short ribs

 I’ve still got cold chills from dashing out to the garage freezer for the cookie tin. I had a batch of Scandinavian Cardamom cookies to add to the Christmas stash, but as it turns out I had to break out a new container as there were too many cookies to fit in with the butter pecan cookies. I suppose one kind per tin works out better when it’s time to distribute them to a plate.

Two down, five to go!

Blocks of room temperature butter are stacked on the window sill for the next batch of sugary treats.

Yesterday was a lazy day with not much done other than the essentials and a big pot of bone broth. I think I was exhausted from the week's lamentations about Spike… well that and the butter. He was doing well yesterday but today seems a bit down. He’s been limping on one leg all day… I’m hoping he just slept on it wrong.

Monday we prepared for special supper guests: Mom and Dad came over after getting their booster shot. Adia was a bit of a pain - she lost out on 18 months of key guest behaviour training time through Covid. It’s not relaxing to have to shoo her away from the table so I just popped her in the crate - a bit of a cheat and it certainly doesn’t help with training.

Access to the loveseat near the kitchen was blocked by Spike’s enclosure - I think this affected her behaviour as normally she’d settle there while I’m in the kitchen. She likes to be close (probably in case I drop something and need her help!).

I wanted to make a bit of a special meal so I cooked a short rib roast in the instant pot. We’ve never had this cut of beef and likely won't again. For one thing, the bone was huge which ate up any $ savings over a blade roast. The meat was good but not spectacular. I felt that a good blade roast would have been better.

It did stretch out to a few meals - 2 full dinners and 1 meal of meat & caramelised onion stuffed mashed potatoes. They were not pretty but when I couldn’t tear myself away from the leftovers I gave it an extra point.

I’ve been building a database for our beer tasting events in my Android app but unfortunately the software is not a true database product with add on reporting or one-to-many relationships that can be extracted for a report. So I’m having to kludge and I don’t like the first try. I’m trying to avoid double entry cause that goes against everything I based my career on but am going to have to lower my standards.

Have you been listening to Christmas music?

Awesome!

“tasting the first cardamom cookie of the year”

“light snow falling when we have nowhere to go”

“celebrating with Olaf and Stephanie”

“my new sweetlegs with the Christmas ball pattern”

“Michael Buble's Christmas music.”

“Spike is seeking out the crate for sleeping - it will be his safe space for sleeping at Mom’s on Christmas Day”