We spend the first half of December anticipating the holidays, and all of a sudden we’re sucked into the frantic current of gift-buying and cookie baking.
Rum balls I made to give away for the holidays
One way to battle the last-minute rush is to make your edible holiday gifts ahead of time. I love to make rum balls, which actually improve in flavor and texture after aging a week or two in a tin. I’ve also found that fudge keeps for quite a while in the fridge. Many cookies, such as chocolate chip, freeze and defrost well – just make sure to cool before freezing.
What are your favorite make-ahead holiday treats?
My favorite comes from growing up in Arizona: Several of the local Mexican families would make gigantic piles of tamales and give out little bundles to friends and neighbors. So I always associate tamales with Christmas. I really should try and get that tradition going around here.
I’ve got a couple tried and true cookie recipes I’ve been using for several years as well.
That sounds so neat! I would love to get something like that for the holidays. Have you ever made them yourself?
That reminds me, El Rancho Grande, the Mexican restaurant I’ve posted photos from on the RI food group, is doing a fixed-price dinner which looks really good (and includes a tamal):
http://elranchogranderestaurant.com/?p=news
I’ve made tamales many times, although it’s a little hard to get good corn wrappers up here (I either have to use the so-so Goya ones, remember to buy good ones when I’m in civilization, or talk the guy at the local Mexican place out of some of the halfway decent Sysco ones).
El Rancho Grande is definitely on my hit list for one of my next visits.
Dang, the local stores all seem to be out of corn husks (and I won’t even try looking for banana leaves up here). I’ll probably pink hit and use coffee filters for the first batch…