Raising children..

This is a busy CHristmas ...The dinner I planned for has come and gone. It was really good time catching up with old friends. Guess what? they all loved the food, and a few suggested I opened a restaurant. haha.... but no way. I spent way too long preparing all the food, if I were to open a restaurant, the dishes would never get to the guests on time. :)

ANyways, am gonna go cook now. Gonna help my sis in law prepare a dish for the party at her house tonight. Will probably make Mexican Chili topped with Mashed potatoes.
Tomorrow will be grandma's, and I will be the one bringing THE turkey. Then on Christmas day it will be at my parents. Well...what to do, we have a VERY large extended family.

I've a question, if Gail can answer? If I buy a self basting turkey, would I have to add salt still? How much? do I add a lot lesser than usual?
ANyway, here's some pictures. Enjoy.

Nel decorating her gingerbread star

The finished product. It was delicous and not like the super hard cookies you get outside. I substituted the Molasses with 3 parts Treacle and 1 part Golden Syrup. I also omitted the black pepper and cut back on the cloves. Yummy.

here's one decorated by Little Jo. YUmmy with extra cream, fingerprints and drool. Partly licked too before it was finished. :) Jo calls it the "funny gingerbread man."

My Golden turkey..I used fresh herbs. The fresh ones are SO expensive. Can you imagine, I paid 15$ for 2 sprigs of Thyme? and a hundred plus for this small turkey? I also covered the turkey with streaky Bacon which costs a LOT here. For 5 thin slices I paid something like 20$.

My Shepherd's Pie, which was really a favourite of the day. I layered the potatoes with Parmesan cheese in between...which really added flavour to the potatoes

Anyway, yeah...better get cooking now.

Merry CHristmas ALLLLLLL.....................