Holiday treats

I have some wonderful holiday treats for you today, but they come with a confession:  I know this will sound very un-foodbloggery of me, but I’m just not one to make a lot of Christmas treats.

I always have the best of intentions, usually starting with the first signs of the commercialization of the holidays – you know, in November, when we all moan that it’s too soon to be promoting Christmas.  Then all of a sudden, Christmas is only days away, and I haven’t even started.

My real foodie love is in the tradition of the savoury stuff like Christmas morning stratas (ie. Best of Bridge Christmas Morning Wife Saver).  So for the past two decades, I have been the one to jump up and down, waving my hand in the air, enthusiastically saying “I’ll host Christmas dinner!”

But with the holiday treats, I just haven’t had the time.  Until last year, I had a very hectic career that usually had me running hard right up until Christmas Eve, at which point, I’d switch gears and quickly bake up a couple of batches of squares, or some fudge.

This year, I have the luxury of being self-employed, making my life wonderfully flexible, plus of course, I read a lot of cookbooks, and have even made a few things throughout this year worthy of a Christmas dessert platter.

My husband was making a trip to his Toronto office this week, so I told him that I wanted to do something special for his colleagues.  Knowing about my above-stated issues, he responded with:  ”You know that we have almost sixty people in the office, right?  You have to make enough for everyone.”

No problem.  This year, I had it all figured out.

(And to my former colleagues who follow, I am so incredibly sorry that you missed out on this.  And I know that you’ll all understand.  But we’ll always have the White Chocolate Scones that I made for our office charity bake sales…)

Here’s what I made for my husband’s crew this week:

• Salted Nutella Fudge (Recipe to be posted on Saturday)

• Peanut Butter Fudge (This was my first-ever post on this blog)

• Chili, Lime & Tortilla Bark (From my recently posted review of Tortillas to the Rescue)

• My mother-in-law’s shortbread (Story to be posted tomorrow – but sorry, not the recipe and anyway it’s about technique.)

• Almond Roca (a Best of Bridge classic)

• Lemon squares (another Best of Bridge classic that I have been making for 15 years)