(no subject)
My Awesome Dad and the Pocket Doctor came down for Giftmas dinner on New Year's Day. I think this'll be a nice tradition to start. Instead of trying to coordinate getting together during actual Giftmas, we'll just have ours a week later. Much less stress.
Nonetheless, I did spend three or four days menu planning. I made a slow roasted garlic chicken, lemon rice, and roasted some asparagus with a bit of asiago cheese.
Oh and chocolate bread for dessert, because I forgot to buy fruit for a tart.
Yes, you read that correctly, I wrote "chocolate bread." Slightly sweet, like challah, the dough is rolled out, smeared with an entire bar of chocolate that's been melted, then rolled up, sliced in half, then split lengthwise to reveal the delicious, delicious chocolate. The four pieces are then twisted into two separate loaves. It's one of the few yeast breads that can actually be eaten nearly the moment you take it from the oven. And it suits best to be torn apart by three people whilst you're all standing around the bread at the counter.
Next I plan to tackle and conquer macaroons.
Of course, one bread wasn't enough for dinner. I made the usual Daily Bread to go with, and sent the extra loaf home with My Awesome Dad and the Pocket Doctor.
They brought me a large bag of basmati rice, a litre of olive oil (after I just bought a litre too!), and some lovely Giftmas presents. One of which is a wrought iron garden stake or as we dubbed it Yart (yard art), that I opened and asked, "Um. What is it?" The Yart is a silhouette of a cat with a blown glass ball hanging in his middle. Since I don't know where they got it, I can't post a linky, but I'll take a picture this summer when I've got it up on the deck in the sun, I should remember to charge my camera batteries by then. Right? But in any case, I think My Awesome Dad is intent on replacing every item in my garden with something cat-ish. Last year he gave me a fat cat planter, which if you choose well in what you put in the pot at the back should look like the cat's tail. Sadly my dill did not want to cooperate with that idea, so the fat cat planter had a very scraggly sad tail that embarrassed it in front of the other cats in the neighborhood. Maybe I'll do rosemary this summer, since it did quite well last year. That is, until I brought it into the house before the first frost and IT DIED the very DAY I brought it in. We have since hung a cheery Giftmas ornament on it in hopes of having a Charlie Brown type of miracle.
It hasn't happened yet.
I sent My Awesome Dad and the Pocket Doctor home with an assortment of mustards, beers, and honeys, and three dishcloths I knitted up in the last two days.
This was the year of knitting for Giftmas presents. I almost got the lovely and amazing pescana's hat done before she got home from Alaska. But I lied and told her it was for myself when she asked, and she believed me. I had also made a pair of fingerless gloves in matching yarn, which Nine helped me pick out when she was here. La Cyn likes the hat so much, I now have to make one for her, and I should have enough of her bamboo yarn leftover from this project, except it's not that project anymore. That sweater was not working well with soft, bendy bamboo yarn. It's now turned into a larger version of this scarf, and I must say, it's coming along beautifully.
And with the visit from my family, the holidays are now officially over.
The other day at work, we had the "lite fm" radio station on, it was playing some dreadful song, and I said to one of my cashiers, "Hey, you know what? This isn't Giftmas music, and it is GLORIOUS."
Nonetheless, I did spend three or four days menu planning. I made a slow roasted garlic chicken, lemon rice, and roasted some asparagus with a bit of asiago cheese.
Oh and chocolate bread for dessert, because I forgot to buy fruit for a tart.
Yes, you read that correctly, I wrote "chocolate bread." Slightly sweet, like challah, the dough is rolled out, smeared with an entire bar of chocolate that's been melted, then rolled up, sliced in half, then split lengthwise to reveal the delicious, delicious chocolate. The four pieces are then twisted into two separate loaves. It's one of the few yeast breads that can actually be eaten nearly the moment you take it from the oven. And it suits best to be torn apart by three people whilst you're all standing around the bread at the counter.
Next I plan to tackle and conquer macaroons.
Of course, one bread wasn't enough for dinner. I made the usual Daily Bread to go with, and sent the extra loaf home with My Awesome Dad and the Pocket Doctor.
They brought me a large bag of basmati rice, a litre of olive oil (after I just bought a litre too!), and some lovely Giftmas presents. One of which is a wrought iron garden stake or as we dubbed it Yart (yard art), that I opened and asked, "Um. What is it?" The Yart is a silhouette of a cat with a blown glass ball hanging in his middle. Since I don't know where they got it, I can't post a linky, but I'll take a picture this summer when I've got it up on the deck in the sun, I should remember to charge my camera batteries by then. Right? But in any case, I think My Awesome Dad is intent on replacing every item in my garden with something cat-ish. Last year he gave me a fat cat planter, which if you choose well in what you put in the pot at the back should look like the cat's tail. Sadly my dill did not want to cooperate with that idea, so the fat cat planter had a very scraggly sad tail that embarrassed it in front of the other cats in the neighborhood. Maybe I'll do rosemary this summer, since it did quite well last year. That is, until I brought it into the house before the first frost and IT DIED the very DAY I brought it in. We have since hung a cheery Giftmas ornament on it in hopes of having a Charlie Brown type of miracle.
It hasn't happened yet.
I sent My Awesome Dad and the Pocket Doctor home with an assortment of mustards, beers, and honeys, and three dishcloths I knitted up in the last two days.
This was the year of knitting for Giftmas presents. I almost got the lovely and amazing pescana's hat done before she got home from Alaska. But I lied and told her it was for myself when she asked, and she believed me. I had also made a pair of fingerless gloves in matching yarn, which Nine helped me pick out when she was here. La Cyn likes the hat so much, I now have to make one for her, and I should have enough of her bamboo yarn leftover from this project, except it's not that project anymore. That sweater was not working well with soft, bendy bamboo yarn. It's now turned into a larger version of this scarf, and I must say, it's coming along beautifully.
And with the visit from my family, the holidays are now officially over.
The other day at work, we had the "lite fm" radio station on, it was playing some dreadful song, and I said to one of my cashiers, "Hey, you know what? This isn't Giftmas music, and it is GLORIOUS."