivered on Friday that was supposed to show up a week and a half ago but they had to reschedule due to the snow. So, my family room, where the aforementioned brother and family will be sleeping, is now covered in the contents of the room where the new furniture is. My two older daughters, who own all the crap stuff in the family room, assure me that they have it all under control and that it will all be clean and tidy long before our guests arrive. I'm having a very hard time believing them.
My husband is leaving for Afghanistan in less than a month. He and my older brother, Tom, were friends long before he and I ever started dating. That's partly why Tom is coming here for Christmas. My whole family will be here in fact, including Grandma Ellen. Among other things I'm making Figgy Duff. I promise you it tastes much better than Wikipedia would have you believe. I'm using Grandma's recipe which my mom said I'm not allowed to give you. Sorry about that. All the recipes I've seen on the internet for Figgy Duff have it made from bread crumbs. Grandma's is made from flour, molasses, raisins and lots of spices. It's the boiling it in a bag for two hours that is going to require some creativity on my part. Whenever I've had this it's been served warm and there are only so many burners on my stove so to have this with dinner or for dessert is going to be tricky. I'll post pictures if I manage to pull this off. If not I'll just pretend it never happened. Deal?
I did find that cookbook with the Orange Sugar Cookie recipe in it. How about that recipe instead?
Orange Sugar Cookies
1/2 cup butter or shortening
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp orange or lemon rind
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp mik
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp nutmeg
Blend together butter, salt, rind and 1 cup of sugar. Beat in egg and milk. Sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda then add to butter mixture. Chill for at least an hour. Form into small balls about the size of walnuts. Roll in a mixture of remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and nutmeg. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet; press each ball down with bottom of a drinking glass dipped in sugar/nutmeg mixture. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in 400F oven. Yield: 3 dozen cookies
This recipe is from Blue Ribbon Recipes County Fair Winners it was published in 1968. This particular recipe is the creation of one Ms. Ann Green, Culpeper, VA from the Culpeper County Fair. It's on page 332 if you happen to own this book. I usually double this recipe and if you want to get fancy, it is Christmas after all, you can press half a maraschino cherry in the center of eat cookie before you bake them. My sister and mom both do that. Enjoy.
I still have quite a bit of stuff to do. One of those things is find the pair of sock I was knitting for Lori. I haven't finished them and I haven't seen them in about two weeks. I have absolutely no idea what I did with them. So, since she has no idea that I was knitting her socks, I decided to knit her a cowl instead. I'll post pictures of that too when the holiday is over. It's super easy. Size 10.5 needles. Thick yarn like Lion Brand Homespun. CO 35 stitches and knit every row for 80 to 85 rows. Sew the cast on edge to the bind off edge and voila. Whatever yarn you use rub it on your neck first to make sure you can stand having it there. That's why I picked the Homepsun; it's so soft.
Have a very Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice (even though it was yesterday) Happy Hanukah (even though that was over a week ago). Talk to you soon.
