Monday, Mindy and Me!

So, we're off to Santa Claus, Indiana today, to meet up with Walter and Chris. We'll be doing some sightseeing, geo-caching, strolling Main Street and eating at some highly rated little places. I'm really excited about all the lights and holiday cheer! Butch is afraid I'm going to be disappointed, since the big light show is in transition while we're there. Just our luck. But come on, it's Santa Claus! It has to be festive, right?? I'm counting on it!

But, let's talk Mindy! Friday was her birthday. If you recall, she surprised me with the Martina McBride cookbook signing.

I decided to make the entire meal from the cookbook. I started the cooking on Thursday afternoon. Mostly because earlier that day, Connie texted to see if I wanted to go to a movie on Friday. I want to do everything, so I plan accordingly! I had several hours Friday morning and then Butch helped me in the afternoon for a couple hours. Thanks to Hello Fresh, he's a pro at cutting and chopping!

All I've got to say, is there's no way Martina cooks like this! The recipes were time consuming---and she's way BUSIER than me!!

Happy Hour began in the living room in front of the fireplace with a festive drink, a Blackberry Lemon Gin and Tonic. This is the first time I've ever made simple syrup. All it is---is sugar and water, cooked on the stove, then stored in the refrigerator. Butch, "muddled" (Martina's word) the blackberries, lemon and mint. Everyone liked it but Butch. He felt like it had too much mint. I don't particularly like mint drinks, but I really liked this one. Mint and lemon sounds like a terrible combination, but with the blackberries, it worked.

For the appetizer, I actually made this on Wednesday for our annual ornament exchange---Black Olive Cheese Dip. My plan was to serve it warm for the ornament exchange and serve the leftovers cold for Mindy's birthday. Martina says you can do it either way. She's the boss of this meal!

Speaking of ornament exchange....

I started it in 1995---when we moved in to this house. Christy shared this:

Must have been my party favors that year! We were trying to remember if I started it in the old house, but I know I did it here for sure so we're going with that date. I know that I did it for about 8 years. Then Connie did it for about that long. Since then, we've rotated houses, our girls have all grown up and we now include the granddaughters! Everyone brings an appetizer or dessert. We had a smaller group this year---there's usually around 20 adults. The little kids were roaming around somewhere.

Anyway, I wasn't all that crazy about the dip. When I served it cold on Friday, I liked it much better.

Butch helped me serve dinner in courses. We started with Cream of Tomato Soup. We all loved this---but, it is a lot of work. A LOT!

Next came Martina's Romaine Salad with Homemade Dressing. Due to the unavailability of romaine lettuce, I switched it to a regular salad. That was fine, a regular salad.

The main course was Chicken and Potatoes with Lemon and Rosemary Sauce. Okay, well let me just say, "Martina must have someone make this for her." OMGosh! I've never roasted lemons before to have roasted lemon juice.

It wasn't hard, but there were so many steps to this dish. After they were roasted, they had to be squeezed through cheesecloth to get all the pulp and eliminate the seeds. I didn't have that, so improvised with a strainer. It was really pretty good, but I couldn't tell that the lemon juice was roasted. Tasted just like lemon juice to me. The sauce was a little too thin for my taste. There was no thickening agent for the chicken broth, so it was very soupy. Maybe it was supposed to be like that--hard to tell from a picture.

Along with the chicken, I served Roasted Asparagus with Parmesan.

Now you know why I needed a big bag of lemons(thatfellandrolledalloverthegrocerystorefloor
whiletheclerklookedonandwastoolazytohelp)! Lots of lemons in this meal. Still, it didn't seem like too much lemon at all.

One of my favorite things to do is to set the table.

I love doing festive napkin folds. I always have. I took a napkin folding class years ago! I remember spending a lot of time folding bunny napkins at Easter when the girls were little. I was a little upset that they a. didn't notice, b. didn't care, or c. were too little to appreciate it! Still, I love to do it. It's the details.

We uses my mother's sterling that I inherited. I don't use it much, but it does make me happy to think of her. This was the first thing she bought when she started working at 18---one piece at a time until she had place settings for 12.

 The girls like their little party favor of the old cars with Christmas trees on top. Morgan went for the van.

After dinner, Mindy had insisted that we were going to watch Elf because her dad had never seen it. I told her that he wouldn't like it because, 1. He doesn't like movies. 2. He really doesn't like Will Farrell. 3. He doesn't like that type of stupid humor! Little did she know that we had something else up our sleeve.

When we were at Sandy's for Thanksgiving, the grandkids surprised us with our old family movies. We had such a good time watching and laughing at them, that I knew this would be the perfect thing for Mindy's birthday. She and Justin were not with us--- don't feel too sad for them---they were at Disneyworld with his family!

Mindy was surprised and loved watching. Who doesn't love seeing themselves when they were little? She was so darn cute! And still is!

After the movies, we had dessert. It was the best part of the meal. County Fair Orange Cake--and it was easy too! Yellow cake mix, follow package directions, substitute orange juice for the water, add small box of instant lemon pudding. Put it in a bundt pan and bake accordingly. Top with an orange glaze made with 1/2 cup orange juice and 1/2 cup sugar. Cook until sugar is melted, cool. Pour over cooled cake.

We had such a fun evening. I actually like that Mindy's birthday is during the holidays. Just one more excuse to get out the good stuff!

Oh, and another thing. Mindy is loving her new job! On the second day, they had a meeting to discuss how they were going to decorate their new "cubes." On the third day they had a meeting for this:

She's pretty sure she's going to like working at Vanderbilt! They have an ice cream cooler that is filled once a month with every type of treat you could want. This sounds like her type of place!! What a great way to start the new year!