My Funny Valentine

Ok, I know I already did my post for today, but I just had to share my Valentine's Day gift. 

I got a call bright and early this morning, asking if I would like to spend the day with a certain little Monkey.  Well, is the Pope Catholic?!

We had a delightful morning of play before she literally fell asleep in her highchair while eating a cracker!  Hahaha!!  She looked like this for the next THREE hours!

The poor baby still isn't feeling so hot.  She started yawning around 10am, and I thought I was going to get her to sleep then, but she got a second wind, and played for a while, before she fell asleep around 11.  While she slept, I was able to work out and then shower, so that was kinda nice.

Her mommy sent her with a pretty cute shirt today.

That monkey was part of her Valentine's Day gift from us.  I had bought her a sock monkey at Christmas time that she LOVED.  Sadly, we lost it at Sam's Club last week.  So, now she has a new "baby."

She was actually wearing a "pretty" today.  "Pretty" is her word for jewelry.  My mom bought this bracelet for her on their last cruise (about 2 weeks ago).  It has a little dolphin on it, which is perfect since she's currently obsessed with "fishies."

Her daddy actually came to pick her up today, instead of me taking her to her mommy.  We all played for a little while, and she watched Little Mermaid for the second time today.  She's really loving her beanbag, and dragged it into position when I asked her if she wanted to watch the movie.  I don't know why she looks so uncomfortable, but I swear she wasn't!

Look how cute she was when she was ready to leave!!  (Yes, I know the first one is completely blurry.)

I'm not sure where the new backpack came from, but I couldn't resist putting it on her, and making her carry her own "stuff."  I wish I had brought my phone outside with me when I walked them to the car.  She looked so freakin' adorable, walking down the driveway, holding her daddy's hand, carrying her stuff. :P

Here's what I ended up throwing together for dinner tonight.  I hadn't anticipated having Monkey all day, so dinner was really just an afterthought.

I made our usual salad.  We can, and do, eat it almost every single night.  Mixed greens, kalamata olives, tomatoes, and feta.

I put the cucumbers in a separate bowl tonight because I really can't eat them anymore.  For the past few years, they've been killing me, coming back on me for HOURS after I eat them.  It makes me really sad, because I LOVE cucumbers. :(

I dressed them with the same dressing as the salad - olive oil, red wine or balsamic vinegar (whatever I'm feeling that night) salt, fresh cracked black pepper and crushed garlic. I put it all in a small jelly jar, and shake the bejeezus out of it.

For my little Stud Muffin, I made spinach, sauteed in olive oil, with lots of thinly sliced garlic. 

That boy could eat spinach every night if I made it.  There's a restaurant nearby that he goes to with his friend specifically because there's a spinach dish on the buffet that he loves.

I did serve shrimp, like I said I was going to, but I did absolutely nothing to it.  Thankfully, it was fully cooked, so all I had to do was thaw it under running water for a while. 

We just dipped it in cocktail sauce.  We basically had giant shrimp cocktails for dinner!

We enjoyed some strawberries for dessert.  I snapped a picture of them to show you, because they were HUGE, but I realized after I put it here, that you can't tell how big they are.  I should have put something next to them to serve as a reference.  You can sort of tell, as that's a paper towel, not a napkin, that they're on here.  Well, trust me, they were about as big as my palm!  Man, I would have LOVED it if these had been dipped in chocolate. :(

 And, there you go.  Thanks for letting me bore you with our dinner!  I hope you all had/have a wonderful Valentine's Day, and that you spent it with the ones you love.

Mmmm...

I'm watching my favorite daytime news channel, WGN, and they're doing a cooking segment.  The man is making some kind of braised meat.  What caught my ear is that one of the ingredients is ONE CUP OF TEQUILA.  Say whaaaa?!  YUM!!!  I'm gonna look that recipe up right now!  You can do if you click on this link for WGN.  You're welcome. =)

Can you smell that?

