Buche De Noel

This year we had a great Christmas meal of ham, salmon (for those who don't eat ham), scalloped potatoes and green beans. I was in charge of dessert, so I thought it would be fun to try a Buche de Noel. Having never made a jelly roll this project was a challenge from start to finish. I wound up making a chocolate Genoise, Barefoot Contessa's vanilla pastry cream and chocolate sour cream frosting. The challenge became greater when I realized I had no powered sugar for the frosting and it was Christmas. A quick search on the Internet and I found that you can "make" powdered sugar in the blender using 1 cup granulated sugar + 1 teaspoon cornstarch ground in a blender. It did in a pinch, but the frosting was a bit grainier than I would have liked. Maybe I didn't blend long enough? Anyway, I made some meringue mushrooms and a gnome out of fondant to finish it off. Next year, I may try an orange version like this.

Owen insisted he wanted the gnome. After he bit the head off, he turned a very unusual shade of green and that was the end for both of them.

Santa Made It

It must have been quite a trip because, in addition to toys, Santa brought Owen and Laney avocados from Mexico and Spencer a coconut from Hawaii.

There was lots of unwrapping and playing:

We finally got out of our pjs at about 3 and headed to Greenie and Grandpa John's house for dinner. At the end of the day, Sam and I thought we were going to fall over, but looking back we wouldn't have changed a thing.

Anticipation

After a bowl of our traditional Christmastime Cioppino complete with King crab legs, mussels, cherrystone clams (I'd leave those monsters out next time), shrimp, calamari, scallops, mahi-mahi and my mom's freshly baked sourdough French bread,

We got the kids in their new Christmas pjs and let them each choose a gift to open.

Grammie and Grandpa John got to open one too, but their gift was packed in the strangest styrofoam material we had ever seen. With just the slightest touch, it crumbled apart into statically charged little balls. It was a hard to resist and before we knew it we were having a indoor snowball fight - Owen won!

Then it was off to bed in anticipation of Santa's arrival...

Santa Is Coming To Town

You better watch out - check...

You better not pout - hmmm ...

note left outside Spencer's door the other day

You better not cry - uh-oh...

Although it is not looking good for us at the moment, Santa is coming back with his reindeer...

and we did sprinkle reindeer food in the yard and we did make cookies! Lots and lots of cookies and we all know the way to a man's heart is through his tummy, so, maybe there might be a just be a present or two.

Macaroons, Apricot Rugelach, Peanut Blossoms, Jam Thumbprints and Sugar Cookies

I'm off to eat some cookies and then it's off to bed to rest up for the big morning. Merry Christmas.

The "Fancy" Tree

Would you like to see what happens when you let a 2, 4 and 6 year old decorate a 3 foot tree all by themselves?

Fancy!

Make Your Own Little Ribbon Gift Bag

I needed something to put a little gift in and, of course, didn't have anything, so I found a piece of ribbon, got out the glue gun and a minute later I had a little bag for the present. Want to make one? Just cut a piece of ribbon twice as long as you would like your bag to be (if it has a wires in the sides pull them out), fold the ribbon in half, starting at the bottom of the fold run a bit of hot glue along the sides stopping just short of the top, then carefully press the sides together.

One More Makes Four

Dear Friends and Family,

Please excuse my absence over past month, but, you see, I been very busy reacquainting myself with the family room sofa. It is a nice sofa and I have no major complaints. Sure the leather can be a bit cold on occasion and the arms are a bit high for optimum head resting, but it passed the most important test, it was there for me - the human blob. So, when you didn't see me at a school, the grocery store, Christmas shopping, or at the post office, you can be sure I was warming the sofa. In addition to the nausea and, occasional vomiting, and killer headaches that come with being pregnant, I have had the mother of all colds - it has been a month and I am still coughing. Gotta love winter in Michigan.

Because of the sofa situation, Sam has been working extra hard to pick up the slack around the house. Thanks to him, I have learned a few new cleaning techniques. The first of which is to exploit, I mean, recruit the children. They practically work for nothing - just a handful of coins for the piggy bank and they're happy campers. The second thing I learned, many socks make light work. Here is how it worked:

Spray the floor with some (ineffective) organic all purpose cleaner.

Put on socks from the Northwest international kit (any socks will do).

Scooch, run in place and slide and before you know it - voila, a "clean" floor.

By the way, this baby is expected to be born July 6th (no, not an October this time), so I am just over 11 weeks and really, really looking forward to the next trimester.

The Happy Pizza

At the moment it is 24 degrees (yes, that is Fahrenheit) and dreary. What to do? Hmmmm. I know, eat - carbohydrates, of course. In our house, nothing eases the winter blues like a healthy serving of carbohydrates, so I made a pizza. Not just any pizza though, a potato pizza similar to the one my mom made. It is so tasty and my serotonin level just rises just looking at this picture.

Several years ago my mom gave me some of her sourdough starter and I use that to make my pizza dough. I cooked the potatoes in my cast iron skillet with a bit of olive oil, salt, white wine and parsley. I used mozzarella cheese and some chunks of chevre. Last, but not least, the Kalamata olives which are a nice balance to the potatoes. Now, I know this isn't for everyone, but I bet if you try it you will be happy too.

Winter Projects

Where to begin? Things have been very busy! For some reason, I thought the cold weather would bring lots of time. I guess I thought that because the kids wouldn't be playing outside as much, I would have more time to work on my inside projects. WRONG! What was I thinking? Inside time for the kids means more time for their projects.

I have been able to squeeze a few of mine in, though. Owen's school hosts an auction as a fundraising event, so I thought it might be fun to do some painting. Well, after this massive little project, I can't imagine Catherine painting giant pieces of furniture - I would get the door done and that would be the end of that. Anyway, here is what I did get done (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them if you like).

The Step-Up Stool:

All packed up and ready to go:

Each got a label like this:

The Whatever Bin:

The Off My Mind Dry Erase Board:

That's all for now, and, most likely, for a while; maybe a summer project? HA!