Holiday Traditions

The holiday season is my favorite time of year; I love the decorations, giving presents and most of all receiving presents! Also special for me are my family’s holiday traditions. This is the only time of year that we break out certain recipes like French-Canadian Meat Pie (Tourtiere), meat stuffing, Christmas Crepes and (thank god) my mom’s favorite date cookies. She insists on making these cookies every year and is the only one who eats them because frankly they are nasty, and I am seriously hoping that she takes the recipe with her to the grave someday.

I am not a baker; even though recently I was told that I have a tart tongue (and surprisingly it wasn’t a reference to my sweetness like a fruit tart). Sure I can produce the occasional cookie and pie but please do not ask me to bake a cake or batch of brownies. When it comes to baking I always say why make it yourself when there are perfectly good ones at the store. So if you really want those date cookies you need to see my mom for the recipe.

About five years ago I took over the making of our Christmas meat pies from my grandmother; a task I didn’t know was so involved. A few weeks before the holiday I got together all of the ingredients listed on the card from my mother’s recipe box entitled “Mom’s Meat Pie” and set to work. I spent the entire day cooking the filling and rolling out the dough to be rewarded with two beautiful pies. On Christmas night I proudly served them to the family and was told that they tasted wrong. How could that be, I followed the recipe to a tee. When I showed my grandmother the recipe card she said that it was not her meat pie. My mother had someone else’s recipe and I had slaved over a hot stove all day to create some other family’s traditional Christmas meat pie. I’m sure you can imagine my irritation.

So the next year when I was ready to try again I called my grandmother and had her personally give me the recipe before I began. What I got from her was very vague: two parts ground beef to one part ground pork, diced celery softened in butter, salt, pepper and poultry seasoning to taste, a few potatoes mashed plain and pie crusts. She told me to call her if I had any questions; sure I had questions, what were the exact amounts of the ingredients. First I diced up four stalks of celery very small and sautéed them in butter until they were soft, then added four pounds of ground beef and two pounds of ground pork. Let me tell you, before you stir around this much meat you might want to lift some weights, my arm was killing me from all that stirring. Now grandma said to season this to taste and let it cook for a few hours; no wonder this is done once a year, how tedious. After three hours I boiled four small potatoes, mashed them without any milk or butter and muscled them into the meat mixture. Woo Hoo more than half way done! This year I had that Pillsbury pie dough that you just unroll and place into the pie plate because there was no way I was making dough from scratch again. (Come to find out Grandma uses this product also, how shocking). So I went to work putting together my pies, all four of them and then baked them at 350 degrees for about thirty-five to forty minutes. They turned out beautiful and now all I had to do was freeze them and wait until Christmas.

On Christmas Eve I brought them home from the store freezer and could only fit two of them in the fridge, so my father told me to put the other two on the screened in porch, he assured me that they would be okay. Come morning I discovered that overnight some critters had broken through the screen and had their own holiday feast on my pies, great advice dad. Oh was I hot, all that hard work just to feed some dirty little critters. (To this day I despise critters of all varieties). Later that day when we served the remaining pies I was once again told that something was a bit off about them. Two years, two strikes.

Over the next year I did some CSIing and figured out that what was different about my pies is that I used a leaner ground beef than my grandmother. See, she got her ground beef from the grocery store so it wasn’t as lean as what I got from my parent’s store; but there was no way I was going to the grocery store for the meat, I don’t like inferior meat plus I got it for free from my dad. The third year I made the pies I explained this to the family and the complaining stopped. (It could also have been due to the Bite Me I carved into the crust). My version of the family traditional meat pie was just a bit healthier for us.

We also serve a meat stuffing, this though is made for Thanksgiving dinner, thank god because I really don’t care for turkey. The ingredients and process are the same as the meat pies except you add a few more potatoes and obviously omit the piecrust. Luckily my cousin Kelley has taken over this tradition because I don’t think that I could stand doing it twice a year.

Christmas morning is my favorite time of the day because we share breakfast with the neighbors, a tradition that my father started amazingly enough. The star of our breakfast is the Christmas Crepes, an item my best friend SC insists on having. She says that it wouldn’t be Christmas without them, but has yet to ask for the recipe, hmm wonder why. This tradition is done solely by my mother; she spends a whole day making the crepes because you have to do them one at a time, and we are serving around 30 people. The beautiful thing about this recipe is that you can buy crepe mix in the store and just follow the box directions, but I’ll give you the recipe anyway. First of all you need to get that credit card back from your guy and get a crepe pan; they are way easier to do with the special pan. So, to make the batter, mix up one cup each of water and milk, four eggs, two tablespoons of melted butter, and a half-teaspoon of salt. In a separate bowl make a well into two cups of flour; then pour your milk mixture into it and whisk until smooth. There can be absolutely no lumps in this batter. Once your shiny new crepe pan is hot spray it with a non-stick spray and coat the pan with two tablespoons of the crepe batter, you need to swirl it around the pan to get a nice thin crepe. Just like when you make pancakes flip the crepe when bubbles appear; when done move on to the next one.

