Happy New Year! marathon cooking!

New Year's Eve was mostly uneventful. The husband and I settled down to watch a bunch of season 9 Seinfeld, which was a Merry Christmas to Us gift as a result of receiving gift cards. Whee!

Five minutes before midnight, we stood out on our balcony. We could hear a few people counting down, and then a shout of "Happy New Year!" which might be the cutest thing I've ever heard on New Year's. Then there were a lot of bangs, some of which were undoubtedly people firing guns into the air, because I live in a slightly ghetto neighborhood in Los Angeles.

Ah well.

So I kissed my hubby and we went to bed.

Earlier in the evening, I cooked two pans of chicken breasts in preparation for the marathon of New Year's day. So at least I'd done that.

My darling Jeffrey let me sleep in (wonder of wonders!) and cooked Clark some eggs for breakfast. Whew. I staggered out and started figuring out what I was going to need to get done.

First: ketchup. I've given up on my stir-and-stir-till-I-go-insane method and tossed my largest stock pot on the burner with a full can of Campbell's tomato juice and 1/2 a cup of vinegar in it. Forgot to add a little honey. Oh well! Put the lid on slightly askew and left it to simmer.

Next I made mayo. My first batch failed. Don't add the oil so fast, people! It is so not worth it! To make up for the failed batch, I made another one. And then my ears were starting to hurt from the blender. So Jeffrey held his hands over my ears while I made the third batch. Whatta guy. I'm going to buy earplugs and I will encourage you all to do the same.

At this point I checked the ketchup and it was done. I ran a load of dishes too.

Third, a double batch of almond butter brownies. I don't like a double batch in a 9 x 13 pan. I don't know why, but I don't like the thickness of them. So I used my 8 x 8 pan and put six foil and three paper cupcake liners in a muffin pan and did it that way. While they were baking, we started packing and looking for clothing to bring to Idaho. We realized we had to do some laundry. In went a load of clothes.

The muffin-like ones kind of burned a little but they were still edible. The 8 x 8 pan was fine. Hooray. Out they came to sit on the counter.

I started to mix up some chicken salad from the mayo. I should have been making egg bread at that point but I got a little sidetracked. By then it was lunchtime anyway, so Clark got food and Jeffrey went to In-n-Out while I got my act together. Since Clark finished off the jello we had, I made a half batch of jello for dinner and stuck that in the fridge. Clark helpfully told me that I'd forgotten to put the clothes in the dryer.

You know, it's bad enough when they start getting bossy. It's even worse when they're right.

He then told me that I'd forgotten to 'do the lint' on the dryer. He was also right about that. -_- OK, so it's clear he's fully recovered from the candy cane incident!

I used all the egg whites that I had left over from the mayo to make myself a sort of omelette out of cooked pineapple and almond butter and salt. It was weird. No, that is not really a recipe. No, I am not sharing it. However I did play with the pineapple and I figured out that baking it (I did so last night) works pretty good.

PINEAPPLE

Fresh pineapple spears or cut up yourself
Water
Pyrex dish

Put some water in the bottom of the Pyrex dish. Not too much. Cover the Pyrex dish and cook at 400 degrees for 2 hours.

I cooked it uncovered, but I wasn't thrilled by how dry the parts not under water looked. That's why I put that you should cover it, because I should have! I turned the parts halfway through. You don't have to do that. But you can if you want.

So. After eating we went out because we had to get travel bottles and soft sided coolers for our trip. We did that. OK. I got new jeans, yay! My other ones had a hole. By the crotch. And I couldn't find the patches that I'd used to patch all of my son's ripped pants. So I whined and complained and I got some clearance jeans as a result. Don't say complaining never gets you anything! :P

Home! We packed some more. I made two pans of egg bread. And then two more pans of egg bread. Clark is of course going out of his mind now because we are going to go on an AIRPLANE which in his mind is something like MEETING ELVIS should he have been born forty years earlier or so.

Then I hard boiled...11 eggs, and boiled more carrots, because I had run out.

Then I made a pan of hamburgers.

Got the monster to bed. He actually went to sleep. Hooray. I sat down and figured out most of my meals and exactly what I was going to carry on the plane. Got everything figured out reasonably, and also realized I should make some carrot pancakes. At least by then the carrots were done.

I made 15 carrot pancakes, and that was all I could make because the five dozen eggs I'd purchased were all gone, which signified the END of my cooking spree.

And here I am, done! Finally! And we get up at 4 a.m. so...I guess I'd better take a shower and get to bed soonish.

I am going to reorganize my recipes for YOU! Soon!

See ya next week. :)