Happy Saturday!

Well, right now, this is one of the best Saturdays, ever!  You might think it was because it's really sunny after a few days of rain (nice), or because the temperatures are cool and autumn-ish again after warm days (really nice), but if you want me to think a day is wonderful, you'll never go wrong by serving these for breakfast:

(Not my photo - it's from Pinterest. But ours looked like this!)

Hash Brown Potatoes.  With lots of onion, pepper, and crusty on the outside.  The Tim made these for breakfast today, and oh what a treat!  We generally only have them on holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) but he said he "felt like fixing potatoes this morning," and decided on these.  

They were beyond yummy. 

And I didn't have to make them!

The Name Alone Could Make You Sick

Does your family have any recipes/dishes/treats that are constant additions to holiday meals?  I mean, those specific to your family, not overall traditional holiday foods.

I was thinking of this earlier today, as last night The Tim mentioned a well-known family favorite, and wondered if any of his siblings made it as part of their Christmas dinner dessert.  I was first exposed to this "delicacy" the first year we were married, and had left my family's house to go have Christmas dinner with his.  All of his siblings were going to be there, and his Aunt Betty was bringing the much-anticipated dessert.

The contents are (and no, I do not know the specific measurements because I don't ever want to know):

grape jello

pretzels

Cool Whip

pineapple

nuts

raisins

bananas

mini-marshmallows

chocolate chips

Now, don't get me wrong, with the exceptions of raisins and chocolate chips, I've known and eaten many versions of jello with some of these individual add-ons.  My mother was especially fond of bananas in jello, though never grape jello.  Anyway, this dish is put together in a very specific way, with the order of ingredients also specific (again, I do not have that information, but I can tell you that the Cool Whip goes on top), and put into a rectangular cake pan to set and then serve as the piece-de-resistance on Christmas Day.

I try to be adventurous with food, and like to try new things.  But I just could not bring myself to even take a taste of this concoction, because it was a) *very* purple, and b) very ugly, and c) IT IS CALLED "SLUMGUM."

Did you hear me there???? It's called SLUMGUM. 

Which begs the question of why something, especially a "dessert," has a name that makes it sound like it was scraped off a dirty sidewalk?  The Tim has no explanation for this, other than that's what they have always called it.  I remember at the Christmas dinner referenced above, his oldest niece, who was about 2 years old at the time, and visiting from California with her parents, said to her mother, "Do you see that purple stuff there?  Don't eat it, it's really yucky."  Fortunately everyone laughed, because I found it hilarious.

Anyway, as I was writing this post, I decided to search Google Images for "slumgum."  Most of the images had to do with beeswax, a few were macaroni and beef concoctions, but oddly enough, none of them included anything related to grape jello and additional ingredients ...

Here is one of the photos related to beeswax

Trust me, this looks way better than what I'm talking about!

A Bit of Catch Up

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving plus 2 days!  I hope your day was enjoyable.  Ours was quiet and very pleasant, though The Tim crashed shortly after dinner, so in some ways it was also short!  But he had been doing every single thing for the day, and I don't blame him for being tired.  We are still enjoying leftovers, so it's all good.

Yesterday was also pretty uneventful, though I managed to get some things accomplished.  The Tim had to work, so I spent the day working on putting some clothes away as best I could, and walked over to a local toy store for a Christmas gift for my youngest great-nephew, since I was afraid if I waited, the ones I wanted would be sold out.  Then I watched a Christmas movie that was so bad and so cheesy, it was good, which was pleasing. 

I finally have a few houseplants that are doing OK.  I used to have so many plants, but the light in our house is not the best.  The remaining violets I had kept getting attacked by the Koodle.  So it finally occurred to me that since the plant stands I had were just too accessible, I needed something else.  I bought one of those bakers' racks, and have some plants on the top shelf.  It's in between two windows, but not near enough to either for leaping cats to be successful.  Plus, it looks nice and I'm pleased with it.

