Happy Holidays! The wrap up!
The holidays were full of food and adventures. We started with a Holiday Party for the NorCal Avanade group. It was a chance to meet all the Avanadeee's from the Bay Area and had some good food. Lydia and I received a really amazing Christmas ornament. From there we went on a nice looooooooong trip to Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of Baja Sur. We spent the week with family and basically sat by the pool the entire time and drank beer in a bucket. The weather was great, and the food was wonderful as well. We made it through the trip without sickness, but the last day we almost all got the fun stuff. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. The flight home was bumpy and rocky. We made it back and spent a day or so with our toilet but got better. We then made a long trek down to Brea to spend Christmas with Lydia's mother.
So here's where the food starts. Before we left we took Martha's recipe for classic sugar dough (not the fancy kind, but the kind you give to the kids). I almost thing this recipe is a copy of the one from an old Sesame Street book I had which had puzzles and cookies recipes. Some of them look like little dogs treats but they aren't! The dough was pretty bland, but really picked up with some sugar coating. All in all it was a good experience and would make them again. I can't stress enough about chilling the dough before cutting though, It's a really big deal! Don't forget it! Christmas in Brea was really nice and the weather was perfect. It was mid 70's when we were there and we spent most of Christmas eve on the beach. So one to the Christmas eve dinner. I decided to make a rolled chicken and pesto dish with steamed veggies and a pomegranate reduction. I was hoping for cherries, but it turns out they don't grow this time of year. So Pom juice was the next best thing.
It turned out ok, but the chicken needed some other form of garnish or topping. I've also discovered that sauteed cherry tomatoes are awesome and add great color and flavor to most savory dishes. Go forth and grow some. I like this idea of smaller portions because it forces you to be creative with what you have. Blah Blah what's next. Somehow Lydia managed to track down a Wii. I still think she traded it for black market organs. But we've been playing a lot of Wii Sports and Super Mario World. I think we had thrown out our shoulders by the second night while mastering the power serve in Wii Tennis. I found some really neat hacks for the Wii while researching the device online, this one guy, is really doing some cool tricks with the wiimote using IR tracking. His webpage doesn't seem to always work. Lame. Ok I'm going to wrap up this holiday summary with one more food item which turned out ok, could use a lot of work but could also be really satisfying. Lydia required cheesy baked potatoes with brocolli. So I took a recipe from Whole foods and made a sauce.
So that's all good, but what do you do with a ton of steamed brocolli and cheese sauce? How about a soup. Tossed it in the old food chopper thingy and threw in some salt and more cheese and milk and vrooom out pops a soup. Looking back, I don't know if I liked it that much, it needed more something. Not sure what...
So here's where the food starts. Before we left we took Martha's recipe for classic sugar dough (not the fancy kind, but the kind you give to the kids). I almost thing this recipe is a copy of the one from an old Sesame Street book I had which had puzzles and cookies recipes. Some of them look like little dogs treats but they aren't! The dough was pretty bland, but really picked up with some sugar coating. All in all it was a good experience and would make them again. I can't stress enough about chilling the dough before cutting though, It's a really big deal! Don't forget it! Christmas in Brea was really nice and the weather was perfect. It was mid 70's when we were there and we spent most of Christmas eve on the beach. So one to the Christmas eve dinner. I decided to make a rolled chicken and pesto dish with steamed veggies and a pomegranate reduction. I was hoping for cherries, but it turns out they don't grow this time of year. So Pom juice was the next best thing.
It turned out ok, but the chicken needed some other form of garnish or topping. I've also discovered that sauteed cherry tomatoes are awesome and add great color and flavor to most savory dishes. Go forth and grow some. I like this idea of smaller portions because it forces you to be creative with what you have. Blah Blah what's next. Somehow Lydia managed to track down a Wii. I still think she traded it for black market organs. But we've been playing a lot of Wii Sports and Super Mario World. I think we had thrown out our shoulders by the second night while mastering the power serve in Wii Tennis. I found some really neat hacks for the Wii while researching the device online, this one guy, is really doing some cool tricks with the wiimote using IR tracking. His webpage doesn't seem to always work. Lame. Ok I'm going to wrap up this holiday summary with one more food item which turned out ok, could use a lot of work but could also be really satisfying. Lydia required cheesy baked potatoes with brocolli. So I took a recipe from Whole foods and made a sauce.
So that's all good, but what do you do with a ton of steamed brocolli and cheese sauce? How about a soup. Tossed it in the old food chopper thingy and threw in some salt and more cheese and milk and vrooom out pops a soup. Looking back, I don't know if I liked it that much, it needed more something. Not sure what...