Home Sweet Home

I'm at home today instead of work. Originally, I was going to take off just one day (tomorrow) before the end of the year and carry two over, but I find myself with a bit of a cold and feeling a little out of control of life, so I've chosen to take off two and just carry one over. Fascinating stuff, no?

We've been so busy with Christmas that the house has been totally neglected and I think we're both wanting to give it some TLC … and we're both starting to get that nesting bug (possibly … do men get this too??) and are now looking at the calendar and going “HOLY COW! 9 weeks!??!” So yea, I'm at home today.

PS. The garbage men are going to hate us today. We accidently missed trash day 2 wks ago (a failure to communicate) and then last week (a blizzard) and we have Christmas trash to toss to the curb (doesn't everyone?) and we've been cleaning out the basement (because that's what sane people do after Christmas) so they will be hauling approximately 30 sq ft of garbage. I should stand out back by the cans with cookies for them. Really.

PPS. We're supposed to get MORE snow today. Like 10-18 inches. Even Matt is not thrilled.

Red Beans & Rice (crockpot)

from: Martha Stewart's Handmade Holiday

Ingredients
11 lemons, preferably organic
1 liter 160-proof vodka or grain alcohol
3 C sugar
3 C boiling water

Directions
Peel strips of zest from lemons using vegetable peeler; reserve remainder of lemons for another use. Put the zest and vodka into an airtight container and let stand at room temperature at least 2 days and up to 1 week.

Stir together sugar and hot water until completely dissolved; let cool completely. Stir sugar mixture into vodka mixture; refrigerate in an airtight container overnight.

Pour liquid through a large sieve and funnel into airtight bottles. Discard zest. Limoncello can be kept in the freezer for up to 3 months.

from: Jess

Ingredients
2 packages vanilla flavored almond bark
rice krispies
starlight mints or candy canes

Directions
Stick the candycanes or mints in a plastic bag and use a hammer or a shoe or your meat tenderizer to mash 'em up. don't get them too fine. You want some color!

Smush up or chop the almond bark. Put it in a sauce pan and melt it over low heat. It isn't like normal chocolate … no need to use a double broiler. But do watch it.

Once it's all melted, stir in some rice krispies. Not so many that the almond bark doesn't cover it, but enough so that they permeate.

Pour this mixture onto a rimmed cookie sheet and spread it around until you have an evenish layer. Sprinkle the candy pieces all over the top and push them gently in with the back of a spatual or something else flat.

Then cover the whole thing up with foil and set it somewhere cold (like your patio in the winter, say) and let it sit for a while. It will get all waxy when it is properly set. Make sure it is really set and then break it apart.

from: Jess

Ingredients
2 packages vanilla flavored almond bark
rice krispies
oreos (like 12 or s)

Directions
Stick half the oreos in a plastic bag and use a hammer or a shoe or your meat tenderizer to mash 'em up. Don't get them too fine. The chunks look pretty on top.

Take the other half and pulverize them in a blender or food processor.

Smush up or chop the almond bark. Put it in a sauce pan and melt it over low heat. It isn't like normal chocolate … no need to use a double broiler. But do watch it.

Once it's all melted, stir in the pulverized oreos and then some rice krispies. Not so many that the almond bark doesn't cover it, but enough so that they permeate.

Pour this mixture onto a rimmed cookie sheet and spread it around until you have an evenish layer. Sprinkle the smashed oreos all over the top and push them gently in with the back of a spatula or something else flat.

Then cover the whole thing up with foil and set it somewhere cold (like your patio in the winter, say) and let it sit for a while. It will get all waxy when it is properly set. Make sure it is really set and then break it apart.

from: Recipe Zaar

Ingredients
1 lb dried red beans (after extensive research I have discovered that kidney beans are the same thing)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small green pepper, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 (14.5 oz) cans beef broth
2 C water
1 lb smoked ham or smoked turkey ham or sausage (cooked) cut into 1-inch pieces
1 t salt
1/2 t hot pepper sauce
3-4 C cooked rice

Directions
Soak beans in your crockpot over night; drain, rinse. Combine all ingredients except rice in crockpot and cook on low for 10-12 hours or on high for 5-6 hours. Serve over hot rice.

Nutritional Info (1/6 recpe(
Calories 336; Fat 10.8 g; sat fat 3.1 g; cholesterol 53 mg; sodium 2785 mg; postassium 579 mg; carbs 34.1g

Christmas Wrap-Up

Hope everyone had as nice a Christmas as we did! As you might imagine, the last couple of days leading up to the big event were pretty crazy, especially around shopping malls. Matt and I avoided them as much as possible and faired pretty well.

As is tradition, we spent Christmas Eve with my parents, wrapping gifts, baking cookies and eating tamales and guacamole and getting punchy as the night wears on. We were quite surprised, however, to find that at 10 PM we had all gifts wrapped. So we watched some of A Christmas Story and headed to bed.

As usual, we all spoiled each other and Matt and I received many lovely gifts. Little one received her fair share of gifts as well and suffice to say she'll be a well-dressed baby. But of course the best part was getting to be together with family … and sharing good laughs.

And we received the best gift of all on Friday. We had our visit with the perinatologist and it looks like it was our last. He cleared us for landing, so to speak. Little one is head down and measuring in at 3.1 lbs (approx 50th percentile) with good amniotic fluid. Yay!

