SPELLING BEE

Oh fruitcake, oh fruitcake

“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.”

-John Lennon Yes, there really are fruitcake fans out there! Maybe someone needs to form a group of fruitcake lovers to get together and exchange recipes and have tastings. My fruitcakes are coming along fine and should be ready for enjoyment in about another week or so. They still are a bit on the “sharp” side but are getting more mellow as time goes by. A few more samples needed!

Loyal readers, as grown ups, do you ever think back to the much more simple times of childhood and waiting for Santa to come?

Back in the old days of childhood in rural central Minnesota, the sign of Christmas was coming was the arrival of the Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Wards Christmas catalogs.

As kids we always had a big fight as to who was going to get to look first and remind each other of the rules like no tearing out pictures or hiding the catalogs. I always looked to see if they had my regular requested items of a cowgirl outfit (white with red trim), a toy barn with the drive in/out entrance in the loft area and a Easy Bake oven. Santa never seemed to get my long handwritten messages so I had to keep requesting them year after year. Years later I was told that the Easy Bake oven was not marketed until well after my list making time. It must have been something very much like it as I recall the pictures of the little boxes of cake mix and pans. Another good question that should be asked is why I would want the Easy Bake oven as I started making real bread and cakes at age 5 or so! My present mind does not have an answer to that question. I now do have a real barn that has the drive in/out entrance in the loft area so you could say that wish was granted in full measure. My desire for the cowgirl outfit has greatly faded away and a taste for Mustang cars has replaced it. I did have yellow framed glasses to go with the 2004 Screaming Yellow Mustang and also orange framed ones to go with the 2008 Competition Orange with black racing stripes Mustang.

Another thing I greatly worried about was Santa coming down the chimney. We had a wood fired furnace so I always begged my Dad not have the furnace all fired up for the evening so it would be safe for Santa to come down. I also worried that Santa would not have enough room to get through the door that went into the stove. (I never considered that the chimney was much smaller than that door). We did leave cookies for Santa but I also really was thinking the reindeer had to work hard and probably would be hungry so I always put out carrots for them. Do reindeer even eat carrots? I had never seen a real reindeer at that time (no internet available to check it out) and must have thought that carrots would be the thing they would eat. And as they would say, “those were the days”.

Time moves on and now there are a lot of “Soup for Santa” recipes. Is he going to eat the soup on site or do you leave it to go? Here is a recipe that you make in the modern Instant Pot and you decide how to leave it for Santa. With Instant Pot on saute, put in ½ pound Italian sausage pieces and ½ diced medium onion -cook until browned. Pour in 3 cups of beef broth and scrape bottom of pot to free up sticking pieces. Leave on saute setting and add 2 large carrots, sliced; ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning; ½ teaspoon garlic powder; 1 can (14.5 oz) roasted tomatoes; 1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce); 1 small or ½ of a large green bell pepper cored and diced; 4 oz of ziti or penne pasta. Cover Instant Pot and secure lid. Set the SOUP button to 3 minutes. When time is up, let rest for 5 minutes and then vent. It says to put in bowls and top with Parmesan cheese. Now it is up to you to decide if Santa gets hot or cold soup, in a bowl or mug, maybe some croutons or dried onion rings on top. Maybe you will be the only one to remember to include a spoon and napkin! You all are special people. Oh just popped up-How about salt & pepper?