Candied Citrus Peel for Christmas by Zina Abbott

One ingredient that has been a staple in Christmas desserts for decades—if not centuries—is candied citrus peel. I know it was part of my maternal grandmother’s fruitcake recipe. In fact, because I associate candied citrus peel with her fruitcake recipe, I dedicated my upcoming book to her and my grandfather. Because it is so colorful, candied (0r sugared) citrus peel seems to be a staple in almost all Christmas fruitcake recipes.

 

Two years ago, on one of our infrequent trips to the San Francisco Bay area, my husband and drove across Pacheco Pass and stopped at Casa de Fruta, a large roadside attraction with stores to feature not only their produce products, but a host of other delights. I bought a candy made from sugared orange peel dipped dark chocolate.

Best… Candy… Ever. … Yum!

It became my favorite. When I returned to that store the following year, they no longer had that particular treat in stock. Since I have a dwarf navel orange tree in my back yard that produces far more oranges than my husband and I can eat or give away, I have decided to try to make my own dark chocolate-coated candied orange peel. Just dip the strips of candied peel in some of my melted 85% chocolate bars I love so much and place on parchment paper treated with non-stick spray to allow the chocolate to set. I am not a candy-maker, but that should work, right?

Candied citrus peel in a variety of flavors and colors is also a favorite in the German Christmas dessert, stollen. This was the dessert I chose to feature in my fifth and final Old Timey Holiday Kitchen romance, Stollen by Stella. Here is an excerpt from the story:

            Stella softly clasped her hands and smiled widely as she bent over the table to view the results of this morning’s labors. They turned out perfect! Upon hearing the front door open, she jerked upright and turned her gaze toward the front entrance. Please be Papa. Cleora was a nice town, and she had not heard from the neighbors of any problems with the railworkers and others to inspire the need to keep the doors locked. Then again, this was Saturday afternoon—payday.

            “Hello, sweetheart.” Eric entered and quickly turned to close the door. “It smells good in here.” He rapidly rubbed his gloved hands together. “Did you have a good day?”

            “I did.” From the smattering of white flakes on her father’s hat and shoulders of his coat, she guessed it must have started snowing. A quick sideways bend to peek through the window above the table confirmed her suspicions. Made it home from the mercantile just in time. “As you can see, I’ve been busy in the kitchen. Not only did I bake fresh bread, but I started on my Christmas project.”

            Erik finished hanging his overcoat, jacket, hat, and muffler on the pegs by the door and walked over. He studied the table draped in clean rags and topped with the two wooden racks Stella used to cool her pies and cake pans, plus a pair of spatterware plates. “Looks like you made that sugared orange and lemon peel your mama mixed into her stollen.”

 

            “I did, Papa. Candied lime peel, too. Thankfully, even though I checked with the postmaster yesterday, I decided to try again today. I finally received a letter from Christina. She sent the stollen recipe I requested along with detailed instructions—including how to make successful candied citrus peels. Since it is a little less than two weeks before Christmas, her letter came just in time.”

            “What do you mean? I would think you have plenty of time to bake your stollen.” Erik grabbed a slice of candied orange rind and bit it in half. “I love this stuff. It’s better than candy.” He chewed a second. “It is both sweet and tart with a strong citrus flavor. Your mother knew to make more than what she needed for the stollen so I could have plenty to snack on.”

            “I made some extra, Papa, but not that much.”

           “I would enjoy more—enough to last through Christmas, anyway.”

I did find a stollen recipe in an older cookbook. However, it did not include the directions for making homemade candied citrus peel. There are some excellent recipes online, a detailed one with beautiful illustrations you may find by CLICKING HERE. A basic recipe with a one-page pdf version you can save to your computer you may find by CLICKING HERE. The directions are ridiculously easy, so I will be making my own candied citrus peel this year.

 

Stollen by Stella is not on pre-order, but I will announce its publication next week. 

 

 

 

While you are waiting for Stollen by Stella to be released, my third book in the Old Timey Holiday Kitchen series, Vinegar Pie by Varinia is on sale through Sunday. 

My final three books in this series I wrote as a mini-series within a series.  Vinegar Pie by Varinia is the older Jewell daughter's romance. 

