If I get out of the house early to get carrots and celery, I will make chicken soup, Italian lamb sausage with some tagliatelle sounds good for dinner tonight.

Firm plan to make Christmas cookies this weekend : butter spritz, gingerbread and chocolate snowballs (crinkles)and maybe a lasagna in advance for Christmas eve...

Two of the granddaughters are spending the night. We are cooking dinner in the fireplace tonight. Hot dogs and probably grilled cheese in the sandwich irons. Of course smores. Tomorrow my hubby is making a venison roast.

I'm going to try out a new recipe for dinner rolls. Other than that, I don't know yet.

Just made a batch of chocolate chip, and a batch of peanut butter with kisses. Have meat in the crockpot for vegetable soup. I’m tired !

Taco soup this afternoon. Babysitting this evening & tomorrow so tomorrow is leftovers day. Monday will be all about baking for Christmas Eve family party (everyone is bringing sandwiches and finger foods.) Sugar cookies, sandwich bread and Buche de Noel. But for dinner Monday will be turkey thighs and dressing since we didn't have turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving and I didn't quite get my yearly "turkey fix."

We're cooking the cranberry pork roast that was shared by Annie around Thanksgiving.

It's been cooking for 3 hours.....smells like a holiday.

cranberry pork roast

Yesterday, I made chili and cornbread muffins for the neighbor I invited to lunch. We had fruit salad and two kinds of cookies for dessert (chocolate chip and persimmon). I made the cookie dough a couple of weeks ago and froze it. It's really nice to reach into the freezer grab a few pieces of frozen cookie dough and have freshly baked cookies 12 minutes later.

Today, I'm going to make Georgysmom's pecan pie bars and we are going to have enchiladas for dinner from the leftover Thanksgiving chicken and a leftover smoked tri-tip that's been in the freezer. We will have a choice of beef or chicken or both! Sides will be refried beans and sliced avocado.

We are also going to make Christmas strata tonight to have for breakfast Sunday morning. We usually make it Christmas Eve to eat on Christmas morning, but we are leaving town for a few days on December 26 so I bumped up the strata schedule to allow us to eat the leftovers for a couple of days. Hubby always says the strata is best a day or two after it comes out of the oven.

We have been invited to dinner Sunday for our Christmas with our friends. I am making my potato salad and I am thinking of trying a recipe for a Cranberry salad made in the instant pot.

I am also bringing a big pile of boiled shrimp and cocktail sauce for the appetizer.

We will be heading to Louisiana for Christmas. My niece and her husband have finished building their new home and they are hosting the family this year.

I knew I forgot something. As I was seating here eating hummus and pita chips, I thought to myself..."oh yea, I made hummus yesterday too!"

We have reheated pulled pork from the freezer to try the $60 worth of hot and BBQ sauce we bought this week. It's so hot! My lips are tingling; it's so good. He was trying to be careful with calories, but that's over. We've had so many sliders, but he gave up and made an entire roll's worth this time. So much fun! Our faces are melting off, and we love it.

I'm making ottolenghi spinach pancakes with lime butter for lunch, sous vide lamb for dinner and chefsteps chicken liver pate in jars sous vide for the freezers. Great to have on hand.

Friend coming for mid day dinner today. I'm making spaghetti carbonera with guanciale from Zingerman's.

I have a leftover Costco chicken which is becoming soup today. Need something lighter to eat in between all the holiday meals for sure.

I'm taking advantage of the warm spell and smoking 2 slabs of baby back ribs, a broiler chicken, and some wings. I need to run to the grocery to get the ingredients for beans, and either cole slaw or potato salad. We have some friends coming over to watch the Chiefs vs, Chicago tonight and the food is for an indoor tailgate party.

Mushrooms are rinsed and ready for Walnut Creek's Mushroom dish. I am about to start the meat sauce. One of my grandson's is allergic to most shellfish, so I make a pot of meat sauce for him as an alternative to the seafood dinner Christmas Eve.

Leftover Mushrooms I made yesterday and crust bread for juice. I am also making burrito's later for the kids and hubby.

I made an Instant Pot Coq au Vin last night, with mashed potatoes and a baguette on the side. The Coq au Vin was good, but not great. As usual with the Instant Pot it seemed that the sauce was too thin and too bland. Its great that it cooks thing so quickly but since there is no tasting and adjusting as you go, and no reducing the sauce either its more important to get the ingredients right in the first place.

The store bought "baguette" was simply blah.

Today my new quick and easy main - bread stuffing in a pan covered with boneless skinless chicken thighs and roasted.

Tomorrow lamb shanks. Looking at recipes today.

Cabbage rolls for our Christmas Eve dinner. I also made the rice for our pudding, risalmande, and Cherry sauce. I don't add sugar to my portion but the vanilla in it and the cherry sauce and whipping cream make it simply sublime. I will combine all the ingredients on the day of.

My almonds need to be cooked that day as well. This year's prize will be Christmas cake with marzipan topping. It is my sister's turn to discover the whole almond in her Risalmande. :-).

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