I hope that everyone has a fantastic New Years celebration and enjoys kicking 2008 in its pants as you say goodbye...but don't forget to add that extra "leap second" to your New Year's countdown :).
http://uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKTRE4BR1DC20081229
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Home from the Holidays
We're back in Iowa after a week in South Dakota with the families. We had a great time and got lots of fantastic presents. We lucked out and got two nice days to travel too, so I can't complain. Rob is back at work today and I'm off til Jan 12th when the new semester starts. We are looking forward to a quiet relaxing week at home (well aside from the whole Rob working and me cleaning and organizing thing :). Happy New Year!
Christmas photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157611788030209/
Christmas photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157611788030209/
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Happy Holidays!
Happy Solstice Day! Today is the shortest day of the year...which means that starting tomorrow, the days get longer!
Tomorrow is the start of the eight days of Hanukkah. Christmas eve and Christmas day fall in the middle of the week and Kwanza the day after that. So whatever your faith, stay warm and enjoy all of the spirit of the season from Solstice to Epiphany (Jan 6th and the official last day of the 12 days of Christmas).
Here it's very windy and cold...I'm talking highs below zero. We're trying to decide when to make the long drive to South Dakota. Ground blizzard conditions are holding us up...but if we don't make it out of here today, we'll be heading out early tomorrow. So see you all after Christmas!
Tomorrow is the start of the eight days of Hanukkah. Christmas eve and Christmas day fall in the middle of the week and Kwanza the day after that. So whatever your faith, stay warm and enjoy all of the spirit of the season from Solstice to Epiphany (Jan 6th and the official last day of the 12 days of Christmas).
Here it's very windy and cold...I'm talking highs below zero. We're trying to decide when to make the long drive to South Dakota. Ground blizzard conditions are holding us up...but if we don't make it out of here today, we'll be heading out early tomorrow. So see you all after Christmas!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Haring Family Pfeffernuesse Recipe
Every year I make Pfeffernuesse for my family for Christmas. My grandma taught me how to make these cookies when I was in junior high, and I've been making them ever since. They are a little unusual and some people don't like them, but most people I've met who try them end up liking them.
WARNING: This dough is very sticky, if you don't have a good mixer, expect to do some hard stirring.
Pfeffernuesse
(this is a half batch—makes about 8 dozen cookies)
¾ c shortening
½ c brewed coffee
½ c honey
1 ½ c brown sugar
½ t pepper
¾ t liquid anise flavoring
¼ t cloves
Stir together ingredients in a 1-2 quart pot and bring to a boil. Watch carefully as it will foam up when it starts boiling. Set hot liquid aside and let cool until it will not cook/curdle eggs (usually takes a couple of hours).
Poor the liquid mixture into a large mixer bowl. With mixer set at low, add the following
ingredients:
1 large egg and 1 egg white (or two smaller eggs—the full batch calls for 3 large eggs)
1 ½ t soda
1 ½ t baking powder
4 ½ c flour
Mix until all of the flour is incorporated and place dough in the fridge overnight.
Roll cold dough into walnut sized (about 1”) balls and bake at 350
degrees for approximately 10 minutes (my oven runs a little hot and takes only 8 minutes so check them early the first time you make them—they will start to turn golden brown around the edges). Return the bowl of dough to the refrigerator while the cookies are baking to keep the dough from getting too sticky to work with.
Once the cookies have cooled completely, you can make the frosting.
Frosting
1 c sugar
½ c water
Boil the water and sugar mixture “to a thread.” (Thread stage is around 230 degrees F—and is achieved when the syrup turns into a thread when dropped into cold water. Be careful about blindly using a candy thermometer for this step though as the cheap ones are often inaccurate. I usually boil the syrup until a thread comes off the spoon when you try to pour a drop off of it--it just takes some practice.)
