Naked Brunch: 4th Annual Holiday Recipe Exchange

Well, the weather is frightful today again, but in the extreme opposite direction.  It's windy and 28 degrees...brrrrr.

You must read this, especially during this time of year when you are non-religious:  Agnostics Guide to Survival in the Bible Belt

I can't believe I missed this.  I was rolling down to sign in to post this morning on Being Qua (formerly Sinequanon's Journal) and noticed my hit counter.  Oh My Gosh!  I finally hit 1/2 million hits on this blog since May 2005.  I can hardly believe it.  Not that I have done anything this past year to keep my stats up much less readership.  I've misplaced a whole bunch of people that used to dwell in the mind of yours truly.  I'll have to do something about that.

In the ongoing tradition of this site, we are moved to continue our annual holiday recipe exchange.  So, here goes it:  The Fourth Annual Holiday Recipe Exchange (WooHaa)  

The 2005-2007 recipes are stored here:  Recipe Exchange

Pretzel Kiss (Guys...even you can do this one)

1 bag of Snyder's Pretzel Squares

1 lg bag of Milk Chocolate Hersheys Kisses (I use small bags of milk chocolate, cherry cordial, and white chocolate peppermint stick)

1 small bag M&Ms 

1. Turn on oven to 350 degrees.  Using a small cookie pan or whatever you have, line up pretzels in the bottom of the pan, lining them up, touching each other.  Unwrap kisses and place one on top of the pretzel.


2. Stick in heated oven for about 3-5 minutes tops.  Watch them closely after minute two.  Push down on a kiss tip to see if it is melting and collapsing inward.  When it does this, remove from oven.  Have the M&Ms ready and quickly place an M&M n top of each kiss, pushing in slightly.  You must do this fast of they will cool off.  It's good if you have someone who does one end of the pan wile you do the other.  After completion, stick the cooled pan in the freezer for 30 minutes so everything melds.

(My favorite is the peppermint white chocolate!)

Cracker Candy

Saltine crackers

Med pkg milk chocolate chips

Med pkg peanut butter chips

2 sticks butter

1 cup sugar

1. Turn oven on to 400 degrees.


2. Spread saltine crackers side to side covering the bottom of a large cookie tray.  Melt butter, add sugar.  Bring to a boil and then cook over medium heat for 3 minutes.  Pout mixture over crackers.  Bake for 5 minutes.


3. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate and peanut butter chips evenly over surface of cracker layer.  Allow to melt and then swirl and spread throughout this layer.  When cool, place in freezer until it will pop out of the cookie sheet in one piece.  Break or cut.  Save the crumbs, they are great.

Orgasmic Fromage Cassoulet

3 quart casserole

Spray oil

8 tbsp butter +

6-10 slices french or sourdough bread, crumbled and torn/cut into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces 

5-1/2 cups of whole milk

1/2 cup flour

2 tsp salt, plus more for water

1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground white pepper

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1/4 tsp ceyenne pepper

4-1/2 cups grated sharp white Cheddar cheese

2 cups grated Swiss or Gruyere cheese

2 cups grated Pecorino Romano or Asiago cheese

1 lb shell macaroni

1. Use spray oil on all interior surfaces of the casserole pan; set aside.  


2. Place bread in a small bowl, Pour 2 tbsp melted butter over crumbs and toss; set aside. 


3. Warm milk in a saucepan over medium heat.  Melt remaining butter in a high-sided skillet over medium heat.  When butter bubbles, add flour.  Cook, whisking for 1 minute.  While continuing to whisk, add milk a little at a time to keep mixture smooth.  Continue cooking, whisking constantly, until mixture bubbles and thickens, 8 to 12 minutes. 


4. Remove pan from heat.  Stir in salt, nutmeg and peppers.  Add, 3 cups or cheddar and all other cheeses.  Stir to melt and set aside.


5. In a large pot, boil water with salt.  Add shell macaroni.  When water begins to boil again, reduce heat to medium.  Cook until slightly underdone.  Transfer to a colander, rinse with water and drain well.  


6. Stir shells into the fromage (cheese) sauce.


7. Pour mixture into the prepared casserole dish.


8. Sprinkle remaining Cheddar and bread crumbs over top.


9. Bake until golden, about 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

Serves 12.

In yet another holiday tradition related to our Annual Holiday Recipe "EXCHANGE" - I name the following people to come up with a holiday type recipe - even if it's a beverage, alcohol preferably recipe:

Ripley, Michael, TAS, Litbrit, ZenComix, NTodd

Instructions:  

Post one recipe at your site, link to this original post at Being Qua as a linkback (http://www.beingqua.com/journal/2008/12/21/naked-brunch-one-half-million-and-4th-annual-holiday-recipe.html), then pick six people to do the same. Copy and paste these instructions into your post.

I hope you participate.  I will continue adding recipes of my own to this post as updates.

This concludes todays Naked Brunch.  Ya'll be careful out there.

PS:  Michael, I just got the Eddie Vedder "Into the Wild" tunes.  It is damned fine.  Wow!

November's job numbers: It's worse than you think

[Crossposted from Sugar Land is Dreaming]

Over at my other blogging home, Comments From Left Field, Macswain posted about November's job losses... "A Kick to the Gut":

The Bureau of Labor's monthly job report is out and its filled with bad news. From the payroll report (the best indicator of labor health, in my opinion), we get the news that the economy dropped 533,000 jobs in November, bringing the total for the year to a loss of 1.9 million jobs. That's the biggest one-month decline in nearly 34 years...

Mac has more to say and you should definitely read the whole post.

Despite how bad this news it, it gets worse. There's one point which cannot be overstated: During the holiday season, retail is supposed to gain jobs. Lots of them. All those temporary retail holiday positions traditionally added during November and December are supposed to swell employment numbers. But this year, even those temporary positions don't exist as retail joins all the other economic sectors dropping employment like its a hot potato. So to hear that November experienced not only job losses but, as Macswain said, "the biggest one-month decline [of jobs] in nearly 34 years," is more alarming to hear about November then, say, January or February when all of those temporary retail positions disappear -- this makes half a million jobs lost in November outright shocking. As I previously mentioned, this cannot be overstated.

I'm also forced to file this economic news under the "I hate it when I'm right" category. A month ago, I said this on the topic:

Placing this in larger context, we’re less than two weeks away from the start of Christmas shopping season — the time when retail businesses earn the majority of their profits. We could be seeing desperation from businesses here: Circuit City can’t keep many stores open despite the profit to be made in a couple weeks, and DHL can’t keep shipping despite the Christmas gift packages that will surely flood the market. Or are the upcoming retail sales projections from these companies just so weak that they don’t see enough demand to justify maintaining full time operations? Is this desperation or foreshadowing?

The case for foreshadowing is grim but accurate. The US economy shed 1.2 million jobs this year. A real test will be November’s job growth (or lack thereof) numbers — will they receive a bounce from retail’s traditional hiring of temporary labor for the holiday season… Or is retail not hiring right now? We’ll know in December.

Indeed, now we do know. The economic forecasts that retail stores had at the beginning of November must have been horrible; we’re seeing that reflected in today's November job numbers.

One now wonders just how big of a mess faces Obama on January 20th.