Berries and Grains for a Holiday Recovery

Bet that lured you into thinking that this post would be all health food and diet guru-y-ness... well, I hate to disappoint, but I've still got holiday goodies to tell you about! At least these ones are physically gone from the hous - to my mom's relief. She's actually said that she wished I didn't cook and bake so well because all my goodies were addictive. Well, I don't know about that, but I can't be taking the credit: I had a few really good teachers!

I suppose that there has to be something to be said for the fact that these cookies were a little bit closer to the "healthy" side of the holiday table, and as far as I know they tasted great, since my mom actually hoarded some for her own personal "work stash" and the guests that had a taste went back for seconds. I figured that I had to make the holiday gig my last real baking "hurrah" for a while, so I was going to make it worthwhile! A few of my loyal taste-testers / eaters have recently been bemoaning their apparent weight gain (just where they're gaining it, nobody else can see!) and I've been taken on as a personal nutrition consultant for a handful of them - I've turned it into a self-fulfilling job hunt, I guess! (By the way, I am taking online clients... you can email or Tweet me for details).

Love Me / Hate Me Fudge

If you were to poll my family members as to their favourite sandwich spread, anyone hailing from the Italian region of the globe would give you the same, sweet answer: Nutella. My sister would tell you the same thing, although you would have to specify on or in what the chocolate-hazelnut butter would be a part of.

For instance, there's no way she'd accept this fudge as a viable carrier for it's flavour. For one thing, it's not straight Nutella. Even if it was made with all milk chocolate and contained a full jar of the spread, it's got chunks of filberts and a dash of booze... which would make for an instantaneous exclusion from her menu!

Luckily, when I was making this chocolate-hazelnut fudge, I didn't have to worry about those details. It was a gift-y kind of good, and so I was able to keep it away from her - though hiding it from the others took a bit more squirreling away! If I hadn't known that even so much as a crumb of this passed my lips I'd really regret it (and would be writing this from an ER cot), I somehow doubt that  the packages I made up for my friends would have made it to the post office!

Staying Up for Santa

So, Christmas Eve, eh? I don't know how many of you fall into the same trap I did this year, when it comes down to (literally) the eleventh hour and all of a sudden - gasp - you realize that you haven't wrapped a carefully - hidden gift you bought ages ago, or that you need to be at a potluck in four hours and you, planning to be the source of the desserts, discover that some cookie-monsters have eaten all the shortbreads on the platter!

 

Thankfully, cookies are fast, and if you get those sneaky elves to help you out with the little bits and pieces, you can boast not only a beautiful plate of sweets but a few leftovers to keep for Santa. Considering that he has the whole world to deal with in one night (can we say overbooked?) he'll need a bit of a boost!

Pretty Perfect Pretzels

With the overabundance of sugar and butter that seems to accompany the holiday season, sometimes I crave a simpler snack. Now, I still love my sweets - I have yet to meet a woman who doesn't - but at the same time, when you spend a good portion of your day up to your elbows (sometimes literally!) in different sugars and cookie doughs the opposite end of the spectrum starts calling your name.

To give our hard-working digestive tracts a little bit of a break before the whole 15-person shenanigan fest of Christmas Eve's dinner and Christmas Morning's brunch (yeah, my Mom cooks for both of those - she's a bit of a glutton for punishment that way!), I wanted to come up with a nice, basic complex-carb snack that people could grab on the go or munch while wrapping gifts. For me personally, I wanted to make something that would give my skin a break from constantly being abused by the whole wheat-flour-flying antigen factor that seems to constantly arise when I bake - which meant making something gluten free.

Ginger (and) Mint

I think I'm pretty good at pegging what people like when it comes to the whole dessert / snack thing. Certainly I've become better at it over the years - I generally know how far "outside the box" I can go with my offerings before I start meeting resistance or (perish the thought!) outright rejection. It's all about picking up on the subtle cues people leave in conversation - even if you aren't talking to them about food (what, there's another topic of conversation out there?), people do drop hints as to their personality and generally their likes and dislikes.

A classic example I've come to realize over the years is that, for the most part, adults are perfectly content with desserts and snacks that are more spicy than sweet. They are the dark chocolate people, the ones who eat the actual gingerbread of the gingerbread houses (rather than people like me and most kids who would rather pick off the candy and royal icing), and those who lean towards fruit and nut types of concoctions rather than a sticky-sweet nougat or caramel.