CHAD'S BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Today is Chad's birthday as well as New Years Eve, HAPPY BIRTHDAY YEARS EVE!!!! As you can tell I tapped into my pintest skills and decorated and cute carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Now I am off to do fun birthday things with Chad, we're going to the aquarium and then to a fancy dinner at Raincity Grill. I am super excited to try their bacon wrapped white rabbit. I have a feeling this is going to be a great day!

Happy New Year Skeleton

Turkey Stock

The best part about making a turkey is using the carcass for stock. Since the turkey is already seasoned the stock comes out soo tasty and you really don't need to add anything to it. I read that the longer you boil your stock the more minerals you get from the bones. For mine I boiled it around 15 hours with two carrots, 2 celery stalks and 1 onion. 

After, I strained it and let it cool before I put it into pitchers to store in the fridge. I was poking around the interweb about stock and found great ways to store it. Last time I did stock we ate soup for two weeks, this time I wanted to hold on to it. 

Letting it sit in the fridge over night all the fat raises to the top, makes it easy to scoop some of it out and pour it into ice trays. I froze the stock and put it into ziplock bags, I love this idea, you can just go in the freezer and grab what you need. 

Christmas Dinner

For Christmas day I thought it would be fun to have a little dinner party with some friends that didn't go anywhere for the holiday. It was really fun and a TON of cooking, my favorite!! Here I set up a little snack table while we waited for people to show up. 

I LOVE these cheese balls soo much, I only get to have them once a year. I know they are fatty but what the heck it's the holidays. I gladly helped myself to a few servings. For the Main course I made a turkey with stuffing, a slow cooked ham, mashed potatoes and a green bean casserole. Everything came out really awesome and I was soo happy to share with everyone.

The star, my turkey with gluten-free stuffing. I did one for Canadian Thanksgiving and I felt way more confident having done it once before. I have a system now, the key is the brine.

My turkey gets a little brine bath for around 24 hours before it goes in the oven. Almost like a little turkey spa day.

Once it's out I rinse it and soak it for about 20 mins before I stuff it full of my yummy stuffing. I kind of stuffed it a little too full and was fearing my turkey was going to explode like in the movies. I was lucky it didn't and it came out perfect.

The stuffing I made is one of my Mom's recipes, oh man, talk about comfort food. It was nice to have it around, not being able to travel to see my family this year. I used her recipe with one minor change, I used gluten free bread for the bread crumbs. 

Personally I love making my own bread crumbs. I use different breads for different recipes, some of them are free flavor. I ended up with extra, makes me happy I can use them for other things.

My ham was soo good!!! It said to cook for 8 hours, I ended up cooking mine for about 12. It just fell apart in your mouth, I really enjoyed it. I am also happy I have the bone and extra meat for lentil soup. My Grandma makes it every every year with the left over ham and I and truly excited to make her recipe. 

Even Chad got in the cooking, he made us a gluten free pumpkin pie. He's made it before and I really like this pie. He uses potato flour for the crust that adds this really awesome flavor to the pie, takes it to the next level I think. I didn't get a chance to take more photos of the green beans or the actual party, again throwing dinner parties are pretty busy. I did have a wonderful time with my friends and my love, I really couldn't have asked for anything better.

Robot tree topper agrees, Merry Christmas <3

Christmas Eve Fondue

For one of my Christmas presents from Chad he got me a fondue set. We went out and had it for dinner one night and I thought it was fun and really who doesn't want to sit at a table eating cheese? I saw a few different sets at this kitchen store we were at while out shopping together, I was totally going to buy one right then and there. He told me that I am not allowed to buy myself anything until after Christmas and here I am now with a fondue set, YAY!!! Best part is he got all of the things I needed to make the fondue and dipping foods. Super cleaver doing this while I have been shopping for the things I need for Christmas dinner tomorrow.  

Making the cheese dip is very simple, just requires a lot of stirring. The recipe I used came from this web page:  http://www.marthastewart.com/342141/cheese-fondue?czone=entertaining/holiday-entertaining/holidaycenter-foods&center=0&gallery=275404&slide=282790   good old Martha Stewart never lets me down. I am looking forward to having my very own fondue dinner party now. One of the best gifts so far. 

Christmas skeletion approves

Work Bake Off and Christmas Party

Today was our Holiday party at work, it was a good excuse to set up a bake off to help cater it. I made my go to tassies, everyone seems to like them. 

I like them because they are easy to make and not too sweet. I found these tins at the dollar store to dress them up a little. I am soo in love with the dollar store out here.

I also made seven layer bars, also called magic bars to try and be fancy. Someone else made them as well, great minds think a like. Here is the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/seven-layer-bars/ . I really liked the way they turned out, but they are really rich. They are best cut into small pieces.

(more pictures of the tables, they did such a great job

 setting them up. They looked soo amazing!)

I took one of everything, I wasn't able to finish the plate but I had some help from some of my co-workers. I got to taste everything and I must say my co-workers sure do know how to bake. It was a really fun activity at our party, everyone is a winner!! 

Tilapia with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus

After a long day at work and a fridge full of defrosted tilapia, I really needed something comforting to eat and healthy. This is what I ended up with, hit the spot. The tilapia was cooked with salt, pepper, a splash of lemon and my awesome infused garlic rosemary olive oil. The asparagus was the same topped with the last of my gruyere cheese, I baked it until it was crispy on the tips. Then I made mashed potatoes, I ran out of salt by the time I was on these and had to use my truffle salt, I love having this around soo much. Get to feel fancy even when I feel tired and hungry. I boiled the potatoes with the garlic and once it was ready I strained them, mixed them with butter, rosemary, cream and a tad of my truffle oil and used my mixing wand to blend them. Man I want to live in them and eat my way in and out of them everyday. Then take tasty naps in them and eat them in my sleep.... Oh.... sorry, got a little carried away hehe. They were alright :) 

Kangaroo sliders

While I was out shopping the other day I found a section at the store that had exotic meats in it. Camel, wild boar, crocodile tail and so on. Then I saw they had wild kangaroo, I didn't even you could eat them. They had burger patties, sliders and a steak looking thing (looked like a leg?). I got the sliders because I figured they would be easier to cook and wrap them in lettuce. I fried them up, topped them off with cheese and made some fries. I thought they tasted pretty good, there is a slight gamey taste but not very strong and they smelled amazing while I was cooking them. I would totally eat them again and it has sparked my curiosity to try everything in that section.