Have a very merry Chirstmas!

Warmest wishes to all of you!  I hope you have a wonderful Christmas spending time with family and friends. 

Our dinner menu has changed.  Dave ordered tamales and I made vegan ones the other night so our  menu now will be tamales, rice, beans, tortillas and a big salad.  For dessert I'm going to make a flan from VCON.  Of course there will be plenty of cookies and caramels to munch on.

Speaking of cookies I can't leave you without a recipe now can I?  If you love ginger, molasses and chocolate than these cookies are for you.  They are so soft and chewy....yum!  Keaton and I love these.  I've been making them for years now.  I found them on the Martha Stewart website years ago and the only ingredient change needed to make them vegan is to sub Earth Balance for the butter.  Cool eh?

Chewy Chocolate gGinger Cookies

by Martha Stewart

Ingredients
Makes 2 dozen



•7 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate
•1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
•1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
•1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
•1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
•1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
1/2 cup dark-brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Directions

1.Line two baking sheets with parchment. Chop chocolate

•Chop chocolate into 1/4-inch chunks; set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cocoa.

•In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and grated ginger until whitened, about 4 minutes. Add brown sugar; beat until combined. Add molasses; beat until combined.

•In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in 1 1/2 teaspoons boiling water. Beat half of flour mixture into butter mixture. Beat in baking-soda mixture, then remaining half of flour mixture. Mix in chocolate; turn out onto a piece of plastic wrap. Pat dough out to about 1 inch thick; seal with wrap; refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or more.

•Heat oven to 325 degrees. Roll dough into 1 1/2- inch balls; place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Refrigerate 20 minutes. Roll in granulated sugar. Bake until the surfaces crack slightly, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Chewy Ginger Cookies, Rumnog Cookies and Caramels for Keaton's friends  families.
 
 
Merry Christmas!

The Monday after....

It's Monday and the family has gone. My in-laws left Saturday afternoon. My sister and her family(from Arizona) arrived yesterday afternoon and left this morning to go visit my parents up north. My dad has a lung condition, kind of like that mesothelioma, and it's getting worse. He coughs all of the time and there is no cure. So my sister wanted to go visit because she doesn't know when she'll be able to go back up there.

Anyhooo....here are some Christmas pic's of the family.

My mother in law in her Christmas pj's. My father-in-law has passed over the job of being Santa to my mother-in-law. He says he's retired. I guess retiring from work also means retiring from a lot of other things as well. lol!!!

One of the sweaters we got for my father-in-law. He's a Football coach at Pierce College and he's always wearing the Pierce College sweat shirt, all of the time, even going out. So now maybe he will wear a sweater when they go out with their friends.

A very cool cast iron tea pot for my mother-in-law. She loves red, can you tell? lol! She drinks alot of hot tea and this will keep her water hot. I really wanted to keep it because this is the type of teapot i've been wanting for many years . Oh well.

My son opening up the "big gift" he got from us. He got a microphone and stand that he can hook up to his amp. Cleo dog being nosey as always.

After riddles from the in-laws that took us all over the house. We found an item covered up in the back of their explorer that we had to carry in. What is it?

Our first flat screen tv! Whoo hoo! They got one to fit into our cabinet. My father-in-law kept telling my mother-in-law that he knew they should've gone bigger. I just told them that there is always next year! hee hee hee. They got our first t.v. for us when we got our condo. way back when. Christmas dinner was nice. Plenty of food left over. Let's see there are fresh green beans, grilled asparagus, easy seitan cutlets with chimichurri sauce, bread, stuffed portobellos, butternut squash risotto and roasted root veggies. Yum it was all good!

We had a very nice Christmas as we usually do. It's also nice when you can stay home and don't have to drive anywhere.

Happy Holidays!

Well it's almost Christmas and wow I'm tired. So busy lately baking, shopping, wrapping & cleaning. I need to get as much food prep done before my in-laws arrive later today. Tomorrow my sister-in-law, niece and her boyfriend will arrive.

My husband is cooking something on the bbq spit for all of those carnivores. I will be making seitan steaks, stuffed portobellos, butternut squash sage risotto, salad, roasted root veggies and bread. Apple pie and lots of cookies.

I wish all of you a very happy, warm and safe Christmas.