Sunday's Special House Our Daily Dinner

Sunday's Special House

chuckieb 6 years ago
Good Morning Everyone! We didn't go to bed 'til midnight and I was up by 7:30 which isn't bad. Jim's still sleeping. :) There was snow falling nicely last night when our guests left and I woke up to a Winter Wonderland. It's very gray out but the trees are laden with snow and it's very pretty.

One of Jim's and my 'Happy Places" is "Chateau Montebello" in Quebec. We stayed there last year as well as a number of other visits over the years ever since we discovered it back when Benjamin was just a little gaffer. I follow them on Facebook and they posted a couple of photos of the life size Gingerbread House they built in their lobby this month. Isn't it adorable!

They said that they used more than 700 bricks to build the house and more than 65 lbs of candy to decorate it?!

To cook the gingerbread for the construction of the house they needed:
· 260 kg of flour
· 1.5 kg of baking soda
· 64 kg of brown sugar
· 58 kg of butter
· 4.5 kg of cinnamon
· 4.5 kg of ginger
· 115 kg of molasse
· 570 eggs

I just love it.

SO envious of your big Christmas Fondue Party Kimmer. Who do you invite apart from your daughter? Other relatives? Try get your head around Michael not being there for Christmas this year. It's all a matter of how you think of it. If you allow yourself to be sad, you will be, and that's a waste of a perfectly good Christmas! IMHO. :)

Dinner went very well last night. Our guests loved the cocktail sausage from the English Pie Lady and the ribs and the dessert especially. My Baked Mashed Potato cakes were a flop though. They looked good on Pinterest but once you put them in the oven the spread out so don't look so neat. I won't do them again. At least when you make twice baked potatoes they have a vessel to keep them intact. My girlfriend brought me a lovely bouquet of flowers and a nice bottle of Chardonnay.

Got more pics from Benjamin last night. He and Angel are having a great time and the weather was really nice although Angel is cold. (It was 25C/77F. Too flipping funny. She'd just shiver and disappear if she were here I'm sure.

There are plenty enough ribs and potatoes and veggies left from last night that we can have those for dinner again this evening. Will probably take some soup out of the freezer for lunch. Don't feel like going anywhere today but we'll see how Jim feels. I could work on my Christmas cards and package up my Mom's Christmas parcel so I could mail it off tomorrow.

Wishing everyone a most lovely Sunday.
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mommyluvs2cook 6 years ago said:

Morning Janet!! Omg, what a cool gingerbread house!! I wonder how many hours/days it took to build that thing? Lol! Glad dinner was a hit, too bad the potato cakes weren't though :( I was so looking forward to hearing how awesome they were, did they at least taste okay? Lol at Angel being cold at 77 degrees! I wouldn't even complain about that weather :-P

Oh man, it happened. The last game last night wasn't until 11pm. It was so cold we couldn't feel some of our body parts. We didn't get home until 1:45am and we were pooped. Kiddos went straight to bed, Bri didn't even take a shower and I literally threw Caiden in bed, clothes and all. They can both take extra long baths today and brush their teeth twice :) We decided not to join the team today because we would have had to be back up there at 8am which meant getting up at about 5am-ish. Not happening, they understood though and they did have another pitcher to use, so I didn't feel so bad.

Going to recover today, I have some cleaning to do and that's about it. Figure we could make it a movie day. Kids are still sleeping and may be for some time, I couldn't sleep past 6:30am for some reason, ugh!! I have no plan for dinner, maybe chicken something? Have a great day everyone!!!

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chuckieb 6 years ago said:

Good Morning Michelle! I actually just went back over the recipe for the Potato cakes and it was my fault. :( I forgot to add the 2 eggs and that would have made the difference I'm sure. Oops. But you know...honestly, I don't know that I'd make it again anyway, because it tastes exactly the same as Twice Baked Potatoes. Yes, I guess it looked a bit neater, but...

