Had the greatest lunch the other day.

No, I didn't have to drive 331 miles to Pasty's in upper Michigan.

Just cranked my oven to 350˚ for an hour.

Popped in a frozen Pasty (past-ee) from Byerly's and few taters.

Made some beef broth gravy.

Voila! Home-made goodness.

mmmmmmmm.

As Seen on TV

I have a fondness for AS SEEN ON TV products.  Maybe it's because I used to work for K-tel. So every XMAS, I glom on to one of them and buy them everyone, CUZ kids LUV as seen on tv stuff! This year it was the BIG TOP CUPCAKE!

First you bake the cake. Normal cakes take about a half hour to bake. Towards the end of baking, the cake batter bubbled up and spilled over the top like a volano. Really cool effect for kids.

I thought the lava flow would ensure a fully-baked cake. You can see here that at 45 minutes, it still wasn't cooked completely:

When it's baking, it rises up to into a big cone, which needs to be sawed off to flatten it out.

Here is the aftermath (with plenty of scraps to snack on):

At this point the meltdown and whining started: "This is horrible, it doesn't look like the picture! Mommy you do it...(fuss fuss mess mess)."

So I smoothed it out and topped with with some sprinkles.

Make Your Own Cocoa Crispix

What to do with a plate of leftover graham crackery xmas cookies?

Put them in the food processor and grid them up.

I like to put a scoop of it on my breakfast cereal.

Score with Personalized Cards!

Every year we get a holiday card from a realtor friend that is personally illustrated for him. It stands out amid all of the others I get.

Susanne's Cards doesn't have a website -- sometimes you just don't need one. Here is her info:

from my mom's noodle

mom's way better with flowers than i am

the greenery is a sweet potato vine that strouted in a pot somewhere in her house

the red amarylis you see on the table are probably great great great grandchildren from the ones in the wagon from several years ago:

she wrapped all of the artwork in her house with gift wrap to look like presents

and added coordinating folded stars and tiny packages made from greeting cards to the walls

each gift had a different color scheme

the gift tags are her calligraphy--many saved from the past--one says "from eva" who is gone now. here is a close-up of her folded handmade stars:

this is a "martha stewart everyday from kmart expandable bamboo trellis" covered with lights on the deck outside the kitchen window

on the tiny 2 foot inside the house, are knit dolls i used to play with when i was a kid

here's my attempt at decorating:

Ham Croquettes

One of our family holiday food traditions.

From the Better Homes and Gardens Meat Cookbook, 1960.

Original recipe was deep-fried and used saltines.

Mom developed a baked version using techniques she learned

watching Cook's Illustrated on TV.

Brown the crumbs on the stovetop:

Nice close-up from my new camera.

Making the gooey white sauce.

Mixing in the ground ham.

Breading with egg white for maximum crunch.

Yuckky fingers.
Ready to bake, just 12 minutes at 375.˚

Don't forget to make more eggy white sauce as a topping.

Finis. Hope you like washing many pots and pans!

Score some S'mores

Click here to see my "five minutes" on Food Network.