Vegetarian Friday: Mom’s fruitcake

NOTE: I managed to let the entire Christmas season get away from me without posting the holiday blogs I’d planned, so this recipe is either too late (seriously: Don’t make it today and plan on eating it Sunday, or you’ll be terribly disappointed) or impressively early. If you assume the latter and make it now, it should be spectacular by December 2017.

People who regard fruitcake as a punchline are miserable souls who have probably spent their lives eating the wretched commercially prepared alcohol sponges that pass for fruitcake in those gift baskets you buy for people you don’t really like.

It is entirely possible to make fruitcake that tastes good. I know because my mom has been doing it for decades.

Before we start, I need you to understand three important principles concerning fruitcake.

Principle 1: Candied fruit has no place in a fruitcake. People who think it does probably drink flavored coffee and approve of the designated hitter.

Principle 2: Green-tinted maraschino cherries are a Communist plot to destroy humanity. They are little green balls of mint-flavored poison, to paraphrase Patrick. Never, ever put them in a fruitcake for any reason.

Principle 3: Booze has a legitimate purpose in fruitcake, but that purpose is not to get you drunk. If you’re making fruitcake to hide your alcohol consumption, click here.

Now that you understand the basics, you’re ready to make fruitcake the way God intended: Using my mom’s recipe.

Ingredients
1 c. cider or apple juice
1-2 c. dried apricots*
1 pkg. whole dates (10 or 12 oz.)
1 c. raisins or currants
16 oz. red maraschino cherries, drained
1 c. English walnuts
1 c. pecans
1 c. hazelnuts or Brazil nuts**
3 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
4 large eggs
1/4 c. orange juice or maraschino syrup
1/4 c. apple juice
1/4 c. molasses (NOT blackstrap)

Chop fruit coarsely. (Mom says poultry shears work well for this.) Boil 1 cup apple cider or juice and pour over dried fruit. Mix. Dump nuts on top of fruit and set aside.

In mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Combine liquid ingredients. Add to batter alternately with 2 cups of the flour, blending thoroughly after each addition. Add remaining cup of flour to fruit, which has been soaking in the juice, stirring to lightly coat fruit.

Add fruit to batter all at once, blending well so fruit is coated with batter.

Pack into greased and floured loaf pans so that each one is 3/4 full.

Bake at 275 degrees until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and cakes are a medium brown (at least an hour and 15 minutes; probably longer, depending on your oven).

Let cool in pans, remove, wrap in clean towels moistened with cider or hard liquor (Mom swears by Southern Comfort for this; I’ve gotten good results from Kilbeggan’s, but any decent whiskey is probably fine), then wrap tightly with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator in a big ziplock bag.

About once a week, check the moisture level and re-moisten the towels as needed to keep them damp. Mom says to alternate between booze and cider for this or the fruitcake will end up tasting like whiskey, which is NOT what you want. Your goal here is just to keep it from drying out or getting moldy while it ages.

As long as you keep the towel moist and the bag sealed between snacks, fruitcake will keep indefinitely in the refrigerator. The longer it ages, the more the flavors will blend, so I wouldn’t even touch it for at least two weeks.

I like to keep fruitcake in the refrigerator and eat it after hard workouts. The nutritional content is just about ideal for refueling after a long run.

Emily

*You can substitute other dried fruit for some of the apricots. Mom has had good luck with dried pears and dried pineapple. Check the comments, because she’ll probably weigh in with suggestions.

**Black walnuts are also wonderful, but don’t use more than a half-cup, as their flavor is pretty strong, and you don’t want them to overpower everything.

Tiny Tuesday: Space-saving gifts

Last year, I ran into a bit of a challenge as Christmas approached. Earlier in the year, a new Five Below store had opened in town, and on my first visit, I’d found a plethora of items I was sure my niece would love. I bought several, wrapped them, and stacked them on a high shelf in the bedroom closet.

As the year progressed, I added to the pile: a Hastings run here, a trip to World Market there, with new additions being wrapped and placed on the shelf as they came in, until the pile started encroaching on the space bags full of extra linens, and I started running out of places to stash gifts where the dogs couldn’t unwrap them.

