3rd Annual Carlsie (Dundie) Awards

We all love The Office, so Rachel decided we should have our own Dundie Award show and call it the Carlsies. Now it has become a Christmas break tradition. We make all of our favorite foods from Chilis and Rachel makes up awards for each of the family members. We have 12 trophies so everyone gets 3 awards presented by Rachel. 

We made chicken fajitas (http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2021/12/sheet-pan-chicken-fajitas.html), Texas cheese fries, sliders, chips and salsa, and skillet cookie. We also had non-alcoholic strawberry margaritas. 

This year we ended the night by putting together The Office Lego set. There were 10 bags in this set, so each of us did two bags. 

Skillet Cookie Cake

Ingredients:

1/3 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Melt the butter in an 8-inch cast iron skillet. Remove from heat and add the sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Beat your egg in a bowl and then add to the pan, mixing well. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt to the pan. Mix well. Add the chocolate chips, being careful not to stir too much as your chips will melt. 

Bake 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees. This is really good with ice cream on top. 

This is what it looks like before going in the oven. The finished product in the top picture. 

Christmas Charcuterie Cups

Instead of doing a charcuterie board, I decided to make some cups. I got Christmas toothpicks from Amazon and did some that were just fruit (and holiday Zebra brownie). I put Christmas peanut M&Ms and pretzel sticks in the bottom as filler. Then I did 5 toothpick skewers per cup. 

Zebra brownie recipe: http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2013/11/zebra-brownies.html

I just used food gel to color some of the cream cheese filling red and some green. 

The vegetable/meat/cheese cups had a little more of a variety. Every cup had a tomato/basil/mozzarella stick. They all also had a meat stick and cheese stick, and then the other sticks were a variety of vegetables/olives/pickles/mini pepperoni. In the bottom of these cups I put crackers and pretzels. 

Elf Dinner and a Movie

For this dinner and a movie party we had spaghetti (complete with all the candy toppings: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup) We also had Coke to drink and wrote letters using our Elf stationary and had a fake snowball fight. 

It was also National Maple Syrup Day (Dec. 17th) 

 

Hot Chocolate Bar

 For National Cocoa Day on December 13th we had a hot chocolate bar. We had hot cocoa and frozen cocoa to celebrate. 

Beauty and the Beast Dinner Party

 

Beauty and the Beast is on live tonight on ABC. We decided to have a dinner party before watching the movie. 

We had beef ragout (beef ravioli), cheese soufflé (Red Lobster cheddar biscuits), pie (mini cherry pies) and pudding "en flambé"!  Try the gray stuff it's delicious! (vanilla pudding with crushed Oreos stirred in. I topped with white pearl sprinkles)

I mixed frozen pineapple chunks and orange juice for the drink and topped the cups with red sanding sugar. 

We also had some chocolate roses under glasses for decorations. 

Grinch Dinner and a Movie and Homemade Chocolate Pudding

For our Grinch dinner party we had roast beast, who hash, who pudding, green Jell-O trifles, Grinch punch, and Grinch vegetable and fruit boards. 

I used yellow peppers for the eyes on the vegetable board and pineapple on the fruit board. The mouth, nose, and eyebrows are chocolate pieces.

The Grinch punch is just lime sherbet and Sprite. I put the Jell-O in green plastic cups that I attached a red heart to. 

In the background you can see a Grinch I drew on green paper to play pin the heart on the Grinch. 

The who pudding is homemade chocolate pudding with green sanding sugar and a red heart sprinkle on top. 

Ingredients: 

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 tsp salt

4 cups milk

2 Tbsp butter

2 tsp vanilla

Whisk the sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, salt, and milk together in a saucepan at medium heat.  It will take about 10 minutes to boil and thicken. When it boils, let it cook for 2 minutes as it thickens more. Put the pudding in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. (Let the plastic wrap sit right on top of the pudding so it doesn't develop a thick coating.) Let the pudding cool in the refrigerator for a couple of hours or overnight. 

Thanksgiving Charcuterie Boards