Holiday Baking

Last night as I was making my last trip through the family room, on my way to bed, a magazine in a partially unpacked box caught my eye. I LOVE sugar cookies with icing. Mine are never pretty but I always think they will be . . but they’re not. It’s ok . . they taste yummy whether they’re pretty or not.

Vince was finishing up watching something on TV and I told him – no rush . . I’m going to look at this magazine for a while.

This is an old Taste of Home magazine from 2009 and it has so many recipes that look good. I got out of bed and grabbed a pad of sticky notes to mark some of the pages with recipes I want to make.

That got me to thinking about the supply shortages. I’m going to make a list of all the recipes I want to make and go ahead and get any ingredients I don’t have here. It isn’t that long til I start making pumpkin bread and then Thanksgiving baking. After Thanksgiving, it’s Christmas cookie time!

Even things like cream cheese have long expiration dates, but especially things like baking chips, nuts, even butter . . last year there were limits on butter and during baking season, I go through a lot of butter. I keep it in the freezer. I think some struggled to find canned pumpkin last year. Who knows what will and will not be available so if you have the funds and the space, I’d recommend getting what you think you’ll need. We don’t need to buy a dozen cans of pumpkin or a dozen pounds of butter . . unless you truly will need it all.

I had a friend yesterday who was complaining about wanting a certain brand of Vienna sausage. She went to buy a couple of cans and the shelf was empty. She walked a ways farther and saw a man with about 30 cans of it in his cart and she was offended. I understand that hoarding is not good but I also believe in first come, first served. You never know someone’s circumstances. That man may be someone who comes to town once a month and uses a can of that stuff every day, or he may have grandkids that come to his house after school and he gives it to them as a snack (poor kids!). 🙂

What if there had been 30 cans on the shelf and the guy took 28 of them and the person behind him took 2 and then when my friend got there, the shelf was empty? My thoughts are . . if you like Vienna sausage, buy 10 cans, keep them on your shelf, when you get down to 5 cans, buy 5 more.

I don’t go to town often so I often buy multiples of things. I make Rita’s food and once about every 7 or 8 days, I use 2 cans of peas and 2 cans of carrots in her food. So that’s 8 cans of each per month at least. When I start on the last case of peas and carrots, if Vince is with me, I buy two more cases of each. I’m not hoarding .. I’m getting enough so that every time I open those cans, I don’t have to stop and add more cans to my grocery list, nor do I have to worry about there being no canned carrots and she’s out of food. At one point earlier this year, I couldn’t get canned peas or canned carrots or mixed peas and carrots at Walmart. Thankfully I realized that just as I started on the last case and by the time I was getting low, they had more in stock.

I guess we all have our own definition of hoarding. Buying a year’s worth of anything that is already in short supply is probably hoarding. Though I do keep at least a year’s worth of most things on hand, I accumulated it over time and I replace it as I use it so I don’t consider that hoarding . . though some people may.

Anyway . . think about what you’ll need for holiday baking and if it’s something there’s a chance it could be hard to find, you might want to get it.