When I read this, I stopped in my tracks and I'm wanting to know if I can come over to help you eat this treat. Gawd knows how delicious to the taste and very desirable it is. And since I want to be like Gawd, , , Can I come over, please? What time?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2016 06:57PM by sunbeep.
I thought I was the only one. I make it every year, complete with lemon sauce. I also get to eat it all by myself. I usually freeze some of it for later.
I bought an instant pot pressure cooker. Wow does that speed up the process. I think it took about 30 minutes if I remember correctly. There are directions online for using an instant pot to cook Christmas pudding. It's basically the same thing with a few different ingredients. The cooking methods and time are about the same though.
I've also used a crock pot. This is an excellent way to cook carrot pudding. Cover your pudding with foil on top, or use a covered pudding mold ( I love those things). Put water in the bottom of crock pot, put Pudding in, put lid crock pot on and cook according to direction time. It's pretty much fail safe.
Also, as an exmo I now add a heavy handed dose of frangelico. It helps with keeping it moist and gives it a bit of a punch. I don't care for raisins, so I use chopped dried or fresh cranberries. I soak them overnight in Grand Marnier.
I add a splash of Grand Marnier to the sauce. My homemade limoncello is also a good addition. I use the microwave to make the sauce. Modern conveniences are very useful for Christmas puddings. Just be careful to not cook out all of the alcohol :)
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2016 08:48PM by madalice.
Carrot pudding, carrot and potato pudding, and plum pudding. All of those are my collective favorite. Warm, with brandy and hard sauce ---
Younger folks are missing out on a wonderful set of delicious desserts, now that steamed puddings are too much trouble to bother with. (For those who have never had a steamed pudding, it is not anything even faintly like Jello pudding mixes. As different as a rose and a rock, as one of my grandmothers used to say.)
I've got to look up the modern ways to cook them, madalice.
Also, homemade mincemeat pie. The kind that actually does have meat in it. I have a problem with raisins, nowadays. My brain is putting together things from various posters here, and I'm thinking that mincemeat pie which substitutes dried cranberries and cherries for the raisins and currants would be something remarkably different and also remarkably good.
OMG, I thought it was just my grandmother who made that. I haven't had it in over 30 years. I did make it once, when I was a young wife and mother, with my grandmother's recipe and my mother's help, but way too much trouble. We'd boil it in quart jars after what seemed like hours of prep. But still sometimes around the holidays I think about it and my mouth waters.
If you own a food processor, it's a very quick easy thing to make. Without one, shredding all those carrots and potatoes are a real drudge. Cooking it in a crock pot or pressure cooker also simplifies it a lot. The microwave makes sauce making quick and easy.
Those Pillsbury cookies with snowmen, trees, and reindeer on them! The kind that comes in a roll and you slice and bake. I went vegan at the start of this year, though, so I'll have to figure out my own copycat recipe.
Used to be my mom's homemade hand dipped chocolates. Been 20 years since she passed and I can still taste them. I do usually treat myself to a bottle of single malt at Christmas. Maybe not this year though.
My mom's Scottish shortbread was loaded with real butter and was better than Walker's, Boner. Trust me on that. And Bishop Burr....now that's fucking hilarious...as if!! Trust you're doing OK my brother...been drinking a fine selection of Canadian craft beers and a rum and Coke at my son's place near Edmonton, celebrating my grandson scoring a great goal at his hockey game this morning. Deaked out the defense and then scored on the backhand, Bobby Orr style. It was bitchin'!!
Ron, I saw Bobbie Orr play several times when he was on the Boston Bruins. They were probably the best of the NHL at that time. And, for the record, you would be a fabulous bishop! I'd imagine you'd be compassionate as all get out with the kids and really care about people. Stay as wonderful as you are! Da Bone.
