Christmas Eve whatnots....

My Christmas Eve started out getting up semi-early (7:00 A.M. isn't that early compared to most weekdays), and heading to work. Yes, I work for one of those places that doesn't shut down for every holiday... luckily, though, the boss-lady was cool and let us go early. I was out the door about 1:15 or so and heading home.


After a few texts back and forth with the kids during the day, it was decided that our Christmas day meal(dinner, lunch...whatever..) would consist of fried chicken, potatoes with chives and cheese, sweet corn, and rolls



Of course, dessert has to include my mom's fresh apple & cheese cobbler (the cheese is the cream cheese in the crust- sooooo good!)

so after arriving home from work, then a trip to the neighborhood Kroger where I bought all the necessaries, including a six pack of a new beer to try...
which, incidentally, was a pretty good choice on my part. *pats self on back*


I stumbled my way through making a chocolate buttercream frosting, adding some brown sugar and pecan glaze so it would got well with the "doctored" duncan hines german chocolate mix...

my doctoring this time wasn't much more than adding some extract and stirring a little more cocoa into the mix to give the cake a richer flavor, but I think it'll be more special than just "out of the box"

I also prepared the crust for the apple cobbler, which is chilling in the refrigerator, wrapped in wax paper.


As for the star of the show, the fried chicken, it is getting its start by soaking in buttermilk and beer with a splash of Louisiana red hot added. Tomorrow it will be seasoned and then tossed in seasoned flour and fried hot and crispy...


mmmmm!


The cobbler will be baked tomorrow, along with the sides of potatoes and sweet corn. Each dish will come together for a really tasty meal.


I think pairing that with gift giving and silliness and maybe a netflix movie or two will make our little Christmas a good one!

Gardening progress, and the accidental coriander surprise

You may recall my post about planting a few little things in my tiny herb and veggie garden

about a month ago. Well, since then I've had some success, which has even a few yummy salads, and some great burger and sandwich fixings!

The lettuce has gotten nice and full, and is still wonderful and mild. The spinach is struggling, but I've managed to harvest some nice leaves for salads.

 

Oh and nothing beats being able to cook with your very own home-grown herbs! I've got sprigs of thyme in a pot of stew simmering on the stove - mmmmm!

 

Another fun and cool thing about gardening is that some plants like to surprise you by spreading their seeds around, giving you new plants when you least expected them. I found a wonderfully fragrant little coriander plant this afternoon - what a treat!

 

Oh and the squash plant refuses to be outdone. If you look closely, there's a tiny squash forming ;)

 

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The scent of lavender and rosemary....

So, I decided after much pondering and thinking to channel my grandmother and create a little herb and kitchen garden for myself. Since we are in the middle of the "too damn hot to start anything right now" season, vegetables are not really the thing to plant in the ground, and nurseries just don't have plants available.

I managed to scrounge up a few little herb plants - rosemary, a type of perennial lavender, some basil, mint, fennel, and even a coriander plant that was about to go to seed.

Okay...okay...to answer your question: yes, the garden does look pretty scraggly right now, but since planting I have enjoyed picking little bits of herb from that scraggly little garden to cook with.

I plan on nursing my little herb plants through the hot summer (hopefully they'll survive!), and when the fall planting season rolls around, I'll put out some vegetables, and more herbs.







So far I have used my rosemary and basil, and fennel leaves in pasta dishes, but I have plans for the lavender and mint as well. Oh, and the coriander - it should seed fairly quickly. I'm hoping for both cilantro leaves and coriander seed to add to some tasty dishes!

Snickerdoodle Saturday and those pesky Summer Colds...

Yesterday my mom and dad came down for a one-day visit, which was filled with the usual standing around the kitchen and talking, cooking, and baking. My mother brought the ingredients plus recipes for both snickerdoodles and pumpkin bread - both favorites of mine and my kids'.

One of my favorite things to do is to get into the kitchen and put together something delicious - whether it be a cake, a batch of cookies, or a to-die-for steak dinner. I enjoy cooking and baking with mom, because we can spend time catching up - since she and dad live about 3 1/2 hours away, we don't see each other every day, for obvious reasons.

We ended up with more than 2 dozen cookies, and a loaf plus about a dozen pumpkin muffins - which by the way are wonderful with coffee for breakfast aaannnnnd loaded with vitamin A so I can eat as much as I want.

Soooo... anyway.... part of our kitchen conversation was sortof like this:

Me: ohhh you know what would be good? Snickerdoodle cupcakes! with yellow cake but with cinnamon sugar, and maybe a buttercream with cinnamon sugar...


Her: *odd look* hmm..really?


Me: *eyes glazing over* oohh..yeahhh... *drool*


....and guess what?

They exist!

Adapted from a recipe by Ann Byrn in her book The Cake Mix Doctor(shameless plug: great book, seriously, no really honestly), the cupcakes have that hint of cinnamon and sugar I described to mom and I can't wait to try them out.

Go here for the recipe and try them out yourself!


Oh and yes, among all that fun in the kitchen my body decided to let in a few visitors - in the form of achiness, runny nose, and all over just blah feeling.... so now I'm downing vitamin C, lots of fluids and trying to rest up to feel better before heading in to work tomorrow morning. Gack! I don't have time to be sick! :P


oh and almost forgot! (shameless plug alert)

I finally listed another painting!

You can, of course, find it in my Etsy shop.