Reality is Virtual

 We celebrated Christmas this week. We are guessing you did too? 

Prior to the festivities, "The boy in law" came over with his coyote calling equipment and his virtual reality gear. We all gave it a whirl, it messes with your brain. At least the roller coaster program did, we didn't make it past that.

After we left the VR world, we got back to the business of baking. Lawman tried a new recipe for butterscotch cookies. They ended up not tasting like butterscotch at all, but were a pretty good pecan sandie.

We made four batches of boiled custard and gifted most of it, setting aside a couple of jars for personal consumption. 

Another new recipe we tried this year was a mint chocolate chip cookie. Reports back are good, seemed to be a big hit.

As is tradition, we smoked a country ham

And further tradition we had fried oysters. And Cupcake told the story about how the "Outlaw" ruins his oysters every year. It's like "The Christmas Story" without the deranged Easter Bunny.

Not leaving Crazy Granny out of the holiday story telling, we made sure we had Cookie's home made potato salad on the menu.

Food wise, we tore out the bone like we always do. 

Christmas morning, the kids slept in but the Dudley Twins had us up at 0530, so some things never change.

Then we broke in to the Santa stack.

We ended the week with a long winters nap.

K&K

Santa's Little Helper

 The Simpsons have a dog named "Santa's Little Helper" and our shenanigans made us think of him this week. Cupcake saw dog antlers on the interwebs, and had to order them. When they arrived we were so excited to get them on the DT's. The twins had mixed feelings about it. Willow got hers first, and she had it off and chewing on it in under a minute. Augustus was a little more accepting of playing dress up, but not by much. 

Willow helped him take them off. 

The big news this week, we pulled the trigger on our new griddle. 

Around the first of October, we were doing some early Christmas shopping in the local Tractor Supply, when we walked upon a sight that made both of us cheat on each other right there in the store. In front of God, and everybody. A 36 inch Blackstone griddle with air fryer and warming trays. We vowed to possess this technology, but we wanted to get the Christmas priorities out of the way first. Last week we finished all our shopping and came in under budget, so off to Tractor Supply we went. 

When we got there, our griddle was gone. We inquired with the manager, who told us he had three of them, and they went like hotcakes in the past week. We asked if he could order us one, he could not. So, we asked if he could call around to near by stores to see if they had one. They did not.

We came back home, but still determined to find one. Cupcake made several calls around, and on the third or fourth call, she spoke with the manager at Wytheville Tractor Supply. The manager was more than willing to take over our search for us. She took our number and said if she found one she would let us know. About an hour later, she called back and said there was one left in the entire state, and it was at the Tractor Supply outside of Tazwell Va. Some little town called Pound Town or some such. Anyway, she gave us the address and we plotted our course. We drove seven hours and 350 miles round trip, but we now possess our holy grail of griddles.

They loaded it with a fork lift, so we knew an adventure awaited us when we got it home. We were not wrong. This thing must weigh 400lbs, so we had to break it down inside the truck bed and carry it out in pieces.

We have a smaller version that we carry in the camper. It comes apart in two pieces and it's not real heavy. It took Lawman about an hour to put together, so he figured on two hours to put this one together. He was very wrong. The Christiansburg store offered to assemble it for $25, Pound Town did not. Lawman said he would have paid anyone $100 to do it.

Seven hours later, and with only two cursing fits and one minor cut to his hand, he had it ready to season. 

Once we got it seasoned up, we went straight to work cooking on it.

Friday night we made smash burgers on the griddle, and sweet potato fries in the air fryer.

Saturday night we did our first steaks with onions and mushrooms 

We love cooking on this thing, it's so choice. If you have the means, we highly recommend you pick one up.

On the predator front, Lawman scored a hit this week. One down, two more to go.

Non griddle related food for the week. Lawman got his first three fruitcakes under his belt. One for Pop, one for brother Kevin (no nuts) and one for us to snack on as the week plays out.

We made the neighbor lady a pound cake.

One pound of butter (pound cake)

And Cupcake made her soon to be famous peanut butter balls.

We also made "The Boy" a batch of cookies and a batch of butterscotch cookies for us this week. We ended the week with a pizza party for both chirruns birthdays, and a nap. 

K&K

"We Hear the Choppers Hoverin...."

 An old Army cadence came to mind this week. We had the power company folks send a trimming chopper down the line. It was a good show for a while, Lawman could totally rock a saw like theirs.

Another outside project we got knocked out this week. After we cut down the concord grape vine we had to rid the area of fungus spores. The interwebs say fire is the best way to treat the fungus. We used the grass rake to rake up dried leaves, dumped them on the grapevine site and burned them just before a shower came through the area. Fingers crossed this works.

Food stuff this week, Lawman found a recipe for gingerbread rice crispy treats. He started out by toasting some pecan pieces.

After that, the wheels pretty much came off the wagon. His treats came out hard enough to pave a walkway with. So he stuck with what he knows, and made this seasons first batch of sugar cookies. And not that store bought in a tube junk "crazy granny" passes off as home made.

And he can still whip up a batch of cat head biscuits to go with Cupcake's favorite, deer gravy, on Sunday morning.

We ended the week with Christmas movie marathons, and naps.

K&K