Fixin' Leaks and Leeks

Potluck pandemonium is still jingling its sleigh bells along the buffet line, and we’re getting loaded. Well, I mean, we’re loading up the buffet line—for Alex, who is a young adult, getting invited to all kinds of parties, and he needs to bring something to the table. Many of his friends are of Mexican heritage, and their families have generations-long recipes of all kinds of traditional favorites, which Alex loves. The spicier, the better.

And he often gets asked, “What is your heritage?” He says, “Ohio. I’m from Ohio.” And really, that’s it. We are all from Ohio, which is a culture of its own. However, if Alex digs a little into the ancestral recipe box, he’ll recognize that the McGinniss-Kennedy family is mostly Irish with some Italian, German, and English blood mixed in. Which means, for some reason, we have loads of recipes for rum balls and rum cakes.

Usually, Alex just picks up something from the store to share with his friends, but he’s on winter break and wants to make something that’s from our “heritage.” So, rum balls it is.

At least, that’s one name for the recipe. The other name is Grandma Sue’s Balls of Good Cheer. And that’s the recipe I’m providing below, which is a reprise of a rum ball recipe I made a few years back for this blog. Keep in mind that this recipe has been halved, but you can double it for extra fun.

Grandma Sue’s Balls of Good Cheer

Ingredients

¾ box of vanilla wafer cookies (crushed, but not pulverized)

½ cup of powdered sugar

1/4-1/3 cup of corn syrup

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder (unsweetened)

1 cup of chopped dark raisins

1 cup of chopped pecans

3 ounces of rum

Topping: ½ cup of powdered sugar + ½ tsp ground coffee beans

Method: Throw everything into a bowl (except for the topping) and mix together. Form balls and roll them in the “topping” mixture of powdered sugar and coffee. Store in an airtight container.

Results

Ah, these taste like home! They have a depth of flavor that makes them chocolatey, even though there isn’t much chocolate in them. And the rum and raisins lend a little spice. No wonder adults insisted on these—and also insisted on giving them to children right before bed on Christmas Eve.

Serve these with:

• The Butter Cow from the Ohio State Fair
• Stockings filled with buckeyes (the peanut butter kind!)
• Corn fields filled with moonshine made by someone named Bob-Todd
• That one reindeer that’s still stuck on the rooftop (there’s always one)
• The neighbor’s light display, which is on the fritz
• A holiday jazz ensemble, still dressed like elves, still playing the saxophone just a little too loudly
• A tire swing over the Ohio River (but not when the Mothman’s in town)

In Other News: Freshly Pressed! A team of WordPress editors picked my post, Merry Minty Mint Mints, to be a “Freshly Pressed” feature on wordpress.com/discover. (Thank you, WordPress—and yay!)

Your Turn: What’s your favorite thing to bring to a potluck?