As I wedged an awkwardly wrapped plushie into the space between a Death Star tea infuser and a set of Batman pint glasses, I thought: When we build our tiny house, everybody’s getting a gift card, because I’m not going to have anywhere to store all this.

Then the tags started falling off the presents while I was trying to figure out which ones needed to go to whose house on Christmas, and in what order, and I decided I’d just make the switch this year instead of waiting until we move.

Look at all that space they aren’t taking up!

Maaaaan. Gift cards aren’t a new concept, obviously, and I buy a few every year (ask my dad how many Barnes and Noble cards he’s gotten in the past decade), but doing the vast majority of my shopping this way? Major stress reducer. No wrapping. No storing large items. No chasing the cat out of the presents 583,742 times a day. All I have to do is buy a few Christmas cards, slip the gift cards into them, and file them so they don’t get lost in the next month.

Bonus: If the recipients have limited space, they can use their cards to buy small items or consumables, so their gifts won’t create storage issues for them, either.

If you’re too disorganized to keep track of a gift card, another good option is to treat your loved ones to dinner out. I did this for my little brother’s birthday this year, and it was great: We got a nice visit, he got a meal he liked, and I got out of shopping. So. Much. WIN.

Emily

Eco-Saturday: Christmas shopping

I’ve never quite understood why Madison Avenue expects us to celebrate the birth of Jesus with an orgy of gluttony and avarice. It runs completely counter to Christ’s mission, and buying boatloads of excess junk — most of it packed in plastic and cardboard — and then wrapping it in paper we’re just going to throw away is spectacularly awful for the environment.

I’m not going to pretend I don’t participate in holiday gift-giving. It’s tradition, and my friends and family would be hurt if I didn’t. But I try to be responsible about it.

Here are a few ways to minimize the ecological impact of your holiday shopping:

1. Keep it local. Locally produced goods save fuel, and they’re better for your local economy, because more of the money you spend stays in town.

2. Keep it practical. I live in a 730-square-foot bungalow. Anything that comes in this house has to be small, useful or both, because we don’t have room to store a lot of random shiny objects. We’re particularly fond of consumables. I’m always glad to get cookie or cocoa mix in a jar, handmade soap, hand lotion, candles and the like. Gifts for the garden — such as this grow-your-own morels kit — also go over well. (Yeah, that was a shameless hint.) And some gifts truly “keep on giving”; for instance, LED lightbulbs, power strips to help eliminate phantom loads, shrinkwrap window insulation kits, draft stoppers and so forth may not be traditional presents, but they all save the recipient boatloads of money over time. Know a runner who drinks a lot of bottled water? Give him a faucet-mounted water filter and several reusable bottles. Does someone on your Christmas list love microbreweries? Buy her a home-brewing kit. Is a friend spending half his paycheck on K-cups that go straight into the landfill? Get him a reusable filter and a pound of locally roasted fair-trade coffee.

3. Recycle. Antiques, vintage clothing, vinyl records and used books all make great gifts for people whose tastes you know well. As for wrapping: Packages look cute wrapped in newspaper and tied with colorful bows, and sturdy gift bags can be reused year after year.

4. Give your time. The coupon books I made last year for the children in my life were a big hit, and I’m betting the memories of the time we’ve spent together this year will last far longer than any toy. For adults, consider offering to do chores such as mowing the yard, babysitting, steaming the carpets, weeding the garden, etc.

5. Make your own gifts. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Homemade seasoning mixes.
Herbal tea in a jar. (Instructions for drying your own herbs are here; when giving loose tea, be sure to include an infuser. I use this $3 model, but I’m considering an upgrade.)
The aforementioned coupon books.
Sock monkeys. (Pattern here.)
Draft stoppers.
Home-canned treats such as salsa, pickles or hot sauce.
Homemade soap.
Collections of heirloom seeds saved from your own garden.
Beekeepers, you know what to do.

6. Make a donation. We’re big fans of Heifer International, which allows you to donate sustainable gifts — such as farm animals, irrigation pumps or biogas stoves — to people in developing countries. (I bet you can guess our favorite item in that catalog.)

Emily