Each year I make Fiddle Faddle, some various yeast bread and a olive
spread for crackers.

Fiddle Faddle is the most expensive to do because of the quantity of
butter and mixed nuts. it is somewhat time consuming and messy as
well.

Various Yeast bread are basically a time expense only. One particular
neighbor looks forward to the bread each year. He has been known to
buy his favorite Pane Siciliano from me. The Old Milwaukee Rye is
always popular but some folks just prefer a regular white sandwich
bread.

The cream cheese olive spread is a matter of minutes to prepare and
the ingredients are relatively inexpensive. One neighbor hides this
and doles it out to husband and family when necessary.

Cream Cheese/Olive spread
Take a quantity of cream cheese and warm it in the microwave until the
consistency of soft butter. Run some green olives with pimento and
black olives of choice in the food processor until chopped.

Mix the olives and cream cheese together with a spatula. Season to
taste with garlic powder, maybe more salt and perhaps a smidge of your
favorite hot pepper additive. Sometimes I may add toasted, chopped
pecans to this mix.

Spoon into plastic storage containers to give away.
NOTE; If using pitted kalamata olives, be sure to smush each olive in
your fingers to make sure all pits are gone. Kalamata olives, in my
experience, are noted for leaving parts of one or two pits behind. You
don't want anyone to crack a tooth.

Fiddle Faddle

2 Cups Brown Sugar
2 Sticks butter (1/2 cup)
1/2 Cup Corn Syrup
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Butter Flavoring
1 Teaspoon Maple Flavoring
1/4 Teaspoon Cream of Tartar
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
7 Quarts Popped Corn
2 Cups Mixed Nuts

In saucepan, combine brown sugar, margarine, corn syrup, and salt.
Boil for
6 minutes, stirring constantly. Add flavorings, cream of tartar, and
soda.
Pour over popped corn and nuts, mixing thoroughly. Bake in 200 oven
for one hour

NOTE: Lightly spray the large mixing bowl with cooking oil to prevent
sticking of the syrup - do not overspray. Have the flavorings and
soda/tartar at least at good room temperature to avoid lowering syrup
temp. Add the flavorings first. As soon as the syrup/flavorings/soda
is mixed, place the large mixing bowl on the turned off burner to keep
everything warm. Immediately pour syrup over all. Mix and turn while
bowl is on the turned off burner with silicone spatula until
thoroughly blended..

Janet US

"Janet Bostwick" > wrote in message
...
>
> Each year I make Fiddle Faddle, some various yeast bread and a olive
> spread for crackers.
>
> Fiddle Faddle is the most expensive to do because of the quantity of
> butter and mixed nuts. it is somewhat time consuming and messy as
> well.

I would think the cost for a license fromthe Fiddle Faddle Trademark owner
would drive the cost up considerably.

You are way ahead of me - I just picked up the ingredients for my neighbor treats. (a raspberry bar cookie.) I will also make my usual chocolate biscotti for some special people.

I tested a recipe today for molasses lace rollups - what a disaster. I dropped too large an amt of cookie dough on the sheet and left not enough space between - hence, they ran into each other and I had to chip away at em with a knife to get em off the supposed non-stick cookie sheet. I managed to roll about four cookies and the rest ended up as cookie chips in a bowl. I used parchment paper on the 2nd batch - slightly easier ro deal with. I was so glad I had halved the recipe. They were much too sweet and I won't make em again.

I wonder what ever happened to my mother's rolling pin which left raised patterns on the dough?

On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:20:49 -0800 (PST), Kalmia
> wrote:

>You are way ahead of me - I just picked up the ingredients for my neighbor treats. (a raspberry bar cookie.) I will also make my usual chocolate biscotti for some special people.
>
>I tested a recipe today for molasses lace rollups - what a disaster. I dropped too large an amt of cookie dough on the sheet and left not enough space between - hence, they ran into each other and I had to chip away at em with a knife to get em off the supposed non-stick cookie sheet. I managed to roll about four cookies and the rest ended up as cookie chips in a bowl. I used parchment paper on the 2nd batch - slightly easier ro deal with. I was so glad I had halved the recipe. They were much too sweet and I won't make em again.
>
>I wonder what ever happened to my mother's rolling pin which left raised patterns on the dough?