Thanks, Bro....still chuckling and WTF'ing about the Bishop Burr deal....my dear sweet Dad would have been the best bishop ever. He loved kids (more than I do) and I like to think his favorite calling was as Junior SS superintendent. If I were a bish, I'd tell every kid that told me he or she didn't really want go on a mission to stay TF home and don't waste 2 years of you life. That woulda gone over like a lead balloon I'm sure. And I woulda told every poor family and all the widows that tithing was optional. And if someone didn't want to take on a calling, then don't. Yeah...I'da made a great bishop. LOL
I grew up in what many would call priviledge. I had wonderful, successful parents who provided a loving, nurturing home for my brother and I and our family never wanting for a thing because of my dad's successful farming business. As I've gotten older, Christmas means one thing. Family togetherness. As long as I can break bread with my family and maybe enjoy an adult beverage or three with my son, nothing else matters.
Lethbridge Reprobate Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > As long as I can break bread > with my family and maybe enjoy an adult beverage > or three with my son, nothing else matters.
My favorites are the Pillsbury sugar cookies with a thick layer of vanilla frosting and sparkles and my sister in law's banana split pie. But my all time favorite is my aunt's homemade "Christmas Bread" that she sends us from California. I have no clue what is in it but it is sure good though.
Sunbeep-Off course you are welcome. I love to share.Problem is i live 20 miles from the nearest gas station in the back country in Alberta. Madalice- I would love to get your crock-pot instructions for the pudding. Are they on the net at all?
I cooked it just like I normally do, except I put my pudding mold in a slow cooker with about an inch of water in the bottom of the slow cooker.Place the lid on the slow cooker. I cooked it on the high setting. It took about two or three hours. You could probably put it on a lower setting and cook it for several hours if you're not going to be home. It's a worry free kind of thing and is easier than cooking it on the stove top.
If you don't have a pudding mold with a lid, use a bowl and cover it with foil, it works just as good. I've also used a bundt pan and covered it with foil. You can then unmold it onto a plate and slice it like a cake. A bit more work, but it's pretty. Just be sure to grease and flour the pan well if your going to unmold it
There are several places online that give directions. Christmas puddings and carrots puddings are pretty much the same thing, and the cooking directions are about the same.
To reheat, I put some on a plate and zap it in the microwave. One year I cooked the whole thing in the microwave. It came out pretty good, more cake like. Steaming it is better.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2016 04:59PM by madalice.
My grandparents used to make big batches every christmas. Now, I'm the only one in the family that can be bothered, because they are so time consuming. So I usually only make one batch, once a year.
Fruitcake, my mother's recipe. Peanut brittle. Marzipan. Chocolate covered cherries. Candy canes. I know you can eat all these things all year but we always get these things as Christmas gifts so we don't much eat them the rest of the year.
As I age I find that I'm losing my sweet tooth. I still tend to dream about some of these but when I take a bite I kind of cringe at how sweet they are and am done after that one bite.
My great aunt (whose nevermo husband taught me the phrase "pie in the sky" when referring to gawd), made the best puffed rice treats. Just like rice krispy treats except you use puffed rice and blend in crushed-up candy cane with the melted marshmallows. I absolutely love it, but I'm the only one. I make up a small batch every year for my wife's family xmas get togethers, but I'm the only one who eats them.
MichaelC, I hope they're in Latin! There's nothing like a Latin mass. Also, check out Michael Praetorius's Mass for Christmas Eve on CD (Amazon). It's a Lutheran Mass sung in both Latin and German. Several of the hymns you'll recognize. And least we forget, King College Cambridge Festival of Lessons and Carols!!! High church at its finest! The Boner.
Divinity! Only corn syrup, egg whites and sugar and as heavenly as the name. Tricky to make, requiring a candy thermometer and rapid whisking. Mom let me put the single red hot on top of each piece. ALways the highlight of Christmas Eve.
Not sure if it's just Australia that has this but it's yummy. Rice crispies (those snap crackle pop things) melted white chocolate ,stir,then add chopped glace cherries, chopped soft candy stuff like snakes, chopped glace ginger and anything else you fancy adding. Either set in a shallow pan and cut into squares or pile into patty cases.