Lemon Cookies by Lisbeth features the romance of the youngest Jewell sibling. Both of these books are also available on Kindle Unlimited.

Stollen by Stella is the romance of the middle Jewell sibling, Thomas.

 

 

BETTER THAN PIE FOR THANKSGIVING by Marisa Masterson

 

Don’t be fooled this Thanksgiving by an image of a Pilgrim holding a pumpkin pie. It never happened.

Pumpkin but not pumpkin pie—that is likely what colonists new to the United States ate. Why no pie? I will explain, but first let me share about the pumpkin’s history in the Americas.

Squash and pumpkins originated south of the United States. The oldest seeds have been found in Mexico, so it was a plant that was brought into North America,

Many indigenous people groups relied on it in their diet. They ate the seeds, flesh, flowers, and even the leaves. Little wonder those people who landed at Plymouth Rock discovered how useful the humble pumpkin would be for them.

Colonist in my country’s history came to rely on the pumpkin as a staple in their diet. The seeds were dried from those first pumpkins shared by native tribes and planted. It was easy to grow, and the vines produced a great deal of fruit.

Europeans enjoyed spiced pies. The immigrants brought those recipes with them. Only, wheat was not readily available. They could not make pie crust. Instead, they substituted a spiced custard baked inside a pumpkin shell nestled in the coals of a fire for the desserts they remembered from their home country.

The heroine in my new release, Custard Pumpkin by Claire, makes this very thing:

Mrs. Zehnder had shared a recipe with her yesterday. She told her to create a custard and add nutmeg and cinnamon to it. Poured into a hollow pumpkin, it would bake in the ashes.

Claire watched her husband inhale the aroma. The pumpkin nestled in the fireplace. She had heaped the hot coals around it, careful not to let any get into the open top where the custard browned.

Making the custard had required every egg she had in her small bowl. Hans had bought her four hens and a cow while they were still in Saginaw. She was blessed to have them. Many people in the community did not have the money to buy animals.

The recipe had used up her small store of sugar. She hoped the men might travel to Saginaw soon for supplies. Last evening, she had heard the three men discuss a trip upriver to do that.

When she serves her custard, my heroine will also scoop out part of the baked orange flesh of the large fruit. It is the beginning of our traditional pumpkin pie.  

By the way, I include a recipe for the custard baked in the shell in my new release. It is modernized and ready for you to enjoy this Thanksgiving.

Available Now in Amazon. Free with Kindle Unlimited:

His guilt separates them. Can a mystery create a bond of love between this couple forced into an unwanted marriage?

For Claire's small German village, it is a black summer. Typhoid hits the townspeople and surrounding farms. With Claire's parents dead, she struggles to know how she will survive.

When a call for volunteers goes through her part of Germany—a chance to settle in Michigan and Christianize the local tribe—she seizes the opportunity. She hopes to forge a new future--one filled with possibility rather than starvation.

As a single woman, she must travel as the unpaid servant to a couple, the young carpenter Hans Mueller and his wife. Unfortunately, Claire's prospects change radically when the man's wife dies during the voyage. The minister of their group pushes Hans and her into marriage. Reluctant but determined, she agrees.

She and her husband arrive in a new land carrying their old grief. Hans ignores Claire. She is sure he hugs his grief for his wife. He throws himself into the work of building the settlement for their community. She is at a loss on how to be a wife to a man who does not want one. Instead, she spends her time befriending women from the Chippewa tribe.

Mischief and outright vandalism threaten the settlement. Are the Chippewa—the people Claire views as friends—responsible? What can stop the sudden surge of hate that springs up in the missionary community they founded to reach out to the indigenous people?

Claire and Hans are determined to discover who wants to drive away the German immigrants. But at what cost? And why does a certain fur trapper target the women in their settlement?

Discover how custard pumpkin plays a role in allowing this couple to reveal their hidden passion for one another. If you enjoy well-researched historical romance with a cozy mystery, grab your copy of the book now.

Find Your Next Favorite Read Now!