My house is smelling very yummy right now. I've got two crock pots going, each with different pork tenderloin dishes. One has a couple of tenderloins that were seasoned up well (salt, pepper, garlic powder and Pampered Chef Sweet & Smokey BBQ Rub) which I'm going to shred later and add some Sweet Baby Ray's (I could drink that stuff with a straw!!). The other pot has my usual go-to Mexican Chicken recipe, except I used pork tenderloin instead of chicken breasts. That pork also was nicely seasoned with the salt, pepper and garlic powder, but then I added a generous amount of ground cumin (since I love it), as well as some salsa, which really adds flavor to the dish.

Now I'm torn as to which we should have for dinner tonight. I'm tempted to have a little of both. Is that wrong? I normally serve the Mexican Chicken/Pork with the Mexican rice my mother-in-law taught me how to make almost 30 years ago. It's super YUM. I figured a nice cole slaw would compliment the pulled BBQ pork. Either way, I'll be making a salad. Probably a tossed salad, along with Caprese (think I spelled it wrong in my last post) since my basil plants look more like bushes now that I FINALLY planted them in their pots.

I decided to make both because I bought the tenderloins at Sam's Club last week, thinking I'd make one last week, and one last week. But, I obviously never got around to making anything last week, mostly because it felt like we were living on the surface of the sun. I was going to just throw one of the tenderloins in the freezer, but then I remembered how much I hate having to defrost meat, so I said "screw it!" and just made them both. The other thing that swayed me toward that decision is that the heat is supposed to return over the next few days. Super. Now, at least I won't have to cook for a couple of days.

I guess I'd better get to the store and pick up some cabbage to make that cole slaw. Oo, and maybe some fresh buns from the bakery to make the sandwiches. Ok, now I'm making myself hungry.

Was I really born a blonde?*

I just spent the day grocery shopping and preparing a meal - FOR NO ONE!

I'm so stupid. CSJ had to go out of town today for work, and won't be back until tomorrow. Yet, while shopping, I picked up pub burgers (our favorite) for dinner.

A little while ago, I started to prepare dinner. I went out in the freakin' heat (!) to grill those pub burgers, right after I made a pan of caramelized onions (MY favorite!) to top those burgers with, and made, what I like to call, Chopped Capresi Salad (again, our favorite).

I knew Stud would be over at his bestie's house for the night, so I figured it would just be the two of us. Nice, right? I was just about to make another salad (some Asian chopped salad kit thing I buy at Sam's Club, that CSJ loves) when it hits me. HE'S NOT COMING HOME TONIGHT, JACKWAGON! Argh! Good thing I didn't make that salad.

I actually just called Stud, cuz I thought maybe he, Bestie and Bestie's brother would want to come over and eat, but no such luck. Great.

So, now YOU'RE stuck having dinner with me!! Come on, I'm just about to set the table.

Pub Burgers with Cheese

I could eat this entire pan of onions by themselves.

"Chopped" Capresi Salad

Ok, dig in whenever you're ready. I'm off to go pull my hair out.

*That was for you, Suz. =)

Simple Sunday

Mom and Dad came over for dinner again tonight. I made big, fat, juicy pub burgers on the grill, caprese salad (using fresh basil from the pot on my window sill. YUM!) and bacon & brown sugar baked beans. I also made a skillet-full of caramelized onions, so my parents and I could smother our burgers with them, along with some bleu cheese. Oh, happy day!!

It was WAY too hot for me today, and it's only going to get worse. I'm already getting cranky just thinking about it. Time to go take a cold shower.

Aren't Sundays supposed to be for relaxing?

This was a very busy Sunday. Really, I'm not complaining. The reason I was so busy is because my sister and parents came over for dinner, so I spent the day preparing. I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures for you guys. I'm sorry. I'll go straight to my room.

I tried a new crock pot recipe. (I can see the shocked look on your faces from here, ya know.) It was a recipe for 'crock pot barbeque chicken,' and it was pretty good. The finished dish is shredded chicken in a yummy sauce, similar to pulled pork. After I put everything in the crock pot, I made a trip to the grocery store this morning to get fresh rolls from the bakery to make sandwiches. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my grocery store's bakery had pretzel rolls. YUM! I bought some of those, and then some big, soft, almost fluffy rolls that are intended to be used to make tortas. I picked up a couple of other things for dinner, as well as some ingredients for a recipe I've been wanting to try all week.