I cannot believe that whoever organizes these Children's baseball leagues would actually schedule 12 year olds? for a game at 11 o'clock at night. Seriously? I do have a problem with that. Hope Bri and Caiden sleep in really late and feel good when they wake up. A movie day is perfect. Poor you waking up at 6:30.

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LindaLMT 6 years ago said:

Good Morning Everyone! It's a beautiful crisp morning here ... Low temp of 53(f)! Had to turn the heat on in the middle of the night to take the chill off. Even the dog was cold, he kept fidgeting around last night bucking up against us to keep warm until the heat did it's thing.

OMG Janet! I thought when you noted that the gingerbread house was life size that it built to a life size scale or something and then I looked at the picture and there this man was peeping out a window!! That's a lot of gingerbread and candy! AWESOME. Nice on waking up to a winter wonderland. Bummer on your mashed potato thing not working. Sounds though like everything else was great.

Holy Moly on having a kids game at 11 pm Michelle! That's nuts. Good decision not to join todays game. Getting up at 5 am would have been equally nuts. Hope you all rest up and feel better.

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LindaLMT 6 years ago said:

Cook's Illustrated Pizza Dough

1 1/4 tsp. instant yeast
1 c. room temp. water
1 1/4 c. flour
1 c. cake flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. sugar

Dissolve yeast into water, mix well. Mix dry ingredients. I use a food processor then add liquid to dry. If additional flour or water is needed add a little at a time till dough pulls away from sides of processor.
Divide dough, form into balls, let rise about 1 hour (till doubled) on floured surface, cover loosely with plastic wrap coated with nonstick cooking spray.
(to make cake flour place 2 T. cornstarch in bottom of measure cup and add flour till cup is full and leveled).

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chuckieb 6 years ago said:

Morning Linda! It's -6C/21F here this morning. Poor LD being chilly last night. :) What's on your agenda and menu for today?

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mommyluvs2cook 6 years ago said:

I bet the eggs would have helped, but I agree, why go through all the trouble for the same flavors? It rarely ever happens that a tournament goes that late, or even after 9pm. They didn't plan it that late, our last game was supposed to be at 8pm but they got behind somehow, probably a couple games going into overtime, or just poor planning. I can say now that we will never play as a pick up player that far again, EVER!! Lol.

Thanks for the pizza dough recipe Linda. I have made some really good one's, but like you, always on the lookout for the best :)

I ended up making a triple batch of these pancakes Chunky Monkey Pancakes seriously the best pancakes ever!! I forgot that I've been promising Caiden that would have some smoked sausage for dinner one night, his favorite thing, so that will be tonight, probably with some sort of potatoes and veg.

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LindaLMT 6 years ago said:

I haven't a clue what's on today's menu Janet. We ate breakfast late. I had toast and DH had scrambled eggs with cheese, toast, and OJ. Even made an egg for LD.
I have another pizza dough in the fridge but will probably make pizza tomorrow. It's so filling and then I don't want to eat dinner. Perhaps grilled Mahi and a tossed salad...
I wanted a salad last night and had just enough blue cheese to make a small batch of creamy dressing and have a little left for one more salad. DH will get homemade honey mustard.

It's all in the technique Michelle to get good homemade pizzas. A baking steel or stone is the key but I just don't want to work with one. I have a nice thick stone but it takes about an hour for it to preheat in the oven then another couple hours for it to cool. It's heavy too. I was thinking of getting a steel (they are suppose to be indestructible, can be used on a grill, and too can be frozen and used to keep foods cold if laying out a cold platter) but they are even heavier! Maybe someday ...

If it's cold again tonight I'll have to put a pair of PJs on LD to keep him warm and snuggly.

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chuckieb 6 years ago said:

Fun way to start the morning with pancakes Michelle and smoked sausages sound wonderful for dinner.

How does LD prefer his egg cooked Linda? Does he care? :) Grilled Mahi and a salad sounds lovely.

