Tag: recipes

Cheap and Easy Christmas Things that Even You Can Do!

I assume you’re already doing all the religious stuff, and have already bought, made, figured out, or given up on gifts. Here are a bunch of other nice Christmasy things you can do pretty easily, using materials that you may actually have in your house and skills you can probably muster up even at this stage of your life.

 

SOMETHING SWEET TO EAT:

Fudge recipe that doesn’t require a candy thermometer.

fudge

Can be dressed up with various nuts, crushed candies, flavored chips (peanut butter, mint, butterscotch, etc.), but yummy on its own. There are also lots of other great recipes on that page, with clear instructions.

Also more of less foolproof, and without any exotic ingredients or equipment, but messy to make: buckeyes. I let the kids do this one, since it involves a lot of hand-mooshing of dough and unsanitary dipping in chocolate.

 

SOMETHING SAVORY TO EAT:

 

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Jew-for-a-day potato latkes that are great for Chanukah but don’t require any special Jew ingredients. I didn’t bother with the cheesecloth; I just squeezed out the potato shreds in a colander and added a bit of extra flour. So tasty and tender. Serve with sour cream. Leave time to go lie down afterwards.

 

SOMETHING TO LISTEN TO:

Christmas music that is free and won’t make you grind your teeth: The Boston Camerata never disappoints.

medieval feast

 

SOME DECORATIONS TO MAKE:

 

paper ornament

Neat Christmas decorations that require only some paper, a stapler, and some string.

The dog actually made this one, and he’s an idiot! That’s how easy it is! The dog couldn’t even find the stapler, so he used needle and thread. For a fancier look, try using this basic idea, but with lots of different sizes and shapes (giant to tiny), different cuts (straight, scalloped, etc.), with shiny, patterned, or regular paper, and hang them from string or ribbons or yarn, and add sparkly beads to the string. Instantly dresses up a room if you hang up half a dozen from the ceiling.

We also had fun last year gluing together various kinds of pasta for ornaments. Hot glue worked the best. These can be painted (metallic spray paint is great) or even colored with markers, but you can also get on board the “natural pasta look” train that is not actually a thing. We made wreaths, trees, angels, instruments, and all kinds of stars. We really did! But here are the ones I can actually find, to take a picture of, including the inevitable unfinished Dalek:

 

pasta ornaments

Just look on Pinterest for “pasta ornament” and you’ll see all the possibilities. Because it’s Christmas, I didn’t say “pastabilities.”

 

SOMETHING TO READ OUT LOUD:

 

A_Christmas_Carol_-_Mr._Fezziwig's_Ball

Full text of A Christmas Carol by Dickens from Project Gutenberg. I have never actually gotten around to reading this out loud to the kids, but it’s doable. It’s a long short story, not a novel. If you can find a copy of it anywhere, the 1951 movie with Alastair Sim is the best by far.

 

SOMETHING TO AVOID:

argy bargy

Contentious social media. Seriously, if you are feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, you will not feel more peaceful and generous after spending time arguing about torture, racism, rape culture, or liturgical practices, so just close that tab and go find something nicer to do with your time. It’s not that these things aren’t important, and it’s not that you’re wrong. It’s just arguing about them is not going to help us get ready for Christmas. Save some argy bargy for the New Year! It’ll keep.

A big fat lady just sat on my hat.

So, we celebrate Columbus Day here.  As I’ve mentioned, it’s not because I think he was a perfect man (there was only one of those.  We get His day off school, too), or because I think that his achievement brought unmitigated blessings to mankind.  Still and all, I’m glad to be on this continent, I’m glad to have a three-day weekend, and I love me some eye-talian food.

On the menu is bruschetta with various disgusting toppings that the kids won’t eat, mwa ha ha ha ha hahh (that was the sound of me contemplating eating it all myself), some kind of antipasto with those awful marinated vegetables I can’t get enough of, probably mussels or something, suppli, cannoli with cherries and shaved chocolate, and Italian ices.  It’s possible that some wine might leap into the shopping cart all by itself, too.

As you can see, this is a pretty Americanized Italian feast.  That’s just my way of sticking it to l’uomo.  Take that, Columbus!  If you’re such a hero, how come we’re not eating . . . well, I tried and tried to think of some kind of authentic Italian food which sounds gross, but I really couldn’t.  Maybe something with, like, ox brains or something?  The worst thing I had to eat in Rome was rabbit, and that was only kind of awful because we thought it was chicken, until we realized the legs were bending the wrong way.  Oh, and there were some kind of snack food that was exactly like biodegradable packing peanuts.  Those weren’t very good — or filling, which was terribly important for a student who was living on about 70 cents a day.

Anyway, here is my recipe for suppli, which is what we had for lunch most days in Rome (one semester in college).  They cost 800 – 1,000 lire each, a few years before they switched –sniff sniff– to the Euro.  Normally, I wouldn’t touch a recipe with a secondary recipe in it, but this one is worth it, believe me!

(photo source)

SUPPLI

2 eggs

2 cups risotto (see recipe below)

4 oz. mozzarella in 1/2-inch cubes

3/4 cup bread crumbs

oil for frying

tomato sauce, if you like

Beat eggs lightly until just combined.

Add risotto and stir thoroughly, but do not mash rice.

If you want tomato sauce (this is how they were served in Rome), add it now – just enough to make it tomato-y, without thinning the mixture.

Form a ball about the size of a golf ball, make a little dent in it, stick a cube of cheese in the dent, and then add on another golf-ball sized lump of the rice mixture.  Form it all into a smooth egg shape.  Roll the whole thing in bread crumbs.  Do this until you use up all the rice mixture.

Refrigerate the balls for 30 minutes if you can, to make them easier to fry.

Heat oil to 375 degrees; preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Fry 4 or 5 balls at a time, about 5 minutes until they are golden brown.  The cheese inside should be melted.

Drain on paper towels, and keep the suppli warm in the oven while you are frying the rest — but these should be served pretty soon.

Risotto recipe:

7 cups chicken stock

4 Tbs butter

1/2 cup finely chopped onions

2 cups raw white rice

1/2 cup dry white wine

4 Tbs soft butter

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Set chicken stock to simmer in a pot.

In a large pan, melt 4 Tbs. butter – cook onions until soft but not brown.

Stir in raw rice and cook 1-2 minutes until the grains glisten and are opaque.

Pour in the wine and boil until wine is absorbed.

Add 2 cups of simmering stock and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally until the liquid is almost absorbed.

Add 2 more cups of stock and cook until absorbed.

If the rice is not tender by this point, keep adding 1/2 cups of stock until it is tender.

Gently stir in the 4 Tbs soft butter and the grated cheese with a fork.