Well, I got home, did some cleaning up, did some laundry, made a homemade spinach artichoke dip, and put it in my small crock pot (g'head, giggle. You know you wanna.) I then screamed at Stud to clean up his crap in the basement so we could eat down there (MUCH cooler in the basement) and finally decided it was time to get started on the dessert. Well, hell's bells, it needed to be put in the freezer for EIGHT HOURS. It would have been fine if we wanted to eat dessert at 11PM, but since that wasn't gonna happen, I needed a Plan B. Which meant ANOTHER trip to the grocery store!

Plan B turned out to be a dessert that my brother and his girlfriend introduced us to several years ago. I'm not sure what it's really called, but I decided tonight that we'll be calling it Ice Cream Lasagna. I'm sure some of you have made it before. Here's one version of the recipe that I found online. I tweaked it a bit, adding caramel topping, and then studding the top with maraschino cherries. You pretty much can't go wrong with this one, no matter what changes you make to the 'recipe.' Again, I wish I had taken a freakin' picture for you. But, then again, it would have just made you jealous, and you probably would have shorted out your computer with the drool that would have been running down your chin. ;-)

Dinner was yummy. We started out by gorging ourselves on the spinach artichoke dip. I made a tossed salad with baby spring greens, red and yellow cherry tomatoes and Gorgonzola, dressed with olive oil & red wine vinegar, salt, pepper and garlic (all emulsified in a jar) and corn on the cob to round out our meal. We were all so full, we had to wait quite a while before bringing out our Ice Cream Lasagna.

We had an amusing evening of chit-chat and LOTS of laughs. Stud kept my mom and sister in stitches, mostly by making fun of me, the little shit! He's got an entire stand-up routine now based on my crock pot obsession. My mom and sister were rolling on the floor. My daddy, of course, was NOT participating in the mommy-bashing my son was doing. (What do you mean that's because he was asleep on the couch?!)

Well, the gang just left, I finished the last of the clean up in the basement, the dishwasher is running, I've changed into my jammies and crawled into bed, and now I'm going to check in on all my Bloggy Buddies. I hope your Sunday was half as enjoyable as mine was. Nighty night!

5/11/11

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

What is your favourite thing to cook?

Sheesh, where do I start? My favorite crock pot dish is this Mexican chicken thing that I make pretty frequently. It's SO easy and SO good!

One of my favorite dinners to make is pasta with broccoli along side lemon-pepper salmon. Mmmm, just thinking about it is making my mouth water. A tossed salad is usually also on the table. Or, even better, a caprese salad. Ok, now my mouth is REALLY watering!

I'm going to stop with those two, otherwise this post will go on forever.

Today's weather was just as miserable as yesterday's. And, school sucked big giant donkey balls AGAIN! There was one tiny little bright spot, though. One of my biggest PITAs was suspended for the rest of the week. Yep, that's right. A FIRST GRADER suspended for 2 days. I have a feeling there may be an altercation with his mama tomorrow, so I'm preparing myself for the battle. She already called me stupid this week, and her darling little cherub called me a bitch today, so this should be fun.

New Principal hasn't been in all week so far, which is weird. I wonder what's going on with her. One of my coworkers joked that she just might be as sick of the Hell-Hole as we are!!

I'm far too hot and sweaty to type anymore. Even my freakin' fingers are sweating!!! I'm too cheap to turn the air on just yet, but if things don't cool off by tomorrow, I'm gonna suck it up and turn it on. I'll cry about the bill later. I need to go get naked now, and lie on my bed under my ceiling fan.

Just in case any of you have forgotten what a dork I am...

...let me remind you. I was just sitting here watching Rachel Ray, and she was making a yummy pasta dish at the end of her show. As the show was ending, and she was dishing up the pasta, my mouth was watering as I sat here thinking about how good it looked, and how I'd love to have a big bite of it. Suddenly, I swear I could SMELL it, and my mouth watered even more. It seriously took me a few minutes to realize that what I was actually smelling was the dish I put in the crock pot earlier down in the basement. DORK!!!! But, man, does my house smell GOOD right now!!!

Sorry, Suz, we'll just have to agree to disagree about this. That's one of the things I love MOST about using crock pots. Your whole house smells yummy all day!! I can't wait to eat later. My graduate school girls are coming over for dinner tonight. Yay!

