Hank, we'll start from the top.
Okay.
Holidays in California.
-[Jack] Go! -[both screaming]
[Elizabeth] Obviously, it doesn't snow
on the Central Coast of California,
but it doesn't mean we can't sled.
-Three... -Okay.
-...two, one. -[yelps]
Ah! Coming!
[laughs]
Do you guys like sledding better on the snow or on the dirt?
-Snow. -Snow.
[opening theme music playing]
[Elizabeth] Welcome to Rancho San Julian.
I'm Elizabeth Poett.
This place has been my family's home since the early 1800s,
when my great, great, great, great-grandfather
first moved to the Central Coast of California.
Eight generations later, our family is still here,
cooking, eating, and living off the land
from Ranch to Table.
It's a huge job and it's constant.
Captain, come on! There you go.
This place grows and inspires some amazing things.
So delicious.
I've been cooking big ranch meals since I was a kid.
It's how I grew up.
We've got all sorts of goodies for dinner tonight.
It's all about fresh, seasonal, simple, delicious food.
And it's that philosophy of food and life
that inspires me every day.
Today I am getting the whole kitchen ready.
I love decorating for the holidays.
I made this big bough and I'm gonna put it up.
Here we go.
The thing I love about the holidays
is it's all about traditions,
it's all about food and coming together
because especially with young kids, it's a magical time of year.
I think we're done.
I love the holidays for many, many reasons,
but mainly I love the holidays for the food.
I think that this is the time of year
that it's really nice to be able to have, like,
a really big, hearty breakfast.
So, today I am gonna be making a strata.
You can make different kinds, but I am gonna be making
a strata with sausage, gruyere cheese, and mushrooms.
It's almost like a casserole, but it's in layers.
And also this time of year, I love making a million different types of cookies.
I can package them all up and drop 'em off
to neighbors and friends' houses.
It's something that, kind of in this community, we all do.
So, I'm gonna be making chocolate truffles.
So simple, so delicious.
And then my butter thumbprint cookies with a jam filling.
They're kind of the perfect pairing to this season.
But for right now, I'm gonna be making the strata.
So, now I'm greasing the pan.
Just with a little bit of butter.
Just wanna get a nice French baguette bread and cut the bread.
And you wanna do it at about a half an inch thickness.
So, we've prepped the pan, we've cut our bread,
and now we're gonna cook up a pound and a half of pork sausage.
I think during the holidays, it's really a time that we wanna
kind of be home more and hang out with the family,
and so my mom always used to have big breakfasts.
She would make a lot of different dishes,
but the strata is something that I've really come to love.
All right, so while this is browning,
I am gonna start cutting the onions.
Just one yellow onion.
Perfect.
All right, this is looking good.
This is all brown.
And as I scoop it out, I'm keeping all the oil in the pan.
That's where you're gonna get all of that delicious breakfast sausage flavor.
I'm gonna just add the onion.
I'm gonna add about two tablespoons of olive oil.
Now I'm gonna add a quarter teaspoon of salt.
We're gonna just cook it till it's nice and brown.
It's about done.
And we're gonna just put it in with the breakfast sausage.
The thing I love about making this strata,
is that you can do all the work ahead of time.
Throw it in the fridge, let it sit overnight
and then in the morning, all you need to do
is pull it out and throw it into the oven.
So, now we're gonna cook up a half a pound of sliced mushrooms.
So, I'm gonna add in again another two tablespoons of olive oil
and a quarter teaspoon of salt,
while I cook these up together.
Same thing, I'm just gonna scoop 'em out,
put 'em right in here with this mixture.
And last but not least, I'm just gonna get some baby spinach.
Let that cook down.
If it needs it, looks like it does,
could use a little bit more olive oil,
a little bit more salt.
Just do a little pinch.
Spinach is so fast to cook.
I like to do it at the end.
You wanna squeeze out the excess juice
so that you don't have a longer cooking time for the strata.
I'm just gonna roughly chop.
I'm gonna place it in.
Okay.
So, we're gonna mix this up.
