Cookie Making!

We did our annual cooking making day with Carol and Co. We ended up with quite a few different types of cookies:

- Russian Tea Cakes

- Spritz

- Pecan Tarts

- Sugar

- Mounds Balls

- Fudge

- Thumb Prints

- Peanut Butter Fingers

I think that's about it...

COFFEE CAKES!

Coffee cake baking happened a bit earlier this year. We ended up with only 114 cakes, I"m pretty sure I am to blame for this since I like to over fill! So this is what happens when I'm in control.

It was a great day with lots of food and lots of fun. Now I just need to remember to grab a frozen one out of the freezer whenever I want!

3.14 PIE!

62 Apple Pies this year, I believe this may be a new record.

I typically don't care much for apple pie, it tends to be mostly crust and little flavor. We however roll our crust thin and pack the pies full of as many apples as we can. Regardless a la mode is the best way to enjoy.

Meter Bratwurst Challenge!

For my birthday this year I thought German food was a good idea...

So we headed to North East Minneapolis and enjoy ourselves at Gasthof Zur Gemutlichkeit.

Brian and James ended trying out the meter bratwurst challenge. With no doubt in mind both of them finished and went on to sample the Bavarian platter Jeanne and I split.

At the beginning:

Within a few bites of the finish:

James tackling his bratwurst:

All finished:

Coffee Cakes

It's that time of year again....you know, to make COFFEE CAKES!

To many this probably means nothing, to us it means a whole lot of baking for a whole lot of coffee cakes. We have this old family recipe which was my mom's mom's recipe (in other words my Grandma's recipe). Evidently she did everything by 'feel'. But as the story goes my mom was some how able to get the measurements for the recipe written down. Growing up we only did coffee cakes once in a great while and from what I can remember we typically only made around 40 at a time.

But for the last 6-7 years we've been getting together and making an annual go of it. I think we ended up this year with around 150 cakes! Not bad for one day...

Chislic

We did fondue the other day and when we were all done we fried up all the beef. Consequently I think beef fondue ends up looking like Chislic. I'm starting to think the South Dakota people had it figured out a long time ago...

For more on Chislic go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chislic

Cooking Making

Last weekend was fulll of cooking making. First we headed off to my cousins place to make around 8 different kinds of cookies. A few of the cookies we made Saturday were: Thumb Prints, Spritz, Peanut Butter Fingers, Mounds Malls, Sugar Cookies, Almond Bark, Christmas Wreaths, Pecan Tarts, Ginger Snaps, and Pixies.

Then on Sunday we got together with Brian's mom and made a few of her family recipes such as peanut butter kisses, mint surprise cookies, truffles, and mint cookies.

For the next 2 weeks our meals will consist of cookies, cookies and more cookies.

Thanksgiving Squared + Crab

The week of thanksgiving came quickly and went just as fast.

We spent Thanksgiving day with the Ohs side - we enjoyed a wonderful dinner and had a lovely time. I also bribed Tom with a piece of Banana Cream pie and he came over and took this picture of the 5 of us...well technically 6.

The day after Thanksgiving I woke up at 3:37 am - it was suppose to be 3:30 but I really need the extra 7 minutes. So you would think that with waking up in plenty of time I would have scored some great Black Friday deals. Well, if you call $5 fleece pants, Crest Toothpaste and a York Peppermint patty a great score - then I win!

One I regained some sleep we decided to have crab legs for dinner. So we headed to Costco and bought 4 lbs. of 'Alaskan King Crab' (as Brian likes to proclaim). It was a delicious dinner!


As you can see there was not much left of the crab after Brian and Steve were done...

Then Saturday we revisted Thanksgiving at my brother James' house. I'm pretty sure there were close to 40 of us there - but I always forget to count because by the time I should remember I'm already in a food coma.

Family BBQ

On Saturday we hosted our first family barbecue at our house. We had three grills going, tons of food and tons of fun. Our garage door broke the night before and thanks to three of my brothers we were able to get it back into operation.

Unexpectedly Rock Band was a hit with the kids and "Eye of the Tiger" was played over and over again with many singing, Jacob on the guitar and everyone else rotating through on the drums. ...it is a good thing Rock Band 2 has a no fail option.

The kids enjoying lunch:
Natalie rocking out like a rock star:
James loading up on food:
Brian keeping an eye on all the grills:
Ben, Rudy, Lisa - Ben does NOT like having his picture taken: