[skeptic7]

I did Mapo Tofu several days ago. Today I decided that the leftovers had too much Tofu and not enough meat, so I cooked about 1/4 lb of hamburger with spices and added it to the leftover Tofu. Definitely an improvement. I was going to add some green onions to the leftovers too, but didn't have any in the refrigerator.

[skeptic7]

The deep dark brownies sound great. Are these a cakey or fudgey type of brownies?

[skeptic7]

I made cheese pizza on Tuesday, and Spinach pizza on Wednesday. I like having pizza in the refrigerator for a fast lunch/snack but I think I was overdoing it.

[skeptic7]

I did Maple popcorn on Sunday morning. I did two batches making about 4 quarts, 16 cups in total. this recipe involves tossing the popcorn with maple syrup and butter with a little powdered ginger, cinnamon and salt and baking it. It was very good. I was hoping to share this with friends and gave them a quart container each. They liked it.

https://www.yummly.com/recipe/Maple-Popcorn-2609588?prm-v1#directions

[skeptic7]

I did cranberry walnut scones with fresh cranberries, after telling myself never again a couple of years ago. The problems come in cutting up the fresh cranberries by hand and adding a little 1/4 cup more sugar to make up for the tartness of the cranberries. I really like the walnuts here, I've stayed away from nuts in bread just in case someone is allergic. I was going to eat this all myself but ended up giving half away. This was on New Year's day.
I also did KAF apple challah, except with all whole wheat and no sugar or honey. I like to make this for New Year's and its been sort of a tradition. I started it on New Year's day but ran out of time, so I put it in the refrigerator overnight. I shaped it on Saturday and baked it in the late afternoon. I gave the whole thing away and the recipient said that it came out well with no problems in the textue when cut. I was afraid that it would fall apart.
I had a big hunk of white challah in exchange which was superb -- light and rich and tasty. I wolfed down half of it with clam chowder as soon as I got home.

[skeptic7]

Happy New Years eve. I stayed up with friends on Zoom to watch the New Year come in. There weren't any fireworks here. I didn't do anything special in the way of food. Hot Chocolate and apple cider during the course of the evening.
I am looking forward to a much better year, even though nothing is likely to change much until summer as far as the pandemic precautions go.

[skeptic7]

BakerAunt; I hope your stepson recovers quickly. Indoor gatherings in Virginia are limited to 10 with masks. People can still do outdoor excersize in groups of 25. My groups are much smaller, 4 and 10, but we always wear masks and meet outside. I am sorry Indiana had problems with the data. I hope the restrictions help.

[skeptic7]

I do a top oil based pie crust all the time. It is fragile, but I roll it out between sheets of wax paper. Sometimes I used extra sheets going cross ways for more support. I roll it out flipping occasionally and removing and replacing the wax paper to prevent wrinkles. When its the right size, I loosen the top wax paper layer, flip it, remove the now top wax paper layer and take it to the pie and very carefully place it on top.
I can patch the edges if needed but not move the pie crust once its placed. The rim is never pretty but I can roll the excess pastry from top and bottom together and pinch them for a seal. It just won't make a pretty rim as the pastry isn't flexible enough.
I do apple pies with both a top and bottom crust all the time. I also do chicken pot pies with just a top crust but since the crust is much thicker and the the pie smaller its easier to manipulate.

[skeptic7]

I'll keep all the advice in mind for the next time. Dropping chocolate by the spoonful and then topping with a half nut and pushing the nut half way in would be good idea. This time I spread the chocolate into a thin layer and the nuts might fall out if I break the chocolate in pieces.

[skeptic7]

I wanted to try something different for Christmas. I had been thinking about this recipe for awhile.

Chinese-Style Spareribs

I cooked one rack of ribs with the spice mixture as shown. I left out the salt to get a salt-free spice mixture. I also had Baked Lentils -- this is supposed to be Lentils with a baked bean flavor. It was tasty enough but a lot more mild than a true New England baked bean recipe. However it cooked in about 2 hours on the stovetop as opposed to all day like real baked beans. Also the recipe said DO NOT use the little French lentils, but that was all I had. I'd like to do this again but with more molasses and mustard and other baked bean seasonings.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/barbecue-baked-lentils/17495/

I had this with kale and sweet potatoes.