So, we've got all of this delicious sausage mixture.
Now we're gonna mix up the eggs.
Okay.
Get those eggs out.
Whoo!
Strata calls for a ton of eggs.
Twelve of these bad boy eggs.
All right, now we're gonna add in three cups of half and half.
Two teaspoons of salt.
About a quarter teaspoon of pepper.
Great.
And I've already got the gruyere cheese
nicely shredded.
Strata just, it means layers.
So, we're gonna start off with the bread.
And basically we're just gonna use half the bread
and make one big layer.
Oopsies, oh, man.
It's fine, keep going.
Take half of the sausage mixture,
we're just gonna lay in that mixture.
And now I'm gonna put half the cheese.
Okay, so we've done our first layering,
and now we're gonna do it again.
Take our bread,
sausage mixture,
now just for the rest of that cheese.
All that goodness.
Now we're gonna pour in all of this egg mixture
and you're just gonna pour in really, really slowly
because that egg is just gonna soak to the bottom.
Right.
All in there.
I'm now just gonna cover it.
I just like to put something heavy on top, usually just a cutting board
and I'm doing that mainly because the bread and things will start coming to the top
and I just wanna make sure that they're fully soaked
in that egg and creamy mixture all night long.
So, I'm gonna put it in the fridge overnight
and it will be ready to put in the oven in the morning.
[Elizabeth] During the holidays, my family loves a big breakfast
and that's why I love making breakfasts
that just feel hearty and cozy.
So, we've let the strata sit overnight.
I brought it to room temperature,
now the strata's been in the oven at 325 for an hour and a half.
It is ready. Yum.
You can see all that cheese is,
all the little bubbles on the side.
It smells so good, I can't wait.
I'm just gonna let this rest for about 15 minutes and then it's ready to eat.
When I was little, my mom was always great about the holidays
and always making it special for us.
We would have a lot of hot cocoa and a lot of different things.
It would just feel like a special time of year.
What's for breakfast?
Strata.
[Jack] Yum.
Jack, you want some on your plate?
All right.
Okay.
Here you go, hon.
Here you go, honey.
Here, I'll take the orange, while it's--
-[Elizabeth] It's a little cooler. -While it's cooling off.
-Yeah. -[Jack] You know what would be really good on this?
-Hot sauce. -[Elizabeth] Go grab some.
My great uncle, who lived here,
would always bring a little Tabasco in his, uh, pocket.
You're kinda like him.
Really good.
During the holidays, breakfast becomes a bigger thing.
It's nice to take that time to kind of enjoy it and be together.
And then go out and do all the fun things
that we wanna do for the holidays.
Your coffee's getting cold, so drink up.
So, one of the things I love to do around this time of year
is make these gift boxes full of sweets.
I love making different types of cookies,
boxing them up, and then leaving them in my neighbors' mailboxes,
and it's just something sweet to do.
So, today I'm gonna be making some truffles,
and then I'm gonna make right now this buttery, thumbprint cookie.
Super simple, but it just has this, like, this buttery, rich goodness.
So, let's get started making the thumbprint cookies.
I'm gonna start by creaming a cup of unsalted butter.
And you wanna make sure that it's at room temperature.
And I'm gonna add in a fourth of a cup of brown sugar
and a fourth of a cup of granulated sugar.
Captain, always barking.
[all laughing] Oh, my gosh.
Make sure the sides are clean.
Now I'm gonna add two eggs.
I like to make sure that the eggs are mixed.
And I'm gonna add in the two eggs and two teaspoons of vanilla.
Add that in and mix well.
All right, so this is fully mixed.
I'm gonna get together the dry ingredients.
Baking is probably one of the most fun traditions during the holidays.
It's maybe the first time that I spent a lot of time in the kitchen,
having fun with all of the different flavors
that come with the holidays.
Gonna start with two and a half cups of all-purpose flour.
One teaspoon of salt.
And now I'm gonna just slowly add it into the butter mixture,
little by little.
Smells good.
