Taking Stock

Tree up? Check!
Cat Proofed? Fingers Crossed!
Lights on the house? Check!
Gifts purchased? Check! (I think)
Gifts wrapped? Check! (I wrapped 1-2 every morning before I left the house to avoid the Christmas Eve wrapathon).
Gifts made? Nearly...
Cards sent out? I don't do that so...checkNot!
Special foods made?

Ummm. Not really. I am not planning on making special cookies or desserts or random treats of the sweet or savory variety. Been there done that, plenty of times.

We don't have any visitors this year and honestly, our family eats plenty enough on an ordinary day. No need to ramp that up for a designated holiday unless we want to do something special together. Such as...

I will make my daughter the savory spoon biscuits she loves and have them ready the night she gets home. We will doubtless have some sort of a "what can we buy in Austin that is from Spain" tapas feast home style at some point but the shopping together will be part of the fun for that one.

We will hopefully have a special ChefSon cooks for the family meal as well once GradStudentDaughter gets back to town, but again, the shopping together will be part and parcel of the fun of putting that together.

Sorry I have been remiss about posting recipes or meal reports but I've been cooking really simply lately as a response to the busy-ness of preparing for Christmas.

It has been cold here off and on so I've been braising and souping it up. Day before yesterday we had a wonderful Niman Ranch beef shoulder roast, whacked into pieces and braised with veggies and red wine. Yesterday, we happily pulled covers off the vegetable garden beds once the mercury climbed above freezing and enjoyed Potato and Onion soup, a family favorite, as our reward for braving what passes for "cold" here in Central Texas.Right this minute I am making stock from the defrosted turkey carcass left over from Thanksgiving with an eye towards soup for LawSchoolGirl using homemade stock next week.

YAY! LawSchoolGirl will be home next week! I have fun just writing that.

Tonight I will start defrosted quail marinating for a grill up on Thursday and for dinner tonight we will finish up the braised beef. Friday night, just to shake things up we won't have pizza for dinner but will finish the potato and onion soup with some grilled cheese sandwiches for extra yumminess.

So you see? Nothing much to really report on in terms of "how's about THAT" impressive food going on around here.

Saturday we do have a special night out planned to celebrate our 434th Wedding Anniversary.

Yes folks, the Hub and I have been married since before Colonial Times. We. Are. That. Old.

Yikes.

This afternoon I have more Condo/Redo standing around entertaining various appliance installation guys while they work duty.

Between us? I hate that whole - the guys come in to do something in your house and it never EVER turns out to be as simple as it should - thing. An entire post on that soon if I live to tell the story.

So, yup, taking stock, and making stock here. The Holidays, they are a comin' whether we are ready or not.

How about you? Are you ready to rumble Santa Style?