Enjablog

Had a really jam-packed weekend! We started out at Ian’s brother’s house for Christmas eve with their branch of the family. I forgot my camera, so no pics from that night. Ian’s sis-in-law and family cooked up a storm, so we feasted on ham, squash, green beans, homemade rolls, and fruitcake for dessert!

I got up early on Christmas to make some rolls of my own (using sis-in-law’s mom’s recipe) and way too much mac & cheese. I tried out a Cheddar-Jack this year, but I think we were were a little too apprehensive about mixing it in. We used a 1:2 mix with regular cheddar, but I think I might try 1:1 next time. I also made marble pumpkin cheesecake, which I haven’t made in a few years.

My aunt and uncle hosted this year because my parents were leaving in the afternoon for NY. It worked out really well, so I’m glad we tried something new. They just finished getting some remodeling done on their house and this was my first visit to see how everything turned out. Everything looked great! And I love how open their kitchen is now! (Ian and I are probably going to use the same contractor to fix up our condo.)

They made ribs, turkey, lo mien, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. There was also a macaroni dish, linguine, cauliflower au gratin, sweet potatoes, meatballs, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie. Soooo much food!

After lunch, Ian and I headed home for a 30-minute breather. We got another pan of rolls baked and I took an 11-minute nap. Refreshing! We grabbed our other tray of mac & cheese to bake on site and the other cheesecake and we were on our way.

Ian’s parents hosted Christmas dinner for the Christmas eve crowd. Again, lots of food! Turkey, ham, green beans, cornbread stuffing, broccoli salad, mashed potatoes, and jell-o.

We hung out for most of the evening listening to Christmas music, discussing abortion insurance for the second night in a row, and playing with the dogs. I don’t get to see the in-law-in-laws very often, so it was fun catching up with them.

Saturday night, we headed out to Sterling for re-scheduled Friendmas before everyone skipped town. Fun, drinking, and discussion of argyles. Heather and I also combined powers to make a fortune teller a la elementary school!

I still need to get my act together and put together some pictures for next year’s Friendmas calendar. I’m running out of time! Though, maybe we’re just going to have a tradition of April-March calendars… ;)

A couple people I know were celebrating birthdays a couple weekends ago, so I volunteered to make cakes!

TattooGirl was turning 30 and her husband threw a party for her. It was a little hindered by the snow that day, but there was still a good turnout and we had loads of fun! And after driving 45 minutes to MD, I even met one of my neighbors… Go figure.

So, not knowing how many people to expect at this party, I decided an 8″ round cake would not be sufficient (~15 servings). I knew there would be at least 13 people, but didn’t know about the maybes or people who didn’t reply. Unfortunately, I don’t have a 9″ round cake pan, so I had to go with the 10″ cake pan Anna lent me for the second tier of a wedding cake (~30 servings). Everyone likes extra cake… and I figured it would be good practice for me anyway.

Ian’s mom’s birthday was also that weekend, so I made a cake for their Gilmore night dinner. For that one, I made a 6″ cake, which I’ve been using for practice.

I decided to go with the same cake for both just to simplify things: Caramel Chocolate Cake. I attempted to make a caramel syrup, but was a little impatient, so I mostly just made a plain syrup. I was also still intimidated by the meringue buttercream frosting in the wedding cake books, and with my stand mixer out of commission, I went with my old standby simple buttercream. I used a caramel frosting for the filling and chocolate frosting for the top and decorating.

I tried out the star tip on the 10″ cake, which worked out pretty well. But the frosting I made was too liquidy to hold its shape on the side of the cake, so I had to resort to just piping lines around the side. I was going to try out a basket weave on the 6″ cake, but had trouble again because of the consistency of my frosting. So I just went with stripes.

Things to work on:
- Brushing more syrup on the layers
- Leveling layers
- Making frosting
- Piping

Ian and I went over to his parents’ house today for a day of baking with his family. We made all the usuals: sugar cookies, almond tree cookies, rum balls, and crullers.

And the ones I’m most proud of, this year’s addition of gingerbread cookies:

After all the other cookies, no one else was interested in decorating the gingerbread cookies, so I drew on all of them. The first few were pretty boring because I didn’t know what I was doing, so I was just outlining the shapes. But after I got the hang of things, I started getting more detailed — patterns on shirts and dresses, pockets, ties, different hair styles, etc. Plus, we also made some pets for the gingerbread people, so the dogs got spots, the birds got wings, and the stegosaurus got polka dotted and striped.

The long awaited behind-the-scenes look at the making of Snowman Mao!

Ian and I stopped by my parents’ yesterday for our weekly Saturday lunch. After lunch, we all went outside to have a snowball fight with my niece, but the snow was so perfect for packing we decided to make a snowman instead:

When the first snowball got to be Eliana’s height, we tried to convince Ian that the snowman was going to be too big. We all had to concede in the end though that he was right all along.

Eliana spent much of the building process as Supervisor and telling us, “Bigger!”

Ian finally agreed that the snowball had reached a sufficient size, but had to roll it back across the yard (and snow) so we could build on flatter ground.

Then Ian helped me maneuver the second snowball over to the first. And, fortunately, he and Yenny were strong enough to lift it onto the base.

Eliana tried to help me push the head over, but did what she saw me doing… which was push toward her.

After a little convincing, she agreed to come over to my side of the snowball. And we were able to push the head over together.

Eliana needed a boost, but she was plenty helpful getting the torso shaped and ready for the head. We all helped fill in the joints and round out some spots.

After a while, it started to get a little windy, so Eliana used the snowman to protect her from the cold.

As we were getting the head onto the snowman, Ian suggested we make it taller — a 4-ball snowman! So we decided he needed a tophat!

My mom let us use a real carrot for the nose, found us some branches for arms, my dad found us some nice pieces of mulch for the face, and even grandma came out to give us a scarf to use. And after some more shaping and sculpting, we had our very own Snowman Mao!

This took us probably a little over half an hour to build. For scale, Ian is uphill from the snowman, so with the hat, they’re just about the same height — 6’6″. The snow really was the perfect condition to roll around and make huge snowballs; the best I can remember in at least 10 years. Then we went in for traditional post-snow hot chocolate!

Special thanks to my dad for the photo-documentation!

UPDATE: