Merry Christmas from Seoul! As you read this in the States we are probably already finished with Christmas dinner and the kids are joyfully playing with their new toys. I’m probably drinking some wine and enjoying the company of S,R,E and J, not to mention G, B1, B2 and B3, and Max (our dog).
So, wifey is doing great. Ha! Did you think this was your regular blogger today??? No, this is husband, AKA hubby, or H for short. I figured it was time for me to contribute to SixinSeoul after enjoying it for 9 months without ever adding to it. So, hopefully I will live up to the high standards of wifey. I’m also hoping to break her record for comments on one blog, so there may be some blatant flattery or even extortion attempts to get some comments.
Anyways, I thought I would blog about Christmas traditions; and maybe start by recalling some of my favorites. This is difficult for me though, as I can hardly remember anything from when I was a kid. I have chronic CRS. That’s not a technical description of my problem, but is very accurate nevertheless. Mostly I remember a certain white ceramic Christmas tree with huge neon lights that scorched my retinas and is probably the reason I needed lasik surgery to correct my sight. But, when I wasn’t shielding my face from the lights, I remember spending time around the Christmas tree as a kid. We always had a real Christmas tree, decorated with an assortment of homemade or family ornaments. Our trees were always put up by the whole family and were unique and beautiful. And, they usually smelled like dog urine and perfume. This is because our dog Strider would usually christen the tree very early in the holiday season, and M (who is referred to as Grammy in the August Blogs, but is M for my Mom in this blog) would attempt to mask the smell with perfume. To this day, I can’t smell Eau de Canine without thinking of our Christmas trees.
Living in Colorado, we usually enjoyed white Christmases as a kid. It was almost always cold, and bleak. Denver is an especially ugly place in winter. Yes, the mountains are pretty in the distance, but the buildings inside the city are dirty, the trees are bare, and the streets are grimy and sandy. The only thing worth looking at during winter in Denver are the Broncos. Yeah!! Hopefully the Broncos will win this week in San Diego and there will be a home playoff game in January. (yes, I suppose the average female reader is probably grumbling about this digression into football after just a few short comments on Christmas, but hey, this is what you get when a man blogs. Just go with it.) Besides, the Broncos are a Christmas tradition that I can actually remember. I always knew Christmas was near when the Broncos clinched a playoff spot. So, support the Broncos if you like Christmas. And, for all you Cowboy fans out there, Bah Humbug!
My sister M (this blog privacy thing can be a real confusing thing) is a real stickler for tradition. I bet if we ate oysters for Christmas as a kid, she’d be serving them this year in Boise, even though she won’t eat them. Thankfully though, M (that one is Mom) never served shellfish. Instead, we usually had a traditional dinner. I think this was mainly because of GM and GP (Grandma and Grandpa). They were always with us on Christmas, which I absolutely loved. GM would always slip us a little extra Holiday cash, and then maybe grab our hiney, too (I have to say hiney because wifey doesn’t let the kids use the B word). But, speaking of shellfish, we just enjoyed a Christmas ‘snack’ of oysters and sushi. This is because we made a trip to the Seoul fish market today, in pursuit of mussels, but came home with mussels, oysters, sushi, smoked salmon and tuna. Lots of good meals in the future!
Okay, Boy 1 and I also just finished making a pie while Girl made deviled eggs with wifey. In the spirit of wifey’s blogging exploits, here is the recipe, but dumbed down for men to follow:
Oreo Pie
41 or so Oreos (this is just one package of them)
1/4c butter (c is for cup)
24-28 large marshmallows (or whatever is in the bag after the kids sneak a few)
1/2c milk
3/2c heavy whipping cream
Melt the butter in the microwave for about 1 minute and let cool. Melt the mallows and milk in a pan and let cool (don’t do this on high!). Chunk up about 10 cookies. Really chunk up all but five of the rest (maybe use a food processor for this, its for the crust). Combine this with the butter and smush into a pie pan. Whip the cream. Then fold in the marshmallow stuff. If you don’t know what fold is, its okay, just mix it all up. Oh, mix in the chunked up cookies too. Then put it all into the pie crust, slap the remaining cookies on top and put it into the fridge. And, viola, Oreo pie. Bon Appétit!