The nice thing about this cookie, I don't need to cool them in the fridge,
I can just go right now into rolling them and putting them in the oven.
All right, let's make these cookies.
Cookie sheet with a piece of parchment.
So, I'm gonna put about a quarter of a cup of sugar
on a plate.
So, we have this strawberry jam, a little bit of sugar.
So, I'm gonna just take about a tablespoon of cookie dough,
roll it up into a little ball,
put all of that delicious sugar on it,
nicely coated, I love to really coat it.
Makes the cookie look really sparkly.
And then you just put your thumbprint right on in there.
It's almost like a little well.
And we keep going.
These cookies I've made for a really long time
and I've just found them more and more fun
ever since I've been canning and jamming.
I love being able to use all the jams
that I make throughout the year.
So, I'm doing this in just a regular sugar,
but if you want to you could use, like, another color dusting.
If you wanted to use a red, maybe, dusting sugar.
That's fun and festive too.
Okay.
Thumbprints are ready.
So, now we're gonna just put in the jam.
Put about a quarter teaspoon of strawberry jam
right into this well that you made.
And you just wanna do a little.
When you're putting this all in the oven, it will heat up
and you just don't wanna over-stuff these wells
because then it will boil over.
All right, so these are all ready to go.
I've pre-heated the oven to 350
and this is a really quick bake, about 12 to 14 minutes.
The thumbprint cookie is something that my mom used to make a lot of them
because she did so much jamming
and it's just one way to also, kind of,
keep using that jam throughout the year.
All right, it's been 12 minutes,
I'm gonna check on these cookies.
And they are looking perfect.
You can see that they are just starting to brown
just a little bit on the edges.
That jam, it's almost like a gummy right inside the cookie.
All right, so I'm gonna let these cool
and then I'm gonna make the chocolate truffles,
and then we're gonna wrap them all up
in these beautiful little packages
to drop off at my neighbors' homes.
[Elizabeth] The boys are in their treehouse.
They built this, uh, a couple years ago
with Austin and their grandfather.
I have hot chocolate for you!
Do you want me to, oh, no, no, no, please.
Okay, all right.
So, the boys have forts all over the ranch,
but one of their favorite forts is the treehouse
because it's just theirs, they can make it their own
and then sometimes, I visit.
All right.
Ready.
Can I come up? Parents allowed?
[Jack] I'll make an exception.
Well, thank you.
Oh, my gosh.
-Yummy. -[Jack] How does that work?
[Elizabeth] You just open it a little bit and it pours out.
Have you guys slept up here yet?
[Jack] Me and Dad have.
[Elizabeth] You guys did, yeah.
Oh, yeah, I didn't.
-[Elizabeth] You stayed in the house with me? -[Hank] Yeah.
[Elizabeth] Being able to make these holidays as memorable as possible
is really the ultimate joy for me.
It's so important for kids to just be a kid and have fun.
So, this time of year we all make different types of cookies
and I'm making chocolate truffles right now.
The thing about truffles is, I feel like whenever I make them,
I feel like everybody's like, it just seems so, like, fancy and decadent and...
I kind of love that because it is so simple.
It's almost, like, a little bit embarrassing how simple it is.
Double boiler,
heatproof boil, about an inch of water.
You put it right on, on medium heat.
And then I'm gonna grab some butter and chocolate.
So, basically we are just starting with a stick and a half of butter
and eight ounces of semi-sweet chocolate.
I'm just gonna let this melt down.
It's just gonna take probably about 5-10 minutes.
Keep your eye on it, you wanna make sure
that you always have water in this pan
so that it's slowly, slowly melting.
So, around here, a lot of our neighbors,
they love to, you know, make sweets and drop them off.
Usually we leave them in the mailboxes.
It's just something that becomes a holiday tradition
where that you're sharing with your neighbors
and when I open my mailbox and there's some sweets,
you cannot help but smile.
So, you wanna just keep constantly stirring.
All that chocolate and the butter has all melted together.
All right, so this is all ready to go.
I'm gonna take this off the heat
and now I'm gonna get some vanilla and cream.
