#MicroblogMondays: Annoying things & small pleasures

Annoying things: 

• Grey skies, freezing drizzle. :p  
• The numbers of people talking and acting like the pandemic is over, now that almost all restrictions have been lifted here (or soon will be). Spoiler alert:  it's not. 
• I have been reading post after post on social media from people who say they have gone these entire past two years without knowing anyone who had been sick -- who are suddenly surrounded by them, and/or are getting sick themselves. Apparently covid is rampant among kids' hockey teams in the Toronto area right now...! 
• BIL telling us he'd told Younger Nephew, when they visited this weekend, "I thought you might have some NEWS for us."  I couldn't help myself, I groaned aloud, "Oh PLEASE don't say ever say that to anyone!"  Sigh...  NOBODY of childbearing age needs that kind of pressure, especially not from their parents!  :(  
• Finding a hole in the crotch /inside thigh area of my favourite pair of jeans. It's not that large or noticeable (yet) and I can probably get some further wear out of them before tossing them. But it's still annoying.  :(  
• More annoying still: they're a style of jeans from Old Navy that seems to have been discontinued (Curvy Straight, ankle length). 

Small pleasures: 

• Some great reading lately. :) 
• Chicken and dumplings in the crockpot for dinner.  Perfect comfort food for a cold, rainy/snowy grey day -- and smells so good while cooking!  :) 
• I use this easy recipe, found on Pinterest... I found it overly salty the first time I made it, but you can cut (way!) back on the salt, and use reduced or no-salt chicken broth and cream of chicken soup. We use a bag of fresh baby carrots (cut into chunks) & frozen peas for the veggies (in addition to the onion). For the dumplings, I use a can of 10 Pillsbury Country Biscuits, and flatten them before chopping them up. I cut them into smaller pieces than the picture in the article shows, but of course you can make them whatever size you like!   
• Getting haircuts this past weekend. I feel like I'll never take a haircut for granted again, after going for up to 17 weeks without one during this pandemic!  
• Taking some spring/Easter-ish decorations to the cemetery for Katie. 
• Getting to see both nephews as well as Little Great-Nephew at BIL's house on Saturday night. 
• The knowledge that it's March (February is over!!), and spring will be here, sooner versus later...! 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.  

C is for cookie

Growing up on the Canadian Prairies, the bridal & baby showers I attended (although I'll admit I didn't attend many before my own wedding & move to Toronto) were simple, homespun affairs -- a dozen or two women gathered in someone's basement rec room or church hall, some veggie & fruit trays with dip and/or maybe a few salads, little sandwiches and punch, and then a few platters of squares or "dainties," as we'd call them, along with cake, to have with your coffee or tea. 

(I had two showers before my own wedding. The first was hosted by my aunt in her basement rec room. There were about 20-30 women there, mostly relatives, who all chipped in to buy me several place settings of my chosen china. (Stephanie, by Royal Doulton, for the record -- now discontinued.)  The second was a surprise come & go luncheon, hosted by my mother's neighbour on her spacious deck. About 20 neighbours, coworkers and people I'd met through my work, came by on their lunch hours (it was a weekday & they had to get back to work) to wish me well. They'd all chipped in to buy me some towels, a hamper, toothbrush holder and accessories for our bathroom. My family had only lived in the town for a little over a year and I was tickled and touched.) 

So my mind was completely blown when I moved to the Toronto area & began attending showers for my Italian-Canadian in-laws. I've been to a few basement or (in the summer) backyard showers, but these tend to be the exception, not the rule. It's not uncommon to hold showers in a banquet hall (often the same banquet hall where the wedding reception will be held), or in an (Italian) restaurant. Nor is it uncommon for the guest list to number between 50 and 100 women, or for the menu to run several courses, almost as elaborate as the wedding meal itself.

I was also introduced to a new (to me) tradition/phenomenon: the cookie table.

Italian bridal (& baby) showers and weddings hereabouts traditionally feature a massive sweet/dessert table, with hundreds of dozens of cookies baked (often over many months, and stored in the freezer) by mothers and aunts and other friends and relatives. These are mounded onto trays and sprinkled with confetti (not the paper stuff that you throw at the bride & groom, but sugar-covered almonds) and sometimes Hershey's Kisses or other tiny chocolates. Not only are the cookies for guests to feast on while they're at the party, but everyone lines up with a paper plate (which gets covered in aluminium foil) -- or a Styrofoam clamshell container or a Chinese food takeout container -- and fills it up with cookies to take home too. Dh would happily pounce on the container I'd filled specially with him in mind, munching on the goodies he remembered his mother & aunts making from his childhood.

After 30+ years of living here and going to Italian showers and weddings, I was reminded of the uniqueness of this custom when I went to a shower earlier this spring, where the groom's family was not Italian, and were clearly bewildered when everyone started lining up, clamshell containers in hand. "What's happening? What are we doing now?" I heard one puzzled woman ask. And then the explanations started.

An online friend from the Pittsburgh area expressed surprise when I mentioned the cookie table to her -- she thought it was a Pittsburgh thing. Guess not (although several of the articles I found online about cookie tables specifically mentioned it as a western Pennsylvania thing -- even a local GTA-based newspaper!).

Do the showers and weddings where you live feature a cookie table? 

*** *** ***

So -- when Oldest Nephew announced his engagement, I told SIL that I would be happy to contribute cookies for Fiancee's bridal shower, if needed. I don't have any traditional Italian recipes for biscotti or amaretti or pizzelles in my repertoire, but (as I posted here), I do bake cookies now & then. ;)

I'd made some simple graham cracker snacks recently for the nephews that my mother has made since my sister & I were kids. (The original recipe came from one of my grandmother's neighbours.)  They went like hotcakes.  And SIL told me that Fiancee asked her, "Do you think Aunt Lori would make some of those for my shower?"

