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I drove back home today.
We went to Western Washington for Christmas. Had compact snow and ice for about 20 miles both ways over the pass. Chains required except all wheel drive vehicles.
It was actually an easy drive you just have to stay away from the idiots and morons.
We are sitting at home safe and sound. Had tamales for dinner. The place I get tamales from has won National awards for them. Not cheap at $22 a dozen but they are worth it.
All the presents have been opened and now I'm just waiting for bedtime. I am beat.
 
A great visit w/ my son last night. We were talking about different gifts. I guess last year my daughter mentioned that she was going on a diet before Christmas so he got her a 5 lb. bag of gummy bears 😂 Different silly things.
Today the "old folks" both Hubby's folks and mine were over for the big meal. Ate too much, got all the left overs divvied up and put away (& sent some home with them.) Now sitting.
Hope you are all having a great and Merry Christmas.
 
Sounds like a good day, @The Lazy L
Felt too tired this morning and was going to clock out for the day but the late arrival the other day, when they were given a choice to come today or come tomorrow opted for both ASAP. Gave me renewed energy. My youngest grandson, though he has lived far away, we keep in touch on live messaging, he's only 2, he knows me and wants to be with me when he sees me. 😍
Dinner was great. Daughter-in-law spilled darn near the whole jar of pickle juice on the table, that was pretty funny, especially when it started flowing through the table leaf crack. We are a lively noisy bunch. I can imagine that is only going to louder and livelier.
 
backlash said:
I drove back home today.
We went to Western Washington for Christmas. Had compact snow and ice for about 20 miles both ways over the pass. Chains required except all wheel drive vehicles.
It was actually an easy drive you just have to stay away from the idiots and morons.
We are sitting at home safe and sound. Had tamales for dinner. The place I get tamales from has won National awards for them. Not cheap at $22 a dozen but they are worth it.
All the presents have been opened and now I'm just waiting for bedtime. I am beat.
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I went a few weeks ago and got tamales, before daughter made her reservations to go to Mexico. I usually gift some tamales to others as well. Tamales are in the freezer. I go to a place that makes up to a 1000 a day and sells out quickly. Closer to Christmas, you have to line up about 6 in the morning and by 7 or 8, the line is around the block and they may be sold out before you get to the register. I paid around $15.75 a dozen. We always get half green, half red. We'll have beans and rice and green chili with ours.
 
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Totally tired, but kinda early to call it a night. Son and the girlfriend leave on the 3am train, so husband will sleep a bit, then take them. Son drove mom home, with the help from granddaughter. Mom was extra confused today, said little kids were running thru her apartment, and she had a black eye. Said she fell into her tv. My cousin came for dinner, too. We all ate lots, and little granddaughter just got her second wind and is watching Christmas Chronicles (very cute movie). Will miss son, but the GF was a bit of a whacko. BLM feminist. Not his type at all. 30 and unmarried, and holds onto him like crazy the past few days. I predict she will stalk him when they break up. I do believe she thought she was entering the twilight zone coming here, but I give her 10 points for surviving us.
 
Peanut, yikes about the eye. I hope it heals quickly! That must have hurt like a mofo!

I'd never seen It's A Wonderful Life before but it was on last night. It was about halfway through the movie-- about the point where he got beat up in a bar. Mom had to pause it for 6min to catch me up on what parts I'd missed. To troll her I kept asking about when his invisible rabbit friend Harvey was going to be mentioned.

Pics of the downed gates reminds me I need to get mine fixed so I can keep my cows in.

Only had a brownie to eat thus far. Cooked the last of the chicken meat for Mom. Will have to go to the store tomorrow & hope there is still meat and stuff.
 
A wonderful, low-key Christmas! We don't exchange presents or do much - just a day when the three of us can all be home together (hubby, youngest son, me).

We had a fantastic turkey breast in the air fryer and a bunch of simple sides (keeping things easy because I have a broken finger that gets in the way of things).

Played some cards, then watched National Treasure. We know all the lines, but that's part of the fun. Haven't watched it in years.
 
Played dominoes with mom at the nursing home, then had a terrific spiral ham supper at my brother's house. His wife is a fantastic cook.

