Holiday treats

We had a busy and very nice Christmas/Hanukah. 

We started off at dim sum. 

I told Leslie we should go early, she said not to worry. 

Oops. 

The line at Jasmine stretched a block.

We were supposed to meet some new friends there, they were just leaving Oceanside when we were seated so we decided to order. 

Didn't want to be rude but there was a lot of pressure for tables.

Had a very pleasant meal, nice couple. 

The food was hot and good. 

It was nice to see the holiday message on the screen of the large room.

We had the treif trifecta, roast pork, shrimp and pork shumai.

Might as well knock them all off the list early.

Afterwards to drove to Renee's and had some hors d'oeuvres.

Following that we went to Doctor Neon's for an early dinner.

He had smoked turkey and smoked shrimp and had cooked a ham along with a marvelous stuffing and green beans.

So basically we ate all day.

And we weren't finished.

I thought these were cool sweaters from Neon's party.

I saw this cool sweater at coffee this morning, worn by a marine helicopter pilot.

It reminded me of an Afghani war rug.

Reindeer and copters.

Anyway, we got home last night and we had puff pastry thawing and blackberries that needed to be used so I made a couple tarts.

The first one I made was a blackberry walnut on a cream cheese base.   

Then I decided to whip something else up out of my head and went for chocolate banana. 

I made that on a butter base and it was actually better than the berry.

I put  a bunch of sugar on the blackberries and still, they never get quite sweet enough.

I don't like the Trader Joe's special puff pastry quite as well as the Dufour.

The other night Leslie made a savory tart, with spinach, mushroom, prosciutto, parmesan and garlic.

The only problem is that the bottom wasn't crispy enough, next time I will assemble it on a pizza stone.

I also made my first foray into cookie baking in a long time, borrowing RoxAnn's persimmon cookie recipe.

This included ripe persimmons, walnuts, raisins and her homemade applesauce. 

I added clove, nutmeg and cinnamon.

The one thing I didn't do was add shortening like she does.

I used butter instead and the color and consistency was totally different.

Still great, I think.

I am going to make them again with crisco and see if I can get them like hers.

As you can see, mine are pretty irregularly shaped, she uses a melon scoop.

My pastry aesthetics have a long way to go but they still work very well in the stomach, thankfully.