So, now I'm gonna put a teaspoon of vanilla
and a half a cup of cream.
And I'm just gonna pour this very slowly
and just constantly be mixing it all in together.
So, after you've seen all that cream disappear,
you wanna really keep stirring for about another minute
because you really want all of that cream just to mix in
really, really well with that chocolate.
All right, so this is all done.
Might have to have a little even though it's warm.
So good.
Okay.
Okay, so we've wrapped it all up,
we're gonna put it in the fridge for four hours
and then it's the fun part, we're gonna dip it in sweet cocoa powder.
[Elizabeth] I love the holiday season here on the ranch.
It's such a nice time of year, it just feels cozy.
I'm making chocolate truffles right now.
Okay, so the truffles have been cooling
in the fridge for about four hours.
You can see all that chocolate goodness
has hardened.
To know when it's ready to start making the truffles,
you just put your thumb in, you take it out,
and you should be able to see your thumbprint,
and your thumb should be clean.
Just gonna grab a little sugar and some cocoa powder for the dusting.
So, I'm gonna do a half cup of cocoa powder
and a quarter cup of sugar.
If you just like that cocoa powder taste,
you can just have the cocoa powder,
but I always love to add a little bit of sugar.
So, that cocoa powder is ready.
What's really fun about these chocolate truffles
is that you can dip them in crushed walnuts,
or chocolate sprinkles, or different types of sugars.
I love this because you can really kind of make an assortment
and make whatever you're delivering super festive.
I'm gonna roll about one tablespoon of chocolate.
I'm gonna put this in my hand.
You wanna work quickly because you wanna make sure that it stay cold.
Gonna dip it in that cocoa powder.
There it goes.
And it's fun, too, at parties I like to bring it,
and, I don't know, I'm such a watchful person,
I like to watch people and see which ones they usually go for.
I always feel like chocolate on chocolate,
especially during the holidays,
people love going for the chocolate.
Jack loves red,
his favorite color. Hank's is green.
It's fun to make a bunch of these colors for them.
I love these walnuts.
These walnuts are so delicious.
They come from our neighbors.
We usually get a really big bag in the fall
and then I keep them throughout the year.
They're fun to use for these truffles.
All right, these are all done.
I'm so excited about them, they're so festive.
And we're gonna put them in with the thumbprint cookies.
So, that's the fun part.
[gasps]
Every year, I love to drop off sweets for friends and family
and I love kind of packaging them in these really sweet little tins
and I've kind of picked these two different sweets
because that butter thumbprint cookie is really delicious
and it really gets the sweetness from the jam,
whereas that chocolate is just delicious
and all the the things that we love about the holidays.
Just putting a little bit of paper in there.
Gonna do a couple of truffles.
I like doing a couple different kinds.
My mom has beautiful handwriting
and I wish I had handwriting like hers,
but she did always teach me about writing real letters with your own hands.
Especially for thank yous or holidays,
it's just nice to go just that little extra mile.
Instead of a bow or a ribbon, I love using these dried mandarins.
I'm gonna make these throughout the week
and probably keep making more cookies
and then just try to drop these off throughout the season
and, uh, hopefully make people smile.
Hey, do you guys want truffles?
Thank you.
Guests first.
Ooh, truffles.
[woman] Mmm, these are tasty.
So, every year during the holiday season,
we have this tradition where we have friends over
and we write things down that we don't wanna bring into the new year
and we just toss 'em into the fire.
Okay, so pass around those.
-What are you gonna write? -I'm gonna think about it all day.
You gonna think about it?
Okay, it has to be secret.
Jack, why don't you write down one, honey.
I think it's a time for self-reflection
and kind of thinking about what we wanna leave behind in the old year
and what we wanna bring into the new year.
[Jack] What is it? What is it?
-Release, release. -Release it all.
I think sitting around the fire
you can be thankful for all the things that have happened in that year.
It's fun to, you know, have the boys just playing around with bubbles
and watching those bubbles fly up into the air.
There it goes, bye!
Just imagining what the new year will bring.