More Cookies

Another Irish Dancing Shoe Cookie order. Here is a picture; pink & black ribbons this time.

Happy Thursday!

Game Night

OK, church girls have more fun.

Too tired to write much. Will post some pictures.

Menu:

Mini Sweet Peppers & Persian Cukes

Cuban Black Bean Soup with Limes & Cilantro

Homemade chicken pot pie

Turkey & Swiss tortilla roll ups

Chocolate Chip Cookies-Kelly's piece de resistance, as usual

Mini Red Velvet cupcakes

Elephant Ears

Mini Chocolate Cakes

Red Vines

Kaaron made a wonderful punch and we had soda, water & coffee.

Karly outdid herself with cute game decor.

Jessie, Karly, Kaaron, Kelly & I had a great time getting this fun night together for all the wonderful women at our church.

Cooking with the Girls

So much fun cooking with friends tonight.

Here's a list of our ingredients:
1 pound butter
64 oz. heavy cream
20 cans black beans
6 cartons chicken stock
8 bunches cilantro
2 heads garlic
4 shallots
6 onions
5 lbs carrots
12 pounds potatoes
4 pounds peas
6 huge roasted chickens
1 bottle vino
etc.

We made 8 chicken pot pies from scratch with a white wine butter sauce.
Cuban black bean soup for 40.

Thanks Kelly, Jessie, Karly & Kaaron for all the help!!

Tomorrow...ladies game night.

Creamy Chocolate Frosting

Just a quick post as I have much to do on this frigid day.

Last night we had a cozy dinner & I made a cake to surprise the boys and my hard working, snow shoveling husband.

Allrecipes featured a photo of cupcakes with creamy chocolate frosting that looked so good. I had all the ingredients on hand, so I gave it a whirl & so glad I did.

This is AMAZING frosting. I am going to be making some more when I frost our Vantine's goodies.

Here's the link. See for yourself:
http://www.allrecipes.com/Recipe/Creamy-Chocolate-Frosting/Detail.aspx?prop31=1

Your 8am Blizzard update

This is our street. The plows haven't touched it yet.

It's still coming down! Charlie would definitely be lost on the deck, not to mention the side of our house. Brewing coffee, enjoying living in a snowglobe.

We wake to this....

Around 5am...

Oh, Chicago

Our power is back on after a 3 hour outage. I am starting to think that Laura Ingalls Wilder had a pretty rough life, especially during the blizzards they encountered. What brave ancestors we had. Sometimes I romanticize that whole pioneer era and although there were some wonderful aspects, there are so many hardships the endured. A storm like this would be terrifying without the buffer of our neighbors home, our heavily insulated walls, and readily available light, heat & food sources. Thank you, Lord, for Your excellent provision.

E & I lit some candles and made a giant bed on the floor for the boys & us. Luckily, E made it safely home & we sat down to a hot dinner of Swedish meatballs & mashed potatoes. Hooray for comfort food!

It is crazy to look outside & see such huge drifts of snow. The pictures I took were at 10pm and the storm is "just getting started". E's car will likely be buried in the morning. It's hard to believe that our beautiful Magnolia tree (photo #3) will be covered in lush pink blooms in just a few months...

The 2nd picture is our back deck. You are looking at 3 foot drifts concealing our fire pit.

Stay warm, fellow Chicagoans! Will post more pictures as the plot thickens on our blizzard story.