Christmas isn't festive unless you eat some dang good food. Here I am with some North Carolina sourwood honey (dang good) and two goat cheese logs (even dang gooder). I got the goat cheese at the Raleigh Farmers Market where I get my eggs (In the Red Farm). One was rosemary garlic, the other was peppercorn. Best cheese with crackers you'll ever eat, hands down!My other feat was making a tiramisu for Taliatha's birthday (okay, she ended up helping me since she wanted to do it together, but I will still take the credit). We used mascarpone cheese instead of vanilla pudding like some recipes call for and it was well worth
the $4. We substituted Pero for the coffee. SO GOOD--and I'm not even a great cook. You can probably tell that we finally got a digital camera. (Holmeses tend to lag on adoption of new technology. We didn't have a touch tone phone until I was in 10th grade--that's 1994. I think we were the last family in Provo to make the switch to color television.) Anyway, it looks like Mallory enjoyed all of the Christmas eats too! What were your favorite Christmas eats?
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Yay, pictures!
ReplyDeleteWe love cookies. Pretty much all and any kind of christmas cookies as long as they don't have rasins in them. And hot chocolate. But goat cheese logs do sound rather interesting.....
Rob, since you comment on organic food production I thought you or your readers might find this page from the National Pesticide Information center useful: http://npic.orst.edu/hottopic/ovc/index.html
ReplyDeleteIt links to various scientific studies comparing conventional and organic agriculture. To consumers, the primary benefit of organic is reduced exposure to pesticide residues. The risks presented by residual pesticides in our diets remain unknown. Any nutritional benefit from organic over conventional seems iffy. Of course, this does not touch the moral/social aspects of food production or supporting your local farmer.
My favorite Xmas eats are still unbaked mainly. We have a great sausage souffle, but there are some things in Gordon Ramsay's cookbook that I'd really like to get into - mini Baked Alaskas, a fantastic ice cream, some nice fruit dishes, and so on.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link Herb. I've always thought organic food wasn't necessarily healthier, just free of pesticides. But a lot of that is probably because organic doesn't have to be raised that differently from conventional to get the label. In other words, chicken from a CAFO farm can be labeled organic so long as it is hormone/antibiotic/pesticide free. What I'm interested in is food that is "beyond organic." That's animals that are raised naturally, even if they may not necessarily be certified organic. I think animals raised on grass are better for you than animals raised conventionally. What I'm looking for are studies comparing grass-fed beef to conventional beef, etc. All of the farmers that raise animals on pasture claim that they're healthier, and they probably are, but I need to find some real studies documenting it.
ReplyDeleteI have recently started making the most delicious banana pudding you'll ever taste in your life for my family's holiday functions. It beats pumpkin pie any day.
ReplyDeleteThe more pumpkin pie substitutes the better I say.
ReplyDeleteChristmas this year the eats included Cadbury chocolate bars (Mr. Big, Wunderbar, etc.) and Ketchup chips as I was in Canada eh? I'll tell you what, if you haven't eaten ketchup chips you totally should try them. I think they weird us Americans out but they are actually quite good. I even prefer 'all dressed' chips, which is like a 'suicide flavor for chips, it's EVERYTHING!!! And tell you what, there FREAKING GREAT, easily my favorite kind of chip. Say what you want about Canada, but they kill us in health care, candy bars and potato chips.
ReplyDeleteDon't you mean "chocolate bars"
ReplyDeleteWhat is going on up there in Canada? It's almost as if they have a national culture distinct from the USA. So a ketchup chip is a chip with ketchup flavor right? That sounds like it could be good.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's like "sour cream and onion" flavor we are familiar with in the US.
ReplyDeleteCanada does have it's own culture, which may seem obvious, but you don't really realize it until you're there. Whenever I'm in Nova Scotia it feels more like England than the US to me, but maybe it's just because the queen is on their money and nobody likes American sports. This seems like it deserves its own column.