Egg Nog Tasting Competition

Thursday after a large Thanksgiving meal, we held an egg nog tasting contest. Too many times one person has said that "this brand" is better than "this brand" and so we decided it was time for a taste testing contest.We had twelve different kinds of egg nog, including one homemade egg nog. Because several of us are lactose intolerant, we also included a couple non-dairy egg nogs.

We took a paper and wrote down our favorites and our not-so favorites. And we had some nice surprises. It seemed that most of the family liked the Costco brand of eggnog. Not too surprising the worst egg nog was Silk Nog...that contains no milk and no eggs. A surprise to most of us was that the Lactaid brand (milk with the lactose enzyme) was in the top five in everyone's list. It was very good egg nog and for those of us that can't drink milk without the stomach ache, this is a good alternative.

After taking a small drink of all twelve kinds of egg nog...we started feeling really full.
I got to help set up the egg nog tasting contest. We used cookie sheets to pass out twelve different cups of egg nog to all the participants. As you can probably guess...we had a lot of egg nog left over and found it at the table for every meal following Thanksgiving, including breakfast.

Thanksgiving

Here's the turkey that we deep fried for Thanksgiving. It was quiet the event. I have to thank SM for being in charge of it. All I had to do was buy the turkey and have it thawed for the event. SM did everything else, including the carving of the bird. Too bad I didn't get a picture of the bird after it was cooked and before it was carved.

Here's the crowd to see how the turkey cooks. The young kids were encouraged to stay farther away.
Thanksgiving brings the smiles out in everyone.

How many "Kidds" can fit on a couch? ...more than are pictured in this photo!

Kung Fu Panda Night

Last Friday night we held a Kung Fu Panda Night. SM hadn't seen the movie yet and my sister wanted to watch SM as he watched the movie. She knew he'd enjoy the movie and laugh through the majority of it...and he did.

We decided if we were going to watch a movie that had an Asian theme, then we would have Asian food.

My sister made dumplings. After living in Hawaii for two years with roommates from various Asian countries, she's learned some fun meals. This was her first time doing it all by herself...and the dumplings were good.
My mom made stir-fry and I made a peanut sauce. I also made sushi. We had a lot of food for only five of us. We loved it...yum, yum!

SM had his mouth full for this picture. He was very hungry by the time we ate and didn't want to stop eating to smile for a pictures.

Here's my mom cooking up veggies for the stir-fry.

We had a very enjoyable evening. We recommend the movie and food to anyone who enjoys Asian themed evenings.

Leaves, Leaves and More Leaves

Yesterday was a nice day. My mom's brother lives a four houses away from her. He has a bulging disk in his back and is unable to do anything...he spends his days in bed. My poor uncle...so, we decided to help him by getting his leaves off his yard.

This is his house before we picked up the leaves.
And this is afterwards.
And this is the backyard...and my mom using her lawn mower and "cyclone." My job was to use the leaf blower to blow the leaves from the edges onto the grass so that Mom could pick them up.

And this is afterward...it looks so nice.

After the "cyclone" was full, mom would dump it in the back of the garden. The pile was very large...and here I am sitting on top of it.

Pumpkin Pie...yum

I decided to try my hand at pumpkin pie yesterday. I've never actually made it on my own, but I've assisted my mom and my sister in making lots of pies for Thanksgiving...just never done it on my own. Well, SM was talking about going to Costco to buy a pumpkin pie this year. I just couldn't believe that he'd want to buy a pie instead of making it. Anyway, I decided to throw this together to see if he liked it.

And he did. And I don't think we'll be going to Costco to buy a pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin Pie (Mom's Recipe)

1 1/2 c. pumpkin pulp
1 c. milk
1/2 c. honey (or 2/3 c. sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1-2 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs (slightly beaten)

Stir the spices with the pumpkin pulp and honey. Then add milk and slightly beaten eggs. Stir by hand and not electric beaters. Pour into pie crusts. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes then turn the heat down to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 30-40 minutes. Check with knife to see if they are done.


The recipe is actually not very sweet or spicy...if you like your pumpkin pie with a little more "kick" then please modify the spices and the sweetness. It still makes an excellent pie.

Homemade Applesauce

Even though this year Mom's Yellow Delicious Apple Tree didn't produce a lot of apples (because apple trees have one year they produce a lot of apples and then one year they recover by not producing a lot and then the following year they produce a lot again...it's a cycle) this year, she still had enough fall onto the ground that we made some apple sauce about a week or a week and a half ago. As you will notice, these apples are not yellow and so they are not Yellow Delicious apples...they are apples from the "other" apple trees. Yep, my mom has four more apple trees. And since we had already sorted the apples...placing those without worm holes in the fridges (plural) the wormy apples are perfect for making applesauce. First we washed the apple, then started cutting...cutting out all the wormy parts and throwing those parts away.

And then we put them into pots and cooked them down. This week we cut up six buckets of apples. That was enough work that for the first day all we did was cut up apples and cook them down. Then we put them in the fridge...except we didn't have enough room to put them in the fridge...so we put them out on the deck since the weather is cool enough to act like a fridge and waited until the next day.

The pot on the left is almost done cooking while the pot on the right has just begun. You can kind of see the difference in the color of the apples, plus the apples on the left have already cooked down and those on the right haven't yet "shrunked" to their gooey state.

Above is a cute picture of my mom cutting up apples. On the counter behind her are two of the six buckets of apples we cut up.
I am missing a picture to show the cooked apples going through the apple sauce making machine. Mom actually did that all by herself while I had a root canal done on one of my teeth. I would have rather been with her putting apples into that machine than having a root canal that lasted a total of three hours...but that is including the three other cavaties that were fixed. Anyway, back to the picture...here she is pouring apple sauce into the bottles. Next they canned in a bath of boiling hot water, used to seal the lids to the jars.

And ta-da! This is the best applesauce. It's even better than store bought apple sauce. It is so smooth and has no added sweetness...because it doesn't need it. Just pure organic applesauce made with love.

Halloween costumes...not mine

This year for Halloween, SM and I and his parents decided that we didn't want to buy all that Halloween candy, nor hand out the candy to strangers' children at the door. So, we went to the movies instead. We saw the movie 'City of Ember' and enjoyed it.

But I did get to see the nieces and nephews before we left. And here they are in no particular order.

The Incredible family, starring Mr. Incredible, Elastic Girl, Violet, Dash and Jack Jack. Also known as SM's brother, wife, daughter and two sons. Aren't they cute?


And here we have a not so glum and gloomy goth girl....I really like the illiteration on that title. This is my ten year old niece.
And here we have her eight year old flower child sister.
And their one year old brother...as spider man? Oh, no, he's just the spider.
Here's the mother of the glum and gloomy goth girl, the flower child and the spider. I think one of her children really looks a lot like her...what do you think? (This is a photo of SM's sister...I think she looks great!)
And then we went over to SM's brother's house and took pictures of his three kiddos. Here we have a younger Anikan (sp?) and an older Anikan. The blond one is my nephew and the other is his friend.
And our favorite red power ranger....
And not to be forgotten...Raggety Ann. Such a cutie!! She looks great AND her dad got her ready for Halloween.