It must be The Day of the Penguin!!

Immediately after posting the video below, I got this in my mailbox from my sweet Bloggy Buddy, dkuroiwa, over at Etc., Etc., Etc. Guess what will be on our Easter table in a few days...

Pssst....KBL....this is for you....

Click HERE to donate to St. Baldrick's.

Apparently, if I'm going to continue posting cooking stuff, I'm gonna need to get a better camera. I apologize in advance for the crappy pictures.

I decided that since today is Ash Wednesday (which means no meat), tonight was the perfect opportunity to try adjusting the awesome pasta dish I made last week. Stud and I stopped on the way from school and grabbed some groceries, including some sliced mushrooms, which I knew would be the perfect addition to this dish.

Like last time, I started out by sauteing some chopped onions (about a cup) in butter, and seasoning them well with black pepper and salt. After the onions softened a bit, I threw in the mushrooms and some garlic.
When the mushrooms started to smell like heaven, I added an 8oz brick of light cream cheese
and about a cup of half-and-half.
I whisked that around a bit to melt the cheese, and then added around a cup of the boiling pasta water to thin it out a bit. I then mixed in about 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan.
These are the awesome fresh English peas I picked up at Sam's the other dayand the pasta.I put the pasta in the boiling water to cook
and when there was about 3 minutes left on the timer, I threw in the peas.
Look how happy they all are swimming around in the hot tub together.
I kept the sauce warm on the stove, on the lowest possible flame.
When the timer went off, I used a slotted spoon to get the pasta and peas out, and threw them in the sauce.
I gave it all a quick mix, and served it up!
Looks yummy, right?
After we ate, I grabbed my newest crock-pot (yay!) and sprayed it with some baking spray.
Then I gathered a few ingredients to try out a new recipe.
The mud cake that I made the other day was FREAKIN' AWESOME! I never even got a chance to take pictures for you cuz Stud and I dug right in!

While I was originally searching for that recipe, I came across another one, that actually had a YouTube video to accompany it. It seemed super easy, but since I was off that day, I figured I had time to make the other one.

This recipe is pretty much out of a box, or two, while the other one is "from scratch." Tonight seemed like a good night to try out the other recipe.

So, here goes. Mix up a box of instant chocolate pudding.
Then mix up a box of devil's food cake mix, using all the ingredients listed on the box.
Here are my two bowls, all ready to go.
Pour the cake mix into the sprayed crock.
Next, pour the pudding over the cake mix.
Finally, pour a bag of chocolate chips (yes, mine have 'bloomed' but they still taste awesome. They're Ghirardelli!) over the pudding. Yes, seriously, that's it! Could it be any easier? Cover and cook on high for 2 hours.
After two hours, it looked like this.
Looks pretty good, doesn't it? I had actually tried to take some video of myself scooping it out of the pot, so you could see all the chocolate 'lava' in the pot, but when I played it back, the video was too dark to see anything. But, here it is in our bowls. (And, yes, I WAY over-served us. Those 'things' in the chocolate are butterscotch chips. Apparently, they don't melt the way chocolate chips do. Damn me for always trying to modify recipes!)

And, the finishing touch - vanilla ice cream!!!
Ok, now that I have you wiping drool from your chin, I need to give you an honest review. While this recipe was good (I mean, come on!! What could be bad about 3 kinds of chocolate, all hot and gooey, topped with ice cream?!) it was not nearly as good as what I made Monday night. There is definitely a difference between 'out of the box' and 'made from scratch.'

Next time, I'm going to triple the first recipe and make it in the big crock. The first recipe was made in my smaller, 2 1/2 qt. crock. Stud and I each had a healthy serving, and we had leftovers for the next day, which Stud, CSJ and I all shared, a few spoonfuls for each of us. The recipe I made tonight was made in my big 6 1/2 qt. crock. Like I said, it's not bad, and it uses things that I ALWAYS have on hand. I'll probably make it again, like maybe the next time my sister and nieces are over for dinner, but I prefer the first recipe.

Ok, KBL, how was that? I'm starting to give some serious thought to your suggestion of starting a cooking blog. The question is - can I just quit my job so I can devote myself full-time to maintaining my blogs? tee hee!

