Just Christmas

All we have to report this week is Christmas. We had the family over and cooked up a big meal.
To start things off, The Girl woke everyone up early and kicked our day off.

The Boy was less excited to be awake so early, but he soldiered up.

Even Fraidy Mutt got a little something.

We got all the food prepped and the family started rolling in.

And it's not officially Christmas until Lawman fries the oysters. Even Cupcake looks forward to fried oysters on Christmas.

There was gymnastics in the kitchen too

We tried a throwback to a Miller family tradition of frozen sherbet punch.

Oreo balls were a big hit as well

And after it was all over, everyone grabbed a nap. Even the mutt.

The rest of the week Cupcake had to work all day and into the night because it was the end of the year. By the weekend she was working to nearly midnight every night. Lawman played shackbitch and we muddled through until Sunday.
We ended the year with wings.
K&K

Chicken Klaus

We're not sure if the girls were playing Santa or the reindeer, but they seemed to be in the spirit of things early this week.

Before we started cooking for the big day, we had a comfort food meal.

October beans in a cast iron pot

Meatloaf in a cast iron skillet

Cupcake got a gift from her girls at work. We plan on putting these to good use very soon.

Then we got started. We opened up the country ham and gave it a good scrub down and soak.

The third day/night we soaked it in iced apple juice.

Sunday we put it on the smoke.

It looks burnt, but brother, it ain't burnt.

We did some baking.

Molasses cookies

Fruitcake

Choco cake

Peanut butter blossoms

Buttermilk pie

"The Girl" wanted to do some baking, so we helped her make a bread dough, then she made a Nutella wreath.

And Cupcake made her soon to be world famous steak pinwheel.

While we were preparing for Christmas, the chirruns wanted a homemade pizza.

And homemade cocoa.

We ended the week by eating everything but wings.
We hope every one of our followers have a merry Christmas.
K&K

Christmas Early

We had an early Christmas this week when our pal "Uncle Tony" stopped by and dropped off a whole deer ham for us. He had perfect timing because we needed an offering to Thor and now we had a great one. We seasoned it up and smoked it.

The other off the usual path we had for dinner this week was some canned goodies. We've had on and off snow this week, and nothing is better on a cold snowy night than fresh from the vine tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches in a cast iron skillet.

A couple projects we tinkered around with this week, we made another batch of laundry detergent, because one of us has a serious problem.

And Lawman took his new nail gun to the under construction top bar bee hive.

Sides of the hive, with one observation window

Box frame to hold it all together

Lawman learned that his finishing nails were too small to hold it all together, so larger nails will be the order of the day.
We did a lot of baking this week. We started off with a batch of caramel cookies for dessert.

Then a fresh batch of boiled custard.

Over the weekend we baked. A lot.
We made a total of six fruit cakes, three batches of cookies and another round of sausage balls. We did "grown up" sausage balls this go around, lots of onions and seasoning.

Our first from scratch molasses cookies

Double batch of chocolate chip cookies

And we had to make a couple of cheese balls

We make two cheese balls every year, one for snacking then one for company. It helps cool off the sting of the wing sauce too. Because we always end the week with wings.
K&K