"Seriously??!"  I said. "It's not exactly traditional Italian cookie table stuff." 

"I don't want traditional," Fiancee insisted, when I made that comment to her.

Well, whatever the bride wants...! 

And so, this is what I did earlier today:

Six pans, 28 cracker squares each... you do the math. Needless to say I was pretty tired by the time the last pan came out of the oven. But hey, isn't this what aunties are for??  :) 

Graham Crispie Bars

Preheat the oven to 350F. 

Grease a cookie sheet & cover the pan with graham crackers in a single layer, side by side (about 24-28 cracker squares, depending on the size of your pan).

In a saucepan on the stovetop, over medium-low heat, melt 1/2 cup of butter & stir in 3/4 cup of brown sugar until thoroughly dissolved and slightly bubbly. Spread the mixture over the crackers & sprinkle with nuts (I used slivered almonds;  we've also used walnuts in the past -- about 1/2 cup).

Pop in the oven and bake at 350F for 10 minutes.  Cool & break apart.

That's it! So simple. If you like sugar, you'll love this. ;)  I have friends who make a similar recipe with soda crackers, the brown sugar/butter mix, and then a layer of melted chocolate on top. One friend makes it at Christmas & calls it "Christmas crack." ;) 

*** *** ***

A few articles about the cookie table tradition:

The wedding? I'm here for the cookies (New York Times)

In Pittsburgh, the wedding cookie table is a peculiar and wonderful local tradition (National Post)

An Ode to the Italian Cookie Table – how would we celebrate without it? (An Italian Canadian Life blog)

What's a Wedding Without Cookies?  (NPR)

#MicroblogMondays: Cookie monsters

I come from a long line of great cookie makers. Well, I don't know about further back, but my Grandma always had baked treats in the pantry (her antique hobnail milk glass cookie jar proudly sits on my kitchen counter), and my mother firmly believes there is no cookie like a home-baked cookie.

I baked a fair bit when I was first married -- cookies, coffee cakes, muffins. Peak baking time for me used to be pre-Christmas:  I would go into a frenzy of activity, mixing up one kind of cookie dough after another, every evening for several days in a row, refrigerating it, and then baking one pan after another on Remembrance Day, which was a day off work for me.  I'd whip up mini-loaves of fruitcake (which people actually liked! -- perhaps because I'd soak the fruit in brandy for several days first, lol), sometimes cranberry orange bread, and two or three or even four kinds of Christmas cookies.

But November-December was our busiest time of year at work, and what should have been something fun became just one more item to cram into the schedule. The house would be full of excess calories that we didn't need for weeks afterward, even after I hauled containers full of sweets to work, to BIL's house, and even home to Mom & Dad's. And after the loss of my little girl (due to join our family in November 1998), I found my heart just wasn't in it. My mom & I still baked cookies together whenever she came to visit -- but she hasn't been here in a while. And so I have barely touched my flour sifter or electric hand mixer or cookie sheets in recent years. Dh suggested my collection of baking pans was a prime candidate to send to the thrift store when we were downsizing our stuff in preparation for the big move to a condo. I recoiled in horror. (Men -- duh...)

Maybe that was the spark.  Saturday, he went out with BIL & the nephews. And I pulled out my baking pans and mixing bowls and the electric hand mixer, and went to work. And texted him that there were cookies in the oven. I don't know if BIL & the nephews had originally planned to come in when they brought him back home later, but the four of them walked through the door of our condo unit a few hours later.

"Wow, it smells amazing in here," Younger Nephew said. I positively beamed as I watched them help themselves to one oatmeal chocolate chip cookie after another, still warm from the oven.

(Hillary Clinton's recipe, from the infamous 1992 election bake-off, lol -- whatever you might think of her politics, it's a great chocolate chip cookie recipe!)(She won that contest.) ;)

I may have had my reservations about moving here, but if you'd asked me what my ideal picture of living here would be, it would have been this: having my two tall, handsome nephews drop by to visit and eat freshly baked cookies from Aunt Lori's kitchen. :)  They totally made my day. :)  I only wish I could have done it sooner, when they were little. (Hopefully I will have the chance for a do-over with some great-nieces and nephews in the years to come... ;)  )

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.      

30 Posts in 30 Days: Day 21: A receipe

Picking up where I left off with the 30 Posts in 30 Days meme.... 

This is a very, very easy recipe that I love to make on nights when dh is working late & I come home by myself. It takes five minutes to throw together & into the oven, & it's ready about the time he arrives home: 

Easy Chicken & Rice Casserole 

In a casserole dish, combine 1 & 1/3 cups white rice with one envelope of onion soup mix, one can of cream of mushroom soup & 1.5-2 soup cans of water. 

Add chicken breasts. (I use two for dh & me, but you could certainly add more -- four would likely be optimal.) 

Bake in a 350F oven for 1.5 hours. 

That's it! 

I also make a version of this with pork chops. The only difference is that you brown the pork chops in a frying pan first, & cover the casserole dish in the oven. We serve it with veggies, but I've seen variations of this recipe that add vegetables into the mixture. I've used just a half envelope of the onion soup mix and reduced fat cream of mushroom soup to reduce the fat & sodium levels.

For just the two of us, there is lots of rice leftover -- we just refrigerate it & use it later in the week with something easy like chicken strips or fishsticks when we're in a rush for dinner.