Roast Beast, Who Hash

The last holiday update is food related, if you can imagine that? We are blessed with being able to cook enough food for a heavy weapons platoon at any given time, and it's a blessing we do not ignore.
This week, our very own version of Cindy Lou Who stepped up and helped cook Christmas dinner. We hope to have her slinging mason jars this summer, but we're taking baby steps right now. So, our week in food......

Kattie made her favorite meatball casserole and bacon wrapped Parmesan crackers. Both were a big hit on the big day.
Fried oysters, they were the bell of the ball Christmas day

Cupcake made a big pot of French onion soup, and it was to die for.

We also made two fruitcakes. Pop took one to a party, the other we kept on hand.

And you have to have Chex mix on Christmas, I'm pretty sure it's a southern law

 And Christmas Eve, Cupcake made home made cheese danish for breakfast.

There was smoked country ham for Christmas too. Big Man threw in a piece of brisket while it smoked, for eggs and collards and whatnot.

A couple of meals outside of Christmas made the cut this week, first was home made pizza. We have been stuck on pineapple ham pizza, but one night the chirruns were here, and we felt like pizza. We made a plain cheese pizza, and Jake had seconds. In Jake's world, that's high praise.

And lastly, we had a few leftover walnuts from the week of baking. Big Man made banana walnut pancakes for Saturday's pancake extravaganza.

We are going to rub our bellies for the next week or so, and hope we can fit through the door by next weekend.
K&K

Tar Tinkers, Flu Floopers and Who Wompers

This post is for Christmas Day goings on. The one day Kattie Grace is awake before the crack of noon. She announced the night before, that she would be getting us up at 0500 to start the day. At 0430 girlfriend was in the bedroom. We got up, let the mutt out, poured coffee and distributed presents. Big Man checked the time, it was 0501. Kattie said we would OPEN presents at 0500, she just got us up in time to start on time. Bless her heart.

And is tradition around The Acre, the chirruns were allowed to pick one present on Christmas Eve and open it before bed.

A good time was had by all.
From all of us here at The Acre, we hope your Christmas was merry as well.
K&K

Twas the Day After Christmas....

.....and all through The Acre, Big Man and Cupcake was enjoying the baker.
The season had ended, and they were so pooped,
they told Fraidy Mutt her own doodie she'd scoop.

When out in the drive they heard such a clatter,
Big Man raced to the door, with his knife in a scabbard.
And what to their weary eyes did appear?
A freight delivery truck with their new generator.

Yeah, we know it don't rhyme, but generator is a tough one

Cupcake and Kattie had planned to go shopping at the mall,
and Cupcake said she best put the plans on stall.
She knew the big item would be "some assembly required"

and feared an ambulance would be summonsed when I'm unsupervised.
I told her "go on" I told her to "chill"
I'm not like your ex, who cant assemble a grill.
She looked on with concern, then headed on out,
Big man broke out his sockets and started, no doubt.
I'd have it assembled before she got back,
and I did it all without cursing, not even a "Frak"

Just K today

Christmas Prep

The big day approaches, and Big Man still has not found a way to keep it from coming, so we are in final preparation stage here at The Acre.  Country hams are soaking in water, chocolate cake and boiled custard are made, and requests for fruit cakes have been made. Let's get it on.
First things first. Oysters. Big Man and Pops always have a batch of fried oysters for Christmas, this year we are keeping the tradition alive. There is high hopes for Cupcake to join in this year, but we wont hold our breath.

Oysters from Wade's.

Country ham, date with the smoker

 Every year, Cupcake makes boiled custard, this year was no exception. This is only the first batch, we're pretty sure we will need another batch before Thursday.

Big Man has brisket on the soak as Cupcake makes custard

And you have to have chocolate cake to put your boiled custard over. We do anyway. Cupcake's great grandmother started this tradition for her, and it is her recipe we follow each year for the custard. This year we went "from scratch" on the chocolate cake. Big Man has never liked chocolate cake, but this one has changed his mind, kind of like the sausage balls.