The rest of this recipe is a piece of cake to do compared to the actual crepe making. To make the filling combine two beaten eggs, one softened package of cream cheese, one cup of cottage cheese, a quarter cup of sugar, and one teaspoon of vanilla. Once this is smooth, spoon about one and a half teaspoons across each crepe, roll them up and place in a baking dish. Cover the dish to prevent browning the crepes and bake at 350 degrees for about twenty minutes. While these cook make the topping; start by draining a large can of pineapple tidbits into a measuring cup to which you need to add enough orange juice to equal one and a quarter cups. Next mix up a quarter cup of sugar, and two tablespoons of cornstarch in a saucepan; add the juice mixture and cook until thickened, then remove from the heat and stir in one and a half cups of sliced strawberries, the reserved pineapple, and half a cup of drained mandarin oranges. Pour this fruit sauce over the crepes and watch them disappear.

I’m sure that everyone has a family tradition that is more work than they care to do, but when you think about it going through all that work keeps you connected to your heritage. I am very proud to be French-Canadian and no more so than when I am standing in front of that huge pot as I’m sure my great grandmother did in her Quebec kitchen. Of course my stove is fueled by gas, not wood and I don’t have a houseful of kids pulling on my apron strings, thank god! Oh, just so you know, my family’s meat pie recipe is traditional not gourmet and not everyone is going to like it. I hope that everyone enjoys their holiday and all the great food that goes along with the festivities.



Bergeron Family Tourtiere

3 Tblsp Butter
4 Stalks Celery diced
4 lbs. Ground Beef
2 lbs. Ground Pork
Salt, Pepper & Poultry Seasoning
4 small potatoes
4 pieces premade piecrusts

Over medium low heat sauté celery in the butter, add meats and sauté until browned and completely broken down. Add seasonings to your tastes. Boil the potatoes and mash with a remaining butter, add to the meat mixture and fully incorporate. Divide mixture between two piecrusts and top with the remaining crusts. Cut vents in top, brush with egg wash and bake at 350° for 35 minutes.




Racine Christmas Crepes

1-cup water
1-cup milk
4 eggs
2 Tblsp melted butter
½ tsp salt
2 cups flour

2 eggs, beaten
1 pkg cream cheese, softened
1 cup cottage cheese
¼ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1 20oz can pineapple tidbit, undrained
¼ cup sugar
2 Tblsp cornstarch
1 ½ cups strawberries
½ cup mandarin oranges
Orange juice


Mix first 5 ingredients together and then pour into the flour, mix until smooth. Cook the crepes one at a time and in 2 Tlbsp increments. Combine the next 5 ingredients into a filing and spoon 1 ½ tsp of it into each cooled crepe, roll them up and place in a baking dish. Bake covered at 350° for 20 minutes. Drain can of pineapple into a measuring cup and add enough orange juice to make 1-¼ cups of liquid. Add sugar and cornstarch and cook over medium heat until thickened. Add fruit and mix well, serve over the crepes.

Dump The Chump

There comes a point in every girl's life when she wakes up, rolls over and says “what am I doing with this guy!” Usually he is the stereotypical fun yet bad boy; you know who he is, has no serious career ambitions, drives a POC (piece of crap) vehicle that you are embarrassed to be seen in and still calls his mom’s house home. Admit it you have dated this guy probably because you were bored at the time and looking for a little fun, but eventually you came to the realization that you had to dump the chump! Now there are a multitude of ways you can get rid of this leach, the easiest being to change your locks, phone number, hair color and routines. But this could turn your little dumped friend into an amateur stalker. And that looses its charm in a few days and then you are filing for either a restraining order or a pistol permit. (Both are a lot of paperwork for one little loser and not your intended resolution to this situation). So let’s try a kinder gentler approach by serving Mr. To-be-dumped a meal over which it can be explained that even though it was fun, for a few days, its time to move on to bigger (bank accounts) and better (dressed) things.

Once you have made up your mind to kick this guy to the curb you need the perfect menu for his last supper. Keep in mind that this is someone that you once had at least a few feelings for so you don’t want to poison him; at least I hope you don’t. Plus you will be eating this meal also. But there is a fine line you have to walk because you really don’t want to put too much effort into the dinner; I mean you are dumping this dude, right? So keep things light and easy and maybe a tiny bit sweet. Let’s hope that the sweet will take the sting out of the whole dumping process and you don’t find all of your personal quirks posted on Twitter.

Begin the meal with a salad; combining the sweet elements I mentioned with some tart ones, remember bittersweet is your goal. Plus making a salad is easy and there are an infinite amount of combinations you can come up with. Here is a recipe for Spinach & Melon Ball Salad. Start by opening a bag of triple-washed baby spinach and dump it into a large salad bowl with half each of thinly sliced red onion and green pepper and about one and a half cups of melon balls, like watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew. In a separate bowl whisk together a quarter cup of red wine vinegar, two tablespoons honey, two teaspoons each of olive oil and lime juice and one teaspoon each of poppy seeds and crushed mint leaves. This salad has it all, nutritional value, sweetness, tang and the possibility of making the chump fail his next drug test.