What a pain. Something like that can take the fun out of holiday
baking. The rolling pin with the patterns is probably a springerle
rolling pin.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...+pin&FORM=IGRE
I hope you find it.
Janet US

On Monday, December 16, 2013 7:42:38 PM UTC-5, Janet Bostwick wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:20:49 -0800 (PST), Kalmia
>
> > wrote:
>
>
>
> >You are way ahead of me - I just picked up the ingredients for my neighbor treats. (a raspberry bar cookie.) I will also make my usual chocolate biscotti for some special people.
>
> >
>
> >I tested a recipe today for molasses lace rollups - what a disaster. I dropped too large an amt of cookie dough on the sheet and left not enough space between - hence, they ran into each other and I had to chip away at em with a knife to get em off the supposed non-stick cookie sheet. I managed to roll about four cookies and the rest ended up as cookie chips in a bowl. I used parchment paper on the 2nd batch - slightly easier ro deal with. I was so glad I had halved the recipe. They were much too sweet and I won't make em again.
>
> >
>
> >I wonder what ever happened to my mother's rolling pin which left raised patterns on the dough?
>
>
>
> What a pain. Something like that can take the fun out of holiday
>
> baking. The rolling pin with the patterns is probably a springerle
>
> rolling pin.
>
> http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...+pin&FORM=IGRE
>
> I hope you find it.

I HAVE the springerle recipe - they are supposed to last for weeks, but not in THIS abode. I'll have to write a sib and hope to unearth it. As I recall, it was flowers and stars. Mom may have used it a few times for a pie crust but never got around to the cookies.

I ALSO want her huge, shallow wooden bowl ( has to be 16 inches in diameter) in which we used to chop nuts.

Janet Bostwick wrote:
> Each year I make Fiddle Faddle, some various yeast bread and a olive
> spread for crackers.

-snip-

Since I've been home roasting coffee for a couple of years and seem to
have gotten the knack of it, our holiday gifts this year, at least the
food ones, are going to be coffee. FWIW, here's what I do. We have
standardized on two kinds of coffee, the first for French Press and the
second for our espresso machine.

Coffee 1: We buy this, already blended but unroasted, from
www.sweetmarias.com (who, btw, I have found great to deal with -
excellent, honest, prompt customer service). The blend is called Liquid
Amber and while the exact blend is, of course, a secret known only to
sweetmarias, they do talk a little about the kinds of coffee in it on
their web site. My wife loves this as French Press, which she usually
makes on the weekends, and reports from friends say it makes great drip
coffee as well. I don't happen to care for it as espresso because I
like my own better, see below.

Coffee 2: My own blend, one that I keep playing with here, is basically
2/3 Sumatra Mandheling and 1/3 something else. I love the rich,
low-acid taste of Sumatra but it's a little too "thick" by itself, so I
mix it with other things. I keep varying the kind of Sumatra I use (and
sometimes use similar coffee, e.g., Sulawese), and I've tried various
things for my other 1/3, including several espresso blends. I often
make part of the Sumatra an aged Sumatra - those are unique coffee
offerings, even among the unique characteristics of Sumatran coffee.

I roast in an air-type popcorn popper on my front porch. Typically it
holds about 1/2 cup of green beans which yields about 1 cup of roasted
coffee. I roast to something fairly dark but I purposely vary the roast
level so that when I'm following my typical procedure and making 6
batches at a time (takes anywhere from 4 to 8 minutes per batch), I've
got a few batches that are pretty dark and some that are perhaps City+
and not more than that. I think it makes for a more interesting cup of
coffee. All my roasts go at least into the second crack of the coffee
beans - if you roast coffee, you'll know what that is. And I have to
make them at least a little ahead of time - fresh roasted coffee,
contrary to what some people think, is almost always better after it's
sat for at least a day, sometimes 2 or 3 days.

