tradition

I have a long-standing tradition of doing fairly nothing for New Year's Eve. In middle school and high school I baby-sat most of the time. The evening of December 31, 1999, my brother and I stayed up to see if the world would blow up, but all that happened at 12 o' clock was the heat went on in the house. The first couple years in Pittsburgh I went to parties hosted by my friend Tim. Last year I have no recollection of what I did, so it probably wasn't exciting. This year...well, this year I'm blogging BUT I'm also holding up a "tradition" in cooking - Mom and I baked Dutch foods for dinner and dessert.

First it was genuine, original pig-in-the-blankets (in Dutch they're called saucijzenbroodjes), which are probably not terrifically healthful but are SOOOOO good! No hot dogs are harmed in the making of these little flaky treats. You form ground pork into "pigs," wrap it in the world's best dough, and pop them in the oven. Soon the whole house smells warm and wonderful and you can't wait to eat them. Then you freeze the leftovers and take a couple out to microwave for breakfast when you want a treat. That last part isn't very authentically Dutch, but the pigs themselves are. I love them. Here's a whole sty's worth:

this little piggy went in my tummy!

And of course there's banket (pronounced bon-KET, not like blanket without the l), which is a sweet almond-filled pastry. It crumbles like nobody's business, and whenever my mom makes it it blows up in the oven (almond paste oozes everywhere), but it smells and tastes delicious! It's a pain to make, so usually we buy it from the grocery store - and yes, the marvelous Grand Rapids area grocers do stock banket at Christmas time. Yuuuuum!!!!

you can see where we scraped off the oozing insides!

With that, happy new year to all!