Recipe FAIL.

I'm not sure if I should stick to dessert or I just picked a terrible recipe.  Veggie Chicken Nuggets. A-W-E-F-U-L.  Here I thought a basic toddler dinner quick fix, the almighty Chicken nugget with built in veg!  What could go wrong with chicken, mixed veggies, egg & bread crumbs? Like a chicken meat loaf but cut into cute little finger food size!
 First of all these are every day items that I know my toddler will eat.  Second, I know I will eat them if she doesn't.   So I had to deviate from the 'recipe' but substituting Italian Bread crumbs for Pankow was far from a deal breaker.  Add an egg to some pureed veg, add chicken, some seasoning and coat in bread crumbs.  What could go wrong?  Oh yeah, everything.
The batter was no where near what you could pick up and coat with b.c. nor after coated could they be cut into happy little stars with a big cookie cutter.  Whom ever staged the photos in the recipe I found is a pretty damn good photographer.  I AM a photographer and no way would I be able to make this process work for a photograph.  I settled for some generic shaped blobs.
Ok lets bake them and see.  Baked? I think so? Still mushy, ok another few minutes in.  Ok its been longer than I'd cook a regular chicken breast, it MUST be done.  Bricks. Oddly speckled chicken veggie bricks.  Okaaaay but how do they taste? Horrific. How is it that a standard meal that I make (Breaded chicken breast and a side of mixed veggies) could taste so utterly terrible??
Maybe I'll just go back to dessert.  Has anyone seen my Tums?

The 12 Days Before Christmas

Let's backtrack a little.  I decided this year I would bake again. What a wonderful decision!  I got a little jealous of a cousin posting cookie baking photos on ye'old FB... So I when I didn't get the recipe emailed to me I decided to investigate the inter-web for my own.  ...Little did she know that was the start of multiple recipes and one too many cookies to taste...  I got inspired to pull out my old faithful Sugar Cookie recipe & Peanut Butter Hershey Kiss Blossoms along with some new ones like Oreo Cheesecake Cookies,  & Espresso Cheesecake Brownies.

They were ALL a hit. Plus I got to pull out the camera and tinker with my favorite things. f/stops and ISO's.  

Joy to the World!

Three Days of Christmas

On the first night of Christmas Eve we visited friends,  opened presents and ate food.  On the second day that was actually Christmas we had over family,  ate food and opened presents. On the second day of Christmas afternoon we visited family, ate food and got 'The Envelopes' full of money.  On the second day of Christmas evening we had over more family, more presents and Chinese food!  On the third day of Christmas, family came to us, I made food and the girls got MORE presents. On the fourth day of Christmas we have leftovers and I actually must start doing laundry again.  Oh wait, Hubs found more presents.  In two weeks we'll have the 5th day of Christmas at Auntie L's, see more family, eat more food and most likely get MORE presents.
Somehow being broke still means my kids got a lot of presents.  How does that work??

Bacon Egg & Cheese Toastys

I adapted my creation from a blog that inspired me The Way the Cookie Crumbles.  Find recipe here.  I of course am not a fan of the runny egg.  I scrambled mine and used 1/2 an egg for each cup 7 total (plus one for good measure. My muffin tin fits 12.) Seasoned them with my new seasoning love "Crazy Salt" and some whole milk. Baked them until they appeared to be done, turned the oven off, topped off with some shredded cheese then back in the oven till company arrived.

Having a toddler  around means remembering to buy two types of milk and who remembers to do that? Neither Hubs nor I.  I think we decided 2 weeks into her Whole Milk switch that we'd sacrifice our 2% for now. Now I'm remembering how I gained my baby weight back.