Eunhee Lee

Thank Eunhee for this recipe!  
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The only planning needed is to purchase the rice wraps (I used to buy at Smith’s in Los Alamos or you can purchase on Amazon).  Everything else is likely in your fridge already.

Do not layer rolls over 2 layers as they get sticky and become difficult to remove.  If rolls are sticky when serving, tell your guest to remove slowly to prevent damage.  (This is not a bandaid!!!)
Enjoy!  We miss everyone’s beautiful smiles.
Vegan Spring Rolls

• ½ head of red leaf lettuce, chopped
• 5 baby cut carrots, cut into matchsticks
• ½ cup of cilantro, chopped
• 1 4.7 oz pack of rice wrappers.  See picture above. (About 17 wraps)

Directions: 

1. Wash hands.
2. Mix lettuce, matchstick cut carrots and cilantro together in a bowl.
3. Pour 1/2 cup to one cup of water in a large plate or large pie dish that will fit the rice wrap diameter.
4. Soak one rice wrap in the plate of water for 15 seconds.  It just needs to be pliable.  If it’s too soft (in water too long) it will be difficult to handle.
5. Move softened wrap to another plate or cutting board with groove.
6. Collect about a 1/8 cup of lettuce mix with hands and place on one end the of softened wrap.
7. Fold over and roll.  This Youtube link gives a visual on how to wrap the rolls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvYhQwIBc7Y  I do not use a two-step process to fill the roll as it does it this video but I think it is still helpful.  Just skip the second filling step on the video if you want to base it strictly on my recipe.
8. Repeat with remaining wraps.

 
Thai-Style Peanut Sauce

• ¼ cup of maple syrup (vegan) or honey
• ¼ cup smooth peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

 
Directions: Whisk together until consistency of honey
 
Credit to:  Jeramyn Feucht, Allrecipes.com for sauce

There are a lot of traditions in the Bondy family at holiday time.  Fried Bologna at breakfast and wreath cookies - always a favorite with the kids of all ages.
 


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¼ cup butter
40 regular or 4 cups mini marshmallows
5 cups corn flakes
green food coloring
red hots
 
Melt butter in a 3 quart saucepan.   Add marshmallows and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until marshmallows are melted.  Add food coloring to make a deep green.  Stir in corn flakes, working quickly, spoon cornflake mixture into 24  2” mounds onto waxed paper.  Add 3-4 red hots to top and shape round.   It helps to spray your teaspoons and waxed paper with Pam.
 
Watch out for the green tongues!

Christmas and cookies go together ofcourse.  I have many happy memories of cookies sweetening this year-end holiday, but my favorite is of a woman with whom I worked who took Christmas cookie baking seriously.  Every December 1, she bought 20 pounds of butter.  Every day after work, she would make a light dinner and go to bed early.  Then she would awake about two o’clock in the morning and bake a batch of cookies.  These would be packed into candy boxes she collected throughout the year at the office, where we had a custom of celebrating our birthdays by buying two pounds of chocolates, passing them around after lunch, and then giving my friend the empty box.  These boxes of cookies would be stashed in her freezer to be shared at Christmas, especially at her annual Christmas open house.  In addition to all the Swedish recipes she learned early in life, she made Mexican besos (kisses) and a shortbread cookie so rich that she cut the dough into half-inch cubes, sprinkled with red and green sugars.
 
Another woman, with the help of two of her friends, gathered all of her grandchildren into her large kitchen on a Saturday early in December for a full day of baking and decorating cookies while their parents had the day free for serious Christmas shopping.  When their parents returned, each child offered them a tin of Christmas cookies.
 
My all-time favorite Christmas cookie is my Mother’s unusual butter cookie, which is offered here for you to try.  Please do and remember to leave some out for Santa Claus.   EnJOY

Christmas Eve in our Unger household always was scented by pine from the Christmas tree, furniture polish in the living room, the fishy smell of tuna salad (the only time in the year that this meal was served due to a meatless vigil), and the best smell of all---Christmas butter cookies.  My Mother’s Christmas butter cookies are like no others due to their 1/4-inch thickness and primarily due to the inclusion of sieved hard-boiled egg yolks, which affect the texture and enhance the yellow color.  The cookies should be golden yellow, not brown, so one must watch the baking carefully (my Mother would pull up a chair to the oven with its light on to watch color).  This recipe was lost for many years until a happenstance long-distance phone call with our long-time next-door Illinois neighbor, Laverne, gratefully brought it to light.  On Laverne’s recipe card, this recipe was attributed to another neighborhhood baker with whom my Mother shared it but who claimed it as her own.  I still use my Mother’s five old Christmas cookie cutters; they are willed to my children, Lisa, Sheila, and Patrick, and to my granddaughters, Haley and Zoe.​

Quite a few years ago I assembled a family cookbook with recipes from members of our extended and blended family.  This recipe is from my Grandchildren's French Grandmother Laure Nikolic (and an excuse to include a picture of my much younger grandson).
Laure Nikolic
 
Ingrédients
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Madeleine mold
 
Set oven   to 350°F. 
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.
Beat eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until light and foamy. Gradually add granulated sugar, beating constantly at high speed, and continue to beat until mixture is tripled in volume. Add flour and melted butter slowly.

Spoon a rounded tablespoon of batter into each mold.
Bake for 8 minutes until golden brown.