The skinny, tall plant is from an avocado pit.  It seems quite happy, so I'm just going with it and we'll see what happens.  I'm not sure how violets would do here, but might get one or two and test it out.

The plant stand also came in quite handy for this:

A few months ago, I treated myself to a yarny Advent Calendar from Sweet Sparrow Yarns.  Jaclyn from the Brooklyn Knitfolk podcast had opened a package each day last year in her Vlogmas series, and it looked like such fun and such pretty yarns that I decided to try it.  So I saved up and signed up as soon as the slots opened.  Then I promptly forgot about it, so that when the package arrived, it was fun all over again! 

Yesterday I wanted to cheer myself up after having frustrations with my hand/wrist exercises, so I opened the package and took everything out.  The envelopes had a red and white string attached so you could hang them like a garland.  So I attached it to the aforementioned plant stand, and I love how it looks! Now from December 1 through 24, no matter what else does or does not happen in any given day, I have a little envelope to open with a yarny surprise inside!  And it also includes a full-sized surprise skein of yarn to open on Christmas Day, which is just really exciting if you ask me.  I must confess though, that even just the little envelopes, all decorated with snowflakes and a number, on the red and white string, make me smile.

My occupational therapy has been moving along.  It is extremely difficult and very painful, but I am making small progress, so it's worth it.  I have been going twice a week, and then I have exercises to do 3 times a day at home as well.  I see the orthopedic surgeon again on December 3, so I'm curious to see what she'll have to say.  The therapist assigned to me is nice, but she was a little off-putting at first, since she seemed to have the personality of General George Patton.  But I think once she could tell I was really trying, things got better. 

Tomorrow I have a haircut appointment (long story, but isn't it always?), and then I want to make one stop on the way home.  Other than that, my day will be paying bills and watching either some podcasts or if I can find one, another cheesy Christmas movie.  If the weather is as pleasant as they are predicting, Hamlet and I will probably take a nice, longer-than-usual walk as well.  Then when The Tim gets home from work, we'll have dinner and a quiet evening, probably watching some of the shows we've recorded.  A nice way to end the holiday weekend, if you ask me.

I hope all of you have a good rest of the weekend as well.  Enjoy your leftovers, if you have any!

Finished for Today

I am officially finished with the things I wanted to do to prepare for tomorrow.  There were not that many things for me to do, since I had actually cleaned pretty thoroughly last weekend (much to my surprise), so food-related things were what were left for tonight.

The Tim was busy the past few days.  He was off on Monday and Tuesday, and then he is working the closing shift tonight.  He did the cleaning up he wanted to do, plus A LOT of baking!

So today when I got home from work, this was waiting for me.

Pumpkin pies!  Yes, "pies" - three of them!  The Tim is a huge fan of pumpkin pie, so he makes two or three every year so he can get his fill.  (I of course help to consume said pies, because I am supportive like that.)

The other day he baked some bread.  And then today, he turned that bread into homemade croutons for our stuffing.

So good!

As of approximately a half hour ago, I finished making the stuffing, and earlier I tried a recipe I found for wine cranberry sauce.  The stuffing looks, smells, and hopefully will taste good.  I'll check in the morning, once the flavors have had some time to take hold, to see if it needs any tweaking.

The cranberry sauce *looks* good, but according to the recipe, it needs to sit in the fridge at least 12 hours for the flavor to "set."  I'll let you know if it is any good.  I do have to say it was easy.  We just usually get the canned cranberry sauce, but like I said, I saw this recipe today and we had some fresh cranberries in the fridge that we got as part of our farm share, so I figured I'd see how it tasted.  At least if it's horrible, we still have the other stuff as backup.  :-)

Besides the anticipation of Thanksgiving,  I think all of the food preparation and planning is fun.  We usually have the same menu for the most part, with occasional tweaks or additions, but it never seems boring to me.

I hope you are finding time to relax tonight so that tomorrow's festivities will be happy and fun.

Enjoy!


NaBloPoMo Day #25