Mimmsical Creations

I wanted to share our holidays with you, even though they are well past! Mike's birthday falls right before Christmas. We had quite the crazy couple of weeks filled with celebrating and presents! Mike was very good to me for Christmas! Not only did he buy me a couple things that I had put on my "list" - he surprised me with other unexpected things too! Project Runway - Season 4 DVDs were on my list! Yay! Amazing, superb jewelry was a surprise!!

The gift wrap was also entertaining! Mike does not do gift wrap. I'm lucky if anything is even sort of wrapped. He sort of outdid himself with one of my gifts! It was wrapped in a brown paper bag (from a local restaurant) and "taped" with tape from a lint roller that he tore into strips. So lovely! And then right next to it was the lovely present that the jewelry store wrapped for him - what a contrast! We had a good laugh about that!

We enjoyed our low-key holidays. We spent a lot of time enjoying our new TV and blu-ray/playstation as well! I did a lot of cooking of recipes that I got from spending way too much time watching the Food Network - my new addiction!

Baked Garlic Cheese Grits - a little bit of southern heaven in a pan from Paula Deen. Yummy!!

And Brussel Sprout cooked with Pancetta - WOW! I can't remember which show these were on! But, man, were they ever good! I also made these hash browns from Tyler Florence. Of course, they weren't as easy as he made them look - but they were tasty!

And just because I have some really adorable photos of our cats, and I haven't shared any in a while - here are some great shots! :)

Jamie at Starshyne Productions tagged me with a new meme!

The rules are:

1. Link to the person or persons who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Copy these questions (originally 8, plus Jamie's added 9th, and my own 10th) but add your own answers to them
4. Add one question to the last one, don’t forget to answer your own question
5. Tag as many as you feel like but you have to a least tag one
6. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
7. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
8. If anyone catches this out in blog world is welcome to jump on board


The Questions:


1. Real or Fake tree?

I haven't put up a holiday tree in many years. The last time I did was probably about 11 years ago. I had two young cats - Lissy and Oscar. (Oscar is still with me!) They got rambunctious one evening and knocked my tree (fake at the time) over and broke a whole bunch of my antique Shiney Brite ornaments. I was so mad!! I haven't put up a tree since! I have a ton of ornaments and decor, but I never get it out anymore! I should pass it on to someone who would use it I guess!

2. How many do you expect at your family holiday dinner?

On Christmas day, it will just be Mike and I. We have made it our tradition to stay home on the day of - just the two of us. I make a breakfast casserole for the morning and then we do something different each year for our meal. Last year I made Cuban food. I'm not sure what we're doing this year yet!

3. Do you know one of your great great grandmother's name?

I honestly cannot remember either one. I feel like I should know, but I can't find it in the old memory! I knew my grandparents, but not my greats, and definitely not my great, greats! I'll have to ask my mom for some names! (My paternal grandmother was Lula Annis Travis, and my maternal grandmother was Elma Etta Evans.)

4. Did you have chocolate today?

Not yet, but the day is young!

5. Do you visit all of your blogging friends everyday?

I definitely try to. I don't make it every day, but usually at least every couple of days for sure!

6. Do you have carolers come to your home?

Never

7. What is on your feet?

Black socks with multi-colored hearts and black tennis shoes

8. Do you make Candy for the holidays?

I haven't made candy, but this year, I'm in a cookie baking mood! I saw a recipe for salt caramels yesterday that is tempting me. Maybe this will be a first for making some candy!

9. What's a favourite holiday memory of yours?

I loved my first Christmas on my own. I lived in an apartment with my (still) best friend Andrea. We got this giant (real) Christmas tree. It wouldn't even fit in the door of our apartment. It sat outside on our porch until my dad could come over and saw off like two feet of it! It was huge! (I'm not sure what we were thinking!) We way overestimated our space! It was so much fun to have our own tree in our own place though!

10. (my question) What is your favorite holiday song? (sticking with the holiday theme here!)

I get irritated by holiday music in stores this time of year. You hear the same songs over and over. And yet, there are so many good songs that you never hear! My favorite song is Silver Bells. I haven't heard it one time this season and that makes me sad!

I also really like White Christmas as sung by Bing Crosby. (actually - I like anything as sung by Bing!) I like the old classics, sung by Bing, and Frank, and Deano! :)

I'm tagging to do this meme:

1. Lila
2. Mary Ann
3. Jana
4. You!! :)

For our first Thanksgiving as a married couple, Mike and I stayed home on the day of! We cleaned the house like maniacs, and I cooked up a storm! We went to his family gathering on Friday, and his dad and step-mom visited us on Saturday, so it was a busy weekend!

