December - in pictures

I baked cookies recently ... HA - a master of understatement, me LOL
After the packages were all wrapped for our party...I thought I was done. See ? Doesn't that look like more than enough?

Um, nope - I needed boxes for work, both DH's and mine - more baking.
Done. yet ?
Nope - this morning I'm in Toronto. Anyone want to hazard a guess how I spend my morning ? You only get one guess !...
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Marjie - I can't thank you enough for the visual of deformed hot dogs ! Too funny :-)
These are now all baked and probably won't last long. but NOW I'm done. Thank goodness.

Every year some asks me how many cookies I make. This year I started to keep track. I gave up but a conservative estimate would be in the range of about 135 dozen - it's official - I'm nuts ! LOL

The big Christmas dinner was a couple of weeks ago and was a success. Here are a few shots of the day. One of these years, I'm going to remember I want a group shot.

Just look what they did to my little boy - he only tried to shake it off once  LOL

it was a tough day !

Have you ever seen a dog sit like this ? He actually sits back on the edge of the bed and then lies forward 

don't remember what it was, but whatever trouble we'd gotten into, neither one of us was taking blame LOL

Our friends' tree - isn't it gorgeous ?

Montreal has snow  - a white Christmas :-)

The new one...

Each year I try to make a new recipe - just so the boxes are not 'exactly' the same every year. I remember Mom making these bar cookies but I never had a recipe for them. I found this one online the other day and made 'em last night. Of course, I had to triple it ! ...and changed the raspberry jam to strawberry. That's what I had on hand. I ended up with about 15 dozen.

...and that's a wrap for cookie baking this year...I hope.

All cookied out !

oh boy, another round of baking this weekend. The cookies for the diabetic houses are done - ribbon, candy cane, red spritz and green spritz. The candy cane and spritz were all done today as well as a cheesecake.

Can't believe they all made it to the freezer before I realized I hadn't taken pictures. 'course, at this point, you've all seen them before :-)

I still need/want to do the almond cookies and possibly cherry loaves. Maybe I can get some done in the evenings this coming week.

The list is slowly getting checked off.

How was your weekend ?
Later.

'tis the season & I'm tired !

It was a busy, wonderful weekend ! My birthday was yesterday and it all started Thursday night - had to cook for our department breakfast on Friday morning. Completely forgot pictures but I made 2 pans of Egg Bread Pudding - This one from food52.com. So, Friday morning was the breaky, Friday afternoon, 3 girls from work and I went for lunch and to see Breaking Dawn, part 2. After we went for a coffee and a gabfest. Saturday, hubby & I went out in the morning - regular errands, the afternoon was spent with a girlfriend and hubby took me out for supper. A new Chinese buffet we've been wanting to try. Today, it was back in the kitchen for more Christmas baking. Another girlfriend came over and I put her to work chopping and sprinkling. We had a great time.

I lost a lot of Christmas baking time in Sep/Oct while I was sick so I've had to make up time !
The to-do lists are underway and I noticed there are a lot of items that get done at the last minute but could be done in advance. This year I'm going to try to get more done ahead of time. So far the ribbon (20 doz), candy cane (12 doz) and spritz (13 doz of each color) are started. Started because I've got a few boxes that need cookies using Splenda instead of sugar - I'll do those batches last to keep them separate. Ribbon and candy cane were done in the last couple weekends. Spritz today, as well as the ice cream, French Vanilla and Eggnog. I'll process the ice cream tomorrow and they'll go into the freezer all done. I may do the cheesecake early too and freeze it.

Here are the cookies so far...

The bowls in the back are the ice cream

Whew, I'm done for today !
How was YOUR weekend ?

OMG !

Every year DH asks what I want for Christmas, I give him some ideas and then he buys something of his own choosing - always something great, but never from the list !

This year I didn't have much of a list and when he asked I didn't worry too much since he doesn't use 'em anyway LOL.

But he asked again and so I made a very, detailed list - stores, hours, addresses, specific items WITH pictures. There was now way for him to say 'I wasn't sure' :-)

Yesterday I opened the complete Harry Potter set in Blu-Ray and the Twilight book set.

AND these...


He did good ! :-)

We survived another one

It's a lot of work but worth every bit of effort!

There were 15 of us this year - we lost a couple at the 9th hour.

Marjie & g had questions on the last post, I'll answer 'em here...

