Jammies, tea, and blog time

It is not how much we have but how much

we enjoy, that makes happiness.

~C.H. Spurgeon~

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Ahhh, I love this time of the day. It's so relaxing. My day is behind me, my precious family is nestled in for the night, and I get to put on my snuggly jammies and get all cozy with my cup of tea and my puter.

Do you like my choice of music tonight? It's Beethoven's Sonata No. 8 in C Minor. Isn't it perfectly dreamy?

(Note: To listen to this music, disable current background music

by clicking 'pause' on the music player in your right sidebar,

then click on pic below.)

Really, this song fits the tone of our day pretty well. I woke up feeling sleepy and ended up moving through my day at a slow pace. We were all in good moods, but it just felt like a jammy day all day long. The blustery, cold weather outside made me want to snuggle up next to the fireplace all the more. It's surprising I was able to accomplish anything at all today.

We still managed to polish the castle and do the laundry; we had our Bible studies, the kids worked on schoolwork... I even exercised, but I will tell you in all honestly that I did not break a sweat. At least I did it. That's good enough for me.

Carissa was my wonderful helper in the kitchen tonight. I never have to ask her, or any of the other kids for that matter. She offers to be my sidekick almost every time I step foot in there. She's just incredible the way she works right next to me, predicting my next move, grabbing this, wiping that, running to the pantry... She makes my life so much easier. I love my little Tissy.

Here's she is setting the table before dinner:

Aaaaand... speaking of dinner...! Shall we talk foooodieee???

We're on day 5 of 7 of our Claire Robinson's 5 Ingredient Fix test drive. So far, we've made her Spinach Carbonara, Pork Roast with Hard Cider Gravy, Red Wine Braised Short Ribs, Sunday Pot Roast with Mushroom Gravy, and tonight's dinner; Mini Beef Wellingtons and her Crispy Brussels Sprouts on the side.

Here's what mine looked like when it was all done:

We loved both of these recipes! Five stars from this family! Go, Claire!

I followed the Brussels Sprouts recipe almost to a 'T', and it was super good. Its ingredients were applewood smoked bacon, Brussels Sprouts, Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, toasted chopped walnuts (I toasted Pecans), and a Granny Smith apple.

You cook the bacon in the oven, remove the bacon from the pan when done and throw your cleaned, halved B. Sprouts right into the bacon grease, salt and pepper, and then pop the sprouts into a 400* oven and bake until crispy. They were delicious before we even added the other components! Then you toss the sprouts with your toasted nuts and peeled, cored, and sliced apple. Serve hot. Loved it!

The Mini Beef Wellingtons were absolutely delicious and so much fun to make! Moms, if you have kids grade school age or up, this is a great one to do together!

The ingredients are olive oil, beef tenderloin (cubed), Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, cremini mushrooms (stemmed and finely chopped), 1 large shallot (also finely chopped), and 2 sheets of frozen puff pastry (thawed).

You cube, season, and sere the meat (just for a second, not to cook through). Then you cook the mushrooms and later the shallots in the drippings. Roll out the dough. And then you scoop 1 teaspoon of your mushroom mixture and place it on your dough, topped with one cube of meat, and fold the dough over the mixture. Repeat. The recipe makes 24 little Wellingtons. Then you cook seam-side-down until golden brown.

My only tweakage was to add Feta, which I placed on top of the mushroom mound, under the cube of meat. My only regret was not adding enough of the Feta, which gave the Wellingtons the most wonderful creamy bite, on top of the rich, flavorful mushroom and tenderloin combo. Really wonderful, guys! And it wasn't hard at all. I'll be making this one again! Next time with LOTS of cheese. I can't wait!

Okay, this post has gotten too long, so I'd better wrap it up before I lull you all to sleep.

More later ...