I only make rosettes during xmas because they are really pretty, but I hate making them. Probably because I make them for the family, work and for the neighbors, so I wind up being rooted in front of the deep fryer for about 8 hours straight.
Cheese puffs because try as I may, I can’t make them as good as the wife does. And because they are horrible for me. Cheese and butter with just enough flour to hold them together, some cayenne on top, then baked, sometimes with shrimp or crab in the middle. I can eat dozens of them at a sitting, they are so addictive.
Peppermint bark from Williams-Sonoma. W-S is a mall store that I’ve been in twice – both times around Christmas. It’s a big slab of tasty confection, flavored with peppermint, chocolate and little candy canes. Yummy!
Sand bakkles and krumkakke - both of those are such a PITA to make we only pull out the molds/iron once a year.
Actually, everything we make is a PITA - I think the easiest cookie is peanut blossoms (the ones with the Hershey’s Kiss in the middle). We also make little miniature pecan pies, little miniature cheesecakes, date balls (mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, date balls! Gawd, those are addictive), Russian tea cakes, gingerbread…uh…yeah, I think that’s it.
Mint M&Ms. Up until a few years ago they used to sell them year round, but now they’re even hard to find at Christmas time. I’m also bitter about Easter candy…
My aunt always makes rouladen on Christmas day. It’s a German recipe–pounded beef wrapped around a pickle and mushroom filling, then deep-fried. Sounds weird, but damn, it’s tasty. I’ll be missing the rouladen this year, though, since I’ll be spending Christmas with my SO’s family. I’m just hoping his mom doesn’t serve tempeh turkey. It’s been known to happen…
Fudge and my mom’s pumpkin rolls, definitely. Yum. My grandma also makes some yummy chocolate-covered cherries at Christmas time, but the fudge is what I look forward to.
My mom used to make “German Butterhorns” only at Christmas. They are actually a cookie, but made with a piecrust kind of base that you roll out and spread a filling on, then you roll them up and bake them and then put some kind of frosting on top.
I am not a “sweet” tooth person, so I almost never eat dessert. But these “cookies”…well, I could eat several in a sitting and only stopped because I didn’t want to prevent everyone else from getting any. (They were pretty labor intensive to make, so mom didn’t make all that many.)
I also love pumpkin pie, and only eat it Thanksgiving and Christmas. With lots of whipped cream with no sugar added. Sheesh, I am sure am picky dessert eater, non?
John, if you love chocolate covered cherries, you should try Chuka Cherries…they make them in Eastern WA, and even I [sub]and I HATE the kind YOU love[/sub] love THEM. If you like, email me your address and I will try to send you some. Scotticher@aol.com
Twickster47, where I live Edy’s ice cream is called “Dreyer’s” (I think due to a geographical trademark-use agreement with Breyer’s) and I’ve seen its peppermint ice cream in all the stores.
Also, since you brought up HoJo’s ice cream, when did they stop serving it? I remember eating it as recently as 1985 but the last time I was at a HoJo (a hotel), there was no HoJo restaurant and no ice cream.
Agree on the Mint M&M’s. It seems like they ration that stuff.
My Dad’s latkes, which I go home for on Chanuka. Normally, I’m only home (my parents’ house) on some weekends, but I come home on a weeknight for them, since you pretty much have to eat them straight out of the frying pan for a true latke experience, so they don’t work as a Shabbos food. (You can’t cook on the Sabbath, so you can only eat stuff that can sit for a while.) They’re hand-grated, no food-processor little potato-strips. (True latkes also contain some thumb-skin, sacrificed to the grater.) The frozen reheated things are horrible.
The rest aren’t during the winter holiday season, but I’ve got plenty. My Mom’s meat tsimmes (a stew of carrots, white and sweet potatoes, and short ribs), which only comes out on Sukkos (Tabernacles), around October-time. All of the Passover recipes, like my sponge cake (which is risky, since it has to be inverted over a wine bottle right out of the oven, and it frequently falls out, but when it works, it’s good), or cheese pancakes. Cheesecake on Shavuos (Pentecost). Teiglach (little balls of dough cooked in an incredibly sticky honey sauce) on Rosh Hashana, which we don’t actually make, but which we eat at a friend’s house every year. Good stuff all.