UPSIDE DOWN CHRISTMAS TREES and other fun ideas...by Marisa Masterson

 

Earlier this fall when I began writing Raisin Pie by Rosemary, I realized Pennsylvania Dutch superstitions and customs would play a large role in the story. Rosemary Mast, my heroine, was a German from near Pittsburgh. Germans who settled there were mistakenly referred to as Dutch--something to do with their native word for 'German'. She was raised to believe in some odd things. I knew this would make for a different and fun romance. 

One such superstition involved nailing a toad to the barn. (No toads are harmed in the story!)

Wolf dropped the scythe. He ran toward them. All three had linked arms and were admiring whatever they had done to his barn.

They stepped back when he approached. Rosemary beamed her pleasure as she pointed at the barn. “The curse,” she said as if that explained a dried toad nailed to his barn.

“What kind of witchcraft is this?” he bellowed.

The twins yelled out in surprise and then fear. He noticed their movements and saw them hide their faces in the dark fabric of Rosemary’s skirt. She patted each and made a shushing sound.

Wolf waited. After only a few seconds, Rosemary growled, “I am no witch. Everyone knows that a toad’s foot must be nailed to the barn to get rid of something tormenting you.”

She looked at him. “Don’t you feel tormented?”

“You don’t want me to answer that,” he huffed.

Not only did I need to research superstitions, but I knew I wanted this to be a heart-warming Christmas story. That meant Rosemary's holiday traditions would need to seem 'strange' to her very American husband.

In the end, I discovered the upside down Christmas tree. It seems it was a custom for some in the Pennsylvania area (and maybe other places). The tree was suspended from the ceiling. 

Why hang the tree? Mice! The upside down tree kep rodents from reaching the popcorn garland used as a decoration. At least, that is one guess for why the custom was practiced. Even so, the reason is not nearly as interesting to me as the fact that the custom actually exists! 

My hero in the book is not at all happy with the notion of suspending the tree from the ceiling--

Wolf stared, one eyebrow arched in question. She blushed and shook her head, not sure what to say. “Uh, the tree. Yes, let’s hang the tree.”

“No, we don’t hang trees,” he said in a voice that told her he was repeating himself. “It needs to stand in a bucket. The tree will need water. Otherwise, it ‘ll turn brown.”

“At home, we hung the tree using ropes. If you make it stand, the tree will be upside down.”

Once more, Wolf groaned. “Your idea is upside down!”

In my book, Wolf (the hero) urges Rosemary to move beyond fear represent by her many superstitions. It is certainly a Christmas story written from a Christian worldview. 

Superstitions have become a way of life for Rosemary. Can she leave behind those ideas to please her new husband?

"Sassamanesh, Ibimi, Bitter Berry or Crane Berry" - A Cranberry by Any Other Name - Jo-Ann Roberts

While plenty of people eat turkey, mashed potatoes, and pie year-round, it seems like cranberry sauce almost exclusively exists only at Thanksgiving. Although the jiggly, gelatinous side dish probably wasn't eaten at the First Thanksgiving, they may have been an ingredient in some "puddings in the belly," as stuffings were called then.

But a little more than 50 years later (according to a 1672 account cited by The Washington Post), Americans and Native Americans had both started to enjoy cranberries. 

"Indians and English use it much, boyling them with Sugar for a Sauce to eat with their Meat."

For Eastern Indians, they were "sassamanesh".  The Pequots and Wampanoags of New England, and South Jersey Leni-Lanape tribes called them "ibimi" or bitter berry, while the Algonquins of Wisconsin dubbed the fruit "atoqua". But it was the early German and Dutch settlers who started calling it the "crane berry" because of the flower's resemblance to the head and bill of a crane.

It was the Native Americans who first took advantage of the cranberry's many natural properties. By mixing mashed cranberries with deer meat, they made a survival food called pemmican. They also believed in the medicinal value of the cranberry, using it in poultices to draw poison from arrow wounds. And the rich red juice of the cranberry was used as a natural dye for rugs, blankets, and clothing.

One of only three fruits native to North America, cranberries grow in the wild on long-running vines in sandy bogs and marshes. While they're primarily harvested in the Northeast, they also grow in Wisconsin, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington. 

But even with its many uses, cranberries weren't farmed on a large scale until the 1800s. At first, growers picked the berries by hand. They then revolutionized the dry harvesting technique with an idea called wet harvesting. By flooding the bog with water, the cranberry's buoyancy allows it to float to the surface, where they are collected.

