Holiday Fun

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. It's always amazing to me that so much work goes into preparing for the holidays and then in the blink of an eye, it's all over. The S family definitely had a lot of fun this year.

Of course, J was the star and played to two of his sets of grandparents with pleasure. He was so excited by having them there that presents actually took a back seat. He was very excited by the first sight of a giant stuffed dog, whom he named Pretzel after deciding that his own name was not a suitable name for it. Actually I think he just wanted to eat a pretzel, but we ignored that and the name stuck. He also served up soup and roasted fruit for his guests in his new wooden oven. Other than that, J had very little interst in opening many of his presents. He "oohed" and "aahhed" as he ripped into some paper, but often put the gift down before he was finished and went back to read a book or make more soup. Here we are at 9:50 on Dec. 26 and there are still presents wrapped with his name under the tree. I'm okay with that. I'm happy that he wants to take his time. I am also sending out a message to anyone thinking about his birthday in Feb that we do not need any more presents. We still may be opening your Christmas gifts then!

J and Daddy cuddle with the new ball of fluff

I got to work on some different appetizers for the middle of the day. Crab cakes, which were out of this world, scallops wrapped in pancetta, garlicky spinach dip, and homemade hummus. I made the hummus for J, but he quickly rejected it in favor of the packaged roasted red pepper variety. Oh well.

Christmas dinner was delicious. We cooked a nearly 12 pound prime rib for everyone. B found a cooking method by his buddy Alton Brown on one of the new dvds he got. It said to cook it at 275 for 30 minutes and then increase the temp to 320 until the temp reached about 115. Then you put it in a 500 degree oven for 5 minutes and let it rest when you took it out. We were all skeptical of this approach, but it honestly worked beautifully. We served it with a red wine and thyme au jus, which was funny because B and I were "helping" each other using diferent recipes. oops. It all turned out fine. Roasted potatoes, tomatoes, beans, anda mixed green salad with pears, walnuts and gorgonzola rounded out the menu.

A big thank you thank you thank you to Ouiser for sharing her caramel pecan pie. She wasn't kidding when she said it was perfect. Yummy, yummy. There are still two small pieces left and I've beenn holding back from eating them for breakfast with ice cream on top. Seriously, abandon whatever pecan pie recipe you have at home and copy this one and make it right away. Smooth, sweet, but not too sweet and just plain comforting.

'm watching J as I type. He just found another present... a box of wooden fruit and a wooden knife. He's thrilled. Thanks, Nummi. You should see the determination on his face right now. oops, he's been distracted by the phone. Never mind.

We're off to Tucson this weekend through New Year's Day. J is very excited to meet his "Cousa Biddy". I'm glad I looked at my ticket info again. About a month ago they changed our return flight from 11 am to 7 pm (right at bedtime, that should be interesting!). What I didn't realize was they changed our departure flight from 9:50 to 7:30. We would have missed that one.




Happy New Year everyone!!