Oh crap.
It's already started.  The countdown of weekends until Christmas break.  It's the official beginning of crazy.  The end of that illusive and undervalued commodity known as 'free-time'.  The radio stations are introducing their early 'Christmas Loops' and in the U.S. they're getting ready to by thankful and then go shopping for more.
Yup - Christmas season approacheth.
I've already stopped looking at my calendar.  It makes me feel worse when I do.  The knot starts in my stomach and works it way into my throat.  I thought that having kids out of diapers would make life easier but now we have to fit Kid #1's schedule into life as well.  So this weekend marks the beginning of wall to wall concerts until Christmas when we can all take a rest and eat some Ham.  Rather than planning it all out ahead of time I've chosen to take it a week at a time - or sometimes just a day or two at a time.  Somehow it helps me feel better seeing the small steps rather than the big picture.
Fortunately, planning hasn't completely gone out the window just yet.  I roasted a chicken with carrots and parsnips.  I finally put the canner in the basement which totally counts as planning in my book.  I've thought long and hard about how it's going to feel on that first day of the Christmas break.  I've even managed to work through the food box veggies this week.  A broccoli and leek soup helped me tear through a lot of it.  However, being the it's-never-quite-enough person that I am and clearly having more spare time than was good for me, I needed biscuits.  So I made biscuits.


Damn - that's only half the truth.  I needed bread for school lunches.  I tried a bread recipe that crashed - it was a train wreck.  It dropped like a hockey puck.  It sucked - big, huge, stupid rocks.  (I know that big and huge are almost the same thing BTW) After my colossal fail, yeast and I needed a little time apart.  I went in search of a quick bread biscuit.  This recipe was perfect because it helped me work through the bag of parsnip that I got in the food box too - win/win.


These biscuits will not help me feel any more ready for the onslaught of the next 4 weekends.  These biscuits will not drive my kids to wherever they need to go.  These biscuits will not visit my Mother-in-Laws new condo for me but they will help me feel like I haven't just thrown a bowl of soup on the table ... nope, that bowl of soup has a delicious and nutritious homemade biscuit beside it.
Cue: Raucous Cheering


Parsnip and Cheddar Biscuits adapted from 'Vegetarian' by Alice Hart