Crazy woman with the flour

Cheese balls - made 3.

 

Croissants - or cwoissannnts if you want to sound fancy but also want to be mocked by your daughter.

 Made 2 batches.  One has not been baked yet.

Step 1.

Step 2.

Step 3.

On Friday night I made 4 "make ahead" bread mixes and 2 actual loaves in the bread machines.  On Saturday morning, besides the cwoissannnts and cheese balls, I also made Snickers fudge, cranberry fudge, and really I'm thinking there was something else...  Oh yeah!  Truffle fillings for Mocha chocolate truffles and chocolate cinnamon truffles.  I'll think of the other things later.  Chocolate chewy things.

 

Got out the remnants of the cloves from last year and Leon and Meri started making a clove pomander ball with one of the clementines.  That is, until he decided to make clove angels instead.  I'm still stepping on them today...

Cranberry crush was yesterdays quick "make ahead because you have nothing better to do" dish that I made yesterday afternoon.  Oh, I had better things to do...  But didn't want to do them.  I was inspired by one of the 7 special Thanksgiving cooking shows that Robb tivoed.  

The woman poured pure maple syrup and then cranberry juice in with this and orange zest and peel!  It looked like the kind my aunt used to make so I decided to make it.  It tasted WAY too tart.  Maybe because I used plain old plain old maple syrup.  I had to add a cup of sugar just to get my lips back to their normal position...  I might just be eating it spread on toast.  Not sure yet.  It's chillin'.

You see... Leon left on Friday night after our pizza get-together with my nieces and their dates.  Which was actually a LOT of fun!  They picked good ones.  But the Leon leaving thing left me feeling pretty empty.  The house was looking good and I had nothing in particular to do with my time.  I tried to relax and read a magazine, and that inspired me to cook.  

And cook I did!!!  Then Leon came back unexpectedly on Saturday before noon.  By that time I was elbows deep in flour and sugar.  He "helped" and I stayed on my roll for a little while until Meri suggested a movie night.  So I made popcorn, we moved the couch to face the computer screen and we all watched Skyfall.  We don't have a tv in the living room...  Just a big computer screen and that's ok!

I was looking for a particular scene from That 70s Show to give an explanation of my cooking mood weekend.  The one where Kitty's mother-in-law dies and she throws herself into baking and cooking everything she can find until she runs out of flour.  Then sits down to cry.  Couldn't find it...  Found this tho!  A Best Of Kitty chop clip!  I'm not in the middle of menopause, so I can't relate to her yet on that level...  But I feel like I can relate to her on everything else sometimes.  I find myself quoting from her at times.

Enjoy.