-A house is made of brick and stone, but a home is made of love alone-

   And gingerbread. What else do gingerbread people live in? This was the first year I decided to make a gingerbread house from scratch, and it ended the same way it does every year: my house still mostly fell apart, there were tears (and beers), and the best candy for decorating always ends up trashed afterwords because it's the most tragic for snacking. Except Teddy Grahams. I made an orphanage for the little bears and they seem to like their view of the tree. 

Gingerbread House

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   The gingerbread is easy to make like most simple cookies. To begin, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices together in a bowl. Next, in a small pan, melt the shortening and cool slightly before mixing in the sugar and molasses. Add eggs once the mixture has cooled completely.

   Pour the liquid mixture into either a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixture. Start by mixing four cups of the flour into the wet mixture and add the last cup afterwords. The dough should be very stiff. Flour a work surface and roll out the dough; you want it to be fairly thick, but it will expand while cooking. Once you have cut out your shapes, place them on greased cookie sheets and let them chill for 15 minutes to set back up. Bake the pieces anywhere from 5-10 minutes, taking into account the size of the pieces. 

   You want to dry the pieces for a full two days prior to building with them. Once they have dried out, they are ready for construction. We built ours on a few paper plates, but cardboard is ideal. To make the icing, combine the powdered sugar and meringue powder with water until a very, very thick paste forms. I would suggest working in layers instead of globbing it on. Also, try not to put heavy pieces of candy on the roof, as they're likely to slide of during the drawing process. 

After a long night

Recipe

5-10 min 350 F

Adapted from The Melrose Family

Gingerbread

5 c flour 

1 tsp baking soda 

1 tsp salt

2 tsp ginger

2 tsp cinnamon 

1 tsp nutmeg 

1 tsp clove

1 c shortening 

1 c sugar

1 1/4 c molasses

2 eggs

Icing

3 tbsp meringue powder

4 c powdered sugar

6 tbsp water

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!!!

     "Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet,

but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat."

     This time last year I was finishing up my classes in Italy and preparing for the oncoming winter...with alcohol, naturally. I had a rouge bottle of what I think was vodka that I decided to turn into limoncello. Traditionally, the saccharine beverage is made with grain alcohol, but when there's free booze about, you gotta just go with it. It turned out well, but I only made a small dent in it before I had to leave for greener, Scottish pastures. My roommate and her husband were the happy recipients of the bottle. Fast-forward to the present, and a new, smaller jar of limoncello is working away on my counter top.

Limoncello

 The original

New and Improved 

     It's pretty simple to make this spirit. The first step is to gather some organic lemons. I'm normally nut fussy about this, but citrus fruit does undergo a fair amount of pesticide treatments, so it's better to use the organic for this application. For half a liter of vodka, I peeled five lemons, making sure to leave the white pith behind. Next, I mixed the water and the sugar together in a jar until the sugar dissolved. Then I just combined everything together in a sealed jar and began to wait. I would recommend a four week resting period (ours will be ready by Christmas Eve), but if you're in a hurry, I believe two weeks would be enough time to get a similar effect. Chill the limoncello before serving and store it in the refrigerator for future imbibing. 

Recipe

500ml vodka

1 c water

1 c sugar

5 lemons, peeled