The SS Club Presents: A Very Mexican Christmas

Personally, I love Christmas trees. Can't say I care too much for the holiday itself, but I must say that the tree aspect really helps me tolerate the singing, shopping, and mandatory 1 night of church a year I endure to please the family. I will get a real tree every year as long as I live. Fake trees are an abomination to me, and I shall hear of no such thing. I mean really, the smell alone is worth the cost and hassle.

This year I purchased my tree from the Forestry class at the high school where I work. $30 for a tree 8 ft tall and 5 ft wide, you can't go wrong with that. So after a bunch of teenage boys with chainsaws loped off 2 ft (I wasn't sure of the height of my living room, but 6ft was all I willing to risk) and managed to get the entire tree INSIDE my car with NO doors or trunks open, I made the long, pine-scented drive home. And prepared to call a SS Club meeting.

While leafing through a authentic Mexican cookbook I had borrowed from the Culinary teacher earlier that day, I found a very enticing recipe I decided on for the evening: Crispy Lentil Cakes with Tomato Chipotle Sauce*. It was going to be a Mexican Christmas party.

The sauce was fairly easy, but the cakes were a little annoying. You had to cook the lentils for at least 30 minutes, plus freeze the individuals cakes for 30 minutes, so if you make this, be sure to give yourself a lot of time. Some of the cakes also fell apart, but thankfully the recipe made a bunch so that even with our disasters, we still fed 4 very hungry people with food leftover.

After eating, then the decorating! Now our house has always been more of a Halloween house than a Christmas one, but who says you can't have both? Our tree was decided to be far from anything traditional or "pretty", but instead funny, and maybe a little weird. We used the eyeball lights that decorated my porch for Halloween, as well as retro Christmas lights with bulbs so big I'm afraid to leave them plugged in for more than 20 minutes. The ornaments range from Simpsons characters, to tiny golden Elvis records, to amputated monsters riding sparkly balls that jingle, and everything in between. Also, as we opened up the bag of ornaments, I realized that one of the candy canes from last year had melted all over, causing many of them to look like they were bleeding. We went with it.

Our product:

A few ornament closeups:

I don't know what this is supposed to be, but it has no arm.

Clothespin solider at full attention.

Santa cop, patrolling the red light district of my tree.


And my favorite addition, the drunken, wine bottled, robot-esq angel. The best part is that the wine is called "Falling Star"


Coming soon- Tampon angels.

-Nikki


*Recipes featured in this meeting:

Tomato-Chipotle Sauce

You will need:
3-4 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
3 medium-large ripe tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon of salt

1. Lay tomatoes on a baking sheet and place about 4 inches under a very hot broiler. When they soften and blacken on one side, about 6 minutes, turn them over for 6 minutes on the other side.
2. Roast unpeeled garlic cloves in an ungreased pan for 15 minutes, turning occasionally.
3. When tomatoes are finished, allow them to cool and then remove the skins.
4. Put garlic, tomatoes and any juice from them, and chiles in a food processor. Pulse the machine until it has the consistency of thick tomato sauce.
5. Heat vegetable oil in a pan, and when hot, add sauce and cook until thick and dark red/brown, about 5 minutes,

Crispy Lentil Cakes

You will need:
10 oz brown lentils (not red)
1 medium white onion
Olive oil
6 large garlic cloves, unpeeled
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
Salt
Pepper
2 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
2 cups dry bread crumbs

1. In a pot bring 2 quarts of heavily salted water to a boil. Add lentils and simmer on medium for about 30-35 minutes. You want them tender and cooked, but not mushy. Drain, and spread out on a baking sheet to completely cool.
2. Roast unpeeled garlic in an ungreased pan for 15 minutes, turning often. Cool, peel, then finely chop.
3. Chop onion and brown in a pan with oil for 10 minutes.
4. Mix lentils, onion, garlic, cilantro, cheese, pepper and salt in a bowl.
5. Use a 1/4 measuring cup and pack lentil mixture in tightly, to the top. Turn over on a baking sheet and lightly tap the top, dislodging the cake (The mixture isn't very sticky, so this trick helps you make an easy cake shape)
6. Freeze cakes for 30 minutes, to make breading easier.
7. Combine eggs and milk and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Spread out bread crumbs on a plate. Dip each cake into egg mixture, ad then cover in breadcrumbs.
8. Turn on oven to lowest setting. In 1/8 inch of oil, fry the cakes for 3 minutes on each side, doing only 2-3 at a time. When each cake is done frying, store in the oven on a baking sheet until finished with all of them.
9. Top of Tomato Chipotle Sauce, and enoy!