Date Nut Bread

Our family tradition for Christmas day goes like this:

Gather together and open stockings. Our stockings are stretchy thigh-high 1950's red vintage tights that belonged to my sister. Additional stockings are red cable high socks. The stockings get so big that they can either be hung with serious hardware or propped up by the fireplace. Stocking presents include an orange in the toe, canned pineapple, olives, and packs of gum individually wrapped. When the children were little, they left Santa a note and cookies. Santa obligingly ate the cookies and sometimes left a boot print in the fireplace ashes.

After stocking opening with much admiration and thanks for Santa's ingenuity, it's time for breakfast. The breakfast tradition must have evolved since the children were grown. The menu is fruit salad (add an orange and pineapple from the stockings), mimosas (champagne and orange juice) and date nut bread with cream cheese. After breakfast, we sit around and open the presents under the tree. Every year presents arrive from S.C. (Santa Claus), Rudolph, The Elves who bring tools, the The Muse who brings music.

The Date Nut Bread recipe is another classic submitted by my Mom aka Bubbe to Not for Noshers Only (Page 133). Incidentally, if you contact the Beth Israel Synagogue in Lebanon, PA, I'm told they still have some for sale. My Mom said she got the recipe from Cousin Jane. It's an unusual recipe in the way the ingredients are put together. No fancy techniques are required. You can serve the loaf right side up or up side down - or cut into slices and arrange on a plate. Pick the way that looks best. I hope you will add Date Nut Bread to your Christmas tradition. This is the best I've ever tasted.

Date Nut Loaf
1 8 0z package chopped dates
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
2 TBLS butter softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Cream cheese to serve with Date Nut Bread.

Heat over to 350

Prepare 1 large or 2 mini loaf pans by spraying with Pam or grease well and line bottom with wax paper.

Put chopped dates in a bowl. Sprinkle baking soda on top. Pour in hot water and stir. Let cool.

Put chopped walnuts in a bowl. Add baking power. Stir.

In a large bowl beat butter and sugar together with a mixer. Add the egg and continue beating until smooth. Add vanilla.

Alternately add flour and date mixture, stirring after each addition with a spatula or wooden spoon. The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cup flour but I''ve found that this makes the batter too thin. If this happens to you, add another 1/4 of flour. The batter should be thick but not stiff.

Put batter in pans. Fill to about 1 inch from the top.

Bake 50 minutes (the original recipe says) to an hour (more likely) or until done. The top should look firm. Poke a toothpick into the date nut bread. It is done when no crumbs stick to it. Turn the loaf out of the pan and let it cool on a baking rack.

When thoroughly cool, wrap in foil. These make nice presents made in mini-loaf pans. Cut into slices and serve with cream cheese. The date nut bread keeps well for several days or can be frozen.

Family Traditions - Chicken, Rice and Gravy:
Five Minutes to Prepare, 1 Hour to bake

Chicken, Rice and Gravy was a weekly meal in our house when the children were young. I learned the recipe from a Vietnamese friend, a mother with 5 children to feed.

It goes like this:

1 whole chicken cut up
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 or 4 garlic cloves
Optional: 1 tsp sugar

Put chicken skin side down in a baking pan. Pour soy sauce over chicken. Mash garlic cloves and put in the pan. Add sugar if you wish - it makes the sauce a bit darker and glossy.

Bake at 350 for about 1 hour or until chicken is done and the skin in shiny. Turn chicken over half way through baking.

Serve with steamed rice.

Early Birds and Parsnips in the Snow

What is it about the "Earlybird Special" that is so much fun? Last Saturday we celebrated Mr. Dr. Sue's birthday at the Taos Inn. We changed our plans and decided to eat at the hotel restaurant Doc Martin's. Doc Martin was the first doctor in Taos, not the Doc Martin of the shoes. His surgery/baby birthing room is part of the restaurant. The Inn lobby was bubbling with Christmas cheer, a tree lighting ceremony, a blue grass band, and lots of folks in the bar. We scooted through the festivities to a table at the restaurant.

The cloudy, rainy day turned into a night of snow. We contemplated the menu, then noticed a small paragraph on the back side.

Early dinner special for Taos residents 5:30 - 6:30.

It was 6 PM. The same soup or salad and entree that would be $30 on the main menu was on special for $15. The waiter mentioned the evening's specials of pan seared scallops (in Taos??) and rack of lamb with lobster cream sauce (lamb with lobster sauce??) We were headed for steak and chicken and sure enough they were on the early dinner menu. I asked the waiter, "Can we order from the early dinner choices?" Thinking it was too good to be true much to my surprise he said, "Yes."

I had the curried lentil soup and filet with roast vegetables, baby carrots and parsnips. Mr. Dr Sue had the Ceasar salad and the chicken. They waiter informed us, "The filet is smaller, only 10 oz. (ONLY 10 oz??, still too much to finish for one meal, a sad tradition of supersizing...but worries were for another night.) It was perfect all around: a yummy dinner, and the price was right, leaving plenty of margin to celebrate with glasses of wine, an Irish whiskey and a shared bread pudding for dessert.

We walked through the packed bar and the jostling crowd to our room in the quiet rear courtyard. The snow was falling rapidly, the courtyard was covered with snow and the trees had the magical grace of snow covered branches. We lit a fire in a real working fireplace. We watched the snow fall. We listened to the fire crackle.

I usually avoid hotel restaurants...but I've changed my mind. Thank you Doc. Thank you Taos Inn. Thank you fire. Thank you snow.

For your winter dinner: Baked Parsnips

1 lb parsnips
olive oil
sea salt

Wash and scrape outside skin of parsnips. Cut into sticks, just like carrot sticks.
Spread out on a baking pan.
Drizzle with olive oil and sea salt

Bake at 425 until golden brown, about 20 - 30 minutes. Turn half way through.

Variation: Bake with carrots cut the same way - 1/2 parsnips, 1/2 carrots

The parsnips will surprise you. Outside they are crsip and golden. Inside they are soft and sweet.