Stayed way too late, conversing with my oldest brother about kids. His 3 are from age 32 to 25 so it hasn't been that long since he finished raising his. They are all good kids and professionally successful, so he and his wife must've done something right. His advice is probably worth listening to.

Since I stayed so late, that hour drive home seemed a lot longer than an hour. Not sure if I'll make it to church in the morning or not...
 
Christmas dinner was a bit of a bust... The wife had the energy to start it, but her energy gave out half way through.... The leg of lamb ended up being a little over cooked, but it still had good flavor. The potatoes she made using an internet recipe for a sauce to make it into something like potato salad, but if found it bitter, (would have preferred just roasted with garlic and oil), and the fancy carrots cooked with a smoked paprika and oil glaze were just not to my liking (but better than the potatoes). If it were not for the layered salad I would have voted to cast the whole lot in the file 13.....

Unfortunately the wife asked me how I liked it and I was honest... so now I am in the dog house (again). Sometimes I wish that people who post crappy recopies on the internet be forced to eat their creations......... Then again I have found that cooks are often unable to face that fact that they can't cook....

Well the kitchen didn't get cleaned up last night so I guess I will go do a little cleaning.....
 
UrbanHunter said:
Christmas dinner was a bit of a bust... The wife had the energy to start it, but her energy gave out half way through.... The leg of lamb ended up being a little over cooked, but it still had good flavor. The potatoes she made using an internet recipe for a sauce to make it into something like potato salad, but if found it bitter, (would have preferred just roasted with garlic and oil), and the fancy carrots cooked with a smoked paprika and oil glaze were just not to my liking (but better than the potatoes). If it were not for the layered salad I would have voted to cast the whole lot in the file 13.....

Unfortunately the wife asked me how I liked it and I was honest... so now I am in the dog house (again). Sometimes I wish that people who post crappy recopies on the internet be forced to eat their creations......... Then again I have found that cooks are often unable to face that fact that they can't cook....

Well the kitchen didn't get cleaned up last night so I guess I will go do a little cleaning.....
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Clean the kitchen, maybe you can peek your head out of the doghouse!😊
 
Good morning! Yesterday was nice! And low key. Both visits we made went well, tree is down and stored as are all (few) outside decorations.

Church and Sunday School this morning.
Walk dogs.
Make bacon wrapped jalapenos and corn bread.
Make a couple of calls.
 
Oh man will I be cleaning the kitchen today. We left a very big mess, but it all would of gotten in the way of visiting. A load of dishes was done, but you wouldn't of known it.
Son and girlfriend left on the train, so husband will be sleeping in today after taking them to the station, I'm sure. It's almost 8 am and I don't hear anybody up.
Little granddaughter's mom and the boyfriend will be visiting this afternoon so we'll be around home today
 
Sunday School is canceled for today and next Sunday too.

Worship service.

Take the wife out for lunch if there are any restaurants open.

Do some more planning on the best way to add ceiling lights in the living room. Two story house so there is no access to the ceiling from above. There is a switch outlet...if it's cable could be found without swiss cheesing the drywalled ceiling?! When we built the house wife was adamant about wanting NO ceiling lights. Now she complains about how dark the room is. Females!!!!!!

Turn on the TV to a football game and take a nap.
 
Urban, sorry to hear your wife tuckered out on dinner and it didn't turn out to your liking. My brother has had some failed cooking experiments.

I don't understand people getting angry if someone didn't like something and was honest about it. People have different tastes. You can still appreciate that someone cooked even if you don't like what they cooked. Maybe I'm just used to the criticism because my mother has always been overly critical of just about everything. If she says something was "OK" it's practically high praise. I generally ask her questions about if it was easy to cut, moist enough, too much salt, etc to gauge what went wrong so I can modify the cooking method.

As an aside, I still remember when I changed a lightbulb for a (now) late elderly friend and she made gumbo without onions to thank me, but she forgot I'm allergic to pepper. She felt awful because I couldn't eat it. I told her not to worry about it because I appreciated the thought and I was sure my family members would enjoy it. I told her that she'd already pre-thanked me with all the cookies and brownies over the years.