Happy Casimir Pulaski Day!!

Click HERE to donate to St. Baldrick's.

I enjoyed my morning with a bunch of girlfriends, lingering over breakfast at The Original Pancake House not far from my house. Then I came home and put a pot roast with onions, potatoes and carrots in one of my 'big' crock-pots. I just finished making this in one of my smaller crock-pots. I'm SO excited to try this. I'm anxiously awaiting the moment when my house fills with the delightful aroma of chocolate. Ah...heaven...

I'm about to put the bowl and beater from my Kitchen Aide stand mixer in the freezer, so I can make some whipped cream to go with the cake. Oh, yum, yum, yum!

Today is my Grammy's birthday. It would have been her 90th. I had intended to scan a few pictures of her to share with you, but then I got tied up with the girls, and it slipped my mind. I will try and do it tonight, or maybe even tomorrow, so you can see how beautiful she was. I really miss her. One day, I'll have to do a whole post of just silly, funny Grammy stories. Trust me, there are some doozies!

I'm off to eat a yummy dinner, and then watch The Bachelor - The Women Tell All. It's the perfect thing to watch while enjoying a warm, steaming bowl of chocolate mud cake and whipped cream. ;-)

Random Crap

Click HERE to donate to St. Baldrick's.

I just made a major "camera dump" on my 'puter, so I'm warning you now, there are several random, and quite frankly, stupid, posts coming. Thanks to dear 8lb 6oz, newborn infant Jesus, we have a three-day weekend this weekend. Monday is Casimir Pulaski Day here in Chitown. So, that means I'll have lots of time to ramble on and on about crap you really don't care about. Aren't you excited!?

I guess I'll ramble in reverse order. Tuesday night, my Aunt Lu (my mom's one remaining sister) was rushed to the hospital. Long story short, she had another heart attack. They did an angioplasty yesterday afternoon. She'll need to go back in 2 weeks to have several more stents put in, but for now, she'll be released tomorrow. If you're the praying kind, please send one her way.

My aunt had her first major heart attack 22 years ago. She hadn't been feeling well, so her doctor scheduled a stress test. About 10 seconds into it, she collapsed and coded. She literally dropped dead on the treadmill. Thankfully, she was already in the hospital, and they were able to instantly shock her back to life. She ended up having a triple by-pass that night. She's had a few stents put in since then, as well. I really wish she would take better care of herself. But, I don't want to digress into a rant about the subject, so I'm moving on...

Monday, after school, Stud and I made a Sam's Club run. I really went because I needed, ok, wanted, to get a new TV for my kitchen. I'll tell you about that later. What I wanted to tell you about right now is the BIG find I made. As I was strolling down the appliance aisle, trying to figure out where I could put a THIRD kitchen in my house so I could fill it with several of the beautiful items I was looking at, I came upon the crockpot section. Last week I looked at crockpots at Walmart, but they were out of the one I wanted. It's not like I NEED another crockpot, so I figured I check again on my next trip. Well, here they were at Sam's, calling my name. As I was looking at the really pretty, new model on the shelf, I spied this little cutie:
It was just sitting there, all by it's lonesome, the only one of it's kind. It's actually the one I wanted at Walmart! The 'new' model has a rectangular base, and actually has a smaller pot. (6 qt vs. 6 1/2 qt)

Anyway, when I went to take a closer look, I saw this:Ok, big deal, the box is ripped a little. I can deal with that. What I was actually thinking was, "Score! It must be marked down!" It didn't have a price tag on it, so I figured I'd just take it to the register and have them scan it.

Well, I gotta tell ya, I nearly wet myself when the cashier scanned this little puppy! You ready? It was.........................................$7.01!!! Oh, hell YEAH it was! SEVEN DOLLARS?! Hell, I could use it once and throw it away! Ok, I would never do that, but you know what I mean. The whole time I was shopping, I was telling myself all the reasons I did NOT need another crockpot. The main reason being - I already have 7 of them!!!

No, that's NOT a typo. I have my 'main' crockpot that I use all the time. It's almost exactly like this one, except the base matches the decor of my kitchen (basically a Tuscan/olive theme), and the crock is green. However, because I use it so much, the pot has developed hairline cracks all over the place. So far, it hasn't really been an issue, and it doesn't leak or anything, but I figure it's only a matter of time before I can't use it anymore, right?