     

DID YOU KNOW?

• In 1816, the first recorded yield of cranberries was grown and harvested in Dennis, Massachusetts.
• Americans consume some 400 million pounds of cranberries a year close to 80 million of those pounds during Thanksgiving week.
• Small pockets of air inside fresh cranberries cause them to bounce and float in water.
• If you strung together all the cranberries produced in North America, they'd stretch from Boston to Los Angels more than 565 times.
• Cranberries are picky when it comes to growing conditions. Because they are traditionally grown in natural wetlands, they need a lot of water. During the long, cold winter months, they also require a period of dormancy which rules out any southern region.

Each September, Cape Cod celebrates this most-beloved fruit at the Harwich Cranberry and Arts Festival. My mother-in-law lived in Harwich Port, not far from the festival. When are children were young, this was an annual tradition. Click Here

Happy Thanksgiving dear Friends,

        May you have a joyful day this Thanksgiving. May your holiday be full of blessings and love and brimming with an abundance of happiness. 

New Release

He made a promise to a dying friend.

She vowed never to love again.

"You can't continue living like this, Linnea. You've become a hermit.

Linnea Nyland heard the concern in her sister-in-law's voice. Still filled with grief and missing her husband a year after his unexpected passing, she didn't have the inclination to disagree with the statement. Though she dearly missed working her magic in the family bakery, she liked her life on the farm just the way it was...solitary.

Especially after Deputy Finn McBride came calling with his ridiculous proposal of marriage!

In a moment of panic, Finn made a heart pledge to Erik Nyland to take care of Linnea, to marry her. He'd bungled his first attempt, and he's not sure his heart can endure the vow he made knowing he'd been in love with her from the day he came to Holly Springs.

Giving it one last try, he challenges her to a holiday baking competition. If he wins, she must agree to let him court...if she wins, he'll leave her alone...forever.

Throw in a matchmaking landlady, a Norwegian Buhund dog, and a missing special ingredient, the lonely deputy prays for a Christmas miracle.

Click Here

NAPOLEON, SHEEP, AND WOMEN'S DRESSES by Marisa Masterson

 Fall and cold weather--it's the season when a person smells cedar. Well, it would be in the 1800s.

Why cedar in the fall or early winter? The answer is merino.

Did you know that merino wool comes from specially bred sheep.? Their wool is softer than other breeds of sheep. It also has a natural kink to the fiber so that it insulated a person's skin and was strong. This makes for very durable garments.

My newest Christmas book is set in December on the Great Plains. For her wedding, my heroine Rosemary wears merino, a dress she inherited from her mother. 

Frida stood from her spot at Rosemary’s feet. The girl pulled on the sleeve of dark merino dress. It was her best, a dress her mother had owned near the end of her life. Durable, the wool showed very little wear and made Rosemary feel connected to her mother on this special day. Fragrant cedar wafted from it. She had carefully packed it with cedar chips last year. Moths would chew on it, otherwise. That fact was well known. (Raisin Pie by Rosemary, releasing December 2023.)

Why does Rosemary treasure the merino? Certainly because it belonged to her mother, but there is more to it. The history of merino in the United States explains it.

Merino sheep were bred in Spain. It was illegal to export the sheep. The Spanish fiercely protected their control of the special wool and the money that exporting it brought to them.  

When Napoleon invaded Spain, that changed. An ambassador to the United States brought over some of the sheep as a gift. Merino soon was suddenly no longer a rare, expensive fabric. Instead mills in Vermont produced it for fifty-seven cents per pound.

In less than forty years, there were more than one million of these special sheep in Vermont alone. That state became the center for the wool mills that produced merino, and the wool craze started. 

Vermont Historical Society Collection

The sheep outnumbered humans by six to one, there were that many. Why? The wool craze had begun. It lasted until the market was flooded with the fabric.

Being a woman in this time before central heating must have been a cold experience. And regular wool scratched a person's skin. Merino was soft and extremely warm. What a wonder those dresses must have been for ladies at that time! 

Merino dress with velvet trim, 1814

Imagine feeling warm in a drafty house with a fireplace that gave off little warmth. And it was all because a little dictator tried to conquer Europe.