[skeptic7]

Merry Christmas. I was trying to be good and stay put this weekend, instead of chasing around after Christmas shopping. So I cleaned up my kitchen and scrubbed the countertops in preparation for my long delayed chocolate baton project. Early this summer I had asked your advice on making Pain Au Chocolat. Mike had given me a link to chocolate molds on Amazon for making my own chocolate batons, and BakerAunt had found the original KAF recipe for Pain au Chocolat.
I didn't do anything at that time, except buy some of the very big dark chocolate bars from Trader Joe's and a square wooden dowel and think about making my own molds out of aluminum foil. It was soon too hot to bake and so I just did nothing. However this weekend I decided that six months of procrastination was enough. I cut the dowel into 6 inch lengths, and cut a 6 inch strip of aluminum foil and then worked at bending the aluminum foil around the square wooden bars. I found I could fold and bend the foil into little U shape troughs as long as I left the wooden forms in place so they wouldn't crush. I put my foil form in a biscuit pan.
I broke up the chocolate and melted it a double boiler oh so very carefully. I found if I removed one wooden bar, I could fill the resulting space with chocolate carefully with a spoon. Then remove the next wooden bar and fill the next space until the whole aluminum foil form was full of chocolate and the mold didn't deform. I let it cool for a couple of hours and then pulled one out and it was a nice thin bar like a proper Pan baton only longer.
Since that worked I melted the rest of the chocolate and made 2 more aluminum foil molds and dripped chocolate into the forms.
I unmolded the chocolate bars this morning and had nice 6inch bars. I cut them into 3 inch pieces and found that they fit nicely into a 1/2 pint small mouth mason jar! Success!! Unhappily that was my only unused jar of that size and the rest of chocolate went into the one pint wide mouth jar which wasn't as pretty.
The next step will be to clean up the kitchen again and actually make the Pain au Chocolat. Why do big baking projects take so much time and thought, and then they get eaten so fast?

Since I had the double boiler out, I toasted some pecan halves and melted more chocolate for chocolate bark. I was carefully trying to drop the pecans right side up onto the melted chocolate for a beautiful appearance but many of them landed upside down. How do other people get the nuts right side up? I was being ever so careful with my chopsticks.

[skeptic7]

I thought you were talking about a Christmas Tree cookie or bread when I read the Title. I like the pictures of cinnamon rolls in Xmas tree shape, or better yet a sweet bread baked in the Christmas Tree pans. I keep thinking of getting one but its such a single use item. Perhaps if I run into one in the thrift store.
I like the idea of trees being put out for wild life refuge in the winter and then mulch in the spring. Live Xmas trees seem like a good idea but few people have enough space to plant them. I had a little Norfolk pine that I raised from a seedling to nearly 4 feet tall not including pot, but my mother finally had to give it away when I was in college. It was getting too big to easily bring inside.

[skeptic7]

Kimbob;
Congratulations on getting all your snow cleared out! Do you have a lot of sidewalk to shovel? How much was it at the end.

Actually I wrote to congratulate you on your stollen. I haven't done that for awhile but I remember loving to bake and eat it around Xmas. I gave up on making it Stollen shaped and ended up braiding it. A friend of my mother's pointed out that with all the fruits and nuts its a heavy dough and braiding it would let it rise without having to push all the dough out of the way,

[skeptic7]

BakerAunt;
I hope you find your ruler. With me things only reappear after I search and search and buy a replacement.

I baked full fat chocolate almond biscotti, with a little -- one tablespoon -- of molasses to give it a brown sugar flavor. The flavor is okay but not as rich as the previous batch which had Espresso powder. I will package and freeze these soon. I find if I put the biscotti in the freezer and take out one cookie at a time, a batch can last for three or four days. If I leave them on the kitchen counter where I can find them whenever I get bored, they normally last less then two days. Could someone send me some will power for Xmas? I don't have much.

[skeptic7]

I feel like Cathy. I don't do a lot of Xmas baking but I just made a batch of chocolate almond biscotti for myself. The last batch was eaten too quickly. I might do some Gingerbread to give away. For years I've been admiring Christmas Cookie recipes instead of baking them, and will make perhaps just one cookie recipe out of a sense of adventure. This year I have the Springerle rolling pin as a gift so I will try to use it -- probably with the KABC Springerle shortbread recipe as I don't have Baker's Ammonia.
I might make time to do some bread, it doesn't feels as decadent as cookies.

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