Holiday Meals

I must write about some of the meals I made over the holidays because I made some pretty awesome stuff if I do say so myself.  Let's start with Christmas dinner.  Mmmmmmmm.  My mouth is kind of watering just thinking about it right now...  Anyway, my sister in law Wendy is a fabulous cook and every year for Christmas she makes delectable beef tenderloin that we always completely devour.  I wanted to take that tradition and start making beef tenderloin for our little family every year for Christmas so Wendy sent me a recipe for spice rubbed beef tenderloin with red wine sauce.  It was so easy and SO YUMMY.  I already posted a  picture in a previous post but let me post it again so you can take in all the beauty.

So now let's talk about those burgundy mushrooms.  Oh those glorious burgundy mushrooms that I've already made once since Christmas because I loved them so much.  I got that recipe from The Pioneer Woman.  I love The Pioneer Woman.  I think we were supposed to be friends.  The minute I discovered her I started reading her blog and trying her online recipes.  For some reason I don't actually have any of her three cookbooks which just seems silly and wrong.  Anyway, if you haven't heard of her, she is a ranch wife and mother of four children who started blogging when all her children were old enough to leave the house for a bit during the day to work the ranch.  She blogs about everything:  life, cooking, entertainment, home schooling, etc. So many people fell in love with her that she got an HGTV cooking show and several book contracts.  Anywho, here's the link to the burgundy mushrooms.  If you ever think about making these, don't be intimidated by the cook time.  They are so super easy and you really don't have to do anything to them once you get them on the stove...you just have to be there!  And honestly, I think you could easily throw these in the crockpot over night or during the day while you are at work.  

Speaking of Pioneer Woman recipes, I also recently made this turkey tettrazini.  I had asked Ryan to smoke a giant turkey for Thanksgiving so we could freeze it and I could use it in dishes when I needed it.  I had already made turkey pot pie and "fancy" mac and cheese (seriously it is kind of fancy...I mean it's got feta cheese and kalamata olives among other ingredients) with it and wanted to try something new...and trusty old Ree ("Pioneer Woman") didn't let me down.  If you ever have leftover turkey or chicken make this recipe.  You can thank me later. 

One food related activity I didn't do well was cookie decorating.  Ryan would like me to present Exhibit A to prove that he is a better cookie decorator than I am:

Guess which one I did.  Whatever.  It still tasted just as good as any other cookie.  So what if the snowman didn't have eyes, a mouth, or a nose.