1 egg white
Pour the sugar syrup over one egg white that has been beaten to a froth (I usually do this while the sugar is boiling, but the first time you make the frosting you may want to froth the egg before starting the sugar and water). Mix the sugar syrup and egg white on high until the frosting turns to an opaque white or ivory color. Beating the mixture until it turns opaque and cools off a bit, helps the frosting come to the right consistency and gives you a little leeway if you didn’t boil the sugar syrup quite long enough.
Put all of the cookies into the largest bowl you own (if this bowl
isn’t all that big, you may have to split the batch in half) and pour the frosting over the cookies. Stir gently until all of the cookies are covered and place them onto wax paper to dry. If the frosting is cooked perfectly, it will only take an hour or two for it to dry (this rarely happens :)). It usually takes an afternoon or overnight to dry. Once the cookies are dry, place them in an air tight container and separate any cookie layers with wax paper.
Pfeffernuesse means Pepper Nuts in German (because they have pepper in them and are the size and shape of nuts....some say that the nuts part comes from actual nuts, but there aren't any of those in our recipe). Pepper Nuts are a holiday cookie from Europe and there are many different variations. What follows below is how my family makes them:
WARNING: This dough is very sticky, if you don't have a good mixer, expect to do some hard stirring.
Pfeffernuesse
(this is a half batch—makes about 8 dozen cookies)
¾ c shortening
½ c brewed coffee
½ c honey
1 ½ c brown sugar
½ t pepper
¾ t liquid anise flavoring
¼ t cloves
Stir together ingredients in a 1-2 quart pot and bring to a boil. Watch carefully as it will foam up when it starts boiling. Set hot liquid aside and let cool until it will not cook/curdle eggs (usually takes a couple of hours).
Poor the liquid mixture into a large mixer bowl. With mixer set at low, add the following
ingredients:1 large egg and 1 egg white (or two smaller eggs—the full batch calls for 3 large eggs)
1 ½ t soda
1 ½ t baking powder
4 ½ c flour
Mix until all of the flour is incorporated and place dough in the fridge overnight.
Roll cold dough into walnut sized (about 1”) balls and bake at 350
degrees for approximately 10 minutes (my oven runs a little hot and takes only 8 minutes so check them early the first time you make them—they will start to turn golden brown around the edges). Return the bowl of dough to the refrigerator while the cookies are baking to keep the dough from getting too sticky to work with.Once the cookies have cooled completely, you can make the frosting.
Frosting
1 c sugar
½ c water
Boil the water and sugar mixture “to a thread.” (Thread stage is around 230 degrees F—and is achieved when the syrup turns into a thread when dropped into cold water. Be careful about blindly using a candy thermometer for this step though as the cheap ones are often inaccurate. I usually boil the syrup until a thread comes off the spoon when you try to pour a drop off of it--it just takes some practice.)
1 egg white
Pour the sugar syrup over one egg white that has been beaten to a froth (I usually do this while the sugar is boiling, but the first time you make the frosting you may want to froth the egg before starting the sugar and water). Mix the sugar syrup and egg white on high until the frosting turns to an opaque white or ivory color. Beating the mixture until it turns opaque and cools off a bit, helps the frosting come to the right consistency and gives you a little leeway if you didn’t boil the sugar syrup quite long enough.
Put all of the cookies into the largest bowl you own (if this bowl
isn’t all that big, you may have to split the batch in half) and pour the frosting over the cookies. Stir gently until all of the cookies are covered and place them onto wax paper to dry. If the frosting is cooked perfectly, it will only take an hour or two for it to dry (this rarely happens :)). It usually takes an afternoon or overnight to dry. Once the cookies are dry, place them in an air tight container and separate any cookie layers with wax paper. Feeling the Yule...or trying to
Well, the grades are in, the Christmas cards are out, most of the presents are bought (just a few stragglers), and I'm starting in on some baking. I feel like I'm doing pretty well...we have to be all ready by the 20th though (so don't feel too bad if you're not as far along).
