OK! The Meat Sucked, Get Over It

Hi Friends!( hope you all leave comments on this one!)

We had the BCS Holiday party this Saturday at The Tachi Palace in Lemoore. It was a doozy! Well Jeff and I were running behind because he was helping teach at the academy, but we did make it. Apparently a few people had a head start on us (drink wise, if you know what I mean)

We scheduled the dinner to be held at the new hotel in Lemoore, and everyone was given a room, if they wished to stay after the party. There was to be entertainment (a live band and dancing) upstairs, and of course everyone was free to go their separate ways and gamble if they wanted.

First I want to say, as I prodded Jeff to drive faster, that the one thing I wanted to get to was the hour where they served the hors d'oervres because I was very excited about them. Bacon wrapped scallops, prociutto wrapped crab stuffed shrimp, stuffed mushrooms and mini beef wellingtons. YUM I knew they would be better than the main course, WOW was I right. Well the chicken cordon bleu was good according to some, and so was the Halibut according to others. The Prime Rib much to our dissappointment was a great dissappointment. Very overdone, but OH Well we got free rooms right? (Lets just say one person was very vocal in thier distaste for the prime rib, I will not name names).

Here are some of the happy people. (For the record everyone said they had a great time, except for the prime rib, everything was fun)

Kathy, Lenny, Donnetta, and Larry

Bryan, Tammi and Ester

Chupacabra, Gary and Chris

Adam and Corinne

Tom and Lora

Dave (Laughing at something) and Michelle

Bob, Tammi, Trina, Glen, John and Mariann

Rex, Chris, Ester, Paul and his Hot Sauce

Kirk and Mike

Dave and Michelle

Olga, Brad, Sam and Greg

After all of those niceties, we headed to go get down and dance.

Michelle and Dave.

Jeff and I

HA! Jeff got invited to dinner at the Palace (same place) for a dinner to honor the firefighters who went down south for the fires, when I told him he said "I hope its not Prime Rib" :)

Carley's Xmas gift, better send before she sees this!

Xmas gift for Emy

Of Course The Lazy Girl

(P.S. Once again having formatting problems, will try to fix later if it will let me!)

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. (and no Woman I did not watch the Macy's parade) Jeff had to work that day, so Woman came to visit me and help me prepare dinner for Friday.


Since we were not going to have Thanksgiving dinner until the next day, we went to The Depot and had their delicious ribeye with blue cheese sauce. You should really try it if you ever go there its not always on the menu but they will make if for you anyways.




The next day everyone came over to eat, it was yummy too, we had prime rib, turkey, mashed potatoes (with bacon), sweet potato casserole, creamed onion, green beans and bacon, stuffing, banana pudding, cranberries, bacon wrapped shrimp and jalapeno, bacon wrapped dates and Cindy sauce: (see a trend? Yep the theme for the evening was bacon!)


Cindy Sauce:

1 part soy sauce


1 white onion chopped fine


2 tablespoons dried ginger


4 tablespoons garlic


I usually make about 4-6 cups of this at a time. This recipe is from Cindy K. Bessey, and since soooooooo many people ask about it here it is. Also the long awaited "How do I BBQ the prime rib?"


BBQ Prime Rib:

Pour a little Cindy sauce over the top about a day in advance. Prepare the BBQ with coals on either side leaving a space in the middle (indirect heating) place a piece of aluminium in the middle the width of the prime rib (this will protect your ribs for eating later). Take the meat out of the fridge about 2 hrs prior to cooking. Sometimes if it is large 7-8 bones I will cut it in half, this speeds up cooking time by double. Place the meat on the aluminium and close the lid. Get the temp up to around 300 and cook for about 15 min/lb basting approx every 30 min with the Cindy sauce being careful not to touch the meat with your spoon and contaminating the sauce, because its great dipping sauce. use a quick read thermometer and take the meat off when it hits 125 degrees. Immediately take it off and wrap tight with aluminum and let it rest. It will come up to temp (about 135). This gives you nice well ends and a perfect pink middle. Serve with Cindy sauce and horseradish, Enjoy!

Everyone ate well and had a good time. Jeff's friend Danny and his wife Jackie came over as well as Ron and his wife Joyce. Chris, Elizabeth, Eva, Rob, Toni and Petra also made it.







Rob, Toni & Elizabeth








Jeff, Ron and Danny













Chris, Joyce and Petra




And as always we celebrated the end of the meal with the Smith family tradition that started when Lauren was a puppy. (Don't get weirded out Tara, we sanitize it with bleach later!)





He use to hold her up, I guess he is getting lazy in his old age! After our first Thanksgiving with Lauren, Jeff thought she should get to lick up the juice and scraps, don't worry, Riley gets some too, we just hand it to him instead. It is Thanksgiving after all, they gotta get a treat too. This cracks me up though every time!







On Saturday we were lazy after cleaning up, as you can see the festivities took a toll on Lauren and Woman. We lazed around and went to have sushi for dinner.





On Sunday Woman and I went to The Gateway restaurant which is past Three Rivers by the entrance to the Sequoia National park about 25 minutes from here. They have great atmosphere right over the running river















and this....









Yummy.


Well you know I wasn't going to waste my manual labor while it was here so I enlisted Woman to help me put up the Christmas tree decorations:












And for some reason for the first time since we have been married (and have been asking every year for him to do it)





Jeff did this! Pretty.










Well anyways on another note, I guess you can see these since Woman snatched them up, even though they are suppose to be her Christmas gift, hand spun (by me), silk/merino:













Farewell to you all for now and I hope you all had a great Holiday! Next week is the Christmas tree action, will fill you in when that comes....











and just for good measure.... a Lauren fix!