Several recipes for and from the holiday season

By now "the holidays" have faded into a distant memory, replaced with a devotion to "eating well" and "working out" and "sleeping better" and "drinking less" and "I'm not sure what these quotes are doing anymore but I am using them aren't I." So the following missive might strike you as entirely unhelpful, or unwanted, what with its perceived decadence and general lack of timeliness.

But I'd counter that just because these were foods I made and typically make at the holidays, that doesn't mean they won't work for you at other times. Plus, this is what we have to work with right now. So down memory lane we go...

We'll work backwards, and start with dessert, because that's the order these were made in chronologically. First up, Mocha Crisps, probably my favorite Christmas cookie and really up there as one of my favorite cookies in general. A recipe from my great grandmother on my mother's side, who was, by all accounts, a phenomenal cook, Mocha Crisps contain contain instant coffee and actually have more of an espresso flavor to them than what I would describe as "mocha," if I even could.

In any case, this recipe is obscenely easy, though I forgot that it contains the very classic 1950s ingredient margarine, which apparently you can buy in sticks these days, who knew. That ease might have come from the fact that they were overshadowed by my dramatic second-year-in-a-row-what-was-I-thinking decision to make Rainbow Cookies on the same day, which are so good and get you so much praise they ultimately end up being worth it. (If you tint them ombre because you forgot that you'd thrown out the red food coloring because it was leaking everywhere, you'll get even more ooos.)

The biggest drama here is that the almond extract—pure, not imitation—got lost in shopping and had to be repurchased; is there truly any dumber feeling? After using my beloved KitchenAid for the several hours it took to make the Rainbow Cookies, I didn't feel like getting it out again for the Mocha Crisps, but I didn't need to; some elbow grease and a hefty wooden spoon did the job. I had to cook them for longer than recommended because my oven is most certainly not as hot as it ever says it is, but that's as close to dramatic as it got. The real test came at the last step, when we had to break them into irregular pieces; my sister took the lead on FaceTiming my mother (she did not respond!) who eventually clarified that she didn't remember how she does it, a theme that will come up again as we continue. We ended up flipping them over out of the pan and using our hands. The good thing about these is that if kept in a sealed plastic container they keep for weeks, and are better a little crispy.

Now on to Spritz, which are very much Christmas sugar cookies, and which we call S Cookies in my family because of the shape we make most of them in. The original recipe is from the Joy of Cooking (though its history goes back much further than that), and the most complicated thing about them is that they require a cookie press; we store ours in a GAP Kids box from the '90s. This year's big drama was that the recipe as written in Fave Recipes called for vanilla extract, but my mother swore we used almond; I thought she was wrong, but I love almond, and they turned out tasting right that way, so the cookbook has been amended as such. Other issues: the dough wasn't coming together, so I had to add some water, and then later it stuck a bit to the press—remembering to chill it a bit before piping out will fix that quickly. Also, this is a moment that it feels great to have a pastry cutter. What I did not do, thankfully, was repeat my mistake from a few years back when I accidentally made the S's backwards, because I... forgot? what that letter looks like. A normal problem to have. A cute tip from me is that if you make these, you can pipe out the letters for people's names and use their cookie at their seat if a member of your family insists on assigned seating.

I yet again had assistance from my sister in making these, because what is a holiday without some nice communal time trying to remember things, who said "I would like to draw our attention to the fact that these sprinkles are from 2003," which reminded us of the time we went to get more and none of the stores were open and had any so our mom came looking for us because she thought we were lost. (It should be noted this time was in the last five years, when we were most certainly adults.) That is the thing about making these recipes only once a year: you forget and then re-remember the same stuff time after time, like how making the dogs and trees are hard because they get stuck in the press, leaving one with a bit of a Groundhog Day feeling. Fave Recipes also didn't have a cooking length specified for the cookies; when my sister read just "Bake at 375" she started laughing. Thankfully, JoC saved the day with some specifics, and despite the funny, ancient tool we used to make them, they always turn out great.

Now to the savory, this one an old tradition but a new one for us: this year "the younger gen" as my sister also likes to call us, were allowed to take over Christmas Eve, which resulted in us declaring a Feast of the Five Fishes (I've done seven, but in my opinion it's too many, particularly if you only have a small group). Our feast was comprised of shrimp cocktail, smoked fish dip, caesar salad, grilled whole fish, and pasta with clam sauce; the latter we took from Fave Recipes, which has recipes for pasta with red and white clam sauce. My sister decided she wanted the red, which prompted even more questions: how do you steam clams that are being taken out of their shells? Is it 1lb before they've been taken out or after? The steaming we figured out from a quick google, but I will admit that the clam sauce was light on the clams and we could have used more. Now that I have it in writing, we will of course remember that next year.

KATE

P.S. I made split pea soup a few day after Christmas with the leftover ham bone and I am proud to say it was much better than last year. Now from our readers...

Caity responds that she has already forgotten her realization about how long raw chicken lasts in the fridge:

Since sending you that raw chicken observation, I 100% forgot it and read it in your newsletter as if for the first time. Hope this forgettable info never has a direct impact on my life!

Horrifying!