The weather here has been very odd. It was 50 degrees here on Saturday....on Sunday morning the temperature dropped 20 degrees in an hour and we were in the single digits by Sunday night. We are still in the single digits and it's snowing hard here...which makes it feel VERY festive. But I'm freezing my butt off.
Tomorrow night Rob and I are going to our very first Blenders Christmas Concert. Supposedly tomorrow is going to be one of the nicest days of the week weather wise...so I'm very much looking forward to going downtown and seeing all of the decorations on the way and enjoying some quality acapella Christmas tunes.
So with all of the crazy hub-bub and obligations of the holiday, be sure to take some time to enjoy the magic of the season. Wil Wheaton wrote a lovely article about just this sentiment: http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/wil-wheaton/its-christmas-time-theres-no-n/
Happy Holidays!
The weather here has been very odd. It was 50 degrees here on Saturday....on Sunday morning the temperature dropped 20 degrees in an hour and we were in the single digits by Sunday night. We are still in the single digits and it's snowing hard here...which makes it feel VERY festive. But I'm freezing my butt off.
Tomorrow night Rob and I are going to our very first Blenders Christmas Concert. Supposedly tomorrow is going to be one of the nicest days of the week weather wise...so I'm very much looking forward to going downtown and seeing all of the decorations on the way and enjoying some quality acapella Christmas tunes.
So with all of the crazy hub-bub and obligations of the holiday, be sure to take some time to enjoy the magic of the season. Wil Wheaton wrote a lovely article about just this sentiment: http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/wil-wheaton/its-christmas-time-theres-no-n/
Happy Holidays!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Last December...
So I was looking through some photos and found my folder from LAST December....I'm feeling less cranky about the weather we've been having when I look back and remember the particularly nasty ice storm that we had about this time last year. Ahhhh...memories (here's hoping they stay that way).
P.S. $1.43 for Gas
Gas in West Des Moines is selling for $1.43 a gallon. I filled up yesterday for 16 bucks.
Winter....and the end of the semester
The winter came on kind of suddenly over Thanksgiving and it won't go away. I know it's the time of the year that we're supposed to get rain and ice and snow.....but can't it just wait until I'm done with the semester. I love snow...when I don't have to go anywhere. It's beautiful, but I hate driving in it. We had a little storm over night last night that left the side roads very slippery today....it could have been much worse, but if it had been much worse we could have all stayed home and drank hot chocolate (or made snowmen...whatever floats your snowday boat).
Ultimately I'm glad they didn't cancel classes today. One of my sections had their finals time slot today and had to have their final projects in by 1pm. If the college had cancelled class...they would have gotten until Monday (the make up day). So now I have the rest of the week to grade them instead of having to cram them into one or two days. This semester has been a blur...but it has felt like a blur of illness and grading...not a particularly fun blur. I hope that the spring semester goes a little more smoothly.
I'm glad that I'll be done with school on Friday (*crosses her fingers for good weather on Friday*)...because I have all sorts of holiday junk to take care of (like christmas presents and letters and baking). Don't get me wrong, I like doing most of this stuff...but it gets a bit stressful at times. So good luck with all of your end of the semester/holiday/end of the year demands!
Ultimately I'm glad they didn't cancel classes today. One of my sections had their finals time slot today and had to have their final projects in by 1pm. If the college had cancelled class...they would have gotten until Monday (the make up day). So now I have the rest of the week to grade them instead of having to cram them into one or two days. This semester has been a blur...but it has felt like a blur of illness and grading...not a particularly fun blur. I hope that the spring semester goes a little more smoothly.
I'm glad that I'll be done with school on Friday (*crosses her fingers for good weather on Friday*)...because I have all sorts of holiday junk to take care of (like christmas presents and letters and baking). Don't get me wrong, I like doing most of this stuff...but it gets a bit stressful at times. So good luck with all of your end of the semester/holiday/end of the year demands!
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