Christmas Adventures and Minor Cooking Mishaps

Sometimes things go smoothly, sometimes they don't.

I give you: the biscuit ornament:

I know, what could be more perfect? Carrie FTW. She is one of those people that has a knack for gift giving. I think it’s a genetic thing, just like being able to wear a scarf around your neck and not look stupid. My sister, Judi, got that gene. I did not. She also got the gift giving gene. Perhaps the two things are related. Hmmmm…..have I ever seen Carrie with a scarf around her neck?

I just think my husband is so damned hot. Or cute, if you’d rather go with that.

A blurry Eva, a happy me.

I have no idea what was going on here.

Eva assisting with the jukebox and Peggy laughing.

Heather looking puzzled but in actual fact having a lovely time chatting with just a glimpse of Kristin. Well, she actually chatted with ALL of Kristen, unfortunately you only get a glimpse.

The greatest sugar cookie known to humankind. Courtesy Ann (surprise, surprise).

I haven’t added to my collection of trees in quite a while. This one is a winner. Yet again, we have the best of friends.

So, yes, as you can see, we had a few folks over for a holiday happy hour. It was lovely. I smiled and smiled and smiled. My plan was for budget appropriate appetizers for the evening. I did little polenta squares with sausage and cheese in them. They weren’t bad but needed more seasoning, that polenta really sucks up flavors. They would have been great if I’d had the patience to brown them in a pan but….I didn’t. Not bad, but eh. My other plan was to do little baby frittatas in mini muffin tins. I used to make these all the damn time and they always turned out great. This time, instead of just beating some eggs and pouring them over the filling as I usually did, I was swayed by various recipes to put the eggs in the blender and add cornstarch. They were a disaster. They puffed up all over the muffin tin and were completely stuck. COMPLETELY STUCK. I mean they didn’t taste bad when you managed to scrape some out (the filling was spinach, rice, feta and oregano) but…they were truly not attractive. We stuffed them in the refrigerator to scrape later.

I perused the refrigerator and decided to make a whipped feta and greek yoghurt dip with some honey and red pepper flakes and served it with a bit of cranberry sauce on top. I loved it but it was not particularly a hit. I think it ended up looking a bit repugnant with the drippy cranberry sauce. Eh, win some, lose some.

Nothing however, failed like my green olives and clementine appetizer drizzled with fig balsamic vinegar. I thought it was wonderful but it was, mmmmm, not received well.

Oh well. Everybody brought incredible food as always (as well as flowers and chocolate and things like BISCUIT ORNAMENTS. Heather brought one of my favorite gluten free treats ever, the blondies made with almond flour and white chocolate chips and pecans.

I just ate the last one. Ernie was eating some too and I had to say, “Back off, Buster, these are mine.” Please also note the absolute beauty of the tray.

You know, it’s funny. This Christmas season was quieter for us, we’re not really doing gifts and there was no house concert. I thought perhaps time would go more slowly. What the hell was I thinking?

I did do a tiny bit of shopping. When the boys were unpacking the Christmas boxes and got to the stockings I said, “Oh, I don’t think we’re doing stockings this year.” They looked so disappointed and then Leo said, “Well, we can still hang them on the mantel.” And I thought to myself, “Damn it, I guess I’m doing stockings.”

I managed to find a small pocket of money to spend so ordered some stuff last night for pick up. This morning I sent Ernie off with three stops to make. The first was successful. The second was Target and the pick up was easy and clear. Go, Target. Then Ernie tried to start the car again. No go. Wouldn’t start. We’d also switched phones at the last minute because he didn’t have the Target app. Trying to navigate someone else’s phone is like going from a PC to a Mac or vice versa. So he called me and let’s just say he was a bit wound up. He swore there no phone numbers on my phone so I started to call his brother only to remember that he and his other brother were having lunch with a friend right about then. I called Owen and guess what? HIS car wasn’t running. So I called Leo at work and he kindly left work and went over only to find one of the brothers already there. So they jumped the car and Ernie traveled on to Walmart where they apparently had no record of our order despite our email of confirmation and payment. I told him just to forget it because he didn’t want turn off the car, although I was rather sorry as one of them would have been great. They managed to refund part of it save $1.08 but I eventually got that back too. Geesh. Oh well. He drove around for a bit to charge up the battery and finally made it back home somewhat bruised and battered and we had our extremely late breakfast around noon.

Onward.

Note: I am having a hard time making myself put up the paywall. So I’ll consider this a Christmas gift. If you enjoy it please consider becoming a paid subscriber. ❤️

Oh, and thanks to Eva for this, as well as for all her photos.