Inside Jan's Mind

My apologies for not posting this past month. The advent of some regular publications folding left me sans Christmas money, so I have been busy stretching my artistic abilities to the limit and making gifts. It's been quite fun, actually.

As a poor starving thespian/artist/writer in the past, I made gifts regularly. Once I obtained steady-paying employment (a real job, as it were!) over the years, I got spoiled and purchased more presents than I made.

This year I enjoyed returning to my roots creating candles, soap, knitting, and hand creme (something new!). Sort of reminded me of traditions and caused me to wonder about how other people celebrate. Despite my family's Irish, Scottish, and German roots, we celebrated in a style compared to a buffet of traditions from the Swedish Angel Chimes to the Italian night of seven fish dinner. I'm kind of a mutt, retaining childhood familial traditions and inventing my own.

What about you? What do you do? Please let me know. I'm really very interested in how people celebrate the Christmas/Chanukah or what have you holiday.

To that end here is a recipe given to my mother by the son of our minister when I was in high school. The family was from the NE U.S., so the soup is reasonably atypical. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
6 c. water
4 cubed peeled potatoes (I never peel potatoes!)
2 cubed carrots
2 cubed celery stalks
2 peeled tomatoes or one 12 oz. can of whole tomatoes chopped
1/2 onion
1/2 green pepper (which I don't use because they don't like me!)
2 Tbsp. catsup (or ketsup/ketchup depending on where you live, I suppose)
2 Tbsp. mustard
1 jalapeno pepper (that's straight out for me!)
2 shakes garlic powder
4 shakes Old Bay seasoning
1 shake mace
4 shakes seasoned salt (I believe this is Lowrey's brand or the equivalent)
4 shakes salt (or less)
4 shakes pepper (I use several turns of whole black peppercorns)
2 Tbsp. Worchestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 qt. immitation crab meat (or 1 package of those pollock crab meat thingies... use real crab if you can, which I never have, so...)
2 Tbsp. corn starch

Bring potatoes to boil in water until semi-soft.
Add all ingredients except corn starch.
Cook on medium high, stirring constantly.
Add enough water to corn starch to make a thick paste... about a Tbsp. or so, I believe.
When veggies are tender, stir in corn starch paste.
Cook 5 minutes until done.

Typical of my and my family's cooking, the process was to add a pinch here and a taste there, so adjust it however you wish.

Let me know what you think!

Merry Christmas or whatever your blessed holiday be, y'all!