Happy Holidays! Even if they are over by now...

I hope everyone had a great time – visited with family and friends (without drama), got everything you wanted (including usual socks and underwear), ate lots of great food (without gaining an ounce) and drank mass quantities (without any hangover).

We went kinda light on the presents this year. My hubby did splurge and buy me something interesting to play with in the kitchen – an Orion Smoker. He saw a good deal on it, did a little internet research and took the plunge. I have some pork I am going to turn into a “smoking hot butt” soon should the nice weather hold…

Our holiday feast had a southern theme to it– simple baked ham, sweet potato casserole, mustard greens (with a ton of bacon in them!!), green beans, homemade rolls and bourbon pecan pie for dessert.

The homemade rolls were from an old handwritten card buried my mom’s recipe file. Named 60 Minute Rolls, they are exactly that. How is this achieved? By adding a HUGE amount of yeast (two 1oz packages) to a relatively small amount of flour (four cups of AP).

I remember my mom making great rolls every Sunday after church – and at one point she told me this was the recipe. Well these weren’t that great…they were way too yeasty plus they didn’t have enough salt in them. I think the major problem is that the recipe is so old that the types of yeast may have changed. All it said was “2 packages of yeast”. That could mean the old school blocks of yeast from the refrigerator section or just two packages of the old school dried yeast. I substituted the new “super yeast” and it may have been too much for the recipe. The salt issue is most likely a guess-timation issue – my mom was notorious for pouring a little bit of stuff in her palm and guessing the amount when she was marking up recipes.

I hope to try them again soon once I get the whole thing figured out.

I tell ya –fixing up these old recipes is driving me to drink!

I also received several board games from my friend Tate to add to my ever growing collection. New Year’s Eve was dedicated to eradicating zombies and Cthulhian horrors while ingesting massive amounts of food and drink.

As far as eats went - the menu was split. We had lots of “normal” people showing up so we had to have some “safe” food for them. They got hot dogs, baked beans and a veggie tray. For all the adventurous folk in the crowd, I “created” some Middle East inspired dishes, such hummus with pita chips and lamb “burgers”. Eric also brought a cone of gyro meat which we slivered off and cooked up on the griddle. Damn it was good!

Tate asked me to make some cookies for the party as well – mostly so he could
bite the heads off of them. But he specified that they could not be made of gingerbread. So I ended up with chocolate chip shortbread zombies, Cthulhian monsters and their ilk.

I got the recipe from the Nestle site, but it really needed some help. When I followed their exact proportions of butter to flour, it ended up being way too dry and crumbled away when I tried to shape it after refrigeration. I ended up having to add an extra egg so that it would hold together enough to roll out. While the concept is worthwhile, I think I am going to have to work on getting the right dough for the job.

So the food got ate, games got played and everyone had a good time… I hope this starts a new tradition…