January 2, 2019

Happy New Year!  Welcome 2019!

We've had a busy few days here.  Our Little's and their Parental Supervisory Units came for a Sleep Over on New Year's Eve.  We have offered over the years to have our Little's come to stay over, so the Big's could attend any Adult themed celebrations, as desired.  This year, one of the Big's had to work ~ Service Industry, attending to other unsupervised Adults who were Celebrating.  The other 2 decided they wanted to participate in the Kid Friendly Option we offer here.  

They arrived in good time.  We had steaks out for a non-Chinese Food option, to grill for themselves.  Miss K and I headed to town to pick up dinner for the rest of us.  We decided to try a Chinese restaurant we hadn't tried before.  It came with rave reviews so we expected a fantastic meal.  We arrived, ordered Jasmine tea, chose our food and waited for it to be prepared, so we could take it away.  We found it was rather pricey, but with the new minimum wages increase, carbon tax, etc., we chalked it up to the cost of doing business.  Our order was ready to go in about 20 minutes, so we picked it up and headed for home.  The steaks were ready for those having steak.  Perfect timing!  Our order was laid out and people served up.  Hmmm?  No fortune cookies and minimal dipping sauces?  That was rather unexpected and somewhat odd.  The Chow Mien, Fried Rice and Chicken Balls were very good.  Everything else was Mediocre, at best.  So terribly disappointing.  I don't know if those who gave it the 5* rating were related to the owners or never had Good Chinese before or were drunk and didn't know any better, but it certainly wasn't anything like any we would call "good" - and we have been to some GREAT Chinese Restaurants - in Chinatown in Calgary & Edmonton. The Red Star in Red Deer does Amazing Dim Sum, Western Style Chinese and Authentic Chinese style food.  I guess we'll just call it an experience and won't order from there again.  It didn't even reheat well.  Tossed the lot.  Good thing we got that over in 2018, so we have nothing be high expectations for 2019!  

The remainder of the evening was wonderful.  The Little's designed a Trip Wire system in their area of the house that would have given Mission Impossible a run for their money!  We played Mexican Train Dominoes.  Have lots of laughs, a few bevies and watched the count down to ring in the New Year.  Even Wilbur had a great time with all his favorite Little People at his house!  The littlest Little had powered out before the big count down and missed it this year.  Hopefully she can stay the course and join in the revelry next year.

MI Trip Wire system to warn the Little's of Big's and Grand's intrusion.

New Year's Day brought a Big Breakfast for all.  Papa and the Biggest Big, took down the Ladder related Christmas decorations, before the Parental Supervisory Units took the Littlest Little home.  The older Little's got to hang out with the Grands.  We settled into the Game of Life after we shooed the rest out the door.  A Roast Beast went into the oven and we had a delightful day of games, a nap and the general Tom Foolery that Little's and Grands tend to get into when the Big's are away!  

Nothing like a good, old fashioned Game of Life

It is a rule in our house that you cannot make a Roast Beef Dinner without Gravy and Yorkshire Puddings.  Seriously.  We even had this meal for our wedding supper at Papa's insistence.  I had NO IDEA that this is such a Huge deal.  It truly is!  I have since mastered the Yorkshire Puddings over the years after trying several recipes, oven temps, different pans, different oils/fats, different ratios of eggs/milk/flour.  I have finally tweaked it so we get great results every time.  I do believe that you have to find what works best for you and your own variables.  Others do it very differently from me and have amazing results.  

Yorkshire Puddings almost done.  About 5 more minutes to bake.

Here is my personal recipe for Yorkshire Pudding

Pre-heat oven to 400+ degrees F.  My oven is gas, so it is difficult to get an exact temp, thus the "+"

In Un-greased muffin cups add 1/2 tsp frozen beef tallow into each ~ yes, you read that correctly.  We render our beef fat after we harvest our beef and freeze it.  If you don't raise beef, perhaps you could get some fat from the butcher and render your own.  This goes into the oven, to get smoking hot.

Meanwhile, in a blender:  blend, mix, then turbo:

4 room temp eggs

2/3 cup all purpose flour

2/3 cup whole milk

pinch of salt

When muffin cups are smoking after 5 or more minutes, remove pan and quickly pour mixture into cups, evenly divided between them all.

Bake 25 minutes until well puffed, golden and dry/crisp

If they are Underdone, they will:

Stick to the muffin cups

Fall when taken out of the oven and/or cups

Be chewy or doughy

Those issues mentioned above require you to either bake longer or adjust oven temp.  If you can't get tallow/fat, try using Lard, Real Lard ~ Not Crisco, not oil.  You will get a similar and quite acceptable result.  

Happy New Year to All!

Warmest Regards,

Gremlynn