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On New Year's Eve, I baked Spiced Pumpkin Bread (Kurbisgewurzbrot), a German rye bread from Stanley Ginsberg's blog, The Rye Baker. I've been baking it for about five years now, and I love this bread which uses just whole wheat and medium rye flour. It is cooling on the rack, and we will slice it at lunch tomorrow.

I also made the dough and assembled Eggnog Sweet Rolls on New Year's Eve, which I will refrigerate overnight and bake and glaze in the morning. I created this recipe last year out of a Fleischmann's Yeast and a Red Star Yeast recipe.

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I made Crispy Oven Fish and Chips on New Year's Eve, which we had with the remaining dill tartar sauce and the last of the fresh broccoli.

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I made Smoky Beans and Greens with a bit of ham for lunch on Monday. I was able to get salad turnips with greens attached a week ago at the local farmers market, so I used those tops. I did not have bell pepper to use with the onion, but I threw in some of the leftover ham. For the beans, I cooked a pound of navy beans this morning after soaking them overnight. I used a quarter of them today and will freeze three containers so that I have them on hand the next time that salad turnips with attached tops are available.

We had ham sandwiches on more of the pumpernickel rye for dinner. It's just so good!

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We had ham sandwiches again with applesauce and the rest of the leftover sweet potatoes.

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I made Crispy Oven Fish and Chips with Dill Tartar Sauce for dinner on Saturday. We also had fresh microwaved broccoli. Earlier in the day, I made yogurt.

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That's good to know, Mike. I have been on their email list for a while now, but I've not yet ordered from them.

[BakerAunt]

I baked Eggnog Muffins on Friday evening to have for breakfast tomorrow and for a few days afterwards. The recipe is my adaptation of an old King Arthur recipe for Holiday Eggnog Muffins. My version replaces butter with avocado oil, reduces the sugar and salt, and replaces the AP flour with white whole wheat flour. I also use a reduced fat eggnog. I made them tonight because the spices will have a chance to develop if they rest overnight. I adapted this recipe last year and discovered that the warm ones did not have the great flavor that the muffins had on subsequent days.

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I made two more batches of applesauce on Friday afternoon. The trick will be to find room in the freezer for 3 ½ quarts. I have about 7 ½ lbs. of apples left. I might make an additional small batch of applesauce and use the rest for more apple butter.

For dinner we had ham sandwiches on the pumpernickel rye that I baked yesterday.

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We had more of the leftover beef stew on Thursday, with no complaints, as stew gets better over several days.

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What a wonderful dessert potluck we could all have if we lived closer to each other!

I noticed last night that there was only enough bread for my husband for lunch on Thursday. As I intended to have a ham sandwich, I was able to defrost a Rye Semolina bun for me. However, I want to have a good bread for ham sandwiches, so I baked Pumpernickel Sandwich Bread, which is my version of King Arthur's Rye Sandwich Bread. I use dill pickle juice from a German brand, Hengstenberg, which I could usually find around October at Tuesday Morning or at Big Lots. I find the flavor essential for my potato salad, this bread, and my dill tartar sauce. While I am well stocked for now, with an almost full jar in the refrigerator and an unopened one in the pantry, not to mention pickle juice in a jar without any more pickles, I will have to do some internet searching when I need to re-stock.

[BakerAunt]

I agree with Skeptic--the trifle looks wonderful.

Merry Christmas everyone! Remember that there are twelve days of Christmas, so keep the celebrating.

And to others, happy first night of Hanukkah!

[BakerAunt]

It was two weeks ago that we arrived home from Florida. I have been rushing to condense all the Christmas preparation and baking into those two weeks, with some things, such as Christmas cards, a concerted effort to decorate the tree, and planning a special Christmas Eve dinner, falling to the wayside. We thus decided on an easy Christmas dinner for a relaxed day which included a zoom session with all the kids. I roasted sweet potato chunks tossed in olive oil, which we had with a pre-sliced ham, some of the applesauce that I made on Monday, and microwaved fresh broccoli. We had pumpkin pie for dessert. I'm not sure why the ham is styled "pre-sliced," as I had to do a fair amount of the slicing. However, this Appleton ham from Aldi's has great flavor and is not as fatty as some we have bought in the past.

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On Christmas Eve, I baked pumpkin pecan bread. The recipe is for a 6-cup Nordic Ware pan. I used two 7 ¾ x 3 3/4-inch loaf pans. I maybe should have used three of my little loaf pans instead, as they were not as high as I would have liked. When I cracked in one egg, it had a double yolk, which sent me to Google, which was not particularly helpful, as views differed. I decided that since the yolks were a bit smaller, I would go ahead and put in another egg. I do not know if that affected the rise. One loaf went into the freezer, the other is part of a Christmas gift for a neighbor.

I also baked my beloved Pfeffernusse cookies. It is not Christmas for me without them, and yes, I still use the stick of butter in these. I just insist that my husband and I limit ourselves to one per day.

My last project of the evening was a pumpkin pie, because for my husband, it is not Christmas without a pumpkin pie.

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We are having more of the beef stew this Christmas Eve, which is good, because I am still baking more tonight for Christmas.

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Skeptic--I also can never get the fruit evenly distributed after the dough has had its first rise. I often cheat and just put it in the dough when I mix it before the first rise. With the bread machine, I wait and add it when the machine beeps. That seems to do a pretty good job..

I agree that your rolls sound really good!

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