I made tomato and cheese omelettes with hot sauce for breakfast. My Mom called and she sounds great today so that's always nice.

Joce!! How are you feeling today?

Karen, how did the Christmas shopping go?

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LindaLMT 6 years ago said:

Ordered some Bayberry Candles ... It's been a long time family tradition to burn one on Christmas Eve. My mom always did and I do now to keep her spirit alive. She always gifted me one for Christmas. I bought a box of votives so I'll have some for the future Christmas' too.
Burning one on Christmas eve or New Year's eve is suppose to being good fortune. "A Bayberry candle burned to the socket will bring joy to the heart and gold to the pocket". There are a few poems but this is the jist of it.

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chuckieb 6 years ago said:

I don't know that I would recognize the scent of bayberry. Now I'm going to have to keep my eye out to see Linda. :) Neat tradition. A friend gave me a lovely 3 wick candle last year with Pine scent. I lit it last night for the first time and you'd swear you were standing in the middle of a pine forest. It was lovely.

Almost done cleaning up the kitchen from last night. Jim is out shovelling. Think I'll thaw some meatball soup for lunch.

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LindaLMT 6 years ago said:

Real Bayberry wax doesn't have a heavy scent. From reading about it my understanding is that it was a treasured wax afforded by those wealthier and only used on special occassions.

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kimmer 6 years ago said:

Good afternoon and hello to all. We woke up to a chilly 44F here Linda! Suppose to drop back down again tonight. Chloe is not having anything to do with these cold temps! Didn't even want out on the porch this morning like she usually does.

You are right Janet about Christmas and I am actually doing better as far as being sad. The thing I hate the most is him being alone and away from all his family. I'm sure you know how that feels. But this too shall pass! We invite family and usually a few friends (that are just like family) to the fondue party. This year I think there will be 14 of us all together. Biggest one I ever did was 40! That was huge and back when I was a bit younger with more energy, lol. We had a really big partially covered pool linea at the time so the party was planned to be out there. Had borrowed a few long banquet tables from a caterer friend that was coming. Wouldn't you know it that was the year we hit freezing temps here in Florida at Christmas time! Space in the house for such a type of setting was limited and not really an option so we quickly went out that day and rented two outdoor heaters like some of the restaurants use down here for their patio areas. Worked out great and everyone was warm. Of course, alcohol helped, lol! That was actually the year a couple of our guests accidently caught one of the tables on fire with candles. Don't think we ever invited them back, lol!

I would LOVE to see that Ginger Bread House up close and personal!

Tonight's dinner menu is bacon wrapped pork tenderloin, potato pancakes, mushroom gravy and yes...........red cabbage. Good warm comfort food for this family!

Enjoy the rest of Sunday all!

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chuckieb 6 years ago said:

Hi Kimmer! Glad you're feeling a little more upbeat about Christmas. Jim just got off the phone from talking with one of his brothers who was telling him about two friends and his wife's Aunt that are dealing with deadly health diagnoses. Gall bladder cancer, cancer in the lymph nodes and some sort of ALS. When I hear these stories I honestly thank god and it makes me want to celebrate every minute. There are SO many things in the world that can make us sad. It takes a feat of strength to overcome it and look for the silver lining. 14 is a lot but it is do-able. Especially by you. :) Does Cayce still like to cook at all? Love the story of your past Christmas Fondue with 40 people. I don't think I could do it. Your dinner sounds fabulous.

Jim has just lit us a fire. I got a good number of letters written for my Christmas cards today and I got Mom's Christmas parcel all done up. Big trip to the Post Office tomorrow. :)

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LindaLMT 6 years ago said:

Mmmmm, dinner sounds great Kimmer! Yes, it was a tad bit chilly today but I'm liking it. 14 is a manageable party. So sorry your son isn't home for Christmas but happy he is safe and healthy.

Well said Janet. Live your fullest and look for the good.

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LindaLMT 6 years ago said:

How are you feeling a Joce?

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