So, back to Christmas traditions. A lot of the traditions I enjoyed as a kid in Denver, we do here in Korea. For instance, we always put up a plastic mistletoe. We mainly just ignore it, but occasionally someone is forced to smooch Mom or Dad because we ambush the poor child under it. Another tradition we also follow here is to open Christmas presents one at a time. This really prolongs the Christmas morning euphoria. Today it took over two and a half hours (!), but there were 10 of us opening gifts. After the gifts, we then dig into the stockings. These are handled individually. The highlight of this morning’s stocking ransacking was the pair of men’s underwear that I bought for wifey. Oops! They looked nice though. In my defense, they were purchased in a Korean store. I’m hoping she will at least try them on.
We have a lot of new traditions, too. For instance, instead of a traditional dinner, we all get to pick one thing for dinner. This year I chose mussels. Boy 2 wanted candy canes, Boy 3 asked for chocolate cookies, Boy 1 chose baked potatos, and Girl took pigs-in-a-blanket. Also, R, S, E and J wanted Beef Wellington, asparagus, pumpkin bread and sautéed mushrooms (this makes two of the special ‘é’s in this blog if anyone is keeping track). Wifey added a tomato mozzarella salad. She also added lemon crème brulee, at my request (isn’t she sweet?). So, quite the feast, and I can say with certainty that this is completely unique to the TemporarilyTeninSeoul Christmas Extravaganza. Oh, I also asked for celery sticks stuffed with cream cheese and green olives, which wifey calls celery stick thingies. Here is the recipe:
Celery Stick Thingies
Some Cream cheese
Some Green Olives
Some Celery
Cut the celery into smaller sticks. Chop up the olives and mix into the cream cheese. Put the olive cream cheese mix into the celery sticks. And, viola, Celery Stick Thingies. Bon Appétit! (Also, thanks to R for the correct spelling of viola, which is actually pronounced walla(!) for you people who don’t speak French)
OK, I think this will qualify as the longest blog of the year. I’m going to end with the recipe for my all-time favorite Christmas food, the pizelle. This cookie has an absolute ton of memories for me. I remember GP (Grandpa) making these cookies when I was a kid. Some of these would taste a bit smoky too, if they remained too long at GM/GP’s house. I remember M making these for us as I was growing up, too. Later I remember making these with wifey, and now I make them with my sons and daughter. In fact, Girl was experimenting this year by adding cinnamon. I also remember eating these cookies in Iraq (thanks for all of the packages everyone), missing home and M and wifey and kids and bro and sis and friends and everything else, but these cookies brought me back home. All I have to do is eat one, and Christmas is there. I really hope everyone reading this blog is as blessed as I am to have such a great family and friends as I have (thanks for coming to Korea R and S), but if not, as least you can have pizelles:
Pizelle (as handwritten by GM in 1978)
1c Sugar
3c Flour
½ TSP Salt
6 eggs
2 Cubes Butter
2 TSP flavoring (my note: you must use Anise, vanilla is a poor substitute)
(GM did not have any further instructions. I usually mix the sugar, flour and salt together. I also melt the butter and mix it in with the eggs and flavoring. Then I mix it all together and bake the cookies on my pizelle iron.)
Happy Holidays!!