Our menu for Thursday was rather "odd" for a Thanksgiving meal, but Mike doesn't like turkey, so I made stuff I knew he would like! I made a pot-roast with veggies in the crock-pot, creamy brussel sprouts, and rosemary bread!!

First the pot-roast:

When I asked for help in the meat department on Wednesday, the guy was incredulous that I wasn't buying turkey! Buy red meat the day before Thanksgiving! It is WAY marked down! No one is buying it! He told me it didn't really matter what cut of meat I chose if I was going to slow cook it, and he was right - it was absolutely fall apart tender after 7 hours in the crock pot!

I took my friend Andrea's advice and cooked it with a can of coke. This is supposed to make it even more tender I guess. The only thing I would do different next time is maybe use only half a can plus some water - the flavor was just a bit sweet from the coke! (not bad - just a bit sweet!)

I placed in about 4 small chopped red potatoes, 1 onion, chopped in large pieces, 4 carrots chopped in coins, and towards the end 16 oz. of mushrooms. For spices - I used 3 bay leaves, garlic, salt and pepper. That was it! I let it cook on medium heat for about 7 hours - until I could tell that the meat was totally tender. I pulled the veggies out about mid-way through because they were too soft! Next time, I'll wait and add the veggies mid-way through instead of at the beginning. About an hour before we were going to eat, I added the mushrooms (they don't take much time to cook.) YUMMY! I also did make some gravy from the liquid, but it was pretty sweet from the coke, and the veggies didn't really need gravy, so we didn't use very much of it!

Now - for the brussel sprouts. Wow. I have to say, this is one of the best dishes I have ever made!! I found the recipe online at the Dutch Girl Cooking blog (which I found via one of my favorite food blogs - Pioneer Woman). It was super yummy - if not super healthy! Mike and I both love brussel sprouts, and these were the best ever! Her recipe is very easy to follow, so I'll let you do that (plus she has step-by-step pictures!) The only thing I did wrong was I didn't see that I was supposed to cut the sprouts in half, so ours were whole. I would definitely cut them - they were a bit difficult to manouver on the plate in whole form! I WILL be making this one again (perhaps even this week as I have everything leftover to do so!) My only modification was I used half gruyere and half havarti cheese. For some reason, gouda was ungodly expensive!

I neglected to get pictures of our other cooking ventures for the weekend! I'll do better next time! For our Thanksgiving dinner with Mike's dad and step-family, I made creamed corn! I used a recipe I found online (of course!) I would have liked to make it with fresh corn, but in November, that wasn't possible, so I used organic frozen corn - and it turned out great anyway! The recipe I used is this one - I didn't make any modifications except to make the recipe a bit larger since there were quite a few people to serve! (Oh - I did add a bit of nutmeg - I had used it in the brussel sprouts and really liked the flavor, so I thought it would be good in the corn, and it was!)

On Saturday, Mike's dad and step-mom came up to our house to visit. It is easier to visit with them one-on-one than in the big group such as the day before. More enjoyable in my opinion! They requested Mike's pulled pork recipe for lunch. So, he pulled that together while I made potato salads to go with it. I will share his recipe here at some point, but I don't have it to share at the moment! (It is a TON of spices making up the rub followed by hours of baking at a low heat! Yummy!) I made two versions of potato salad. I like mine made with green olives/olive juice, but some people don't so I did another version made with my homemade bread and butter pickles. Both turned out great!!

I had fun cooking up a storm all weekend! Now, I have to get on the ball and make Christmas cookies to mail out for a swap, which I am behind on! (Thankfully my partner is OK with this!! I promise they will be on the way soon Terrie!) I have a busy weekend ahead again too! Wow! And Mike's birthday is on December 15 - he is turning 40!! Busy month for us! How is your December starting out?

I realized it's been a while since I posted. Mike and I have both been sick ... AGAIN! This cold/flu we got at Thanksgiving has just hung on!

Our 3 year anniversary was December 22 - Saturday. We met online, but met for the first time in person three years ago! We met for dinner at Rasta Pasta, and we planned to go have dinner there again. But, we were sick, so we didn't get to! Blah! (We didn't get to go last year either because we were snowed in!) But, we celebrated anyway by getting Chinese takeout. Mike bought me a really great necklace. I've never seen anything quite like it! Moon phases in beads! Perfect! I bought him a bottle of scotch - he's going to exchange it for a type he likes better. I so cannot remember all the intricacies of scotch!

