Season’s Treatings

 

Being the season that it is, I have started making food treats for friends, family, and neighbors . Yesterday it was seasoned nuts and candy day.

I made two kinds of fudge, some chocolate truffles (I sneaked Craisins into them) as well as some spicy-seasoned roasted pecans and maple syrup sugared walnuts.

Here’s a tip: Do NOT wear a white sweatshirt while working with melted chocolate. Duh. ‘Nuff said.

SWEET AND SOUR NOTE

This morning I put the preserved lemons that have been pickling on the counter for the last month into the gifting jars. (I’ll make a little recipe booklet to go with them.) I found some very nice glass metal-ring-closure jars at the dollar store, the kind that snap over the edge. Pretty, and reusable.The plastic ones I had looked at earlier were $3.95. I got better for $1 each, but of course when I went back to look for more the stock had been wiped out.

I wasn’t sure about the lemons since this is the first time I have made and used any. They’re great! I’ll write more about them in future. They do make an attractive, tasty, and usual gift, not to mention enhancing some of the things you cook. 

THE FRUITCAKE ALTERNATIVE

Today it will be cookies. Chocolate chip pretty much meets universal approval (I’ll leave out the nuts in at least some of them for my un-nutty friends). Years ago I discovered that using the basic toll-house cookie dough recipe, but that mixing in candied fruit (a la fruitcake variety) and nuts (in some) instead of chocolate chips, makes a delightful and different-tasting cookie. I wowed some of my mid-western tradition-bound relatives with these years ago. I still have some Mexican spice and lavender cookies in the freezer. Need no more.

GET A GRIP

Here’s another tip that, when I told my husband, we both went “duhhh…” He had been looking for a flat rubber jar opener thingy the other day and I admitted that I probably had banished it the last time I cleaned out the drawer, along with several other seldom-used or useless implements. But then I saw a tip that recommended using rubber gloves if you have trouble gripping the jar and/or twisting the lid. Duh. I’ll  pick up a new “kitchen” pair at the store. Garden gloves would work fine too, and more attractive and easier to store in a drawer.  

IN ANY CASE, HAPPY HOLIDAYS WHATEVER YOU CELEBRATE, AND WISHING YOU A SWEET AND SAVORY NEW YEAR.