December 10th-19th

A quick gander at my dinner choices for the past 10 days. And I wonder why my pants are too tight.

• Friday - frozen pizza while babysitting adorable 11 month old named Gibby.
• Saturday - vietnamese noodles while dogsitting devil dog Shasta.
• Sunday - lovely pasta with italian sausage and fennel, homecooked with love by SS.
• Monday - tomato and pineapple pizza with HC and aforementioned devil dog.
• Tuesday - Life cereal.
• Wednesday - defrosted turkey burger (originally made by me) and salad.
• Thursday - lamb flatbread at Thompson's before going to see A Christmas Carol.
• Friday - lovely roasted chickens with vegetables and scalloped potatoes courtesy, again, of the lovely SS.
• Saturday - mushroom and prosciutto pizza with SS after plan for risotto fell through thanks to false labour (don't worry, not mine or hers).
• Sunday - Christmas burger dinner at District with JM and KA.

There were other things too. On Sunday I made 7 dozen chocolate chip cookies for a cookie exchange at work. I think I ate at least 6 on my own. Then I got six dozen cookies to bring home with me. Because that's exactly what I need. I also re-attempted the prize winning pie to go with Friday's chicken dinner. Once again the pudding did not set and I had to freeze it. Recipe is obviously flawed, but it still tasted great. Friday was my goodbye party at work. It involved wine and cheese. I discovered something called black truffle cheddar. Dairy goodness indeed. Brie and figs. Yum. Oh, and the wine of course. You can never go wrong with wine.

Did I mention that it's not even Christmas yet? This does not set a very good precedent. Good thing it's almost 2011 and I can make some resolutions.

cake disaster

Remember my pie success? Well, tonight I had the opposite problem. I was so confident in my cake making abilities that I had 3+ glasses of wine before making my signature chocolate chip cake for the United Way bake sale at work tomorrow. I love this cake. My mom used to make it for me on my birthday. I can pretty much make it from memory and whenever I bring it somewhere it's a big hit. Tonight I failed. Miserably. It didn't rise. I didn't have enough flour, but figured it would be ok. I was wrong. I'm pretty sure that no one will want to pay anything for it and so will not help raise any money for charity. Lesson learned - don't drink and bake.

pie success

So it turns out my pie was not as disastrous as previously thought. The recipe for Chocolate Pudding Pie came from a Williams Sonoma cookbook and can be found here. The problem was that the pudding did not thicken enough after 3+ hours in the fridge, so in consultation with my mother and SS, I decided to improvise and put it in the freezer overnight. I then made the whipped topping about 30 minutes before serving, letting it sit out to de-freeze a bit. And voila! The epic fail became an overnight success! I won best filling at the pie-off and second best pie overall! Who knew? Finished pie is pictured here. It was tasty.

good news/bad news

Good news = drinks last night was not a ruse to engage in threesome.

Bad news = no conclusive evidence on what drinks actually meant ... interest from all parties is still undetermined.

Good news = tomorrow is "pie-off" day at work.

Bad news = the filling of my chocolate pudding pie did not thicken and so now I am stuck with chocolate pudding soup. Will certainly not win said pie-off.