December 24th: Let the Cooking and Mixing and Eating and Drinking Begin!!!
Ahhhh, the holidays. Jay and I being the surly, uncommunicative types that we are, it's easier for us to show our love and affection by laying forth a bountiful spread of food and drink for people rather than by coming out and actually telling them how we feel.
Emotions can be so awkward.
Jay was working from home on Christmas Eve and I had to work until 3PM ... it was close to 4PM by the time I got home and could get my baking started. But before I get into the food porn I thought I'd share a few pictures of our Far-Outhouse decorated all purty-like for the holidays.
Hey kids - watch Santa pull a six-foot tall pipe cleaner outta his butt!
It's only appropriate that we would have food-related ornaments on our tree.
Jay's spicy ornament
Bendy's dilly of a pickle
In our dining room we had just enough Dicken's Village pieces to cover the piano ... Jay's mom used to give me those for Christmas gifts until she found out that all we wanted to display were taverns.
Our village only has two taverns and one brewhouse ... looks like we need more!
It takes a village ...
That cool little trunk we got from the WDW Florist really came in handy for some of my favorite, breakable ornaments. I can't hang them on the tree thanks to a certain four-legged furbaby but they're too pretty not to display.
Fra-gee-lay
I loves me a fireplace! It's so "The Night Before Christmas ..."
Ah, toasty warm!
The first order of any holiday gathering is a double-batch of Brandy Milk Punch. Mmmmm, quite possibly our favorite holiday beverage.
I've got mine ... where's yours?
Breakfast drink of champions!
I was very fortunate late in November and came into a lovely gift card for Williams Sonoma and promptly went boffo ordering yummies for the holidays. First up ... a box of miniature croissants. They have to thaw / rise overnight and then can be popped into the oven to bake for about 15 minutes. These were incredible ... much better than they had any right to be coming out of the freezer. And the box of mini-croissants came with two dozen pre-formed flaky delights, so we've got plenty to last us over the next week or so.
Here they are right out of the freezer:
They kinda look like baby elephants...
The next morning after they've "riz"...
Fresh out of the oven - delectable!
The first thing I baked once I settled in at home was my eggnog bread. I'm not a big fan of eggnog but certain members of my family are and this seems like a good compromise that everyone can live with.
Eggnog-ie goodness!
Have a slice why dontcha?
And then it was time for me to bake my Gingerbread Spice Cake while my Cheesecake Ice Cream was getting all cold and frozen in the freezer. The recipe actually calls for a ginger-orange glaze but I opted not to make that - I think it would have been too much with the ice cream, which is really rich.
I love it when a cake bakes up just right!
To be continued ...