We were supposed to go to his family Christmas get together on Sunday, the 23rd, but couldn't do that either. I was MAD! We missed Thanksgiving too - sheesh! Oh, well. Nothing we could do about it. We'll get together with his dad and step-mom maybe this weekend.

We opened our presents very early on Christmas day. I think we both liked what we got each other! Mike did great picking out some beautiful jewelry for me. Two pendants - very different from each other. I will get good pictures to post. The ones I took quick this morning didn't turn out well at all. He also got me season 3 of Project Runway on DVD! Yay! :) My stocking stuffers were all kinds of crazy gadgets that he found at ThinkGeek.com. We had fun playing with them. I got him a Jellyfish tank and the game Oblivion - which he proceeded to play all day! The cats liked the wrapping paper!

Luckily, I did my grocery shopping and Christmas shopping before getting really sick again. I had all my ingredients to make special foods for us for Christmas day. We had planned to just stay home that day! I'm glad we did - it snowed most of the day! We got about 2 inches total. It was really pretty, but I'm glad we didn't have to drive anywhere! I made the breakfast casserole for us that I did on Thanksgiving. Then for lunch (wound up being late in the afternoon!) I made Cuban food! Yummy!! The first step is making sofrito sauce - which is then the base in the Ropa Vieja. Here is the sofrito in process. (Look how Christmas-y it is!)

Sofrito Sauce recipe:

Sofrito recipe
courtesy of Sonia Martinez

Sofrito is the base of many typically Cuban recipes. My mom used to chop up all the ingredients (except bay leaf) in a blender and store in a jar with a drizzle of olive oil on top. Stored in refrigerator, it can last about a week. (I blend it and use about half for my ropa vieja - and freeze the rest.) She would spoon out amounts needed for each recipe, add the bay leaf and then sauté and simmer as directed. The secret to a good sofrito is to let it simmer a while so all the tastes meld.

21 cherry tomatoes, chopped
2 green peppers, chopped
2 large onions, chopped
8 to 10 garlic cloves, chopped
1 or 2 bay leaves
touch of ground cumin
touch of dried oregano
3/4 cup Sherry, or to taste
4 Tbsp olive oil
Salt to taste (optional)

Sautee tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic, bay leaves, cumin and oregano in oil slowly until all vegetables are limp. Add Sherry and let simmer. If you add the salt, taste beforehand as you might not need it at all. Blend it all together to make a sauce.

Ropa Vieja Recipe:

2 1/2 lbs flank steak, cut in strips
5 tablespoons oil
2 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic or 5 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup water
6 ounces sofrito sauce (I use about 3 times this much!)

Heat 3 tbsp. oil in skillet on medium, brown meat on all sides. Remove from skillet, add remaining oil to skillet, stir in garlic, onion and green pepper and cook until translucent. Stir in black pepper, browned meat, tomato sauce, water and sofrito. Simmer until meat is tender and shreds easily, about 1 hour (takes more than an hour for me). Serve on top of rice.

I work for a great company!! We had our holiday party last Friday night. It was such a fun evening. It was at a local French restaurant - very posh! I got all dressed up for the fun of it! :) We always get lovely presents and a bonus, but this year, our bosses decided to do something a bit different too.

They gave each of us $100 in "virtual money" to spend on the Heifer Project. They are donating money and allowing each of us to choose how to spend the money through this amazing project!!

The deal is the donated money buys an animal or flock of animals for a family which provides not only food, but a way to make money as well. For instance, I am choosing as my animal a dairy goat. (I love goaties! I lived at my little house in the country for 10 years - my landlord's kids raised pygmy goats for 4-H.) The website explains how this gift helps:

"Goats can thrive in extreme climates and on poor, dry land by eating grass and leaves. The gift of a dairy goat can supply a family with up to several quarts of nutritious milk a day - a ton of milk a year. Extra milk can be sold or used to make cheese, butter or yogurt. Families learn to use goat manure to fertilize gardens.

And because goats often have two or three kids a year, Heifer partners can lift themselves out of poverty by starting small dairies that earn money for food, health care and education."

My co-workers have chosen to give a llama, honeybees, chicks, and shares of pigs and water buffalo. I have gone one step further and I donated a flock of chicks for a friend for Christmas! (In addition to other presents of course!) If you are looking for a way to help others or to give a donation - I think this is a really cool idea!! I love that my bosses at World by the Tail did this for us, and I hope my friend likes that I did it for her and her family too!