Archive for Holiday
An Awesome Gift + Where I’ve Been
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Hey folks, I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last post. Wow! In blogging terms, 1 month or longer between posts is equivalent to shooting myself in the foot.
But before we get into that, and above all else, I wanted to send a grateful shout out to Maren, my friend from Seevetal, Germany (near Hamburg). Over Christmas Maren sent me a really really awesome Christmas package full of German delight!
2nd Annual QA Christmas Candy Party
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Excuse me for a second while I fill you in on the my latest happenings and not-so-adventurous adventures, then we’ll get to the real stuff.
It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to sit and down and work on The Cooking Dish, which is unfortunate because I have some delicious foods I’ve been wanting to post. Unexpectedly, however, I now have 4 to 5 days to work on it, if I’m up to it. For the past two weeks I’ve been fighting off a cough and intermittent fevers, and I finally thought I was getting better… BUT I woke up last night at 2:00 a.m. with a sever chest pain which kept me up for the rest of the night. Straight away this morning I contacted the family doctor and after a visit to the office left with a note saying, “stay home from work, you’ve got bronchitis and other junk” and some prescriptions to fill. Oh joy. I’m personally not a fan of involuntarily taking time off from work, but I don’t want to infect my co-workers either (you guys can thank me later–when I get back to the office).
So, without going into many more details, I’m stuck here at home and at the same time, trying to keep my distance from my overly-cute kids so they don’t get sick. That’s nearly impossible.
Well, thanks for listening to the rant… on with the show.
As of last year (2008), we started a new tradition in my department at work: The Annual QA CCP (Quality Assurance Christmas Candy Party). Although next year, we’re thinking of taking on a P at the beginning so it’ll be the QA PCCP (Pajama Christmas Candy Party).
Since my mom has been teaching my siblings and I how to make Christmas candy since we were only little squirts (just tall enough to burn our fingers on the stove top), and my brother and I work in the same department, there’s twice the trouble-making at the CCP. These CCPs have usually lasted an exhausting 6+ hours, but they’re always loads of fun.
December Cookie Cutter Giveaway Winner
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Congratulations to Sharla for winning this month’s giveaway: Fred’s ABC* Cookie Cutters
*Already Been Chewed
Her entry: “What Child is This”. But since I’m not sure what version you like best, I posted my favorite version.
December Giveaway: Cookie Cutters
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Now that I’ve completed The Ultimate Kitchen Gifts List, I figured I would give away one item from it. One of my favorite Christmas activities is making sugar cookies, so in honor of my favorite activity, I’m giving away Fred’s ABC (Already Been Chewed) Cookie Cutters. These cookie cutters are supposed to help people stay away from your cookies… but to me, a broken or ABC cookie is an invitation to snitch. To each their own, I suppose. However, if you looove cookies and your kids absolutely demand you leave some for Santa, making Santa’s cookies with these will almost guarantee there’ll be some left for you on Christmas morning.
This contest will run through Friday sometime (December 11th), and then I’ll ship them a.s.a.p to the random lucky winner.
The Ultimate Kitchen Gifts List
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*Phew!* I can’t believe I finally completed “The Ultimate Kitchen Gift List”, which I hope will be an excellent holiday (and non-holiday) shopping guide for you; it’s also great for birthdays, Groundhog Days, national Be Nice to a Cook days (is there such a thing?), etc. etc. etc. What I’ve done is researched days on end for the ultimate, best kitchen gifts and gadgets that people all over are using and enjoying.
Here’s why you’ll want to use and should use “The Ultimate Kitchen Gift List”:
- I’ve done all the research for you, spending days reading customer reviews and finding the best products. I’m confident in this list, and you can be too.
- I didn’t use Consumer Reports. Sure, they’re handy, but in my opinion, when it comes to kitchen tools and stuff, it’s best to get the word straight from the horse’s mouth, so all of these products are rated at least 4 (most of them 4.5) stars out of 5 by those who use them, and not a test lab.
- I’ve tried to pick the best rated and most well-liked item for each price range in the specific category. This means you’ll find similar items in both less expensive and more expensive price ranges in this list. All you have to do is match your budget to the item.
- I have a receding hair line and ‘they’ say that guys with a receding hair line are smart… or at least try to be.
- Did I mention that you’ll save yourself gads of time by using this list?
- I’ve added pictures below each item group so you don’t have to click a link to see what the item is. I love picture books. The pictures are in the same order as the list above them. If in doubt, just hover your mouse’s cursor over the picture and a little tooltip will display with the picture’s title.
Items marked with an asterisk * are my personal favorites in each category. Items with brackets around the asterisk [*] are items that I personally own and love using.
Delicious Homemade Pumpkin Seeds Recipe
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I know you’re all thinking it, so I’ll just come out and say it… “Chris, you’re about 3 to 4 weeks late on this post!” And at this point I begin to think of a good excuse… and realize I don’t have one. Oops. So as an extra bonus feature with this post I’m going to give you TWO recipes. That’s right, two for the price of two one; the truth is, I was going to give you two recipes in this post anyway. Okay, confession time is over, and so is Halloween, and in here in Northern Utah, so is the pumpkin harvest. This probably means that most of you have either 1) already cooked up your pumpkin seeds, 2) thrown your pumpkin seeds away, or 3) left them in your fridge and they’re covered with a gooey white film and molding. Gross. Don’t ask how I know about the white film.
I do know, however, that at different times of the year you can still buy bagged, uncooked pumpkin seeds in the grocery stores. Yes! A reason to still create this blog entry. As always, a printable version is available at the bottom of the post. In today’s case, both pumpkin seed recipes are available. Here we go.
