Christmas food traditions

[rajncajn]

One of the holiday local traditions here is the local Slavic community makes and sells pusharatas. They're best described as a doughnut, but they are so much more. Most people don't make them because they are pretty labor intensive. Here's a short local video documentary on the tradition. I know Mrs Ott & Mrs Jurich from the video too.

 

 

[League_Champion]

3 minutes ago, rajncajn said:

One of the holiday local traditions here is the local Slavic community makes and sells pusharatas

Damn Rajn, that looks amazing! I'll definitely be making this. 

[stevegrab]

I'll have to check that out, and see about adding some information on similar things our Romanian people make. 

Baking is a lot harder (in my view), and rarely without a lot of work. My mom made some great stuff, nut rolls, cookies, cakes and I've got a few bakers in the family that make some good stuff including my mom's nut torte (cake layers with nuts, sweet nut filling layers, and chocolate frosting). One year I bought some of those "just add egg/butter" packaged cookies at a fundraiser. I made them that Christmas and ever since then I do similar baking each year at the holidays with Betty Crocker cookie mixes. 

[rajncajn]

Just now, League_Champion said:

Damn Rajn, that looks amazing! I'll definitely be making this. 

They are awesome! I bought a dozen of them last Saturday from a lady that was selling them at a local arts & crafts festival and they were gone before the next day. I went to buy more when we went back on Sunday and she was already sold out.

[rajncajn]

15 minutes ago, stevegrab said:

I'll have to check that out, and see about adding some information on similar things our Romanian people make. 

Baking is a lot harder (in my view), and rarely without a lot of work. My mom made some great stuff, nut rolls, cookies, cakes and I've got a few bakers in the family that make some good stuff including my mom's nut torte (cake layers with nuts, sweet nut filling layers, and chocolate frosting). One year I bought some of those "just add egg/butter" packaged cookies at a fundraiser. I made them that Christmas and ever since then I do similar baking each year at the holidays with Betty Crocker cookie mixes. 

My grandma used to make something she called lady fingers, but they weren't quite like the traditional lady fingers you find when you search that term. They were more like roughly rolled shortbread cookies with pecan bits in them and then tossed in powdered sugar. She also always made large batches of miniature pecan pie bites and bourbon balls.

 

In our house, the Mrs always makes big batches of sausage balls and gives family members a gallon-sized bag of them to put in the freezer. Just take out what you want, pop them in the oven for a little while & snack away. She also makes peppermint bark, jewel bark and oreo truffles that we give out to family & friends. We do the mini pecan pies as well sometimes.

 

Edit: Oh & tea cakes too 

Edited November 11, 2022 by rajncajn

[rajncajn]

Other Christmas food traditions... On my paternal and maternal side it's typically gumbo, usually chicken, sausage & oyster, but my personal holiday favorite is duck, sausage & oyster. We always have a Christmas Eve pot-luck family get-together on my dad's side, usually at my sisters and on Christmas day we always do brunch at my in-laws.

[League_Champion]

My Mother used to do a rack of lamb every Christmas, I miss that soo bad. I wish I knew what she did to it but it was amazing. We'd have sides of mushrooms & potatoes with it. Damn that sounds good right about now! 

[Bier Meister]

👍