Sorta Dug Out

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology (i.e. 4-wheel drive and snow plows), it's fairly smooth going out there, seeing as we had a blizzard two days ago. Impressive! This is excellent because I still have a bit of holiday shopping to do and things will be open today.

This was Matt's first real blizzard. We got hardly any snow when we lived in Wisconsin and Tennesee (where he grew up) is ice-storm country. So he has greatly enjoyed tromping around in the snow and now admits that he should have let me buy him snow boots. I don't really know who enjoyed it more, actually … him or Loki. At about 9 PM on Wednesday night they could be found in the middle of our street underneath the street light playing fetch. Loki seemed to have no nerve sensors for cold and really no interest in coming back indoors.

Photos are here.

Snow Day!!


As you may have heard, we are somewhat hemmed in with snow. They're reporting my paticular hamlet as having gotten 20 inches …. to wich I say “BS!!” We've go tons of snow. It's really hard going by foot or by car, so we're stuck at home today.

Hope everyone is safe and sound wherever they are!! Check out all of our snowy photos on flickr.

Baby, It's Cold Outside


Of course you never know whether to brush off what the newscasters say as alarmist BS or not, but if they are to be believed, we're supposed to get 14 to 24 inches of snow in our area by tomorrow morning. I was wanting a white Christmas, but this is ridiculous.

In case you're interested/bored, you can check on our snowy progress with these webcams.

Update
Three inches in three hours!

Here Comes Santa!

What fun! Santa has left giant toys around the globe and Google Earth has the clues to find them. You can check back every day until Christmas Eve and find a new giant toy and on the big night, you can use Google Earth to track Santa's progress. You better believe we'll have Google Earth up and running on Christmas Eve during our get-together.

On a side note, I have also added some of the recipes we baked during The Second Annual Cookie Extravaganza. The two I'm missing are in a magazine my mom had and I will try to add them at some point. I also added the recipes for two types of bark and a certain yellow liquor.

Lazy Bones

So wanna hear weird? I'm no longer just sleeping poorly. I'm dreaming about sleeping poorly. Yea. It is a bit weird. After said dream, I woke up with some absolutely awful shoulder pain. It's pretty much gone away.

Anyhoo, excellent weekend. We did next to nothing and it was wonderful. We had such a busy week last week (I don't think I got to bed before 10:30 … way late for me since I get up before 6 AM every work day) that we really really needed it. And that's just what we got. We played loads of video games … did some laundry … cleaned up (rather half-heartedly) around the house. We did go out on Sat night to have dinner with Mom & Kelly and see Charlotte's Web which was quite good.

We also wrapped a few gifts … including some doggie toys. We should really have thought ahead before we did this, though, because we did this with Loki around and he saw and smelled and heared the toys and he was very indignant that none of them were tossed his direction. Of course a couple are for him, but he'll have to wait to open them on Christmas morning. They're sitting on a shelf near our tree so he doesn't take his interest in them too far.

Oreo Bark

from: Martha Stewart's Handmade Holiday

Ingredients
11 lemons, preferably organic
1 liter 160-proof vodka or grain alcohol
3 C sugar
3 C boiling water

Directions
Peel strips of zest from lemons using vegetable peeler; reserve remainder of lemons for another use. Put the zest and vodka into an airtight container and let stand at room temperature at least 2 days and up to 1 week.

Stir together sugar and hot water until completely dissolved; let cool completely. Stir sugar mixture into vodka mixture; refrigerate in an airtight container overnight.

Pour liquid through a large sieve and funnel into airtight bottles. Discard zest. Limoncello can be kept in the freezer for up to 3 months.

from: Jess

Ingredients
2 packages vanilla flavored almond bark
rice krispies
starlight mints or candy canes

Directions
Stick the candycanes or mints in a plastic bag and use a hammer or a shoe or your meat tenderizer to mash 'em up. don't get them too fine. You want some color!

Smush up or chop the almond bark. Put it in a sauce pan and melt it over low heat. It isn't like normal chocolate … no need to use a double broiler. But do watch it.

Once it's all melted, stir in some rice krispies. Not so many that the almond bark doesn't cover it, but enough so that they permeate.

Pour this mixture onto a rimmed cookie sheet and spread it around until you have an evenish layer. Sprinkle the candy pieces all over the top and push them gently in with the back of a spatual or something else flat.

Then cover the whole thing up with foil and set it somewhere cold (like your patio in the winter, say) and let it sit for a while. It will get all waxy when it is properly set. Make sure it is really set and then break it apart.

from: Jess

Ingredients
2 packages vanilla flavored almond bark
rice krispies
oreos (like 12 or s)

Directions
Stick half the oreos in a plastic bag and use a hammer or a shoe or your meat tenderizer to mash 'em up. Don't get them too fine. The chunks look pretty on top.

Take the other half and pulverize them in a blender or food processor.

Smush up or chop the almond bark. Put it in a sauce pan and melt it over low heat. It isn't like normal chocolate … no need to use a double broiler. But do watch it.

Once it's all melted, stir in the pulverized oreos and then some rice krispies. Not so many that the almond bark doesn't cover it, but enough so that they permeate.

Pour this mixture onto a rimmed cookie sheet and spread it around until you have an evenish layer. Sprinkle the smashed oreos all over the top and push them gently in with the back of a spatula or something else flat.

Then cover the whole thing up with foil and set it somewhere cold (like your patio in the winter, say) and let it sit for a while. It will get all waxy when it is properly set. Make sure it is really set and then break it apart.