Marjie - I made the candy cane ice cream twice now and it didn't get eaten as well as the other desserts. We don't eat very much ice cream in the winter so I skipped that one this year - only made the eggnog and french vanilla.

g - the Christmas dinner started a long time ago (this was the 12th in the house and maybe 5 or so before that in the apartment) as a way to plan a December get-together with some of our friends. The first year, Hubby decided it would be a good idea to make an actual turkey dinner as we were either at his parents or mine for Christmas Day and we didn't make our own turkey. By the end of the first dinner, it was tradition and we've done it every year since. Started with 8 people and when we moved, we could sit more people and it's usually 14-18 people now.

The french vanilla ice cream is straight from the KA booklet.
The eggnog ice cream is from cdKitchen.com Eggnog Ice Cream w/Hot Buttered Rum Sauce and btw, the rum sauce is also excellent !

This is a final pic of ALL the cookies right before I packaged them up. Absolutely no idea how many I actually made.


Some pics of the evening - we ought to (but don't) take a group shot. I think I picked pics that managed to account for everyone. Notice in the first pic, hubby even managed to get himself in the reflection of the window !






Every person except 2 owns dogs and we had 5 four-legged creatures hoping for treats during dinner. Afterwords they all grabbed a lap and crashed.

...and has anyone ever seen a dog sleep like this. I think Charlie was a contortionist in a past life LOL


It was a fabulous weekend !

The final countdown

so. Where was I ? Ah, more getting ready for Christmas Dinner. Saturday's the big day - and I'm down to the last few hours of prep.

Sunday, I made the ice cream - french vanilla and eggnog. No pics of the final products but DH was ready with the camera while I was making them and not paying any attention to him !


Monday and Tuesday - more cookies:

Some regular green tree spritz for the regular gift boxes and another full batch of spritz along with another batch of ribbon cookies made with Splenda for a friend who's watching his sugar. I was prepared for a difference in taste and/or texture but these are soooo close to 'normal' that I'm pretty impressed.

Tonight I made the cheesecakes - plain New York style (will make a strawberry sauce to go on top) and a chocolate-vanilla swirl (my swirling needs work LOL)


Cranberry sauce is made, the turkey will be thawed on time and a bunch of chopping is already done for the stuffing. Saturday morning I should be able to have the bird in the oven by 8am or so.

Tomorrow, there is still the almond cake, lemom pudding and a couple of pies to make.

We'll be ready - we always are. It's been crazy busy but it's always worth it.


Parting Shot:

We needed a new tree this year and found a good buy on a 9ft pre-lit one. My brother spent the day with us last Saturday and he decorated it while I puttered in the kitchen.

4 and counting...

Red Spritz - done
Ribbon cookies - done
Candy Canes - done

...and, as of yesterday, Almond Balls - done

When I start this madness next year, would one of you PLEASE remind me to NOT make a quadruple batch of these ?! Please ?

For one, it took 6 hours from start to finish.
For two, there are 433 cookies in those boxes ! That's 36 dozen ! Actually that's not so bad - they'll all get eaten.

But even my 6qt KitchenAid had a hard time holding all that cookie dough LOL - you can't imagine the picture I must've made. One hand holding the plastic spill cover on and the other making sure no batter grew out of the bowl at the opening. Are you counting ? I've run out of available hands - had to call hubby to turn the mixer off :-)

What's next - green christmas tree spritz or eggnog cookies ? Decisions, decisions.

My evening in pictures...

'nuff said ? :-)

Anyone still out there ?

Have you all given up on me ?

Life sure does throw curveballs once in a while doesn't it ? My last post was the beginning of my Christmas to do list. Since then, all the cookies were baked, gifts bought & wrapped, the party was held Dec 11 and in the blink of an eye it was all over. How does that happen anyway ?

So, now for the past couple of weeks, I've been looking forward to traveling to Toronto to visit our friends for the week. And here comes the curveball - DH was sick last week, I'm sick now and I'm not sure which it is but either a herniated disc is acting up or I have sciatica in both legs - what a freaking week ! The pain is worse than the flu and all I really want is to be able to get some sleep.

All that means we are now having a quiet Christmas at home, just the 4 of us, although I'm sure Alex & Skippy really have no idea of Santa LOL :-) I have to admit, now I'm looking forward to it.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year !

...and so it begins again

LOL - to answer Ann - Yup, 'already' :-)
and for everyone who may think I'm batty - I booked my Christmas dinner date this past week and let everyone know. Then I checked the calendar - I've only got 7 weekends to get all these cookies made. Oh, and there's another couple coming so I have to make up 1 more cookie box than usual. Let the baking commence, er continue...

First up...spritz

Merry Christmas

I wish you all the merriest of holidays and a healthy, happy New Year !