Okay, this is going to be boring for all of you, but my uncle would send a crate of fresh navel oranges and grapefruit from Florida every year. Whatever it is they sell in grocery stores doesn't even come close.
We would open that box, and it smelled like Christmas.
citrus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Okay, this is going to be boring for all of you, > but my uncle would send a crate of fresh navel > oranges and grapefruit from Florida every year. > Whatever it is they sell in grocery stores doesn't > even come close. > > We would open that box, and it smelled like > Christmas. > > For me, other goodies pale next to real citrus.
When I was growing up, I had access to maybe three dozen American magazines from the 1880s or so, through about (maybe) 1915 or so. They had been in the family since they were new, and though the paper had turned brown and was flaking pretty badly, if I was REALLY careful, I was allowed to read them...
...and one of the things I have always remembered was that, during that general time frame, kids (from the East Coast through the Midwest, mostly) often received a single orange for their Christmas "gifts"---and they looked forward to that orange all year long. It was, to them, total luxury and the pinnacle of deliciousness.
I've always remembered that because, where I grew up (the San Fernando Valley of Southern California), there were orange groves all over the place...and every newly-constructed tract home came with (as a selling point) the owner's choice of an orange, a grapefruit, or a lemon tree in the backyard---so, receiving a single orange as "ALL" of your Christmas gifts seemed to me to be almost unbelievable...yet I knew, from those stories, that buying those oranges every year in Kansas or Minnesota or Vermont was a real financial stretch for those families...and certainly at that time in our history.
Oranges and grapefruit "smelling like Christmas" to you, citrus, makes PERFECT sense to me!!
Michael York was a favorite actor of mine. I listened to his autobiography. He grew up in wartime England. Every year he and his sibling got an orange for Christmas. One year they requested an exotic banana. "We cried when we found that bananas have no juice!"
We were clearly wealthy people compared to folks in the 1800's. When I was *very* young, we had Christmas stockings in which there was always 1 orange; 1 tangerine; 3 each of walnuts, almonds, filberts, and Brazil nuts, all still in the shell; and 1 candy cane.
It seemed like a treasure trove to me, and I still consider the scent of a tangerine being peeled to be the official smell of Christmas. I have no recollection of other presents, except that eventually, I also got underwear. I was never sure that underwear really counted as a gift.
citrus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > And to you, Tevai, who seldom fails to warm my > heart. ;) Thank you! > > Central and Northern Indiana. And yes, all year > long!
Baked pies are among my favorite desserts, with ice cream ala mode.
My parents and grandma made the best homemade pies ever each holiday (Thanksgiving and Christmas.)
Dad specialized in fruit and pumpkin pies. Mom the pie crust. Grandma's specialties were lemon meringue, banana cream and chocolate cream. My mouth still waters remembering her pies. :)
Like Tevai mentioned, as children it was a tradition for Santa to leave an orange in the toe of our Christmas stocking. Occasionally there'd be both an apple and an orange. So after we ate ourselves silly sick from the chocolate and all, the orange came as a pleasant reminder to eat healthier. ;)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2016 03:59PM by Amyjo.
My dad's chocolate mousse, which is something devout TBM's wouldn't eat because it's got brandy and coffee in it. He makes it only once a year because it's time consuming and has to chill overnight.
Another thing I especially love is egg nog from a local dairy that sells regular milk and chocolate milk in the traditional glass bottles, but their egg nog is a seasonal thing.
The soft peppermint nougats wrapped in cellophane. My grandmother always had them in a candy dish.
Also, tamales. You have to have a supplier - you can't just buy them at the store. My brother-in-law's family spends a whole weekend making batch after batch - a few dozen will be savored!
We also always got a single orange and a handful of nuts in the bottom of our stocking. My kids like pomegranates, though.