christmas cookin'

Well now it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - baking! I've got several things to do today, tomorrow and the 24th. Tomorrow is Mystery Guest's birthday (yea!!) and he has requested salmon, des haricots beurres and his favorite birthday dessert - sweet potato pie and when we were grocery shopping yesterday he decided it would be yummy with some coconut ice cream. I have made this one before (sans saffron, never have any at home...) and all of David's ice creams are fantastic! Especially the vanilla one... delish!

He also wants to take some stuff into work to celebrate his birthday, some champagne and some apple cake so I'm going to do that today.

We're celebrating Christmas with his family this year, I'm really excited about that. I haven't spent Christmas with them since the first year we were dating (when I had the pity-lonely-American invite :-) ) Now I know all the family and his brothers are coming in from Lyon and South Africa with their wife/girlfriend so it will be a full house chez la belle-famille!

I asked his mother if I could bring something, a dessert or something and we decided on an American apple pie (not to be confused with a French apple pie). Too bad I've never made an American apple pie... but this cookbook to the rescue! My step-mom gave it to me a few years ago for Christmas and I *heart* this recipe book! It is amazing! Basically they take 1,000 of the most common recipies and tinker with them until they come up with the "best" version. They explain what adding this or that extra will do, or turning the heat higher or lower, all to get the "best" brownie, roasted chicken, mashed potatoes etc will do.

In this age of internet cookbooks have become a bit outdated, you can find any recipe you want but this one is something that sould be on hand! (for when the internet cuts out...) Besides the classic Joy of Cooking, this one is fantastic.

So anyway I'm off to go get some Birthday and Christmas baking done!! Toodles!