Christmas Morning

At work this morning was like Christmas morning. We had the food spread, like we do every Tuesday and Thursday, and I arrived at work to presents. The spinning top endeared herself by buying me a lint brush and a book. Don't think a lint brush is endearing? It is if you said that you wanted one and couldn't find one, you know those old fashioned kind with the big oval brush part that is usually red and a wood handle? She gave me one just like that, except that it has a brush on both sides! The book is "urban pantry, Tips and Recipes for a Thrifty, Sustainable & Seasonal Kitchen." You can call it sustainable and seasonal, I call it preparedness, but I was surprised at her good choice on something I would like. (It is the same concept as the lint brush, one that really works and lasts forever, or an excuse for one that is really a roll of masking tape on a plastic handle that needs constant replacing?)

The book has recipes that call for quinoa. I've never heard of quinoa (and neither has spell check.) According to the University of Wisconsin Alternative Field Crops Manual,

Quinoa or quinua (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is native to the Andes Mountains of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. This crop (pronounced KEEN-WAH), has been called 41 vegetable caviar" or Inca rice, and has been eaten continuously for 5,000 years by people who live on the mountain plateaus and in the valleys of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile. Quinua means "mother grain" in the Inca language. This crop was a staple food of the Inca people and remains an important food crop for their descendants, the Quechua and Aymara peoples who live in rural regions.

Quinoa is in the same botanical family as sugarbeet, table beet, and spinach, and it is susceptible to many of the same insect and disease problems as these crops. Quinoa is sometimes referred to as a "pseudocereal" because it is a broadleaf non-legume that is grown for grain unlike most cereal grains which are grassy plants. It is similar in this respect to the pseudocereals buckwheat and amaranth.

Quinoa is a highly nutritious food. The nutritional quality of this crop has been compared to that of dried whole milk by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The protein quality and quantity in quinoa seed is often superior to those of more common cereal grains. Quinoa is higher in lysine than wheat, and the amino acid content of quinoa seed is considered well-balanced for human and animal nutrition, similar to that of casein.

In the recipes, quinoa seems be used like rice.

For the food spread, I brought my poor-man's truffles. I call them poor-man's because they are really easy, except for all that rolling, 36 truffles in a batch, and they do not have that extra coating of chocolate around the outside. They are more like just eating the soft center, rolled in unsweetened cocoa. This time, I tried to roll them in toasted coconut, but it wouldn't stick. I think you need the lighter, thinner chocolate on the outside to achieve truffles rolled in coconut, so I just went with the cocoa. It was a hit anyway.

My boss brought a smoked turkey and someone made monkey bread like my Mom makes, the pull apart kind where you roll the balls in cinnamon and walnuts and then stack them in a Bundt pan and pour melted butter and Karo syrup on them and bake until the bread rises and everything gets all sticky. I have that recipe, where is it? The bread at work tasted almost as good as Mom's.

I brought gifts for my two co-workers yesterday because I was bringing the truffles today and went to work this morning in a pretty low holiday mood. All of the presents and food this morning really helped, especially the thoughtfulness of the spinning top.

The used to be pregnant girl has been wound up herself the last week or two. We have a joke about how she is always wound up on Friday afternoons and last week she revealed she bought an espresso machine. She's been drinking espresso every morning and evening. Oh, I said, that's why you've been like Friday afternoon all week! She has a look that is half sheepish and half scowl and that is the look I got. You can imagine what holiday chocolate on top of all of the espresso is doing.

Regardless of all the presents and treats, the work week is still crawling by, it's only Tuesday.