A Taste of Christmas

Today marks the first day of winter break for our family. Since the first day of any long break always warrants something special, we celebrated with a brunch of honey ham, potato patties, and Cracker Barrel fried apples (courtesy of a gift box my brother's family sent). It was our good fortune to be joined by one of our son's friends - a polite young man who not only had excellent table manners, but ate second helpings and promptly hopped up to help with the dishes. While the ham was one of the pre-cooked varieties I picked up at the grocery last week and the fried apples only required reheating, I did actually make the potato patties from scratch. This happens to be one of the easiest and best ways I know to eat leftover mashed potatoes. (Of course, there aren't usually any left, or they may only last a day or so!) Simple mix about two cups of cold mashed potatoes with one beaten egg, salt, and pepper. (You can add some chopped onions if you want, but I prefer a little onion powder or some fresh herbs.) Form the mixture into patties (My potatoes are usually quite soft, so sometimes I have to add a little flour to the mixture in order to form the patties.), dip them in flour, and cook them in non-stick skillet with a little melted butter over medium-low heat until they are brown on both sides. Keep the patties warm in the oven if you need to cook them in more than one batch.

Once this holiday treat was done, the boy and I decided to do some running around, so we headed to World Market to check out their ornament sale. While we didn't come home with any more glass baubles for the tree (which is probably a good thing since it is already so full), we did leave with several edible indulgences. Luckily for us, the store was sampling a myriad of products today including chianti, a rose bubbly, jalapeno chips, butter cookies, cheese straws, and apple stollen. After trying tasting all of these goodies we came home with several of our own including a bottle of Banfi Rosa Regale, which has smaller bubbles than a classic brut and a much sweeter taste that I knew Jeff would love; a bag of the jalapeno flavored potato chips which actually have the distinctive pepper taste with very little heat; and a German baked apple stollen, which was dense and moist with plenty of fruit. This came in several other flavors including cranberry and marzipan, as well.

Since Jeff has been under the weather for the last couple of days, we decided to chill the wine until he's feeling better, and the stollen is a treat I'm saving for our Christmas celebration with the in-laws. Thus, only the jalapeno chips provided us with instant gratification when we returned home. Oh well, sometimes the best part of the holidays is looking forward to all the wonderful tastes to come!