Aftermath

I hope everyone had a great Christmas.  Ours was.  The enchiladas turned out as good as I had hoped.  Everyone enjoyed them, at least they say they did.  Son#1 may or may not have had 5 as he states.  If you cook at all, that is very pleasing to the cook or chef.  We had a few leftovers we can enjoy later.  

On top of it all was watching the excitement of my nearly 3 year old Granddaughter.  Oh my, what joy and unbridled exuberance.  That makes it all so worth it.  She just goes and goes and goes and was full out all day.  No wasted energy there.  I had to turn off my hearing aids at one point due to her squeals of delight.  She is totally enamored with her male cousin (11 years old) and she wore him out.  Then we went to her house for breakfast early Christmas morning to watch her get her Santa gifts.  When I say early, we were there before she woke up, around 7:00 AM.  We had to get up around 5:30 AM to get there in time.  From there I went over and picked up my Mom to have breakfast with us.  It was a great weekend.  I couldn't have asked for it to be better.  We are so blessed.  

This week, we have '0' plans.  The Granddaughters' other Grandparents are here from Arizona so we take a step back and let them have full 'custody' sot they can enjoy her without sharing with us.  We will miss her of course, but we can have her anytime, but they only have her a short time once or twice a year.  No sure what we will do with ourselves but I do have a new book I am eager to get started.  

We went to a middle eastern style restaurant Sunday.  I've only been to one once before.  I am game to try it out.  Son#2 and his family really like it.  So far my impression is, it's just OK.  I'll go again if that's where others want to go but I probably will not go on my own.  I can't repeat the name of what I had, just some sort of kabob (beef) with rice and grilled veggies.  I was surprised how bland it was.  I also tried something I was curious about, Turkish coffee.  It was pretty good but that little cup drove me nuts trying to hold it with my mitts.  It wasn't really hot either and I don't know if that is the way it should be or not.  I feel so cultured lol.

Happy Trails

The Day Before Christmas Eve

Today we are cleaning house and I will begin preps for cheese enchiladas.  I will make the sauce, the Mexican Rice, cut onions and grate two pounds of cheese.  The enchiladas themselves will be assembled and cooked on Christmas Eve.  Everything else will just need to be heated.  Less work for us and more time to enjoy the family.  

The only thing that bugs me is my Mom is not coming, again.  Too far, too late, too uncomfortable driving etc.  She won't let anyone come get her and then take her home.  She says it would spoil it for everyone to have to do that.  It would be inconvenient but if I could convince her to come, I would do it.  She is 88 now and is getting less and less likely to get out much.  She says she is not sad about it, but I told her I am.  We will see her Christmas day.  She will go to Son #2's home to see the little one open her gifts from Santa.  We will be there too, so there's that.

In closing out this post, I want to take a moment to wish all that come by here to see what I am up to, a very Merry Christmas.  I hope you and yours have the best one ever.  I truly appreciate the 4-5 of you that do come by even though you may never speak up.  I see you looking in from time to time lol.  And especially you OLD NFO, you've been here from the beginning and almost always comment, I consider you a compatriot and friend.  

Happy Trails

Planning

We have Christmas with our boys and their families every Christmas Eve.  We will have a big meal as part of that.  We are struggling this year for ideas of what to have for the meal.  We have one person that eats no beef so we have to have something that they can eat or at least something additional.  It makes it a little more difficult since I do a lot of the cooking and beef is my go to.  In the past (just a couple years this has been going on) we would either have some sort of chicken or pork.  Well my well has run dry on that.  This year my idea was enchiladas.  I had come across and good way to make them on youtube.  However it takes a lot more work than anything else.  Of course it is a recipe for beef enchiladas.  We will have to have a separate pan for just cheese.  But the beef has the sauce you need to make them taste better than solely cheese.  So we keep going back and forth.  Plus as easy as it sounds, everything except the tortillas is scratch.  No canned sauce, blech.  Plus I make the Mexican Rice and then there are the beans and any add ons that generally get thrown in.  Trying to get it all thrown together at the same time will be very tough on this cook.  My oven will be squeezed for 30 enchiladas. Not real sure where we will end up.  We may poll the others just to get some ideas.

