Christmas Night Menu

The "Christmas Conundrum" has been solved, and my Christmas night menu is planned and ready to execute. I'm keeping it simple because we are having lunch at my parents' (prime rib . . . heavenly, heavenly, heavenly) and won't be home until around 4:00 Christmas afternoon. Plus I like Christmas night to be laid back and cozy, and I think this meal fits the bill. I'll have time to do the prep work Christmas Eve, and I'll throw everything in the crockpot Christmas morning before we hit the road.

So with the help of Pinterest I was able to form my Christmas night menu. I like to have something out for everyone to snack on when they first arrive so I thought I'd keep it simple with crackers and brie and maybe a little fruit. For dinner we're having crockpot potato soup (which I've never made before so I hope it's decent) and ham and cheese sliders.

Source: bettycrocker.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: the-girl-who-ate-everything.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I think that for the soup I'm going to add ham instead of bacon to make it a little more hearty. I'm also eliminating the poppyseeds and onions from the sliders since I'm not sure they'd be a hit with the kiddos, and I'm basically just going to pour melted butter over the top before baking. I'm also doing one pan with swiss cheese and one with american to make sure that everyone is happy.

For dessert my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are bringing something sweet, and I grabbed a Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake which is currently in our freezer. I also have the gingerbread men I baked and decorated completely on my own the other night since someone who shall remain nameless decided he was no longer interested . . . ahem . . . Andrew.

Obviously this is going to be an extremely "cheesy" meal. No pun intended. But I figure if you want to make most people happy just add cheese and butter, and you have a hit.

Anyone care to share their Christmas Eve/Day meal plans?

Hungry Anyone?

Ignore the huge box of cookies in the background. We took those on vacation. We didn't eat them. Now they're sitting in my kitchen taunting me.

This is what I'm doing today . . . baking . . . not eating. I've made double chocolate brownies and peanut butter brownies for our youth group's bake sale tomorrow, and I've made a strawberry cake for Patrick's (30th) birthday dinner tonight. Later on I'm going to grill ribs and chicken to go along with some corn on the cob and watermelon (don't worry I'm not grilling the watermelon).

Now see the mixing bowl sitting on top of the stove by the un-iced cake? That's there for a reason. But first I should make a confession. I am not a recipe follower. In the kitchen I'm a rebel. I haphazardly measure (if I measure at all), I don't pay attention to what I'm doing, I've been known to forget ingredients, and I make a ginormous mess. Especially when it comes to baking. Which is why I don't bake all that often. Anyway, in that bowl is the icing for the cake. The icing calls for butter creamed with powdered sugar. Easy enough. I softened the butter, threw it in my mixer, and then for some reason I don't fully understand tossed the (still cold) strawberries I had just pureed on top of it. Shoot a mosquito. That wasn't smart. I knew better, but did it stop me? Nope. Then, because if I don't have some sort of disaster in the kitchen it's not a complete day, I turned on my mixer. Creamed? Not so much. More like chunks of cold butter mixed in with strawberries. So anyway, I set the mixing bowl on a warm burner hoping to soften the butter. But then I had to be careful not to cook the icing. Thank the good Lord it worked. Here's the final result.

And that by the way is double the amount of icing I needed. I drank the rest. Ha!Ha! Just kidding. Now I've gotta run and scrape strawberries off the floor. Not so much kidding about that. Have a fanastic Friday everyone.