Weekend Report -> Christmas Party

Food this weekend ->
Anthony's Christmas Party was this weekend.  I prepared some fresh Monkey Bread for the party.

Monkey Bread.

I also wore my new Ugly Christmas Sweater with motion sensitive flashing LED lights :)

Ugly Sweater.

Lots of food at the party.

Party Food.

During the food break, Jeff played piano during the caroling.

Caroling.

Lots of desserts too.  I was too slow with the camera.  It was picked away quickly.  I couldn't try them all either.  I was too full from the main courses.

Desserts 1.

Desserts 2.

Cooked a fish in the oven on Sunday for dinner.  Got the trout from FarmBoy.  It was a 2-pack and gave the 2nd fish to Susanna.  I baked with just salt, pepper, green onions, olive oil, and soy sauce.

Baked Fish.

It wasn't enough as I was still hungry after cleaning the meat off the fish, so I made some garlic cheese bread.  It was good, but next time I should put some chopped hot peppers on them too.

Garlic Cheese Bread.

Useless Gaming News:
Played some games after the party was over for the people with kids.  We started with a couple quick rounds of Guillotine.  Then we played 8 player Telestrations.  Never played with 8 players before and there were a few good drawing and guessing breakdowns.  We finished the late night with a few games of Camel Cup.

Camel Cup with Expansion.

Susanna's Teddy Bear

Susanna's Birthday present has be sitting in my car for almost a week now.  I got her a big, furry, and uber-soft teddy bear.  He's been seatbelted in my back seat, sitting there, waiting for her to pick him up.  Probably freezing his butt off in my garage right now.

Lonely Teddy Bear.

Alpha Trion

Dinner today -> Chicken Drumsticks.
After gaming tonight, I went to Loblaws and picked up some 50% off food.  I got 16 drumsticks for $9, king oyster mushrooms, and a couple packs of beef pepperoni sticks.

Discount Food.

Useless Transformers News:
Finally found Alpha Trion at Toys R Us.  Voyager class figs are on sale for $17.99 this week.  Still missing Astrotrain and Soundwave from everything that is out.

Alpha Trion.

Deep Fried Twinkies

Dinner today -> Chicken in Honey Dijon Sauce.
Made some chicken in honey dijon sauce for dinner tonight.  I browned some chicken drumsticks in a wok.  Then I added salt, pepper, garlic powder, 1 can of cream of chicken soup, 1/2 can of water, a few good squirts of dijon mustard, and a big spoonful of honey.  Covered and let it come to a boil.  Then I mixed in some vegetables a can of quail eggs and let it come to a boil again. 

Chicken in Honey Dijon Mustard.

I scooped this over some leftover liver rice.  It was OK.  Could have use abit more dijon mustard and honey.

Dinner.

Useless Food News:
Suzanne got me a box of frozen Deep Fried Twinkies from Ogdensburg.  The box says I can bake it in the oven, but I want to deep fry it.  Not sure when I'll do this yet.  I still have the Oreo Churros to make too.

Deep Fried Twinkies.

Flooded Engine

Car wouldn't start this morning.  I called my dad and he came over to check it.  We considered it was the battery but it wasn't.  After waiting til 10:40am for the tow truck, the driver said I had flooded the engine and didn't need a tow.  On Sunday night I was parked in the drive way and I started the car, moved it into the garage, and turned it off within 10 seconds.  That short of a time didn't allow the engine to properly inject and use the fuel, so I had flooded the engine.
The fix was to floor the gas pedal and turn on the car.  After a few seconds, the engine started and I released the gas slowly.  I left the car idling on for another 20 minutes to make sure everything worked. 

Dinner today -> Liver, Rice, and Egg.
I made chicken liver rice in the rice cooker today.  The liver came out moist but I didn't put enough salt in the cooker.

Liver Rice.

I ate the fresh liver flavoured rice with a fresh cracked egg topping and soy sauce.  I was inspired by this article I read today.

Dinner.

Useless Christmas Tree News:
My dad helped me separating the branches on the Christmas tree this morning.  I put on the glass ornaments tonight (no cheap ones).  It looks OK now.  I need more ornaments and tinsel.  Also the backside is completely bare.  You can see some of the ornaments in this pic, but it's hard to see the cool acorn ornaments.

Christmas Tree with Ornaments.

Weekend Report -> Creton

Food this weekend ->
Took Friday off to shop and run errands.  Julie went with me to help me pick tree ornaments, an ugly Christmas sweater, and to hangout.  For dinner we picked up some fresh baguette, horseradish cheese, cranberry cheese ball, prosciutto, and creton from FarmBoy.  I've never tried creton before, but Julie says it's really good on bread with abit of yellow mustard.  It was!  It reminded me of a mix of Shwartz's deli and pate.

Cheese and Cured Meat Dinner.

I made a Hamburger Helper medley on Sunday.  I prepared some stew meat in the morning (cooked, cooled, and heated the meat again to make it tender).  Threw in some salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic, and hot chocolate mix to make a broth.  When I was ready to eat, I mixed in the Hamburger Helper stuff and added extra spaghetti and frozen veggies.  It made a good amount of food.

Hamburger Helper Medley.

Useless Toy News:
I bought a new puzzle on Friday from Play Value Toys: Number 6 of the What If? series.  I wasn't planning on finishing it, but Julie and I worked on it until 4am Friday night and we finished it.  I like these puzzles.  You go into them blind with only a little bit of help from the box.

Puzzle.

Gordon was able to score an amazing deal for the Lego SHIELD Helicarrier.  It's $400 on Walmart.ca, but he was able to get a sale price of $210 (+ tax) at Toys R Us by buying 2 (Buy One, Get One 1/2 off).  Thanks Gordon!

Lego SHIELD Helicarrier.

Useless Gaming News:
We did 3-player gaming at Brian's house on Saturday night.  We started with Star Trek: Five Year Mission dice game.  We lost the first 2 games, and won the 3rd at Commander Level.
Then we played Running with the Bulls dice game.  I like this game.  It's all luck and dice rolling with some card playing strategy/manipulation.  The smaller dice are the players people who are running from the bulls, which are the larger red dice.  The player's dices move depending on the value to the odd/even paths.  The bulls run the people down if the dice match the bull.  Fun and simple game.

Running With The Bulls.

AKB48 Treasure Cards Series 2

Useless Idol News:
Got a package in the mail from Japan today.  It was my AKB48 Treasure Cards Series 2 boxes.  I ordered 5 boxes.  I hope to get the whole set with this one order.  Last time for Series 1, I ordered 3 boxes, then 2 more, and finally 1 more before I was able to finish the whole base set and get all the playing cards subset.  Hopefully my luck is better this time.

AKB48 Treasure Cards Series 2 Boxes.