Games 13 and 14

Roast chicken with homemade stuffing. Only God knows if the chicken was completely cooked. Making stuffing at home was really amazing for me. It was -wake up in the middle of the night sweating and desperate- good. I only hope no one ever catches me eating freshly made stuffing for breakfast in the dead heat of summer alone and rapturous.

Po' boys loosely adapted from this local restaurant's Rich Boy sandwich. Much garlic.

Some cookies I was dying to make months ago but held off until Christmas when I was over it. Honestly, the spirit of the season disappeared awhile ago but I sticking with my homemade plans. The white stuff is homemade marshmallow for a sweet treat gift. While making your own marshmallows is a fascinating science experiment it smells like hell and the knowledge of the ingredients is quite off putting. I had Brandon taste them because I was absolutely disgusted by the end.

Handmade Holidays So Far

I have been diligently working on my homemade gifts. The unicorn is for a work friend. It took at least 10 hours longer than I anticipated. I learned a few lessons mainly about myself. I had to sort of call it quits even though the legs are still crooked and I had re-sewn (by hand no less) each one at least 3 times because I was afraid I wouldn't get to any of my other gifts and ruin Christmas with my obsessive repositioning. I chose to make it first because I have wanted to make one ever since I saw a knitted unicorn in a book that we were sending back to the publisher. There were are few attempts at drafting the pattern until my mom offered and made one in minutes that then took a week and a half on my end to complete. But now my time is free for the rest.

A needle book and matching pincushion for my boyfriend's sister.

A marker/pencil carrying roll for Brandon's birthday.

Ornaments on the tree and the fabric scrap garland that took too long and I quickly lost interest and Brandon finished in a real show of patience. Ideally I want to add scraps every year until it is long enough to go all around the tree. Also, what a crafty walk down memory lane it will be when I pull it out of storage every year!

Games 11 and 12

Sausage Chili! Five jalapenos!! Even better the next day!!!

Fish and Chips in honor of the beloved Steelers and Brandon's birthday. I enthusiastically made this last year using a recipe from Jamie Oliver that instructed me to fry it in a gallon of vegetable oil. It was terrifying but absolutely sublime. After massively overeating and drinking too many champagne and Guinness cocktails (really more than 1/2 of one glass was overdoing it) I swore I would never do this again. I am a worthless liar. Except I did switch to a Joy of Cooking recipe that only called for 3 inches of oil and a much smaller pot. If I could eat fried fish every day I would absolutely joyfully.

P.S. The team won each game.

Recently Made

I am planning to do a "homemade holiday" this year. Which means I will sew or bake all the gifts. As something to brag about it sounds like a good idea but in practise we shall see. I am also making ornaments for our tree. Unfortunately, it is a dreary day so there are no pictures. Only this one of my newly recovered ironing board. I felt silly when I finally discovered that you can make your own ironing board cover because I had been lamenting the price of store bought for months. In a great bit of irony I did not iron (or wash now that I think about it) the fabric I used.

Game 9 & Game 10

Slow cooked barbecue ribs with lemony spinach and garlic cannellini bean mash. Obviously, the Steelers won.

Last weekend (game 10) we were both busy and out of the house separately so there was no game day meal. The subsequent loss solidified the belief that our meals and the successful making and eating of are the determining factor behind whether the Steelers win or lose. Ridiculous?

game 8

Chicken of the Taverns by Amy Sedaris. We have been eagerly looking forward to this meal. It did not disappoint. So buttery and yummy.

Belated Halloween

We made a jack o' lantern cake for a belated get together last night. It was a burnt sugar cake from Joy (obviously) with cream cheese frosting. The burnt sugar was a huge pain in the ass. It took three tries and two different cooks to get it right and even then it was still a little runny. We (i.e. Brandon. After the caramel I was done with finicky stuff, plus he is an artiste.) only added a little sugar to the icing because the cake was quite sweet already. The combination of deeply sweet cake and almost salty cream cheese frosting was perfect! I would make this again just as a regular cake despite the 45 minute crystallized sugar ordeal.