New Year's Eve Food, And A Saturday Morning Breakfast

The good news is we had plenty of food New Year's eve for 8 people! The bad news is we were running late, and there are no photos! Onion wraps, sweet and sour meatballs, bacon wrapped water chestnuts, along with a carrot cake and munchies, made for a snackie kind of night for playing Texas Hold'em with three other couples! They brought more munchies, so the night was filled with card playing, eating and drinking...Broke up about one o'clock..My wife and I won enough to pay for the food!
Spent New Year's Day watching football- congrats to Penn State, and Ohio State- you did the Big Ten proud!
This morning, a brunch of scrambled eggs and hash browns, with orange juice should get us off to a more productive day!
Oh yeah, that's our cat, Willow- who was wondering where the meat was...

My Baking Journal

1095 days
259 blog posts
210 recipes
58 cakes
53 breads
35 simple dishes
22 cookies
21 muffins and quickbreads
11 chiffons
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I am two days behind my 3rd blog anniversary.

I spent the past two days putting together my favourite recipes and photos into a book. Yes, I created my own cookbook, sort of ;)

This book will remain in a digital form, as I will be adding in recipes every now and then, plus, it will be too expensive to get it printed!

To thank all of you who have been spending your time reading about my baking adventures, and for leaving encouraging comments and very kind words on this humble blog, I will like to share this collection of my past baking and cooking repertoire with you. I do hope you enjoy flipping through the pages :D

Happy 2010!

Deep Fried Food, A Mess That's Worth It!

A week ago, I bought a fresh jug of cooking oil for one purpose- to deep fry some treats for my out of state son! His last dinner here consisted of shrimp, onion, and fries- all deep fried by yours truly!
Deep fryers can be a bit intimidating to the uninitiated, meaning people like me who never worked in a fast food restaurant, and have found hot oil can burn you unpleasantly! I have deep fried turkey, a lot of Wall-Eye(fly-in fishing in Canada), and numerous other foods- which generally came out great! I got a neat little deep fryer last year for Christmas that is just the right size for a small gathering..
I have used Drake's mix for fry coating for at least 30 years. One bottle of strong beer, one egg, some Lawry's Seasoned salt, black pepper, and enough Drake's to get a consistency(thick or thin) that you like. Refrigerate, or throw some ice cubes in the batter for a tempura type coating..
It's an "eat as you cook" type of meal, bringing batches to the table, while more is cooking.. I made up a cocktail sauce with ketchup, hot sauce, horseradish, and lemon juice- pretty traditional..
My son left for K.C. 6:30AM this morning, to catch the train back to where he now lives.. It was good to see him!