I'm awake because my shoulder started hurting and I couldn't get comfortable. I've got some potato soup going in the pressure cooker. Scheduled for my booster vaccine this morning.
 
snappy1 said:
...tree is down and stored as are all (few) outside decorations.
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Wow! That was fast! :clapping:


zannej said:
As an aside, I still remember when I changed a lightbulb for a (now) late elderly friend and she made gumbo without onions to thank me, but she forgot I'm allergic to pepper. She felt awful because I couldn't eat it. I told her not to worry about it because I appreciated the thought and I was sure my family members would enjoy it. I told her that she'd already pre-thanked me with all the cookies and brownies over the years.
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That's a sweet story. :)
 
UrbanHunter said:
Unfortunately the wife asked me how I liked it and I was honest... so now I am in the dog house (again).
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Sorry to hear that, Urban. When I ask my guys if they like a new recipe, it's framed as "is this something I should cook again?" Last night the evaluation of the turkey lead to a great conversation about preferences regarding other foods, and I learned some new things about what my guys like. Hopefully Mrs. Urban will feel better about things today. Maybe sneak in some compliments about things she makes that you do love.
 
goshengirl said:
Sorry to hear that, Urban. When I ask my guys if they like a new recipe, it's framed as "is this something I should cook again?" Last night the evaluation of the turkey lead to a great conversation about preferences regarding other foods, and I learned some new things about what my guys like. Hopefully Mrs. Urban will feel better about things today. Maybe sneak in some compliments about things she makes that you do love.
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The sad thing is that Mrs. Urban is a GREAT cook, but she gets board easily and wants to try something "DIFFERENT", trouble is different is not always better..... I am like old and boaring... I do not need tabsco on my corn flakes.... :)
 
I do try new recipes, but not for holiday dinners. Everyone likes the tried and true. We actually have a duplicate Thanksgiving dinner for Christmas day dinner. Everyone was quiet eating last night, and I looked up and said something. They were too busy eating to talk, so that said something. Prime rib is always Christmas Eve. Well, we may be priced out of it next year. The son's girlfriend had not eaten alot of the foods served here this week. But she did pig out when she found something she liked. She's never had prime rib before.
 
We don't experiment much with new recipes on holidays. We either make the "same old thing" (tm) or try something that is very plain, not a fancy recipe. This year I made a ribeye roast, but it's difficult to really mess that up when all's you do it put some Kosher salt on it and then bake it (indeed, it did turn out well!)

I did try a new and different horseradish spread for the roast though. Normally we use the fresh prepared stuff as opposed to the cream style (we use the milder cream style on sandwiches though). The store was out of the fresh prepared so I picked up a different brand of cream style hoping for something a bit snappier than our mild Kraft sandwich stuff.

Warning! This new stuff I tried (on the left) is much hotter than the weenie sandwich stuff on the right! It nearly lit my pants on fire when I gulped down the first large bite of it on the roast. Yikes! After learning to back off on it to the bare minimum it was quite good though. (The Kraft stuff is like what you get in the packets at Arby's - so mild you can hardly tell it's horseradish.)

sauce.jpg
 
Amish Heart said:
I do try new recipes, but not for holiday dinners. Everyone likes the tried and true. We actually have a duplicate Thanksgiving dinner for Christmas day dinner. Everyone was quiet eating last night, and I looked up and said something. They were too busy eating to talk, so that said something. Prime rib is always Christmas Eve. Well, we may be priced out of it next year. The son's girlfriend had not eaten alot of the foods served here this week. But she did pig out when she found something she liked. She's never had prime rib before.
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It's always fun to see someone try a good serving of meat that they've never had before. She probably had the same look on her face, that I had on my face the first time I had a Texas BBQ brisket...
 
Haertig said:
We don't experiment much with new recipes on holidays. We either make the "same old thing" (tm) or try something that is very plain, not a fancy recipe. This year I made a ribeye roast, but it's difficult to really mess that up when all's you do it put some Kosher salt on it and then bake it (indeed, it did turn out well!)

I did try a new and different horseradish spread for the roast though. Normally we use the fresh prepared stuff as opposed to the cream style (we use the milder cream style on sandwiches though). The store was out of the fresh prepared so I picked up a different brand of cream style hoping for something a bit snappier than our mild Kraft sandwich stuff.