No cake mix for us

2.5 quarts of custard for our cake

Cupcake was finishing up the custard, while the cake was ready to go in the oven. We are a well oiled machine around The Acre.
Did someone mention sausage balls? This batch with minced onions. They rock.

We also had to eat, so we share a few meals that we found interesting from the past week.

Smoked chicken roaster. Plenty of leftover meat for future pot pies or noodle soup, but with the holidays coming, probably be a while before we get around to it.
The next item is a blast from the past. Lawman Candy. We still have several jars on hand, not a real fast mover on the request circuit. And the last jar we did gift was given to a UPS driver after we gave it to them. So we hang on to it now. This week, Taco Thor's Day with a little zip.

Brats boiled in dark beer, served up with sauteed onions, and home made brown mustard.

Home made pizza pie, ham and pineapple. Cupcake doing the honors of Italian spice and butter on the crust.

And our third shipment of "Green Arrow" wine club membership arrived this week. We got a bag of whole bean coffee in the shipment.

Plus a comic book and water bottle. We may just have to break down and open up a couple of these bottles of wine. Perhaps with New Year's brisket, which Big Man has soaking in buttermilk. It's our ring in the new year tradition, smoked brisket and black eye peas. We guess a bottle of red wine would go splendid with that?
We put the coffee to use with the coffee grinder, and mixed it with our Deathwish aged in whiskey barrel coffee beans we picked up during an internet sale a few weeks back.

Fresh ground, fresh brewed coffee sure does go down smooth with chocolate cake and fruit cake. We ended with chicken wing Sunday.
K&K

Bakes and Updates

This week around The Acre, we did a lot of baking. Cupcake works for several doctors, and one thing Big Man learned in his years of being the Po-Lice, you always take care of nurses and doctors, because there is a better than average chance, you will be on their gurney one night. So when Cupcake asked for an apple cake per doctor, Big Man sprung into action.

Two at a time

All four frosted, ready for delivery

All reports are in, and it appears the cakes were a huge hit. Some fights may have been caused, but reports have yet to be confirmed. We think we have a winner with this recipe.
Big Man also baked his first from scratch fruit cake this week. Both of us love fruitcake. We had an older woman who would make us one each Christmas season, but much like "Crazy Granny" she made it sound like it was an all day ordeal, hardly worth the time.
Big Man found a recipe and whipped one up in under thirty minutes. It took two hours to bake, but they really are simple in the grand scheme of things.

Fruit and flour

Fresh from the chicken butt eggs

Ready to bake

We are going to use whole fruit next time, but the flavor is right on

A couple of meal related items this week. We didn't get to make our usual big dinners because of choir concerts, Christmas parades and whatnot. One night we warmed up some of our brisket veggie soup, but we did make a load of peasant bread to go with it. Cast iron really makes the bread.

One night, Cupcake brought home dinner, and with it, a surprise for Big Man

Big Man loves him some sushi, Cupcake picked up some spicy tuna. It rocked.
For the update portion of this weeks entry, it's herbs and tomato plants. Cupcake's herb garden is still thriving, and there is nothing like fresh herbs in your meals.

We have two blooms on the tomato now

Apple tree sprout

Our lemon trees are still doing well

Fresh Tabasco peppers are a welcome treat

Oregano

Mint

Basil/Oregano mixed

Our lavender chickens have matured to the point our rooster started crowing this week. We were fixing Saturday pancakes when we heard what sounded like a 1940's car horn. We went out to investigate and found "Carl" flapping his wings and crowing. The hen let him sound off three more times, then pecked him on the head. Carl shut up and did not crow again until the next morning. It made us laugh.

We are on track for the hen to start laying eggs around Cupcake's birthday. Then our lavender chicken hatching machine springs in to action. It's our plan for next year.
One last update, the Christmas shopping is done.

Time to enjoy the holidays.
K&K