Dec 21* Holiday traditions….

(Playing with a new holiday theme… like the look, but all my links and so forth are down at the bottom…)

The blog world has really opened my eyes to new ideas and reminded me of old favorites. I remember helping my mother make Chex Mix in much the same way Pioneer Woman shows us to do. And the Korknissen I made adorn the mantel and are something new to me.

I loved my many family traditions. Marriage and children have meant I had to take the best of mine and the best of his and blend them together with what grew out of our children. There is something so comforting in the sameness of the ritual.

I enjoy visiting the blog Britt- Arnhild’s House in the Woods, because again, I get to get out in the wider world from my rural American office, and learn about new places and traditions. She has a companion blog, The Blue Cafe, where she recently asked for traditional cookie recipes.

My grandmother for many, many years, was the holder of our family traditions. Whether we went to her house, or she came to ours, we were always together with her wonderful food. Every year she made a large selection of cookies - she actually started them in November and froze them for the holidays. I do the same thing now, using her much loved recipes.

Here is a list of a few of the things she made:

Divinity candy, requiring careful cooking and a just right /not too humid day, tinted pale pink.

Mint Brownies - absolutely delicious (Bake a pan of your favorite brownies…ours always had pecans in them, and then when they are hot out of the oven, cover the top with unwrapped Andes mints - they will melt into a wonderful, thin mint icing that take regular brownies to holiday heights!)

Decorated traditional sugar cookies, cut in Christmas shapes.

Chocolate chip cookies

And finally, my favorite: Cream Cheese Cookies!

I do not know where the original recipe came from, but it calls for Oleo, which in itself, dates the recipe quite a bit. During the second world war, Oleo was called for in many recipes that had formerly used butter - so that dairy could be saved for soldiers, or something like that. It was all part of the drive on the home front to ration things. To this day, my grandmother calls all margerine “oleo” - even though I do not think there is anything left on the market using the term “oleo”. It is either butter or margerine these days. I however, am a bit of a purist, so I use butter in place of the oleo.

The recipe also calls for pecans. Now, we lived in Texas then, where my great grandmother emigrated with her parents from Germany. There is a large population of German ancestry, as well as Polish, in the Hill Country of Texas. My great grandmother’s father was a Lutheran missionary to the region, and they lived in and around Austin/San Antonioher entire life - she died at 108.5 just over a year ago. She had large pecan trees in her yard, and later she would walk the Austin streets and collect pecans that had fallen from the trees. My great grand father from another branch of the family did that as well. We would walk with them of an evening, and they always brought home pocket fulls of pecans. They would get stored in the freezer for holiday baking, but first had to be shelled. So each evening, during the news, or sitting on the back porch, pecan shelling would take place. My grandmother continued the tradition, and I too, pick them from my yard, although they are Carolina pecans now.

I have her recipe, which she copied down in her wonderful small handwriting on the back of an old bank deposit slip. I reproduce it for you here:

Nana’s Cream Cheese Cookies

Cream 1 cup of sugar with 1 stick Oleo (1/2 cup butter is what I use) and 3 oz. cream cheese. When mixture is smooth, add 1 cup flour and mix well. Stir in 1 tsp. vanilla and 1 cup chopped pecans. Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet (I line mine with parchment, and make them a generous teaspoonful in size) and bake between 350 and 375 for about 12 minutes until edges just begin to turn light brown. (Now, this baking is a matter of preference. If you over bake them, they are hard and crispy, which I happen to love.. perfect for tea dunking. But they should be more soft… you will just have to see which way you like them)

Now, I am not sure what you would substitute for the cream cheese if you live somewhere where cream cheese is not an option. I know some recipes use marscapone cheese as a substitute for cream cheese, and vice versa, but we live where marscapone is not readily available, so I am not sure if it could be substituted. Also, pecans are key to this cookie. Not sure walnuts would be good, but almonds might work.

And when I make them, I double the recipe and it works fine. If the cookies tend to spread too much, chill the dough and turn down the temp. I store them in the freezer, and they are very good when still frozen!