In Between

I'm taking a moment today while cleaning our guest space to sit and have an extra cup of coffee!  Mom & Riad left this morning after a WONDERFUL five day visit.  I was thinking they were not leaving until Sunday morning, so this gives us a full day to rest, provide a clean bed and bathroom, and bring in more groceries before Keith's parents arrive tomorrow :)

This past week, mom and I did a bunch of cooking.  Everyone had plenty of time for visiting.  Many games of backgammon were played, as well as several games of scrabble.  Mom, Riad and I had lunch out a few times...we continued the tradition of Sushi at Suki Sushi at Southpoint.  We had Indian as well as visiting my new favorite soup spot, KoMo KoMo (it did not disappoint!).  We also went to see Lincoln on a day that Keith was working in Charlotte and the kids were in school, since we had seen it as a family already.  I enjoyed it the second time around and even caught some things I missed the first time around.  Daniel Day-Lewis should win an Oscar for his role as Abraham Lincoln.  Stellar acting.

One of the things I was excited about in the cooking department is making baguettes last evening for the first time.  It's been on my "want to do" list for a month.  They were excellent and easy!  What in the world was I waiting for??  We also watched an episode of Trisha Yearwood's cooking show where she made a cocoa cake and discussed how we'd never had a home made cake turn out light and fluffy, but decided to try this one.  After following the recipe exactly, we had an extremely thick batter and knew something wasn't right...it wouldn't even spread out in the pan!  Thankfully, the recipe was recorded and after watching the segment with the cake recipe, we found that water was added to the batter but was left out in the recipe on food network.com.  After adding the required water, the batter looked more like a cake batter and happened to turn out fabulous!  I now have a go-to cocoa cake recipe and am very happy about that.  Mom made a chocolate ganache icing for it, which completed a very pretty and delicious cake.

We had a great Christmas dinner followed by gift opening last night.  It was a perfect way to finish off a fun visit.  It's always fine by me to extend the season of Christmas celebrating.

I guess I better get back to my housework.  The kids have finished their chores, but my list is not complete yet.  I hope to finish early enough to bake another batch of cookies or peanut butter balls as our supply has run low.  Gotta have fresh goodies when company arrives ;-)

Happy Saturday y'all!!