Here at Geranium, there are so many things that we love about the holiday season including spending quality time with friends and family, holiday shopping, Christmas music, and of course all of the delicious food! We wanted to share some of the Geranium family-favourite recipes for the holiday season.
Caribbean Pastelles
Nadia, the executive assistant to the VP Land Development, was kind enough to share her favourite recipe from back home in Trinidad. “We make these every single Christmas. The Pastelles are a huge part of our tradition and Trinidad and most families make them whether here or at home.” I do hope you enjoy this taste of the tropics over the holidays!
- 3 cups of grated green corn or cornmeal
- 1 lb minced cook meat (beef, chicken, or soya for vegetarians)
- 2 large tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 3 capers or sweet pickles
- 1/2 cup of raisins
- 2 medium onions
- 1/4 cup of cooking oil
- 1/4 sweet pepper
- 2 blades chive
- Banana leaves cut in 8” squares
- Chop all green seasonings finely and mix with meat. Brown in hot oil.
- Add chopped tomatoes, raisins and sweet pepper. Blend well together.
- Clean banana leaves with a damp cloth and steam them over hot water to make them pliable.
- Crush corn and dampen with a little salted water, butter the leaf squares and spread with the corn mixture.
- Place 2 tablespoons of the meat mixture on each square leaving a 1-inch border.
- Fold over and tie securely into a parcel, using thread.
- Steam for about 1 hour.
“I have always been a die hard carrot cake lover so you can trust me when I say this is the WORLD’S BEST CARROT CAKE,” explains Danielle in Geranium’s Marketing Department. “I make it for so many special occasions, my family absolutely loves it and whenever I serve it there are no leftovers.”
Danielle’s family has an annual Chanukah bake-off where everyone in the family bakes a special treat and then they judge on creativity, presentation, and taste. Danielle made this carrot cake at the last “bake-off” and impressed all of the judges proudly taking home first place! “I hope you enjoy! And Happy Chanukah!”
- Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. salt
- 3 tsp. ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp. nutmeg
- 4 eggs
- 1 ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup granulated white sugar
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 tsp. vanilla
- 3 cups grated carrots
- 1 cup of pecans (optional)
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
- Prepare either two 9” pans or one 12” cake pan, spray well or line with parchment paper
- In a bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg
- In a bigger bowl, whisk together eggs, oil, sugars, and vanilla, until incorporated
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix for about 2 minutes
- Add the grated carrots and pecans
- Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out dry when inserted. Cool completely before icing.
- To make the frosting, beat together cream cheese and butter until creamy. Add in icing sugar and beat for about a minute. Add the vanilla. Beat for another minute.
“Our kitchen on Christmas day is chaos,” says Amanda, a Project Estimator, “You know the classic saying “too many cooks in the kitchen”? There are never enough burners and way too many dishes to wash.” Wrap that up with trying to time it all to the table – and it could spell disaster. “A few years ago I came across this simple recipe for crockpot green beans. When I make bacon in the morning for breakfast I put some aside for this fantastic supper side dish! Now I get asked to make it every year – I just don’t tell them how easy it is.”
- 1 bag frozen green beans
- 2 (14 ounce) cans chicken broth
- 1 onion
- 1⁄2 lb bacon
- bacon drippings
- salt and pepper to taste
- Thaw frozen green beans.
- Cut the bacon into small chunks and slightly fry.
- Drain the green beans.
- Season the chicken broth with roasted garlic.
- Dump all ingredients into the crock-pot.
- Cook on high for 5 hours or low for 8 hours.
Soda Bread
Michael, Assistant Project Manager, and his family likes to keep traditions alive around the holidays. One of the ways they do it is through his grandmother’s Irish soda bread recipe. “My late grandmother from Dublin used to make it all the time” Michael says, “and now my dad makes it to keep the tradition in my family!”
- Ingredients
- 4 cups of flour
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of baking soda
- 2 ½ teaspoons of cream of tartar
- 2 cups of buttermilk
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- Optional 2 cups of raisins or 2 cups of cranberries
- Mix the dry ingredients together including the raisins/cranberries, add the butter milk, mix all the ingredients in a mixing bowl
- Mix into a ball then take the ball of dough out of the bowl and knead the dough on the counter (sprinkle a light coat of flour on counter) while adding the table spoon of butter gradually
- place ball of dough in deep circular pie baking pan and cut a cross in the dough almost halfway through the dough.
- Place in oven
- Bake for 40-45 minutes at 375-400 degrees, turn (bread around 180 degrees in rack) after 20 minutes
- Test centre moisture of bread with wooden skewer/metal rod/fork. Should be no dough stuck to the skewer.
“It’s not always easy to be vegan in a non-vegan family,” explains our Land Development student, Jesica. “ And it’s definitely not easy to convince them that it also tastes really good!” Last year, Jesica found this delicious vegan gingerbread recipe and decided to try it out. “My family loved it, and it’s now a staple in our family.”
- 1⅓ cups whole wheat flour
- ¾ cup unbleached all purpose flour
- ½ tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tbsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp ginger
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp cloves
- ½ cup coconut oil
- ½ cup + 1 tbsp evaporated cane sugar
- ¼ cup water
- ½ cup fancy molasses (blackstrap is not recommended)
- ½ tsp vanilla
- In a medium sized bowl combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream together the coconut oil and the sugar. Beat for 1-2 minutes until the mixture is nice and light. Add the water, molasses and vanilla, beat for another 30 seconds to mix thoroughly.
- Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed sugar mixture, beating to combine.
- Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (or for at least 2 hours)
- Before rolling, let the dough sit at room temperature for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 325F.
- Roll the dough directly onto parchment paper. (Read our baking tips above for perfectly rolled cookies.) The dough should be ¼" thick. Use cookie cutters to cut out the dough, use a flat spatula to gently remove the excess dough. Keep re-rolling and cutting out the dough until it's all used up.
- Pop the unbaked cookies into the freezer to chill for 10 minutes.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the cookies are lightly browned around the edges and barely firm in the centre.
- Let them cool completely before decorating. Store them in an airtight container for a perfectly soft chewy molasses cookie texture. Alternatively, you can store them with a little bit of air ventilation for a lightly crisp, snappy gingerbread cookies.