Pre-order Today!

Old World meets American ideas in this Christmas romance!

Her German town was worlds away from the Great Plains. Rosemary Mast left her Pennsylvania Dutch community to find a home with distant relatives in Kansas. Only, none of her family was there. 

What she found was a man desperate for help with his orphaned niece and nephew. She was also desperate and agreed to go with him.

Rosemary expected the man to be like others she had known while growing up, even though he was a Swede and not German. Was her new husband crazy? He asked for a funeral pie for Christmas!

Wolf Acker embraced being an American. Now his bride's strange superstitions were driving him crazy. All he wanted was a raisin pie for Christmas day. She would not make it. What hope was there for their young marriage when she refused to change?

What will need to happen so this young couple can make a sound marriage and provide a good home for the orphaned twins in this sweet historical Christian romance? Can a man love a woman who drives him crazy?

Special Offer

Grab this heartwarming collection of Christmas novels before the price goes up. 

New boxed set for Christmas 2023!

Railroad Wars: Royal Gorge, Colorado by Zina Abbott

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time of a huge silver and lead strike in the late 1870s, when miners began pouring into the Arkansas River Valley of Southern Colorado in search for gold, silver and lead, the Denver and Rio Grande Railway (D&RG) and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF) were already bitter rivals.

May 1891 Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad map

In 1878, the AT&SF competed against the D&RG to put the first line through Raton Pass. Both railroads had extended lines into Trinidad, Colorado, and the pass was the only access to continue on to New Mexico. There was a great deal of legal maneuvering, and even threatened violence between rival gangs of railroad workers. To break the impasse, in February 1878, AT&SF hired a number of local gunfighters. Faced with this threat, and running out of money, the D&RG was forced to cede the pass to its rivals. With this loss, their ambitions of achieving the “Rio Grande” portion of their company name also ended.

The large gold finds in Leadville attracted the attention of both railroads.  Both had tracks in the lower Arkansas Valley at the time. The AT&SF had reached Pueblo, about thirty-five miles east of Cañon City where the D&RG had its tracks. Leadville was over one hundred miles northwest of Cañon City. Both these railroads wanted the right-of-way for transporting ore and other freight to and from the mining regions.

1881 Royal Gorge

Normally, it would not be unreasonable for two competing lines to build tracks close to each other. The big bottleneck that dictated only one could travel this route was the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River. Starting about eight miles east of Cañon City at the confluence of Grape Creek, the ten-mile-long canyon was comprised of sheer granite walls that plunged 1,250 into the Arkansas River. It was thirty feet at its narrowest point. The floor of the gorge presented itself as an almost impossible barrier for placing one set of tracks. It could not accommodate two.

Tour train at beginning of eastern entrance Royal Gorge

In April of 1878, a construction crew assembled by the AT&SF began grading for a rail line west of Cañon City at the mouth of the gorge. The D&RG, which had track that ended about three-quarters of a mile east of Cañon City, quickly sent crews to the same area, but were blocked by the AT&SF workers at the narrow entrance. This was to be the first round in the two-year struggle of the Royal Gorge War.

 

1871 Baldwin 2-4-0, first D&RG locomotive

Smaller in size, but big in ambition, the D&RG held its ground and refused to allow Santa Fe access to Royal Gorge. Both rail lines hastily built forts. This time, both rail lines hired gunslingers to drive off the opposition. Both bought politicians while courts intervened to bring settlement to the disagreements.

Both railroads went to court in an effort to establish themselves as having the primary right of way. In April 1879, the D&RG was granted the right to build through the gorge.

 AT&SF announced it would build parallel tracks and compete with existing D&RG lines. Fearing financial ruin, bond holders of D&RG pressured management to lease the tracks to AT&SF for thirty years. A short-lived truce was established.

AT&SF controlling the D&RG lines proved to be detrimental to both the D&RG and the Denver merchants. AT&SF quickly began to manipulate freight rates south of Denver in favor of shippers from Kansas City over its lines to the east. During this period the AT&SF constructed the railroad through the Royal Gorge itself.

D&RG continued their construction west of the gorge in a continuing effort to block the AT&SF.

