All posts by Gina Kleinmartin

health, meditation

Meditations on the 12 days of Christmas

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For most people who celebrate any part of the Christmas season, it’s a mad rush of house cleaning, cookie baking, present purchasing and wrapping, decorating and being around family. By the end of the day on the 25th, people are worn out, tired and ready to forget the holidays.

And most people do. The wrapping gets thrown away, the tree comes down, and there is no more celebration or contemplation until we are reminded again of the holidays for a few hours on New Year’s Eve.

For many people, the Twelve Days of Christmas in the song have ended on the 25th, and there is now a depression and a darkness that hits.

But Christmas Day is the first day of Christmas, and the 12 days follow it.  I wanted to spend some time during this time of quiet after the rush of the holidays just meditating on aspects of life that the holidays brought up, one for each day of celebration. And I finally decided to just write meditations on the Song— it was already set up for the 12 days, and each part of the memory game could mean something particular.

So this year, I am sharing my Meditations on the 12 days of Christmas, so you can join me if you also need a chance to breathe and think over this holiday.

Starting with the First Day of Christmas: A Partridge in a Pear Tree.
The Second Day: Two Turtle Doves. 
The Third Day: Three French Hens.
The Fourth Day: Four Calling Birds
The Fifth Day: Five Golden Rings
The Sixth Day: Six Geese a-Laying
The Seventh Day: Seven Swans a-Swimming
The Eight Day: Eight Maids a-Milking
The Ninth Day: Nine Ladies Dancing
The Tenth Day: Ten Lords a-Leaping
The Eleventh Day: Eleven Pipers Piping
The Twelfth Day: Twelve Drummers Drumming
Epiphany

Food

Candy Beans

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Candy Beans are very possibly the least healthy way to eat beans ever, and a favorite way to eat them in our house. Our son has a little dance he does when he finds out they are for supper, and if I ask what bean dish anyone wants, this tops the bill.

What follows is how I make them in my Instant Pot

, which I purchased many many years ago because it was advertised on the back of a bag of beans. It makes making beans faster and easier. These beans can be cooked on the range, in the oven, or in a slow cooker as well. They can even be cooked next to a campfire.

Ingredients:

1 pound of white beans of your choice. Navy, Pinto, Lima— I have tried them all. The Instant Pot is supposed to allow you to skip soaking, but that’s up to you. They don’t come out right for me without soaking, unless I add a lot of time to them. I would soak with any other type of cooking. The photos show unsoaked beans.

That’s homemade sour cream on the right and brown sugar in the middle. The Teriyaki container to the left of the sugar is molasses. The other day our son opened a container and was shocked to find what was in it was what it was labelled.

1 stick (1/2 cup) melted butter. Oh, it gets worse. You want it melted so it mixes in well with the beans. If you are doing this in the oven, you can just stir it in. In the Instant Pot, I merely set it to sauté as I’m prepping everything else.

1 Tablespoon powdered dry mustard

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon salt (I did use salted butter as well)

1 chopped onion (something healthy!)

1/4 pound chopped bacon Honestly, I have completely forgotten to put the bacon in occasionally, and have heard no complaints.

Now for the much less healthy stuff. Yes, worse than the above.

¼ cup molasses

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup sour cream I have on occasion replaced this with yogurt to make this marginally healthier. It came out fine.

Mix these in. Now, you need to add water, but you don’t want the result too soupy. If you have presoaked beans, barely to cover in the Instant Pot ought to be enough. In the oven, crock or range, just keep adding water until the beans are ready.

I set the beans to the ‘bean’ button (or crock on low, or in a 325 oven) for 40 minutes, (or crock for 10 hours, oven for 6 hours) and let it naturally release pressure. You want the beans to mush with the back of a spoon.

 

That’s it. Serve with steamed or pressure cooked brown bread and you have a good, tasty, filling meal. That’s not a bit healthy. But still full of fiber!

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Cooking new things: Italian Buttercream Meringue

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So, I am on a quest to cook through all my clipped recipes. So, this is one of the first I picked up, because I had the egg whites on hand. While making the meringue I noticed that it is actually an Italian Buttercream. You can tell by looking at the recipe that that may have been a little hard to tell, though. I don’t know what made me chose this particular one to try out, or why I bothered to write it out, when I have it in multiple books- it must have come with a glowing recommendation from someone. Who? I have no clue. If you know, please let me know!

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I was in a rush, so I did not follow it too well. I used 11 egg whites, because that’s what I had on hand. I whisked to 160 on an instant read thermometer

,because that’s what eggs need to cook to. If I was working with raw egg whites, I am paranoid enough to use either powdered egg whites

  or bean juice.

 

This is the sugar and the egg whites in my pan, starting up on medium heat, before whisking. I used a decent 4 qt All Clad pan 

for this, because it’s perfect for finicky things like this. I did not let the egg whites come to room temperature, which is supposed to raise the volume, but I wasn’t planning far enough ahead for that.

 

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