Happy belated holidays! I took a little time off and I hope you did too.
My holiday break started with one whale of a storm in these parts of Wisconsin. The snow started falling at about 8 at night and kept going for a good solid 24 hours after that. It was really beautiful.
Until I had to shovel, of course. But even then I didn’t mind so much, especially because I knew it was likely the last bit of exercise I would get before the total glutton-fest that are the weeks surrounding Christmas and New Year’s.
Below you can see my handiwork and also get a better picture of just how much snow there was. That was two weeks ago and it looks pretty much the same now except I threw out the wreath as the sun managed to dry it out.
But on to the glutton-fest, beginning with my Aunt Sarah’s famous cinnamon rolls that she only makes this time of year. She gave me her top-secret recipe and I plan to share it with you in the coming weeks.
I did a little bit of cooking over Christmas– a couple of soups for my dad who wasn’t feeling great, including my first attempt at chicken noodle soup (pretty darn good once I got the salt amount right) and a pumpkin bread pudding for Christmas day brunch. Mostly though I ate the cooking/baking of family members whose talents in the kitchen are immense. In addition to the aforementioned rolls, highlights were my cousin Erica’s corn pudding, cousin Wendi’s peanut butter balls, Aunt Dianne’s vegan potato casserole, and my brother’s girlfriend’s outstanding German New Year’s Eve meal which concluded with the below pictured mango-peach chocolate torte.
I swear she made it herself and didn’t buy it from one of those fancy bakeries. And it tasted as good as it looked!
I will be back soon with the regularly scheduled programming but in the meantime would like to mention that in addition to following this blog I am also follow-able on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest should you be on any of those. My username is baxterandmain on all and while I did not update the blog or Facebook over the past few weeks I was at least tweeting, instagramming, and pinning. So I wasn’t completely blog-neglectful…
Hey! Look out for the icicles.
Baxter and Main 
Hi Kirsten – Best wishes for 2013! – The above mentioned dishes sound wonderful (especially Angelika’s torte) I would like to make this dessert for our neighborhood’s monthly supper club get-together – looking forward to these recipes on your future blogs. I gave your parents your own personal jar of homemade pickled watermelon rind – let me know what you think! – Besides making the standard homemade jams, this coming summer I plan on making pickled baby beets. With the different varieties and color, the beets should look very pretty in the jars. – just thinking about this will help me make it through the winter! Keep on blogging!! AEI
Thank you so much! My mom mentioned that you sent home a jar of the pickled watermelon rinds for me and I am very excited to try them. And I fully support your beet pickling plans!
You really did get a lot of snow!!! Like Anne, I can’t wait for the recipe for Angelika’s torte:). Wait until you taste Anne’s pickled watermelon rinds ~ delicious!