On March 20, 1879 the AT&SF hired Bat Masterson, a sheriff in Ford County, Kansas, at the time. Some sources allege AT&SF used its political influence to obtain a U.S. Marshal’s appointment for him so he could legally defend their property.  He put together a group of famous gunmen including Doc Holliday, Ben Thompson, Dave Rudabaugh, and “Mysterious” Dave Mather and about seventy other men. While lawyers argued both sides in court, armed men hired by Santa Fe took control of Rio Grande stations from Denver to Cañon City.

However, over the months, the income from the leased portion of the D&RG tracks continued to shrink. D&RG went to court to break the lease. On June 10, 1879,  court injunction restraining the AT&SF from operating on the D&RG lines, This sparked the armed retaking of the railroad by Denver & Rio Grande crews.

A form of guerilla warfare continued, with the AT&SF doing well through early June 1879. There was heavy fighting at the AT&SF’s garrisons in Colorado. The garrisons in Denver and Colorado Springs fell quickly. Masterson's headquarters in Pueblo held out the longest, but they eventually conceded defeat.

Castle Rock D7RG depot south of Denver

One story of the conflict took place in June 1879 involved R.F. Weitbrec, treasurer of the D&RG, suggesting to Chief Engineer J. A. McMurtrie, Sheriff Henly R. Price, and his deputy, Pat Desmond, that they “borrow” the cannon from the state armory as a way to drive Masterson and his men from the roundhouse. To their surprise and dismay, the group found that Masterson had already “borrowed” the cannon and had it at the roundhouse trained on the line of attackers.

Weitbrec assembled a group of gunmen. They stormed the telegraph office on the railroad platform and drove the defenders out the back windows, where, it is said, Henry Jenkins, the only causality of the war, was shot in the back by a drunken Rio Grande guard. They then turned their full attention to the roundhouse.

With the cannon trained on them, Weitbrec met with Masterson, who then surrendered the roundhouse. One anecdotal story claims Weitbrech paid Masterson and his men to leave. Although later criticized for accepting $25.000 to leave, Masterson probably left because of the court decision.

Whether the above is true or not, the battle that counted took place in the courts. On June 10, the state Fourth Judicial Circuit, with the later concurrence of the Federal Courts, ruled in favor of the D&RG. That completely changed the situation. With the assistance of the sheriffs in the counties through which the railroads passed, the Denver and Rio Grande mounted an attack on its rival's forces until the AT&SF surrendered their claim.

Salida, Colorado, Roundhouse

In March 1880, a Boston Court granted the AT&SF the rights to Raton Pass, while ordering the D&RG to pay an exorbitant amount for the trackage extending through the Royal Gorge.   While this "Treaty of Boston" did not completely favor the original D&RG intentions, it did give them access to the booming mining district of Leadville, Colorado, the wealth of the new mining settlements to the west, and the opportunity to expand into Utah.

The railroad “robber baron” Jay Gould agreed to loan the D&RG $400,000 while announcing the intention to complete a rail line in competition with the Santa Fe from St. Louis to Pueblo.

On March 27, 1880, both railroads signed what was called the Treaty of Boston, which settled all litigation and gave the D&RG back its railroad. D&RG paid Santa Fe $1.8 million for the rail line it had built in the gorge, the grading it had completed, materials on hand, and interest. The Royal Gorge War was over.

D&RG resumed construction and the rails finally reached Leadville on July 20, 1880. From there, it built westward.

If you would enjoy reading one of my earlier posts about the formation of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway, please CLICK HERE

Set in the end of 1882, my next book to be released, Vinegar Pie by Varinia in the Old Timey Holiday Kitchen series takes me back to the Salida, Colorado, region. The Denver & Rio Grande Railway reached this town on May 20, 1880. To find the book description and pre-order link, please CLICK HERE

 

 

 

 

Sources:

https://www.coloradocentralmagazine.com/the-%E2%80%9Cwar%E2%80%9D-for-the-royal-gorge/

https://www.coloradocentralmagazine.com/

http://usgwarchives.net/maps/colorado/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterious_Dave_Mather

https://royalgorgeregion.com/royal-gorge-railroad-wars/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Wars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_and_Rio_Grande_Western_Railroad