Merry Christmas

Just wanted to share the WIDE tree that Patrick picked out for Christmas. I had to talk him out of the 10-footer. We wish you all a merry Chrismas this year!

"C" is for cookie, that's good enough for me

For four years now our friends have an annual cookie/football party where we watch a Charger game and bring our homemade cookies for exchanging. Last year I placed first for "Most Tastiest" and "Most Holiday" so there was a challenge this year being returning champ. LOL! We had about 20 entries this year and 25-30 attendees so the judging was tough. I made Devil's Food Cake Mix Cookies this year with vanilla candy frosting and placed third for "Most Holiday". (Although I guess they were no comparison to the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Bars I made last year.) At least you get to come home with a lot of loot, i.e. 50 cookies of all flavors!


Devil's Food Cake Mix Cookies

Ingredients (Cookie):
1 box of Devil's Food Chocolate Cake Mix
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs

Ingredients (Frosting):
1 pkg Candiquick Vanilla candy coating
1 tube Writing Icing, optional, any color (use writing icing because it dries hard and you can stack them easier)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Mix cookie ingredients together to make a dough. Roll into balls and place on cookie sheet. Bake 9-10 minutes. Allow to cool. Heat Candiquick as directions on package. Dip tops of cookies in candy and allow to dry. Add writing icing in whatever design you choose.

These are super easy and very tasty.


(Left) Tasting and judging all the cookies. (Right) The prize winners.

Turkey Fry

Thank you to our friend Canaan Thomas for hosting a post-Thanksgiving "turkey fry" — a first taste at deep fried turkey for most of the party goers. Frying a turkey actually only takes about a quarter of the time as a traditional turkey so we were ready to eat in 45 minutes. The skin is crispy and the inside stays really moist. See this tutorial I found online if you're interested: How to Deep Fry a Turkey. Even with our small crowd of 12, we finished two of them off so you know they were good! And contrary to popular belief, you will not set your house on fire if you do it correctly.


Jessica and Patrick waiting for turkey.

(Left) Taz carving the turkey. (Right) Caleb enjoying the turkey.