This may be more than most folks want to read about home roasting
coffee, I realize, but, hey, it's an area of "cooking," if you can call
it cooking, that I'm really into and pay a lot of attention to, from the
quality of my ingredients through the finer points of "cooking" the
coffee beans, so I thought I'd post a long one about it. Because I make
coffee for a lot of my private music students or their parents, and also
because my kids and their friends have figured out that they like lattes
and the like from here, we go through a fair amount of coffee, about 12
lbs. a month or so.

A Merry and a Happy to everyone in r.f.c. land.

-S-

On Tue, 17 Dec 2013 11:54:49 -0500, "Steve Freides" >
wrote:

>Janet Bostwick wrote:
>> Each year I make Fiddle Faddle, some various yeast bread and a olive
>> spread for crackers.
>
>-snip-
>
>Since I've been home roasting coffee for a couple of years and seem to
>have gotten the knack of it, our holiday gifts this year, at least the
>food ones, are going to be coffee. FWIW, here's what I do. We have
>standardized on two kinds of coffee, the first for French Press and the
>second for our espresso machine.
>
>Coffee 1: We buy this, already blended but unroasted, from
>www.sweetmarias.com (who, btw, I have found great to deal with -
>excellent, honest, prompt customer service). The blend is called Liquid
>Amber and while the exact blend is, of course, a secret known only to
>sweetmarias, they do talk a little about the kinds of coffee in it on
>their web site. My wife loves this as French Press, which she usually
>makes on the weekends, and reports from friends say it makes great drip
>coffee as well. I don't happen to care for it as espresso because I
>like my own better, see below.
>
>Coffee 2: My own blend, one that I keep playing with here, is basically
>2/3 Sumatra Mandheling and 1/3 something else. I love the rich,
>low-acid taste of Sumatra but it's a little too "thick" by itself, so I
>mix it with other things. I keep varying the kind of Sumatra I use (and
>sometimes use similar coffee, e.g., Sulawese), and I've tried various
>things for my other 1/3, including several espresso blends. I often
>make part of the Sumatra an aged Sumatra - those are unique coffee
>offerings, even among the unique characteristics of Sumatran coffee.
>
>I roast in an air-type popcorn popper on my front porch. Typically it
>holds about 1/2 cup of green beans which yields about 1 cup of roasted
>coffee. I roast to something fairly dark but I purposely vary the roast
>level so that when I'm following my typical procedure and making 6
>batches at a time (takes anywhere from 4 to 8 minutes per batch), I've
>got a few batches that are pretty dark and some that are perhaps City+
>and not more than that. I think it makes for a more interesting cup of
>coffee. All my roasts go at least into the second crack of the coffee
>beans - if you roast coffee, you'll know what that is. And I have to
>make them at least a little ahead of time - fresh roasted coffee,
>contrary to what some people think, is almost always better after it's
>sat for at least a day, sometimes 2 or 3 days.
>
>This may be more than most folks want to read about home roasting
>coffee, I realize, but, hey, it's an area of "cooking," if you can call
>it cooking, that I'm really into and pay a lot of attention to, from the
>quality of my ingredients through the finer points of "cooking" the
>coffee beans, so I thought I'd post a long one about it. Because I make
>coffee for a lot of my private music students or their parents, and also
>because my kids and their friends have figured out that they like lattes
>and the like from here, we go through a fair amount of coffee, about 12
>lbs. a month or so.
>
>A Merry and a Happy to everyone in r.f.c. land.
>
>-S-
>
Thanks for that. It was most interesting. I bet your neighbors are
glad you do coffee. )
Janet US