11 Comments
Oh baby, this is a favorite dessert in our house! Makes 8 servings. I got this recipe from my good F I renamed these "Devil Brownies" because they are bad, bad, bad! They are so bad they are really good. You won't be able to eat just one. This is why I make them only one time a year. If you don't have will power, don't make these....Molly, I'm talking to you! :) I make a 9x13 pan and then freeze most of them, taking only one out at a time for consumption. Everyone loves these and every time I serve them to people, they ALWAYS ask for the recipe. The only problem is this is a more labor intensive recipe - just remember the outcome is well worth the effort. So, if you do not have patience, just skip this entry. Heat on medium low, stirring often, until caramels are melted. Stir about half of the chopped pecans into the caramel. Pour the caramel mixture over the brownie layer. I'm so excited - look what Kraft FINALLY came out with! No more peeling the plastic off the caramel squares. That was one tedious job I did not like! Sometimes I would ask my kids to do it for me, but when I did I would always need a second bag of caramels because they would eat too many. So, thank you Kraft! This recipe is adapted from a recipe I found on the McCormick website. This is a great cake to have around for the holidays! Hubby and the folks at his office LOVED this cake. The kids were not so keen on it. A couple of weeks ago I was making cookies, not an unusual thing around here. It happened to be a Monday, and our piano teacher was here, as she is every Monday. You must understand something; when I make cookies, which is often as you guys know, I like to give some of them away, especially to someone worthy; someone that teach my children something, someone that has had a hard day or week, someone that just had a baby, or surgery, or to someone that is just kind. The kids piano teacher, Mrs. F, was here, so on her way out the door I handed her a plate of cookies. She was so appreciative and thanked me several times. Now, I wish I had put something beside these pears before I took this picture so you could see just how big they are. The Korean pear is HUGE in comparison to the pears we eat at home. At least 2x's the size. The texture and taste is very different as well. I would compare the Korean Pear with an apple with a few differences. The Korean pear is not quite as hard as the apple, a little softer, a little juicer and a little less sweet. I'm not good at describing the taste of food - sorry. Just know, the Korean pear is very good, but don't bite into it expecting that "pear" taste you know so well. I wouldn't even call it a pear if that were not its name - well, maybe a little. As it turns out this cake was DELICIOUS!!! It was so nice and moist, you could eat it without the frosting, it is that good! Next time I think I am going to make it without the frosting. Don't get me wrong, the frosting is good, but it is also nice to save a few calories when you can. I got the recipe from here, a website I have been reading for a while. I have no connection to this person, other than she loves to cook and she appears to do it much better than I do. The original recipe is here, it is an Apple Spice Cake, so if you can't find a Korean Pear, I would make it with the apples, it will be worth your time. 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (see, it is already off to a good start) Ahhh, the snickerdoodle cookie. This is Girls favorite cookie by far. She calls them cinnamon cookies. She has loved this cookie for 2-3 years now, and considering she is only six, that is a long time! I got this recipe from good ol' Betty Crocker herself. OH BABY, these were GOOD!!! I got them off this website, she labeled them as "Possibly The Best Lemon Squares" & I am here to tell you, she might be right. They are the best lemon squares I have ever made, not that I have ever made them before. J You should try them. Everyone loved these cookies and they are very easy to make! (Kathie, even you can make them) They are best if eaten warm right out of the oven, if you can't eat them right out of the oven, just pop them in the microwave for about 15 seconds to heat them up. Call me boring if you wish, but my favorite cookie is the chocolate chip cookie. I have tried and tested many different types of chocolate chip cookies, and I do have my favorite recipes, someday I will share them with you. However today is not that day, today we are going to focus on the Maple Gingersnap Cookie which caught my eye a few weeks back. I found it out there in internet land however I can't figure out where I printed the recipe from, I do remember the blogger had made homemade peach ice cream, (I am now kicking myself for not bring my ice cream maker to Korea) and Maple Gingersnaps. Oh baby, the combo looked great together and I was drooling, but since I have no ice cream maker with me, I opted just to make the cookies. These cookies were a big hit with the entire family, and I dream of the day I can have them with the fresh home made peach ice cream. The recipe…. |
AuthorProud Army wife and mother to 4 wonderful children. I love to cook, travel, work out and scrapbook life’s adventures when I find the time. We just got orders & are heading back to the states in March 2010. I'm bummed that our time has been cut short, but proud of Hubby for the reason why. Archives
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