I have two VERY old crockpot. One was my mom's, and one my ex-brother-in-law gave me when I got married. It had been his from his first marriage. The two are exactly the same. Like I said, they're old. They have non-removable pots, that are tall and narrow, instead of the newer, oval-shaped, wide, squat removable, dishwasher-safe pots.

Pots 4 & 5 are probably technically one item, as they're in my double crockpot. Pot 6 is a Little Dipper, which is more for dips, but still. Crockpot #7 is a small 2 qt. pot that I acquired around the holidays, for $7.99 at Aldi. (another deal I could NOT pass up!)

So, now I've made it abundantly clear that I'm a big, crockpot-addicted loser, huh? Oh well, I don't care. I seriously use all 7 of them, so nah-nee nah-nee, boo boo! I can't wait to use my new one! Oh, and the best part is, it matches all my other 'new toys' in my kitchen that are black and stainless. tee hee!

This yumminess is what I made for dinner tonight. Ok, the photo doesn't look all that yummy, does it? Trust me, it was the bomb!It was a little something I came up with during my Sam's trip. I love their tri-colored 3-cheese tortellini. The real inspiration for this dish was the package of freshly-shelled English peas I picked up. I immediately wanted to put the two of them together, in a delicious, creamy sauce. I was NOT disappointed!

I sauteed some finely diced onions in butter until they were soft and translucent. I seasoned them well with salt and pepper. I added about a cup of half-and-half (I really wanted to use heavy cream, but I was trying to keep the fat down a bit) and an 8oz brick of lite cream cheese that I diced up. I whisked that until the cheese melted. I added a little of the boiling pasta water to thin things out a bit, and stirred in about 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese. I turned it down to a low simmer while the tortellini was cooking. During the last 3 minutes of cooking time on the pasta, I tossed the peas into the water. I used a slotted spoon to remove the pasta and peas from the water, and put them into the saucepan. I added a bit more black pepper (the more the better, as far as I'm concerned!) and another sprinkling of Parmesan, and mixed everything together. I ended up adding about another cup of the hot pasta water, about 1/4 cup at a time, to the saucepan because it was a bit too thick.

I realize this is far from gourmet cooking, but oh my hell, it was good!! I'm already thinking about what I'm going to add/change the next time I make it. Luckily, both the peas and the pasta are sold in 2-packs. Woo hoo! I think I'm going to fry up a little diced bacon or pancetta with the onions next time. I also thought about throwing in some sliced mushrooms. Anyone wanna come over next week for dinner?

Guess what I'm enjoying...

...after an awesome dinner.
That, my friends, is one of the BEST margaritas I have EVER made!! Look at how perfectly thick it is. My straw stands straight up!! I had lots of leftovers from my Girls' Night last Friday, so I figured, what the hell, today's a SNOW DAY!! Enjoy yourself, ChiTown!!

I made a freakin' awesome dinner, if I do say so myself. It's actually the same stuff I made last Wednesday when the girls from school came over. My favorite crock pot chicken recipe, and the Mexican/Spanish (?) rice my mother-in-law taught me how to make over 25 years ago. YUM!! I really outdid myself tonight, and it was 10 times better than what I made last week. Hell, it was the best I've ever made. I stuffed myself with chicken and rice, and now I'm washing it all down my gullet with a smooth, creamy margarita. What could be better?

January 25

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

What's something you do really well that other people are amazed by?

I spend my days with 30 5&6 year-olds, who belong to OTHER PEOPLE, and I don't kill them or myself. As a matter of fact, I like to think I'm shaping their future, and the future of our world. Then again, I can be pretty full of myself like that.

My second choice would be cooking/baking. I'm having some girls from school over for dinner tomorrow, and they've all put in their requests for what they want me to make. I can't guarantee I'll make them all, but I AM going to fulfill the request of my pregnant girlfriend, because the BABY needs veggie chili!

Hey, today didn't suck...

Monday, January 10, 2011

Find a quote that fits your intention for today and tell us both of them.

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.

Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American author, editor and printer.

