Monday, November 29, 2010

More food stuff

I was in a baking mood all weekend - not sure why, but it was fun, aside from the wheat bread yesterday that didn't really turn out. It rose decently, and then didn't rise in the oven, and turned out flat and ugly and rather bland. Oh well - after the success of T-day dinner, I don't think I care.

Plus, this turned out splendidly:



A huge batch of homemade eggnog. I've never made it before, and after having this, I cannot imagine for the WORLD how anyone can't like eggnog (like my neighbors, who turned this down...). I perused recipes for awhile - I had a killer one from Malia, with ice cream and 3 different kinds of boozes, but I decided I didn't want ice cream in it, and wanted to stick with rum. The recipe I ended up with had rum and whiskey, and wow, was it amazing.

Here's the link. After drinking a ton of this, I think I may prefer less froth more cream, so I may play around with the recipe next time I make it. And I used slightly less whiskey than it called for, since I couldn't bear to empty the bottle just yet...but it was fantastic.

One more batch of cookies - the dreaded meringues, which I mucked up twice last year, and gave up on, and then I've made all Mom's staples: meringues, noodle cookies, the French Buttercreams (red & green), and Russian teacakes (snowballs). She made a few more, usually, including almond bark pretzels, but since those are easy to buy in stores, I usually avoid them. And those damned wreath cookies - John cast the vote to nix those this year, since they're like crack: cornflakes, marshmallow & butter. Tons of butter. It's not worth it, if I still want my pants to fit. Because after all the pieces of pumpkin cake I had...which just gets better the longer it sits...oofta.

Oh! And we got a tree! Which I decorated while John set up our new television, and we drank eggnog and listened to Christmas music. And then we played Halo on the new television and it was stunning. And got caught up on The Walking Dead, which is kind of boring by now. I'm not even remotely invested in it, which makes me sad - especially since I love the opening credits and music so much.

Back to real life today. I've got tax programs to figure out, slush to read, crits to do, and a new short which refuses to tell me what it's all about. It's chilly today - hopefully I can bring myself to run after work, instead of going home to tackle the meringues.