Or you can try the tarter Mixed Greens with Apple Salad. Start by whisking a quarter cup olive oil, two tablespoons red wine vinegar, half a finely chopped shallot, salt and pepper right in the salad bowl. Add three thinly sliced celery stalks and one thinly sliced crisp apple to the dressing and toss to coat. Once this is done toss in about four cups of mixed greens, toss and sprinkle with toasted pumpkin seed kernels. I really like the addition of either seeds or nuts to my salads; they give a bit of crunch that is a nice change.

Now you ask, what do I serve for the main course? Well that’s easy, sandwiches! See they are yummy, but easy enough that you don’t expend too much energy on this yahoo. But make it seem a bit special by turning them into Paninis.

First here is a Sweet Cherry-Cheese Panini. Start by sautéing half a thinly sliced red onion with a quarter teaspoon of dried thyme until caramelized. Once this is accomplished stir in one-teaspoon Balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper, cook for a minute or so and then remove from the heat. Mix the cooled off onion mixture with a quarter cup of pitted and chopped fresh sweet cherries. In another bowl combine half a package of cream cheese and about two ounces of goat cheese until well blended. Spread the cheese mixture onto two slices of Italian bread, top with the cherry mixture and then two other slices of bread. Heat up a grill pan and place the sandwiches on it pressing them with a heavy pan, once golden brown flip and repeat the process. This sandwich is sweet, tangy, creamy and crunchy. And a plus is that it is not too heavy as to make Mr. To-be-dumped too full and lethargic; because the point of all this is to get him out of your house!

Another sweet and tangy Panini is made with chicken and fig jam. I make this sandwich on Ciabatta bread, which is crusty and chewy. Begin by combining one tablespoon of butter with two tablespoons of goat cheese until well blended. Spread the cheese mixture on two slices of the Ciabatta and top with some sliced grilled chicken breast, a little fresh baby spinach, salt and pepper. On the other slice of bread spread a nice thick layer of the fig jam, and press the sandwiches on a hot grill pan until golden brown.

I seriously wouldn’t waste my time making dessert for someone I don’t want to stay the night; however I might have something hidden just for me to enjoy after the carnage. Personally I think that the recipes shared here sugar coat the demise of a relationship enough, he doesn’t need anything else from you. Life is short girls don’t waste too much of your precious time on mediocrity and dump the chump. Oh, and don’t spend too much time worrying about his delicate emotions because he can always cry on his mom’s shoulder. The way I have come to think about this type of guy is that he was an accessory to match the outfit you were wearing at that particular time. You wouldn’t feel bad about tossing all that fake costume jewelry in the Goodwill bin; so why would you stress over recycling the man-boy chump?



Spinach & Melon Ball Salad

1 bag Triple washed baby spinach
½ Red onion, thinly sliced
½ Green pepper, thinly sliced
1 ½ cups Assorted melon balls
¼ cup Red wine vinegar
2 Tlbsp Honey
2 tsp. Olive oil
2 tsp. Lime juice
1 tsp. Poppy seeds
1 tsp. Mint leaves, crushed
Fill a bowl with the first 4 ingredients. In a separate bowl whisk together the remaining ingredients and toss with the salad.


Mixed Greens with Apple Salad

¼ cup Olive oil
2 Tlbsp Red wine vinegar
½ Shallot, finely chopped
Salt & pepper
3 stalks Celery, thinly sliced
1 Apple, thinly sliced
4 cups Mixed greens
¼ cup Toasted pumpkin seed kernels

In the bottom of a large bowl whisk together the first 4 ingredients. Toss the remaining ingredients with the dressing and serve.



Sweet Cherry-Cheese Panini


½ Red onion, thinly sliced
¼ tsp. Dried thyme
1 tsp. Balsamic
Salt & pepper
¼ cup Sweet cherries, pitted & chopped
½ pkg. Cream cheese, softened
2 oz. Goat cheese, softened
4 slices Italian bread

Sauté the onion and thyme in olive oil until caramelized, add the vinegar, salt and pepper, remove from heat and cool. Add cherries to onion mixture. Combine the cheeses well, spread onto two sliced of the bread, spoon the onion mixture on top and cover with the remaining bread. Press grill the sandwich until golden brown on each side.



Figgie Chicken Panini

4 slices Ciabatta bread
1 Tlbsp Butter
2 Tlbsp Goat cheese
½ lb. Grilled chicken breast, sliced
Small amt Baby spinach leaves
2 Tlbsp Fig jam

Combine the butter and cheese well and spread onto two slices of bread. Top with chicken and spinach and spread the jam onto the remaining slices of bread. Press grill until golden brown.