I'm pretty sure my 'intention' is clear.

You need to go over to Stephanie's blog, and check out this give-away!! Most of you already know how much I adore my crockpot, so her blog is one that I check daily. Check it out!

Keeping it short and sweet today. The title says it all. :)

A little peek at our Christmas Eve

Once again, Momma set a mean table.

Santa is awfully cute, isn't he? I don't know why this is so blurry, though.

I can't believe how blurry this is! It was a great picture of how the table was set, as well as some of the many yummy appetizers that were on the table.
Here's my little nephew, in the cute sweater I bought him last year for Christmas.


Once again, let me remind you that this ginormous spread was for EIGHT people!!! EIGHT! Not 18, 8!!
Let me tell you what you're looking at, starting in the back row (top of the photo?): crustini topped with Gorgonzola, basil and roasted red peppers, mushrooms sauteed in olive oil with lots of garlic, oven-roasted broccoli and garlic, fried calamari, sepia (another calamari dish, made in a tomato-based sauce) Row 2: whole calamari stuffed with cheese & bread crumbs, lime & pepper breaded talapia Row 3: Chicken breasts made with olives, onions, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, celery and roasted red pepper (just a little something I came up with that morning), ravioli
The photo above is the other half of the island. Under the foil, and pictured below, are cheesy potatoes, in front of that are breaded cauliflower patties, you'll see what's in the foil try in a second, and in front of that is a traditional Christmas Eve feast dish, pasta made with alici (anchovies).
I've mentioned before that we do the traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. Here are the seven fishes we had that night.
1) stuffed calamari 2) breaded talapia 3) fried calamari rings 4) sepia 5) pasta con alici
6) grilled octopus
7) shrimp

The two dishes we ALWAYS have are the sepia and the pasta con alici. Truthfully, I don't care for the pasta, but everyone else loves it. That's why my mom always makes a second type of pasta, like this year's ravioli. To be honest, it doesn't at all taste like fish. The anchovies are sauteed with garlic (surprise, surprise, right?!) in olive oil, along with toasted bread crumbs. This "sauce" is then combined with pasta (we like angel hair). A third dish that is very traditional is bacala, (I'm not 100% sure of that spelling) or salted cod . It takes a lot of work to prepare it, though, so this year, my mother decided to go with the talapia. As long as there are 7 different fish dishes, you're good to go. But, as you can see, there are plenty of other dishes, as well. Let me reiterate - all that food was prepared for EIGHT people!!! Ah, that's the Italian way of life!

Here's a little peek at the sweets we enjoyed. This is the tray my sister baked and brought. There are at least 10 kinds of cookies here. She makes kolachkis (sp?) that would make you slap yo mama!1) rolled shortbread cookies 2) almond crescents 3) peanut butter blossoms 4) kolachkis 5) oatmeal cranberry cookies 6) almond surprises (there's a Hershey kiss inside!) 7) cornflake holly wreathes 8) M&M bar cookies 9) coffee cookies (a VERY closely guarded family recipe - I don't even have it!!) 10) chocolate chunk cookies
I made my traditional yummy fudge. I also made:
1) Sugar Cinnamon Roasted Almonds 2) White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies 5) Rolo Pretzel "thingies" that my sister and I decided to call Christmas D-Lights. My sister made 3) White Trash (a delightful combination of things like Cheerios, Crispix, M&Ms, peanuts and pretzels, all covered in melted white chocolate) 6) a freakin' AWESOME thing we have dubbed Snack Crack (because after ONE bite, you are instantly addicted!)

My mom did some baking, as well. You know, in her free time!!
1) Rice Krispie Caramel Balls (something my brother's girlfriend introduced to our family over a decade ago. Sorry, Mom, KC's are better.) 2) Nut Cups 3) Magic Squares 4) chocolate chip biscotti.

It has now become a tradition to take a picture of my brother doing this every holiday. He would KILL me if he knew this incredibly unattractive photo of him was out there for all to see!
Once my brother got up, his 'son' took over his spot on the sofa.
Wow, this has taken well over an hour to post this handful of pictures (damn you, Blogger!) so I'm going to take a break. If you behave yourselves, I'll share some more pictures later. :)