Warning! This new stuff I tried (on the left) is much hotter than the weenie sandwich stuff on the right! It nearly lit my pants on fire when I gulped down the first large bite of it on the roast. Yikes! After learning to back off on it to the bare minimum it was quite good though. (The Kraft stuff is like what you get in the packets at Arby's - so mild you can hardly tell it's horseradish.)

View attachment 77736
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Ah - you forgot to read the fine print "hot grated horseradish hearts" - that'll learn ya. 😂 I don't touch the stuff, Hubby loves it.

Had all the décor (not that there was tons) down and on the table ready for the tote by 7:30 w/ exception of the tree. I thought I'd see if I can handle it for another day or two, but it's not looking promising - I want the house cleaned & everything put away. Cleaned and straightened out in the summer kitchen for a while. Had sooo many boxes to break down & new shelf-things to put where they are to go. Got one shelf in, boxes broken down, swept and organized etc. Got cold so came in to eat and have a cup of hot tea. Need to get more laundry going (riveting I know!) and get ready for another work week. Nice quiet day. Sunny then snowing but not sticking, then sunny, now cloudy.
 
snappy1 said:
Good morning! Yesterday was nice! And low key. Both visits we made went well, tree is down and stored as are all (few) outside decorations.

Church and Sunday School this morning.
Walk dogs.
Make bacon wrapped jalapenos and corn bread.
Make a couple of calls.
Click to expand...
Wow! So fast! Did you take it down last evening or this morning? You must be ready for the next thing, whatever that is! I saw a tree in my alley this morning and was kind of surprised. It actually looked like it had never even been decorated. I did take a tree down on Christmas day once because it was so dry. There were hardly any needles on it by the time I got it to the trash.
 
Haertig said:
We don't experiment much with new recipes on holidays. We either make the "same old thing" (tm) or try something that is very plain, not a fancy recipe. This year I made a ribeye roast, but it's difficult to really mess that up when all's you do it put some Kosher salt on it and then bake it (indeed, it did turn out well!)

I did try a new and different horseradish spread for the roast though. Normally we use the fresh prepared stuff as opposed to the cream style (we use the milder cream style on sandwiches though). The store was out of the fresh prepared so I picked up a different brand of cream style hoping for something a bit snappier than our mild Kraft sandwich stuff.

Warning! This new stuff I tried (on the left) is much hotter than the weenie sandwich stuff on the right! It nearly lit my pants on fire when I gulped down the first large bite of it on the roast. Yikes! After learning to back off on it to the bare minimum it was quite good though. (The Kraft stuff is like what you get in the packets at Arby's - so mild you can hardly tell it's horseradish.)

View attachment 77736
Click to expand...

Inglehoffer is our preferred brand. That is some good stuff. Best I've ever had anyway.. But it will light you up if you aren't expecting it.

Tilled a strip in one of the lower gardens, gonna plant figs starts. Also some garlic after I got another bed topped off. I've got 4 different kinds in the ground now. See what performs the best.
Otherwise just piddling around, resting up for the week.
We usually leave out decorations up till after new years.
 
My brother loves to experiment with recipes. We have different tastes so sometimes he's the only one who likes something. But other times we all like it. I experiment a little with cooking-- trying to improve recipes. Although sometimes I will use the same ingredients, cook for the same amount of time, etc and it turns out different.

Got my booster shot and picked up groceries. Gave mom some of the potato soup. Texture turned out weird this time. Not sure why. I'm about to take a nap though.
 
Bacpacker said:
Inglehoffer is our preferred brand. That is some good stuff. Best I've ever had anyway.. But it will light you up if you aren't expecting it.

Tilled a strip in one of the lower gardens, gonna plant figs starts. Also some garlic after I got another bed topped off. I've got 4 different kinds in the ground now. See what performs the best.
Otherwise just piddling around, resting up for the week.
We usually leave out decorations up till after new years.
Click to expand...

Now that just not right. Your supposed to be tilling snow, not gardens.

It's -40 F here with two feet of snow on the ground. My son didn't get his snow blower hooked up to his tractor, so while they were sleeping in. I got that done and cleared his yard and driveway. Had their vehicles all cleaned off and warmed up when they were called into work.

I like trying new dishes as well, but only in addition to the tried and true. Then I ask for a suck rating and accept the answers.
 
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