Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all. I’ve shovelled the front deck in my pjs and Carm is snowblowing… yes, a bit more snow to make it feel like Christmas. Our last guest left a few minutes ago and now we’ll finish the cleanup before going to my mom’s for brunch.


Last night we did something different and had a few friends over for Christmas Eve supper. Pat and Dave didn’t have anywhere else to be, and if  you remember from last year I was at loose ends too, so dinner seemed like the perfect solution.


Both instant pots, a crockpot, and the actifry were on the go getting a turkey dinner ready. Not a whole turkey, but one of those frozen breasts. It normally cooks for 4 hours in the oven and can come out dry but I did some searches and found a recipe to cook it in the instant pot - 45 minutes and a 20 minute natural release - perfect. Well, it could have used another 5 minutes, but it was moist and tender. Yay instant pot. The other pot had sweet potato soup, the crockpot had green bean casserole, the actifry had some sweet potato cubes, and finally regular potatoes on the old-fashioned stove for mashed potatoes. Whew!


We had fun, but I did miss the traditional ‘Rudolf the red nosed reindeer’ - maybe tonight instead of the Sound of Music, which is not Carm’s favorite Christmas Day tradition.


Spike was calmer about Pat’s visit so he has either gotten used to her taking care of him, or he knew we weren’t going anywhere. I do see him walk into the spare room occasionally to look around - that’s where our suitcases get packed, and it’s also where Pat sleeps so I don’t know what he’s looking for.



Oh, yesterday, as well as getting ready for company, Carm and I made lefse. Mom & Dad had brought a tortilla press in Mexico thinking that it would work well on the soft dough. And it did! No rolling pin wars with soft potato dough sticking onto the pin and the counter. Just a simple press and voila :-)  Carm had 10 spots going on the stove and griddler so I could barely keep up. We made a double batch in just over an hour (not counting making the potatoes, finding all the pans, cleanup, etc.) I still managed to get flour and bits of dough through much of the kitchen ;-)


Merry Christmas!