We had the youngest Granddaughter this past week.  We took her for a drive around our neighborhood to look at Christmas lights.  This neighborhood does it better than most and it is really big.  We spent an hour and covered only a small portion.  Here are a couple pics of the biggest display.  You can even get out and walk around amongst the display.  Oh, they live on a corner so the back yard is even bigger.  I just wonder how long it takes for them to set all this up not to mention storage.  It's huge.

Ya gotta click on each pic to get the full effect.

Maybe a little over the top but the kids love it.  No I didn't get the back yard.

Happy Trails

I Have Nothing

So you get Far Side....

Happy Trails

Crazy Weather

We have had warm humid days for the last week.  That all changes today.  A cold front has already hit this morning and has dropped the temps 12* along with the 90% humidity.  As I write this it is now 63%.  And the wind has really picked up.  I was getting ready to head out with Snickers to get a walk in when I got a weather alert about showers in my area.  So the walk has been postponed at least until the showers move out if not cancelled altogether.  We still have not had our first frost.  It doesn't look like we will with this front either.  I planted a couple tomato plants back in April, I am still harvesting a few tomatoes every 3-5 days along with a couple cherry tomatoes.  They are small but nice to have.  The plants aren't looking all that great but I am letting them stay until the freeze kills them or there are no more green tomatoes on the vines.  

'K' just left to head to my Mom's.  She will stay the night this time.  She has gone over to set up her Christmas decorations.  Mom loves them but won't do it as it's too much work for just one person living there.  This is right up 'K's alley.  She loves to decorate and is really good at it.  She also loves doing things like that for other people but especially my Mom.  The surprising thing is that Mom will let her do that.  'K' offers to do things for her all the time and is turned down most of the time.  It frustrates 'K.'  She really wants to do these things, it's not lip service.  But Mom has her own rationale with letting folks help her.  

So I am home batching it.  I have nothing on the radar.  I will most likely make a loaf of bread today.  We do need to head to HEB for some groceries too.  But I may wait until 'K' gets back.  We like going together.  Her not being here will also allow me to cook and eat sausage and sauer kraut with potatoes and onions.  Since 'K' won't eat my wonderful concoction I usually only make enough for one meal.  Not today, there will be leftovers.  I will also try using jalapeno/cheddar sausage.  Now I just need to remember to feed Snickers lol.  

Happy Trails

Meat

We have been comparison shopping for meat.  We generally don't do that.  We either buy at Costco or HEB.  With the price of meat now being off the charts we are being much more diligent in prices trying to get the best deals.  Hamburger is our biggest meat intake.  Mainly due to the cost of everything else.  Bacon is now of the buy list.  We always bought the bulks packs of bacon at Costco.  Those packs are now 20.99 for 5 lbs.  That is over the limit for me.  No can do.  Breakfasts will be even more sparse now.  We may have some pan sausage on occasion or a left over pork chop.  I mentioned the last time there was a new meat market near us we would try.  Well it wasn't a meat market.  It is a Mexican market that has a little meat. Not much else.  I did buy 2 lbs of stew meat.  There is another Meat/Mexican market near us I thought we could try.  We scored, it's a real meat market.  4 lbs hamburger 80/20 for 6.99.  That's not per pound that's 4lbs for 7$.  A few pork chops and I even picked up a couple bone in rib eyes 6.99/lb because 'K' wanted some.  It wasn't hard to convince me.  We will probably make this a regular stop.  Oh and the steaks will hit the grill tonight.

We found a dog groomer very near us and gave them a try with Snickers.  He doesn't need much grooming.  However, he will not let us trim his nails.  Also that shag he has grows in front of his eyes is difficult to get to for us, he hates us messing with it.  So she cleaned all that up and his undercarriage and he has some sort of cologne on.  She asked if he had been skunked recently lol.  So she added a heavier scent to mask it.  We generally don't smell his skunking, until he gets wet or we bathe him.  Whew, still after all this time it gets pretty strong.  They were very reasonably priced so this may become a regular thing for the little guy.

I gotta prep the steaks and grill.

Happy Trails